Since the dot-com boom, companies have rushed to mine internet gold. Like prospectors of California Gold Rush, some have been successful and some have gone home broke. So how do you ensure your online business is one of the successful ones? Keep up with the times! Social networking is here in a big way and it's easy to capitalize on. With Facebook surpassing both Twitter and MySpace as the undisputed king of social networks, we'll start with Facebook so you can immediately get the most dollars for your time.
If you haven't already, sign up for Facebook. You can't make money with Social Networking unless you roll up your sleeves and get involved. Use Facebook's tools to go through your email and add all your contacts. You need to start building an audience, and the best people to solicit first are the ones you already know.
Now that you've created a personal account, you'll need to create a presence on Facebook for your business.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php
Follow the set up steps and in a few short pages, you'll have your business set up with Facebook. The real benefit to this is the ability for your friends and connections to "like" or become "fans" of your business. When a friend "likes" your business page, an activity message is broadcast to all of the friends on their list. It's an immediate word-of-mouth advertisement for your business and soon you'll have more "fans" of your business page than you have friends on your personal profile. Just like newsletters, you now have a list of warm leads that your business can contact on a regular basis.
Facebook thrives on frequent updates. Users are trained to interact with their "Activity Feed." You need to make sure you update your business's status at least once a week with relevant information. In marketing, we know that it takes at least six "touches" before a sale is ready to close. Make sure your business is at the front of your list's mind without being obnoxious. Some fantastic ideas for updates are:
You've got a captive audience and they like what they're hearing. How do we get them to buy? If you have an eCommerce website, make sure you have links to new product offerings on your Facebook page. You want it to be easy for fans to purchase products. If you're offering an in-store coupon, upload an image of the coupon to Facebook so users can print it out on their home computers. You can even create an "event" through Facebook for your sales that will remind users when they check their "Activity Feed" that the special clearance is happening in-store now.
Facebook released a new technology called Facebook Connect, opening up options for any website to connect to Facebook. It's a fairly simple process for your web designer to do for you, but there is some coding involved, so it's best to leave for the professionals. Want your new products from your eCommerce site to show up automatically on your Facebook business page? Many eCommerce software applications offer plug-ins that do this automatically for you. Want visitors viewing your business website to follow you on Facebook? With Facebook Connect, you can put a "Like" button right on your website that will add your visitor to your Facebook list. Are you producing articles or offering products that website visitors might want to share with friends? Facebook Connect will allow you to create "Share" buttons too. This way website visitors don't have to become "fans" of your Facebook page in order to share your website with their friends.
So there you have it! It's a fairly straightforward process to use social networking technology for your own business needs. By keeping up with social networking technology trends, you can ensure that your business is able to make money and leverage the maximum potential of the internet.
Triple-threat internet marketer, Jesse Wong, adeptly combines the skills of a designer, programmer, and marketer to successfully and consistently deliver some of the top websites on the internet.
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