Why Facebook is BAD!! for business

Ok...so it's not all that bad, it can actually be VERY GOOD for your business, but most people who are on Facebook are not utilizing it correctly.

On facebook (http://www.facebook.com/jennifer.businessiibusiness), I have about 2,040 friends on my list. The people on my list are friends because my target market are CEO's, Entrepreneurs & Investors. My strategy is NOT to sell them something, but to introduce them to BusinessIIBusiness where they can network with other decision makers and grow their businesses.


Recently, I was reading a blog on how most of the business activity on Facebook is done by businesses marketing to their competitors instead of their target markets. I was stunned to think that people are actually spending valuable business time marketing and chatting with their competitors in the same industry instead of spending the majority of their social networking on growing their target markets.

Reading this...sparked a desire to explain a strategy to our members that I believe can be truly beneficial to your company.


STEP-BY-STEP FACEBOOK SOCIAL TARGET MARKETING STRATEGY


1. Change your mindset - As the leader of your company's social marketing strategy, you need to clear your time of past habits and begin to realize that your businesses social marketing profile should be viewed as a valuable tool to build brand recognition, create solid personal and business relationships with your target market and supply valuable information and resources to your potential clients.


2. Separate "Business" from "Personal" - If you are representing your company on Facebook, you need to separate your personal affairs from your business image. If you took a survey today of every friend on your list and asked them what their level of interest in your children, your husband/wife or summer vacation are...I'm sure the survey percentage would come out about 1% who have an interest.
You are placing walls between your customers and your business by posting pictures, updates or preferential information. They view you as a personal contact 80% of the time...and take your business 20% SERIOUS.

Create two accounts on Facebook:
----One account for business, using only your business email, business photo, business logos and your business expertise and information.

----The other account can be your personal account. Upload the latest photos of your kids, your dog and your last vacation.

3.Create Brand recognition for your business by starting a company Fan Page.

a. Invite your "targeted" business friend list to become fans of your product or service.
b. Update your "page" often

c. DON"T send out annoying useless information that clog up their inbox. Make sure your mass messages are relevant and ALL of your fans have a use for the information.

d. Remember "quality" over "quantity". Don't focus so much on the number of members who are fans..but concentrate on providing them with quality information they can ONLY find through your company and it's expertise in the industry.

4. Categorize friends into targeted business groups. Facebook has a feature to add friends to lists. They constantly add more automated features to utilize these friend lists and some of the more recent additions are "appearing online or offline" to certain friends lists via the chat application, or being able to post information to ONLY certain friends lists that do not appear to other lists.

In the world of Email Marketing, this strategy is termed "Segmentation", but can be used in the same way on facebook to target certain types of prospects or clients. Whatever your segment (type of list), Facebook gives you the option to create 100 of these lists and personalize them to your exact specifications (name a list). Keep in mind, Facebook limits message-sending to only 19 per list. So...when creating your lists, only add 19 per list and start a new one. Once the list is full (19 friends), place an X by it. Below is an illustration of my account and how I categorize my lists as well as how I know which lists are full by X'ing them out.