MLM and Network Marketing - Social Media - Facebook Part 2

In Facebook, you want to stand out from the crowd. So once you have a really good picture and profile page set up and have started adding your friends (especially from groups in which you are interested), it's really important that you're consistent, have a good message, a powerful unique stance and that you network effectively. Take the time to build relationships with your new friends - and always add value!

Sure, it's a social site, so by all means chat with your friends a bit, but don't get bogged down and addicted. And don't try to do too much at once. Leverage your time. Trickle in your photos and videos, tag people appropriately. Set up links from your blog, You Tube and Twitter (but be careful - if you tweet a lot on Twitter, you probably don't want to link Twitter to Facebook). And make sure you stay up-to-date on your Inbox.

One of the first things you should do on Facebook is to create your own Fan Page. It's easy to do, just click on the pages and ads icon at the lower left of your Facebook page, click on pages and create a page). The beauty of Fan Pages is that you can do things on your page that you can't do on your Facebook profile. And you can have an unlimited number of fans, though I believe Facebook limits the number of pages that you can join to 500. Make your fan page updates interesting and informative, but still do not focus on your new business opportunity - you can be reported for spamming here as well, so be careful. Use you page to direct people to your hub (blog). And remember to invite people to join your fan page when you're thanking them for confirming you as a friend (add your Fan Page link to your thank you note). You can even buy ads for your fan page if you wish.

Another very important aspect of Facebook is its Group feature. You can join groups (I believe the current limit that you can join is 200). Join groups in which you are interested, especially groups with like-minded business people. It's an absolutely ideal way to find new friends and develop relationships with other business-oriented people or those who share your personal hobbies and other interests.

Better yet, create your own group. Again, click on the group icon at the bottom left of your Facebook page, click on Create a Group, and set up your very own (remember to invite new friends here as well). You are the administrator of your own group (you have the option to give that authority to others as well but I don't recommend it). That means that you set up and control the criteria for your group. You want to give this some thought, so draft out your basic purpose and criteria for your group, and what you want to allow members to do. I'd recommend checking out a few similar groups to see what others have done in setting them up.

I use my group to add value and provide informational business content, to announce webinars, post my notes on those webinars and to alert my members to things I find that might either be useful or income-generating. It can be a very handy way of marketing through the sharing of information and free items (e.g., webinars or other presentations).

There's lots more about Facebook that can be extremely useful. And I have another source book that you might find valuable to help you along the way - it's the fifth printing (2009) of Steven Holzner's Facebook Marketing - Leverage Social Media to Grow Your Business - as usual, it's in bookstores or available through Amazon.