We've all heard of Facebook by now and you've probably heard of a few success stories about people who have managed to harness the power of one of the most popular websites in the world! But chances are you don't know how to tap into and target the endless viral millions and millions of Facebook users.
Well surprisingly neither do a lot of people, which means even more traffic for the likes of you and me! You see, people are still asking themselves can Facebook drive traffic instead of how can Facebook drive traffic? I'm here to tell you that in a word Yes, it can.
Provided you use the right techniques you can maximize your websites/blog exposure with just a few short status updates.
So far, Facebook is becoming on of the best ways of advertising your business for free and more and more people are waking up to the ideas and joining the many others who now use Facebook as their number one marketing tool..
Simply spamming will not get anyone anywhere and some work is, of course, required.
There are a few basic steps that you need to follow to get the foundations of your Facebook campaign underway.
Creating A New Account.
First things first get a new account.
You do not want to be using your personal account for business, it is not professional and you will receive a lot of questions from your friends and family.
Tip: Use a slightly different name and profile picture so as not confuse with your personal account and stop your other friends and family thinking you have another account.
You will need to use a different email address so if you only have one then you will need to create another.
Making A Facebook Page.
Once you have a new account set up it's time to then make your first page, this can be about your business, you can give an outlook on what your business does or create an incentive for people to opt in by clicking a link that will redirect them to your squeeze page.
Simply follow the guidelines in Facebook on how to go about it.
You can create as many pages as you like along with groups but only ever use one account for any one market place.
Eg: Don't have an account with pages about making money online and weight loss, as your traffic will not be targeted, thus reducing the amount of interest with your pages.
This is where you can get creative and exercise you flamboyant talents when making your catchy Facebook pages.
Or you can look around and see what other people have done and do your own version.
Finding Your Traffic.
By this stage you should have your account set up along with a Facebook page and now you need to get out there and find your target audience.
This is a lot easier than you think it just takes a little perseverance and self motivation.
Begin by liking and joining ten to fifteen groups per day that are aimed at the same market place you are in.
You can search these by typing what you are looking for into the search box when you logged in to Facebook.
E.
g, As you are joining and liking these groups you can then begin to request friends that belong to these groups.
There is a limit to how many friend requests you can make in a single day so as to prevent spamming, but after a short while you will have built up many friends that have an interest in your market place.
This is an ongoing process but the more friends you have the more exposure your business can receive.
Getting Traffic To Your Pages.
Once you have all of the above in place you quite simply need to grab your "friends" attention and get them over to your site.
You can do this by posting a link that does just that.
Do not underestimate the viral power of this technique, the amount of people you can reach and people are reaching is hundreds of thousands and even millions.
Link blog to Facebook Another great idea is to link your website or blog to Facebook, this means every time a post is uploaded or published at the site it appears at Facebook page automatically.
The more viewers click it, the more people you get on your site.
The same is true for other social networking sites such as Twitter, Digg, Buzz, MySpace etc.
Share, Like, Recommend options Believe or not, these buttons really help.
Do add share button to your posts it works wonders.
Email option should also be there and the viewer can send the posts via mail to any of their friends.
This is a smart trick.
Recommend also increases the chances of getting more traffic.
News feed This feature of Facebook is unique and because it enables you to display any upload at other news feeds, there are more views possible.
This feed gives a direct link to the blog so the visitor is navigated to your homepage every time they click the link.
The advice is to make it attractive and useful so the viewer comes back again and again to see your portal, site or other related stuff.
And Finally.
When you have got your head around the simple techniques I have outlined here you will have mastered the basic principles of marketing your business through Facebook, but why stop there? There are more and more businesses that are waking up to the reality that advertising through radio,television,magazines and papers etc, just isn't worth the money and time invested anymore.
Marketing through social media and mainly through Facebook can have a massive impact on any business but most don't understand how to use these sites to their advantage.
This is where you come in, there are social marketing mangers now earning more than they ever expected, and there is evidence to show that more businesses are looking for people who know how to market their business through social media.
So the potential to maximize your traffic through Facebook is very much a reality and one to be taken seriously.