MY FACEBOOK FORMULA parts 2

Tips to Help You Find and Connect to Your Target Market

The first step to building your fan-base on Facebook is to invite your friends and existing clients to join up. Even if your friends aren‟t what you may consider prospects, you never know who in their networks might be interested. Some other techniques you can use include:
. Leveraging thought leaders in your industry. By becoming a fan of thought leaders with large fan bases in your industry you can begin to engage with prospects on their pages. If you provide value through good content, you will find that people will want to find out more about you and your brand.
. Use other social media platforms and sites. Do you have a following on Twitter? Then invite them to join you on Facebook for a more interactive experience. Additionally, you can also pull content from sites like Youtube and Flickr which will keep your page fresh with new content while also promoting your page on these other sites.
. Leverage your email list. If you have an email list, offer your subscribers an incentive to become a fan of your Facebook page. Remember that your main goal is the viral effect Facebook provides and even though these customers are already on your list, you never know how many more new leads they will generate through their own Facebook networks.
. Offer interesting content on a regular basis. You need to make sure you keep your page updated with interesting content on a regular basis.You want fans to visit your page and engage with your brand on a regular basis and the only way to do that is to provide fresh, interesting content.
. Interact with your fans. Don‟t simply post content and then forget to visit your page. You need to interact with your fans as much as possible which includes answering comments and even sending new fans a welcome message can do wonders to turn them into lifelong, loyal customers. This is because you are showing them that there is a human behind the brand and that you care. You would be surprised how much people want to help someone who is interested in them.


The Power of Facebook Groups


Facebook Groups can be started up by anyone, on any topic of interest to them and they serve as a gathering place for members to discuss the topic and share thoughts and opinions. Conversely, Facebook Pages can only be created by the official representative of the business, artist or public personality. Facebook Pages allow for more interaction though due to the addition of applications, while Facebook Groups can‟t have applications.
You have a choice of either joining an existing Facebook Group on a topic that is relevant to your business so you can promote your brand or create your own group. If you decide to join an existing group, remember that it is still a social media platform and so bombarding members with commercial messages will only serve to alienate them. Additionally, if you try to advertise yourself too much, you may end up being reported as a spammer and have your profile or page shut down by Facebook. They have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to spammers so you need to be extremely careful.
What you should focus on, though, is building yourself up as an authority and someone people want to follow. You can achieve this by posting relevant content that they will find interesting. Likewise, don‟t post only content that is on your blog in an attempt to drive traffic because people will still think you are spamming.
Remember to mix it up by posting content from your own blog or website along with other interesting content from the web. Finding content to post isn‟t as difficult as it may seem as there are plenty of  content aggregators on the web, such as AllTop.com or Technorati, which aggregate the most popular content on the net.
You can start your own group, but you should first be sure you have a thorough understanding of how groups work which you can only do by joining other groups and watching how people interact and participate. You manage your group just like you would your Facebook page by posting fresh content to make sure that people are joining all the time. The more people you have joining your group, the more others will come and join as well because this acts like a form of third-party validation.
You may be asking yourself what the point of creating a group is if you have to do the same things as you would on your Facebook Page. You need to understand, though, that your group shouldn‟t be based on your brand, it should only support it. This means that you need to create a group based on a topic that is of social interest but is also relevant to your brand. So, for example, if you sell wedding gowns, you could start up a group for brides trying to lose weight before the big day. While it isn‟t a direct promotion of your brand, it is a topic that will garner a lot of interest and will increase brand awareness while drawing in your target market.
However, just as with your Facebook Page, you need to post interesting content and even sometimes controversial ideas to spark discussions, while also engaging your members as much as possible. So, if someone comments, then comment back. The more you engage members, the more people will trust you and the more activity your group will have. A highly active group on an interesting topic will always draw new members in.

Facebook Events

Facebook Events are an excellent way to increase brand awareness by bringing together people virtually or in person. You can use Facebook Events to promote a product launch or to market an existing product by offering attendees a bonus in the form of a discount coupon.
The value of hosting a Facebook Event lies in the fact that you can invite all your fans with a single click of the button. Additionally, if you can host a live event your credibility increases a thousand-fold because online interaction still cannot replace meeting someone in person. However, if you feel your product is not suited for a live event, you can still host an online event.
Many marketers feel that online events aren‟t worth the hassle because the return in sales is pretty low for the work required to maintain interest in the event and then keep the event going. However, if you look at the issue from the perspective of building relationships with your prospects, then events can be invaluable. After all, while your ultimate goal is to drive sales, building relationships with your customers should also be high on your priority list because this, along with providing high value, is what will turn simple prospects into customers who are raving fans.
The latter will generate a much better ROI over the long term since you don‟t have to expend as many resources on finding new customers. In fact, a study showed that repeat customers cost a business 6 times less than acquiring new customers and they also spend 33% more.
Another interesting aspect is that sites such as Meetup.com, which is basically a social site for groups focused on varied interests, have an application that allow Meetup groups to promote their events on Facebook. This can be an invaluable source of new prospects because there will be plenty of people on Meetup who might not have a Facebook presence.
The best way to learn about hosting events is to attend a few yourself and see how others are doing it. You can find events by running a search in the Applications – Events tab.

Direct Advertising on Facebook

Facebook offers an advertising system similar to Google‟s Adwords platform. You can easily select who your target audience is, set a daily budget and also measure your results. You also have the option of choosing to pay based on the number of times your ad appears or to pay for clicks.
However, unlike Google, Facebook ads are more interactive allowing people to do everything from becoming a fan of a Page, watching a video or respond to an event all from within the ad unit without having to navigate to another page. This is extremely powerful because, if your goal is to increase the number of fans for your Page, it is much easier to get people to agree if they don‟t have to leave the page they are currently on.
You have a choice of three types of advertisements, namely the regular PPC text ad, a graphic display ad which also includes an image or their unique interactive ads which are known as engagement ads. You will have to order the latter through an advertising sales rep as they aren‟t available in the automatic system, though.

Good Advertising Practices on Facebook

Just as with any advertising campaign, make sure that users receive what the ad promises them once they click through. Additionally, make sure to keep it a social and interesting experience because that is why they are on Facebook, after all.
Facebook gives you the option to link to another Facebook page, profile, group or event in your ad or to an external website. You don‟t have to prove that you are the owner of the website, which means that you can use affiliate links in your ads. This can be a powerful way of testing conversion rates of various products you are considering promoting as well as the effectiveness of landing pages.
However, it is considered good practice to link to an internal Facebook page as users are on Facebook for the social experience. For this reason, you should also consider crafting your message in a familiar and conversational tone because you want to maintain the social aspect of the experience. Remember that this helps to crumble the defenses of your prospects as they are so used to being bombarded with ads, they essentially ignore them. However, if you focus on the social aspect and building a relationship you will be able to slowly break down those automatic defenses and your prospects will be much more open to your commercial messages.