Whenever you have something as big as Facebook come along, you’re going to have the good with the bad. And right now with hundreds of thousands of accounts being created every day, the bad is definitely piling up. If you have a Facebook account, or have been thinking about signing up, keep these things in mind.

You can sign up for Facebook in two ways: a personal account or a business account. YOU CANNOT CREATE BOTH. If you have a personal account, all of your pages for business must be built underneath your personal account information. If you ignore this and try to set up multiple accounts, you risk being found and have all of your accounts banned.

A Facebook profile can only be set up as a person. I’ve seen people set up a personal account, and add a name such as “ABC Limo Company” in place of the name. Again, Facebook will ban all of your accounts if they find you. And because Facebook is a free service, their priority is to keep Facebook as clean as possible, and the majority of its members happy. They won’t think twice about banning your account.

If you have any desire to grow on Facebook, go with the personal profile and build your business pages later. Personal accounts are searchable in Facebook, business accounts are not. And because you can create multiple pages later for your business, there really isn’t a reason not to go with the personal account.

Never sell what you do in your messages on personal walls or within a page or a group. That’s the quickest way to get banned from Facebook. Facebook doesn’t have to police spammers, the users do instead. If you find someone sending sales messages, you can flag that message on your page. A popup box will appear, and you can choose if it’s inappropriate, offensive, etc. If an account gets too many of these flags, Facebook will ban them and shut down their account.

Okay, while it seems there are many ways to get banned from Facebook, the simple fact is Facebook is one of the biggest, brightest ways to build up your persona online. The simple “rule” with anything online is to just be real. Be yourself. Don’t jump on and expect instant results. Understand that as you build you grow. You can be found quickly if you stay active, participate daily, and show people what you do.

The online world is no longer about sales; it’s about showcasing. Show them what you do by using tools like Facebook. They will follow the links and make contact with you once they are ready. No sales needed!

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• Sex
• Age
• Zip code
• Profession
• Interests

A great mailing list can give you a pretty clean list targeted towards your primary audience. So if you want to mail to all high school juniors who are getting ready for their senior year of high school, and you want to cover certain zip codes in your mailing, you can buy that list.

But what if you would like to reach a similar audience online? Not a problem using Facebook. In fact, you can target demographically on a much narrower scale. And gain an even wider audience willing to follow you so you can market to them again and again.

Targeting On Facebook
As you are building your ad on Facebook, you are actually building it on the fly. As you add content and add your demographics, Facebook shows you what your add will look like, and what your target market will ultimately be.

Once you are finished with your ad and like the way it looks, you move to targeting. Choose your country, region or states. Choose your demographics in a similar manner to a mailing list:

• Age
• Sex
• Relationships
• Languages

But with Facebook, you can take it to a whole new level. Because people fill out a lot of information on their profiles, you can drill down and be very selective about who you are targeting.

What are their likes and interests? Maybe you want high school seniors that like a particular type of music. Or high school seniors that are interested in a specific hobby – how about photography? You can even select people who have joined certain pages or certain groups, again because you’ll know what type of person you are advertising to based on their beliefs. If you want high school seniors that join vegetarian or saving animals pages, you can do that.

And with Facebook, you can start a campaign right now, and follow the statistics live to know exactly how the campaign is going – no waiting for days or weeks while you produce a postcard and mail it out, waiting for the phone to ring. If you’re not happy in 12 hours with your results, change the ad or the demographics and try it again.

See the potential?

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1. Chose a name and stick with it.
Facebook is different than Google, and you need to treat the two as separate units. In Google, everything is based on keywords – what a visitor may type into Google to find you. On Facebook, it’s all about relationships, and attracting the attention of a potential client because they like what you offer – not how good you are at keywording.

So if you run a business “Massage By Nancy”, create your Facebook page “Massage By Nancy”. You can actually harm the potential of your page if you try and play the keyword game by adding keywords to the title, such as “Massage By Nancy: Massage, Deep Tissue Massage, Swedish Massage, Facial Massage and Chair Massages” because people will view what you are doing as spammy, and will have less desire to read what you do.

Once your name is set, don’t change it as Facebook dings pages that change titles.

2. Use the “About” text box to add keyword rich data, and to help direct traffic.
In general, people read from left to right, top to bottom. So it’s important to put your best information in places where people are most likely to see it.

The About text box is a great place to add your best keywords, and to use it to direct people to your websites, sign up boxes and other lead generation tools. What is the most important thing for your visitors to do? Use that information in this box.

3. Use the “Info” tab on your Facebook page in detail.
While Facebook is all about building relationships, the Info tab on your page is all about your business. Make sure you fill out the tab in its entirety, and use your top keywords throughout the copy. Remember, Facebook is the second largest search engine online – people use it to search out a variety of information. Because of that, the more you use the better.

So for our “Massage By Nancy” example, its important to think from her clients perspective. People may search:

• Address, City, State, Zip, Country – this may all be used for local searches
• Company overview, mission, products – a great place to list out exactly what you do to attract the attention of people searching within your industry.
• Websites – have more than one, list them all. This is an opportunity to gain links to your sites, and other relevant sites in your area of expertise.

4. Add content on a regular basis to your Facebook stream.
When you post information to your Facebook page, anyone who is a Fan, or has “liked” your page will receive that note in their newsfeed. Because people are visual, attaching a photo to it can also give you a boost in click thrus, and in the amount of traffic back to your page. Make sure your content is relevant to your business, uses key words and key phrases throughout, and helps support your area of expertise. Likewise, when posting a photograph with your post, you can add keywords and descriptions to your photo as well, helping to give you even more traction.

5. Concentrate on growing your Facebook page.
Facebook links from your Page to the default version of a Fans Facebook profile page. Which means the more Fans you have, the number of links you have can add up, giving you even more traction in both Facebook and the search engines. To grow a business, grow your Fans. Give them a reason to sign up, and be active within your own pages, and on relevant groups.

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More and more sites are being built on a WordPress platform – something that gives people the ease and accessibility of being able to mix their social sites with content on their own site. But how about intermixing your site with one of today’s giants – Facebook?

Levi’s has now incorporated their shopping experience with Facebook. Login to your Facebook account right on Levi’s site, and you can begin to share your favorites with your friends, and see what they like as well.

If you don’t login, you can still participate by seeing everyone’s favorites. Levi’s shows how many people have “liked” each of their products, and you can see a running stream in the Everyone section to find out what other people are buying too.

Will this eliminate a need for search in the future? Instead of searching for cool products, you simply watch your Facebook stream to determine what’s hot among your friends.

What do you think?

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But what may be surprising is that Facebook is the number three video stream site behind YouTube and Hulu, with over 217 million streams in October.

If you are using Facebook for your business, video is probably one of the easiest and most effective ways of communicating with your fans. Instead of typing out posts or thoughts, put it into a video. And if you’ve followed me for a while, you know one of my favorite tools is the Flip Video. You can shoot a video, pop it into your computer via the USB port, and have it on Facebook in less than 30 minutes.

What can you use video for?

1. Record the production side of your business. Show how to fix something, what to watch for if you’re advising your followers to replace something, or simply give the benefits of using your product.

2. Video your clients, and have them provide a testimonial.

3. Record new products you find at industry tradeshows. Share with your clients up and coming items, and how new things will help them be more effective in their business or lifestyle.

4. Share your story. People love stories, and they do business with you because they like what you have to say.

5. Provide helpful tips. Yes, you should be blogging helpful tips already. But take the concept to the next level with video. It adds a whole different dimension to your business.

Once you have your video recorded, it’s easy to put it on your Facebook page.

From your Facebook page, move to the video tab. Then find the upload button and click. Choose a file from your computer, and start the upload process. You can create a title, description, and even connect it with other profiles if there is more than one person in the video. When you upload a new video, it moves into your stream, allowing all of your fans access to your new content.

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Status updates are designed to start conversations. They help you share information with your fans, and hopefully start up conversations that exist between all of the members of your Facebook page.

First, know your fans. Why are they a part of your Facebook page? What do they have in common?

In the case of our VirtualPhotographyStudio page, people have the desire to build up the business side of photography. They want to take their passion for photography, and turn it into a true business. So we motivate people on our VirtualPhotographyStudio page to take action. And because they are all photographers, we add quite a bit of photography to our group as well.

Next, post your updates regularly. You have to be dependable for people to rely on your as a business and as a brand. Post daily, and share not only your business tips, but also add a little personality to it. Ask questions. Get your fans to interact.

Don’t forget about adding videos and photos. Invest in camera equipment that makes it easy for uploading, like the Flip video camera. It’s easy to use, easy to upload, and it gives your audience one more reason to come back and visit you. Don’t think Hollywood quality. Think quick tips, and how you can get a little bit of information into the hands of those that will enjoy it.

Social gives people a reason to interact, and a reason to stay in touch. I’ve created many relationships with mentors where I learn a ton about them, and know their lives quite well – even though we’ve never spoken once to each other. But because I’m emotionally attached to them as my mentors, I follow them to learn more. You can do the same by reaching out and sharing information about your brand, your business, or your products. People care if you are willing to share.

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Facebook Profiles
When you first sign up with Facebook, you’ll start with a profile. Your profile is all about you; not your business, your product, or your service. Your profile is created by using your real first and last name. Then you fill your profile with your personal information. Add as much or as little as you like. But remember your profile is your window to the world. If someone is deciding on whether to do business with you, this helps break the ice and gives the opportunity to find something in common.

Facebook Page
A Facebook Page, also called a Fan Page, is for businesses, brands, organizations, or celebrity/public figure. Your page is all about business, and is the one place you can actively promote what you do. When people become your “fan” they want to interact with your business and other fans of the business. They have a desire to learn more about you and what you do. It’s also a great way to gain more traffic to your website and blog by providing links back to your site, and an RSS feed from your blog. Unlike your profile, you are allowed to have multiple fan pages – we have one for VirtualPhotographyStudio and for TheSocialGhost.

Facebook Group
Groups are formed by Facebook users around a common interest. For instance, we have a Professional Photographer group on Facebook that allows anyone with an interest in making money with their camera a place to go and interact with other like-minded people. You can start a group simply by going to the Groups application, and clicking on the “Create a Group” in the upper right hand corner of the page. You can build your friend lists by joining groups of interest to you, as well as designing one or two of your own.

Still having trouble understanding the difference? Want some help creating the content for your profiles, pages or groups? TheSocialGhost is here to help you with all of your social marketing needs.

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