Josiah Mackenzie

For the young guerrilla marketer, Facebook presents a great opportunity to share your message with more than 30 million people. This article explores 8 specific areas you can use to promote your business.

Profile
The websites section of your contact information is an obvious place to list your business websites, but the Facebook profile provides more opportunities than that. Write about your business in your activities, about me, interests, and work sections. Allow clients to get to know you personally.

Status Line
This feature allows Facebook users to show their friends what they are doing. Examples include “Nick is studying hard” (ahem) “Katie is getting ready for a roadtrip”, and so on. Not only do these updates appear on your profile, but also in your mini-feed and the newsfeed for all of your friends. You can use this space to share what you’re doing and your website URL. It’s a non-obtrusive way to get the word out.

Photos
Take pictures of you with clients, at company events, and receiving media coverage - then post them to a photo album. People love to see photos of what you’ve been doing, and this can be a great way to keep in touch with prospects.

The Marketplace
Several of my colleagues and I have successfully used Facebook’s regional marketplaces as a way to draw attention to our companies. You can post as many free ads as you like promoting your services. These ads are generally more effective than other free classified ad sites on the web.

Posted Items
This is where you can you can add value and build relationships with potential clients. Post links to educational content you find. Post videos and media describing your company’s services. You can even configure Facebook to automatically import entries from your blog.

Flyers
Facebook flyers offer the enterprising college entrepreneur a low-cost method of reaching a school’s population. They often cost between $5-$20 per day, a worthwhile investment and time saver (no flyers to print and post throughout campus). The limitation is that you can only post flyers to your school’s network.

Groups
Groups are a great way to meet people with similar interests. You can create a group for freelance professionals, for example, and meet people in the industry. You can also use the discussion forums in groups to share your services with those that need them. Don’t spam, though!

Applications
Facebook applications are a newer feature that allow developers to create extensions for Facebook. Innovative companies have introduced thousands of people to their offerings by creating an app that people want. These apps often don’t sell directly, but are related in some way to what the company offers. For example, one of my favorite apps, a ‘Where I’ve Been’ map, feeds into people’s desire to brag while advertising a travel agency.

The nice thing about Facebook is that it monitors your profile for changes and automatically announces them to all of your friends. Whether you update your status or add a website URL, you can be sure it will appear in your friends’ personalized newsfeed. While some have protested this intrusion of privacy, I suggest you take advantage of it to remain visible to your contacts.

While Facebook provides many promotional opportunities, don’t use it to send unsolicited marketing messages. Spamming gives your business a tarnished image, and you risk being banned from the site. Facebook provides enough ethical ways to promote your business, there is no need to resort to underhanded tactics.

Don’t have time to do all this yourself? Profit Factory can help:
http://www.theprofitfactory.com/internet-marketing