According to Alexa, Facebook is the second most popular website after Google. I did more research and found that about 30% of global internet subscribers visit Facebook every day. Facebook currently has 300 million subscribers and is growing rapidly. 45 million updates are made on Facebook every day and users around the world spend about 8 billion minutes per day.

What does it mean to you as an internet marketer? It is a great gold mine. It is not like this? However, how are you going to uniquely position yourself and promote your business on Facebook considering the sheer volume of updates being posted on Facebook every day? How do you capture the attention of Facebook users? The purpose of this post is to educate you on the basic Facebook marketing strategies and tools you need to successfully generate leads and dominate.

Always remember that Facebook is a social network and should not be used to promote your business. The prosperity in your Facebook marketing is directly proportional to the number of strong relationships developed with other users. So let’s get started

Facebook profile

– A picture is worth a thousand words. Be sure to add a photo on your profile
– Fill in your old information like you went to school and make it public so people can find you through search
– Fill in your interests and make it public so other subscribers can relate to you
– Complete all your websites such as a blog, Twitter, your capture pages, etc. in your profile. By default, only your main website is displayed. I highly recommend showing all your websites on your profile. Anyone visiting your profile page could click on your URL and learn more about you.

add friends

After creating a profile, don’t wait for things to happen. Go ahead and find and add a few friends a day every day. It is recommended that you can add up to 25-30 friends every day. Excessive adding of friends will result in removal of your page by Facebook administrators.

Interact with friends through likes and comments

Once you’ve added a few friends and see their content on your home page, start engaging with them by liking and commenting on their updates. Commenting on updates could have a viral effect. When you comment on an update, your comment will appear on the updater’s wall and will be visible to all of their friends. So it pays to make smart comments and drive traffic back to your page. Also, feel free to share quotes, posts, and videos that have had a positive impact on you. The key is to interact with Facebook friends as much as possible.

Facebook photo albums

Feel free to share your photos and videos with your friends on Facebook. People would love to know more about you through photos and videos. If you’ve been to a networking event and taken photos with the leaders and fellow networkers, share those photos with stories about the events and watch your website traffic increase.

Facebook Videos

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is a video worth? In 2009, video marketing grew rapidly and is here to stay. Facebook allows you to upload videos or record a video instantly. The more you share the videos, the better it will be. Share your videos about networking events, funny incidents, achievements, and any other videos that can have a positive influence on others. I use Facebook’s video feature in a number of ways and am seeing phenomenal results:

1. Introduce myself to recently added friends. A short video describing who I am and thanking the friendship.
2. I use Facebook’s instant video recording option to wish my friends a birthday.

Facebook groups

The group positions you as a leader and shows the value you can provide to your fellow networkers. Facebook users who join your group can become leads for your business by using effective inbound marketing strategies. It pays to set up a group and provide value to group members through emails, event invites, etc. I also use groups on Facebook to identify like-minded people and to promote my posts.

Facebook events

Facebook allows you to create a public event (visible to all Facebook members) and provides you with a URL that can be used to communicate on other social networks like Twitter, MySpace, etc. I send an email invitation to an event to all members of my group. The event function keeps track of the status of the users (attending, not attending, may be) about the event. I see an increase in numbers for the event when I send a reminder email to people who were unsure or planning to attend.

Facebook Wall Posts

Each user on Facebook has a wall where they post messages and moderate the comments they make. If you are a core Facebook user, I am sure you should post and promote your content on your wall. However, it is much better to learn how to post your content effectively on the walls of members who have a large number of friends. It can be done by giving a lot of value that could be beneficial to the users who visit the page. Facebook will disable your account if they see you spamming. Therefore, be careful when using this approach.

Facebook ratings

Do you have a self-hosted Word Press blog? If not, I would highly recommend you start blogging and provide some valuable content. Facebook Notes is an amazing feature that you can use to make your valuable blog content publicly visible to all Facebook members. In addition, there are applications that import the content of your blog to the notes automatically. Isn’t that cool?

This feature would greatly increase your blog traffic and ultimately your sales if you are using the blog as a powerhouse, as I mentioned in my Attraction Marketing Plan post.

Facebook Apps

I’m not a big fan of apps on Facebook as I generate enough traffic using the resources mentioned above. However, there are a couple of apps that I personally use

Vuyou (Video Email App) – If you are an internet marketer generating leads through various marketing strategies like PPC, classified ads, etc., you may already know the value of connecting with the customer potential. I use this FREE video email app to connect with my leads as soon as they enter my sales funnel.

Network blogging: I use this application to increase the visibility of my blog. This is a cool app that allows Facebook users to subscribe to my blog and access my regular updates.