Facebook Marketing

Social networks are a major marketing destination on the internet, but few of them are as friendly to marketers as Facebook. Facebook, while it does have certain rules in place to protect the integrity of the site and its users, does allow a certain degree of marketing on the site. Unlike MySpace and some other networks, Facebook allows users to market, as long as they keep the marketing on their own profiles and groups.

Speaking of groups, they are a great way to get in some valuable marketing on Facebook. You can start a group on practically any legal niche you want, and then you can pretty much market to that group’s users to your heart’s content. The best thing about this is the fact that the users will be very targeted. If a user joins a group about knitting, chances are extremely good that they are actually interested in knitting!

You can also get in more valuable marketing by making Facebook apps. These are fun little addons that people can use to play around on Facebook. For example, you could make an app that sends a virtual skein of yarn to knitters, and users who use that app could use it to send a cute picture of some yarn to their other knitting friends. Apps aren’t particularly difficult to make if you have a programming background, but you can outsource their creation relatively cheaply if you don’t. Simple apps are pretty quick to make.

Facebook profiles aren’t as customizable as MySpace profiles, but don’t forget to personalize it. Add a photo (or multiple photos), add a complete bio, and jazz up your page as much as you can. The more you personalize your profile, the more personal it will feel. This will make it a lot easier to get friends on the site, and it will make it a lot easier to market to those friends.

Marketing on Twitter

Twitter is currently the hottest property for marketers. If you can gather a large number of Twitter followers, you can get a lot more traffic to your websites.

When Twitter first hit the scene, a lot of people just didn’t understand its power. With it, you can keep in constant contact with people. Instead of having to post long blog posts with lots of content, you can simply take a few seconds to post a sentence or two. It’s also very conducive to getting to know your followers on a one-on-one basis. Using direct messages (or DM), you can communicate directly with other users.

How to Get More Twitter Followers:

1. Follow approximately 300 users per day that are related to the niche you are interested in.

2. Use Twitter Karma to find out which of your followers are following you.

3. Unfollow anyone who doesn’t follow you back within a couple of days, because you can only follow a maximum of 2,000 people unless you have more than 2,000 followers.

4. You will also receive followers who find you through the pages of people who follow you and who you are following!

Twitionary:

Follower: Someone who has subscribed to follow your updates.

RT: Retweet. When you post someone else’s message again for your own followers. Example: RT @username Little girl needs help for eye surgery. http://url.com

DM: Direct Message. A message sent directly to another user.

Tweet: (n) A message you post on Twitter. (v) To post a message on Twitter.

Tweeple: Twitter users.

Twitter Traffic Tips:

• Don’t post a constant barrage of ads. Post one ad for every 5-10 regular messages.
• Give your followers free gifts now and then to keep them happy and loyal.
• Post insights into your personal life. People love feeling like they know you personally.
• Post a few times a day, but not more than once every hour or two. You don’t want to spam your followers.