How To Work Facebook: Part 1

Statistics show that Facebook is the most widely used social networking site on the Web. But, unlike Twitter, Facebook is not so cut and dry. As I explained in previous posts, Twitter is a microblog that limits a user’s message to 120 characters. There are various ways to leverage that message and network to others, but the idea of Twitter is very simple: You have something to say and you say it to the people who have chosen to listen.

Facebook is an entirely different animal.

Since over 500 million people use Facebook worldwide. I am going to start Part 1 of this Facebook series by making one assumption: if you are reading this, odds are that you have a Facebook profile. Fair enough? I’m not going to tell you how set up a profile or download your profile picture. Even if you haven’t done that yet, just log onto Facebook and let them walk you through it. The interface is quite intuitive and easy to navigate. I will show you all of the nuances and functions, but I’ll leave the getting started up to you.

So, why are people using Facebook? The most commonly reported uses for Facebook are for personal entertainment and self/business marketing. Facebook is an easy and inexpensive way for the average person to catch up with old friends, classmates, neighbors, or co-workers. And with 500 million users, it is an incredibly powerful platform for selling a product or service, soliciting donations to your nonprofit, recruiting talent to your firm, or spreading awareness about an issue that means a lot to you.

Think of Facebook’s power like this: Say you have a small, web-based consulting business and you want to send out some direct mail to promote your service. You can purchase a mailing list that consists of your target audience’s demographic, you can purchase the printed piece, and you can pay the postage. Let’s say you send out 10,000 pieces of mail and that costs you $7,000. With a typical direct mail campaign, you are supposed to be ecstatic if you get a 3-4% response. Congratulations. You spent $7,000 to engage 300 people. It probably took you several weeks and cost you a lot more than the $7,000 in monetary expenses. In half the time, you could have sent out the same message to millions of people on Facebook…For a fraction of the cost. 3% of a million people make quite a large group. 3% of 500 million is slightly bigger.

Now, I don’t mean to say that you can just set up a profile on Facebook and instantly reach even 100,000 people. But, with the right tools and a lot of effort, you can build a big enough network to seriously boost your business, product, or nonprofit organization. Like Twitter, it’s all about making connections and interacting. The next several parts of this series will show you just exactly how to do it. Stay tuned.

Tags: beginners, facebook, how to, nonprofit, social media, social networking, twitter