Facebook is the most talked about web service, social media, and marketing tool around on the Internet. In Facebooks infancy, the social networking site is what the word described it as; a networking tool for friends to share information, photo and keep in touch with each other. As social networking has moved forward, Facebook has become a tool for marketing, branding, companies, products, and promotions. In addition, Facebook is also an efficient tool in marketing yourself. If you have a business, product, service or a branding and you need to get the word out, let’s take a look at how you can use Facebook to help promote your brand. At this point, it may be worth mentioning that you will need a Facebook account to progress. If you don’t already have an account, why not pop over to Facebook, set one up, and then come back and read on.

1. Personal Desktop:

Think of Facebook as your own personal desktop that everyone else can see on the Internet. Can you remember a time when you’ve walked passed a colleague’s desk and seen how they have configured their desk in a particular way? Maybe they have pictures of friends and family; a mug of their favourite football team; a picture on the wall of  a destination they would like to visit? Perhaps they have a book or magazine that was waiting to be read at lunch-time, or an open address book with contact information. All of these things give you a tangible sample of that person’s life, and Facebook is no different. Facebook is an information snapshot of someone’s life and to use Facebook as a professional tool, you can adapt a Facebook profile to market yourself or your brand. Only display the information on your Facebook profile that you’d display on your desk that everyone else can see. You would not want to display your personal home telephone for anyone to see, or a picture of you drunk after a fun night out. Only post information that you want clients to see and is relevant to your marketing goals.

2. Adding Individuals:

Look for clients, customers and old acquaintances that you know who would be interested in your marketing pitch. In turn, if they like what they see, they may become a customer or even share your brand with friends and colleagues of their own. Be selective with whom you send friends request to. You don’t want to spam people that you know or annoy potential new customers. Contrary to popular belief, Facebook isn’t about collecting friends. In a professional environment, whether you are marketing yourself or a brand, quality is more important than quantity. You can create a limited profile for individuals who you are unsure about, and open the full profile for individuals that you already know, and would welcome your invitation.

3. Applications:

Facebook has thousands of applications to install on your profile that will make your profile more functional as a professional tool, and help you organise tasks. Ten useful applications can be found here. This is not so useful if you intend your Facebook profile to be used for marketing a brand.

4. News Feeds:

You don’t necessary need to know when someone has uploaded a new photo of themselves; however, you do need to keep tabs on your contacts and especially when your customers or clients are talking about you or your product. Click on ‘preferences’ link on your profile to amend these, and adjust them according to your requirements.

5. Security and Privacy:

Security is important and you need to amend these settings, as Facebook’s default settings leaves your profile wide open for anyone to view, and furthermore, is accessible to search engines for indexing. There has been a lot of bad publicity recently over Facebook’s security and privacy settings. At one point there were more than over 170 settings, which were time consuming and complicated to amend. Fortunately, Facebook listened to what people were requesting, and have now amended these settings to a more simplistic process. If your Facebook profile is designed to promote a service or brand then you need to make you profile as open as possible; however, remember not to post any personal information.

6. Join Groups:

Join groups on Facebook that are relevant to you or your brand. Many groups on Facebook are pointless. Be selective, and you can join a community of like minded people to share and connect with. Networking with clients or individuals who share interests in your field will automatically promote yourself or your brand. Take part in conversations, ask questions, and share ideas. More importantly, if you a promoting a brand, engage with your customers and get feedback.

7. Be Efficient:

Facebook can be, and to quote from a famous song: ‘You are my favourite waste of time’. What I mean is that you can get sucked into elements of Facebook that have no bearing on your professional self or marketing strategy. Flash games, reading pointless status updates, or looking at someone’s holiday photographs of five summers ago, are all time wasting avenue of Facebook that serve no bearing on why you are on Facebook. If you are reading this, you are here to work, so close down Mafia Wars and get to it . Building a successful Facebook profile and marketing your brand takes time and effort. Don’t expect results overnight. I would schedule at least an hour a day to work on this. Alternatively, you can employ a social media manager to manage this process for you, like me .

8. Contact Information:

Don’t forget to include your contact information, which you are happy for people to have access to. Include: Postal Address; Telephone Number; Website; Email.

9. Promotions and Events:

If you have a brand or product that you are marketing, use Facebook to promote special offers. Get the message out directly to your customers and let them know about discounts and how to claim the discount. Provide information as to whether this is in-store, online or via Facebook . Let people know when the discount or promotion expires.

Keep your contacts informed of special events. Let people know where, when and what to expect at your special event. You can create an Events page on your Facebook profile and send out invites to all or selected contacts. You can even ask for RSPV to identify potential numbers, and this information is also good to determine how many people are expected at your event. In addition, this is also useful data to analyse how effective your marketing campaign on Facebook is working.

10. Updates:

Keep your contacts informed of updates that are relevant to yourself or the product your are marketing. For example, if you are selling products, use Facebook to promote new lines. Upload sample photographs of these new products and ask for feedback. If you are opening a new store, tell people about it.

If you make the products you sell, update your clients with details about certain products. Upload videos, step-by-step guides, techniques used,photographs of the design, manufacturing, testing and final product stage.  Many people  find production details interesting.

11. Facebook Ads:

Do you need to send more traffic to your Facebook profile or website? Did you know Facebook has it’s own Pay-Per-Click Ads system similar to Google Adwords? This system allows you to create you own ads, target those ads to specific demographics and only pay each time your ad is clicked on.

12. e-Commerce Integration:

Facebook API (Application Programming Interface) is a platform for building applications that are available to the members of the social network of Facebook. The API allows applications to use the social connections and profile information to make applications more involving, and to publish activities to the news feed and profile pages of Facebook, subject to individual users privacy settings. With the API, users can add social context to their applications by utilizing profile, friend, Page, group, photo, and event data. The API uses RESTful protocol and responses are localized and in XML format.

In terms of e-commerce, you could build a Facebook API application to sell your products directly from your Facebook pages.