Social media marketing is a growing trend in business and facebook is one of the major, if not the most important social media site in this new landscape. With over 170 million users worldwide and each one of those with a very detailed profile that provides geographic, demographic and psychographic information… it’s a marketers dream come true.

However, many have a hard time figuring out exactly how to use facebook as part of the marketing mix. Before giving you some practical guidelines, let me first introduce a key insight of social media marketing.

It is not radio… it’s not TV… or a magazine ad… it is definitely not a one way monologue.

Social media enables conversation between people, it allows us to connect with each other. Key goal of social media marketing is not to try and push your product but rather to connect with your customers, friends and peers. Become part of the community, don’t be the “make millions with your downline” pyramid scheme guy at the party.

That aside, here are some practical steps and tools to use with facebook:

Create a profile for yourself with the understanding that it will represent a blend of your personal and professional life. Take care in posting (and being tagged in) pictures and notes in order to reflect the image you wish to portray and of course… connect with others!

Create a page for your business if you wish. At that time you could also invite people from your network although your primary focus should be on developing your personal profile and connecting with people.

“Events” is a great tool you can use to notify your network about… well events… as well as product launches or seminars. It’s very simple and effective. One note of advice would be to selectively target your invites to those who would be interested in the event.

These few initial steps should get you on your way to establishing a social media presence. We will discuss facebook ads in an upcoming post.

- Ernest.