Internet marketing has been revolutionised over a few short years by a phenomenon known as social networking. In all likelihood, you wouldn’t have needed to look into a crystal ball to realise that the World Wide Web would evolve along with its social theme as an ever increasing number of individuals realised the incredible reach of the Internet, and became almost constantly connected through state-of-the-art phones and other new high-tech gadgets.

Many people consider MySpace to have initiated this trend, but in recent times the buzz has all been around Facebook, and to many people MySpace has become “very 2005.” Facebook is now the number one social media site. Its stunning dominance seems to originate from its dynamic platform and its clean and organised appearance; many individuals also even see it as more upscale than MySpace.

Facebook was devised by Mark Zuckerburg, Justin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, who were student room-mates at Harvard University. The site was initially intended for use by college students, but it quickly expanded nationwide through the school system, and eventually to everyone else. Zuckerberg’s original “Facemash” has now grown to over 200 million users. Some people put its current value at $5 billion.

Facebook is, simply, networking at its finest. Not only can you utilise this amazing platform to communicate with family and friends, but from an online business perspective, it’s fantastic for marketing purposes too.

One of the first things that you should do as a business marketer is to construct a profile. This needs a lot of thought as your profile is key to your success. Incorporate a quality branding strategy, and always ensure that you’ve a good understanding of what environment you’re working in. When dealing with any kind of social networking, commercial branding and marketing should be very subtle, and it should never be “in your face”.

Facebook allows you to expand your network of friends infinitely. Start off by building a network of your actual friends, and then move on to establish contacts with “friends of friends”. You’ll soon realise that with a sustained effort, your contact list will increase rapidly. Don’t ever spam, and make a point of tempering your enthusiasm. Build relationships – not just numbers.

Within Facebook you will find that there are many, many online groups and there will certainly be groups which are associated with what you do. Every type of professional service provider has a group of some kind, and you should belong to all of these in your field. You can make tons of contacts this way.

If you cannot find a Facebook group that fits your vision, you can always create your own. You will need to be very proactive here to solicit members, and you should publish articles and give a lot of good information away, essentially for free, to create some buzz. You can create a Facebook “fan” page, especially if you find that your original page has reached its limit for membership, which is currently 2000. The fan page creates an additional subtle marketing opportunity, and it’s all a part of the process of getting people into your sales funnel and ultimately to your checkout.

If you have a blog or some form of website development which you regularly update this with great information, tips, tricks, solutions, assistance and generally good stuff – then you should syndicate it so that your posts appear on your Facebook profile page. The goal is to get as much exposure as you can, which in turn of course converts to readers, visitors and potential sales.

If you’re holding any events or creating a milestone of any kind within your business, you should create an event page within Facebook. By sending an open invitation, you solicit people to go to your events page and find out what’s going on, and they can then advise their friends, creating even further exposure.

Facebook should be an integral part of your business strategy, but you must also have your “fun” face on when you’re there. Warning – Facebook is addictive (not to me of course – but to many), so don’t let it take over your marketing programs altogether!

Michelle Dale is The Managing Director of Virtual Miss Friday, a highly qualified Executive Virtual Assistant Service which helps businesses and individuals accomplish every detail of their professional aspirations. Want to discover more about these insightful online business building success strategies? Contact VMF Today!