Facebook for Strategic Business Building

MySpace and Facebook are a couple of the growing number of applications that are all part of the rapidly emerging "Social Marketing" genre and will be increasingly important to any business building strategy. When used properly Social Marketing can greatly assist you in attracting key people into your network marketing business. For additional insight into the importance of this strategy, I encourage you to review the article Building Your Business with Social Marketing.

Statistics show that nearly two-thirds of everyone who goes on-line visits MySpace. 29% of them visit the up-and-coming Facebook. While MySpace is the current "king" of this class of Internet applications, most who are looking at these from a business perspective prefer the "less chaotic" Facebook. Indeed Facebook itself started out in the college arena but is rapidly growing in the number of more serious users who are networking for business purposes.

The most recent figures I've seen show over 67 million Facebook registered members. Even more staggering is the fact that Facebook is growing by over 250,000 members each day. At that rate, experts are suggesting that Facebook will have over 200 million users by the end of 2008. According to Alexa, Facebook already approaches Google in the number of page views per day.

With numbers like that, is it any wonder that business leaders who desire to grow their business are taking a very close look at Facebook? A smart business is always looking to go where new and existing customers are found and then to go where they are going.

As a relative newcomer to Facebook myself, I've spent the last couple of days exploring this new (to me) segment of cyber-space. I had heard of Facebook, but always dismissed it because "it's just for the kids." How wrong I was!

I listened in on a great teleclass offered by The Blogg Squad which featured Mari Smith, a widely acknowledged Facebook expert. I will admit that I would have been lost if I had not spent several hours on the application exploring it on my own, but having "bumped into a number of walls" on my own, I found Mari's presentation to be a wealth of information.

Before I share some of what I found, let me say how important it is to approach Facebook, and any of these new social marketing applications, with a bit of understanding of the rules of the road. It's not at all like most of us have been used to, and if you find yourself making some very fundamental mistakes like driving on the wrong side of the road, you can actually be kicked out and be forever more counted among the "unwelcome."

The very best way to get started, in my opinion, is to enroll in Renegade University and allow Mike Klingler to walk you step-by-step through the process of starting your Facebook account. Along the way, Mike does a magnificent job of pointing out the pitfalls and potholes. I guarantee that going that route will make your trip into this new land much, much more pleasant (and profitable).

OK, once you're in and enjoying the exploration of such a vast new territory, now is where someone like Mari Smith can become a real asset to your future success. Unfortunately, the Blog Squad teleseminar that I attended is not a recurring event, but from that class I learned about another application named Podclass which Mari apparently had a major part in developing.

Enrolling in Podclass is free, and once a member, you will have access to Mari's ongoing course entitled "Facebook Fortunes: How to Grow Your Network and Your Net Worth on Facebook." The course information says that the course fee is $375 but currently it is being offered for no charge. (I have no idea how long that special is going to continue, so I would encourage you to move rather quickly.)

Mari's format is similar to that used by Mike Klingler in Renegade University. Mari uses video to lead you step-by-step through several very important things that you should know and do to maximize your Facebook results. This after what Renegade University offers makes a great synergistic follow-up.

So, to summarize, if you don't want to be left behind as the Internet moves into this incredible new era, enroll in Renegade University and get an overview as well as step-by-step instruction for how to participate rather than just watch. Then when you are one of the large number of Facebook newbies, zip over to Podclass and allow Mari's Facebook Fortunes class to take you to the next level.

By the way, when you take the plunge and get yourself a Facebook account, look me up at http://profile.to/jerrygraham/. I would love to count you as one of my friends.