Doing the Facebook Fandango

I was very active on a particular graphic design forum for many years. About a year or so ago, I was busy with this and that and didn’t check in as often as usual. Then I started to notice that others seemed to be dropping off, too. “Hmmmm,” me thinks, “Where’d everybody go?” It didn’t take too long to find them all hanging out on Facebook.

I had set up a Facebook account a while back at the request of a friend who felt I needed to be on it. Frankly, I didn’t pay too much attention. My ears perked up, though, when all the forum folk started showing up and the name, “Facebook,” was popping up all over the place. My ears perked up more when I read the following:

"According to a recent study by Aberdeen Group, top companies are using social-networking sites like Facebook to achieve improved interaction with customers. The study revealed that companies that use social-networking websites are 17 times more likely to improve customer satisfaction than companies that don’t use the sites."

Source: Using Facebook for Business Networking By Kevin Gaul

Here’re some other interesting factoids to know and tell, straight from the mouth of Facebook:

• More than 200 million active users
• More than 100 million users log on to Facebook at least once each day
• More than two-thirds of Facebook users are outside of college
• The fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older
• More than 1 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) shared each week
• More than 5 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide)
• People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are almost 50% more active on Facebook than non-mobile users

Why ... why I do believe this Facebook thing deserves further deliberation, thought, study, scrutiny, observation and whatever other words I can find in my handy thesaurus. It also likely deserves some action if you’re not already onboard. But, odds are, if you’re reading this, you’re already facebooking (I’m not sure if that’s a word, but, hey, it works).

Like Twitter and social networking in general, the peeps need to know the lingo. I won’t bore you with a list of Facebook terminology. I found a blog post that will do it for me. Actually, it’s quite humorous. Enjoy.

Sure, Facebook is all nifty, neato and keen to keep in touch with friends and maybe even family. You can become a thoughtful type by adding birthdays and reminders, play a bunch of mindless games, share book info and more. You can even send a gift, although I’ve yet to discover why one would drop some dough on a picture of a cake or a red-eyed Terminator head. But alas, I guess it’s the thought that counts. Beyond those, Facebook apps include calendars, photo and video sharing, groups and a marketplace along a lot of others. Actually, thousands when you start poking around. There are also loads and loads of Groups for every intriguing interest.

Facebook for business is a little different story ... and a different name. People have profiles. Groups have members. Businesses have Pages. Pages have fans. Facebook is a great vehicle to keep in touch with those fans and provide some useful content for them to digest. You can also buy ads (similar to Google Adwords), promote events, engage your fans in discussions and also integrate YouTube content. Plus, Pages allow you to have multiple administrators to share the love ... and the maintenance workload.

The fine folks over at HubSpot have an excellent resource for businesses seeking to leverage the power of Facebook – The Facebook for Business Marketing Kit. Yup, the name kind of says it all.

Facebook, like other social networking sites, is all about building and nurturing relationships. A strategy for Facebook is much the same as I wrote in my previous Twitter entry. The trick is to give things some thought and have a strategy. That will help ensure you don’t go on a Facebook binge.

A New Year ... A New Adventure

Well, it’s a new year and time for a change. I made the leap and moved back to South Florida. Land of sunshine, palm trees, unbelievable traffic, lizards and insects the size of your fist. Ah ... the good life.

I lived here long ago and now it’s time to reestablish myself here in the subtropics. Fortunately, I’ve always kept in touch with folks down here so, I have the remnants of a networks to build on.

I thought it might be fun to follow me through on putting my business together in a new place. The good, the bad and the ugly. Hopefully, not too much on the ugly side.

I came down for the holidays back in December and got together with the family I haven’t seen in years. That’s always interesting. I was talking with my cousin who owns a home remodeling business. One thing lead to another and we started talking about his business and his site. It needs help. Bingo! My first gig. Plus, he’s going to plug me into his network of friends and business associates.

First lesson: Ask and you shall receive. If you don’t ask, you usually don’t get. I simply asked him if he’d like for me to look over his site and make some suggestions. One thing lead to another in the conversation and he asked me to rewrite and redesign the site.

I also called my friend, former boss in another life and major mentor. Everytime this guy gets a new position, I get a new client. He’s a true gem and the arrangement works well for both of us. We’ll be getting together for lunch in a week or so. I also called a couple of old clients who live in the area. More lunches to rekindle some relationships.

Next up, Toastmasters, to hone my speaking skills and meet some folks. Also, calling pretty much everyone I’ve met in my entire life to let them know what’s up and that I’m ready to do the design thingy.

Here we go ...