Previously, I’ve sledged Facebook for being one of the planet’s biggest time wasters. Facebook does, however, have some redeeming features. It can be good for your business growth. In any area that has a large population of users, you’ll find ways to monetise on that traffic for business and event promotion.

Contact Groups

Now before you get into a friend adding frenzy, it’s probably a good idea to think about ‘friend organising’. Think of it this way … as a business, you might have specific products in different countries or you may just have different events that could be organised in different states or regions.

Facebook allows you to have friend groups. A friend can be in as many or few group lists as you’d like. If you’re not familiar with how to create new Friend Lists, simply click the Friends menu item that you’ll find across the top blue part of the page and select ‘Make a New List’ to complete the process (right side of page).

Once you’ve got your lists organised, when you add a new friend, the request window will allow you to select the list you’d like them added into. Note: adding to multiple lists is done one after the other.

Facebook Advertising

There are some interesting differences between Google Adwords and Facebook Ads too.
The world revolves around thinking online advertising IS Google Adwords. For a long time, that’s been the case too. Enter the world of Social Networking sites - the fastest growing and connecting websites on the planet, at the moment. People from all walks of life and business areas are hooking up to join in. And a lot of these people are your target audience. Constructing and deploying Google Adwords is both expensive, time consuming and in a lot of cases, an art in itself.

On the other hand, Facebook Ads allow you to explore targeting by demographic as well as also keywords and even Facebook Groups that you might be a part of. Remember, the majority of Facebook users complete all sorts of profile information such as age, sex, marital status, location and interests and a whole lot more.

Imagine being able to only display and pay for advertising that is clicked on by men who are married between the ages of 30 and 55, have an interest in fishing and live in Melbourne, Australia. Obviously, you’re going to have a limited number of people in that type of audience. Facebook will give you an estimate of the potential as well, allowing you to modify the criteria.
Next comes setting a budget as well as how you’re going to be charged … either Pay Per Click or Pay per View. That’s your choice though I’d suggest start with paying for only those interested enough to click on your advertising. And think about also reducing the ‘suggested bidding price’ as well. Facebook would love you to pay them as much as you can afford. Reduce the suggested bid price to a third and simply gauge the effectiveness … you can always amend later.

Set your daily spend amount next. Think about whether you want to run the ad continuously or maybe think of defining a date range until you fully understand and comfortable with the whole process. If you set your advertising to run continuously, please do ensure you maintain a vigil on expenditure so costs are kept in check.

Events

Events are straightforward, for the most part. They’re another avenue to advertise what’s happening in your world to those you’re connected with. The cool part is, people interested in the event are able to interact with others participating - if you allow it. You can allow videos, photos, commenting as well as displaying your event to the Country Network page that you’re associated with. This last part has the potential to attract a bigger audience than just your friends.

Remember you created some defined Friend Lists before? You can send your Event invites to any combination of Lists you’ve created. Targeted invitations.
You’re still advised to keep watch on items other people post to ensure your guests are kept safe from rogue posts or profanities. It’s like any other social dynamic - some people are just strange ☺

Groups

Common interests bind people together, creates synergy as well as diversity and feedback and can be another part of your business toolkit.

With the same functionality as Events (and can be tied to you Advertising as already mentioned), Groups allow a longer and sustainable connection with your target audience. And the friends of your friends see what groups they’re participating in which gives them the freedom of joining in too. More potential sales for your business!

Keep It Under Control

So look at putting all that time wasting in Facebook to some good use. Remove the ‘smiley’ ‘gift’ ‘kisses’ applications and put some time into looking at the enormous potential of the Facebook phenomenon.