How to Grow A Useful Facebook Network
ByTable of contents for Networking on Facebook
- How to Grow A Useful Facebook Network
- What to do with your Facebook Friends Once You’ve Got Them
If you are planning to use Facebook as a tool to market your business, you need to build a targeted network of Facebook Friends. While it is fun to connect with your high school class mates, you need to focus on connecting with people who are your target market.
Become Friends with leaders in your industry
Target a few high profile people in your industry – people with well established lists. Invite them to become friends. Be sure to include a personalized note with your invitation. Mention any products of theirs you have purchased, seminars you attended, or how long you’ve been reading their ezine. If they are high profile they likely get dozens of invitations so you need to make yours stand out.
Since Facebook limits the number of Friends you can have, don’t be disappointed if you don’t hear back from one or more of these leaders. They may have reached their quota of Friends or they may have become more selective.
Once they have accepted your invitation, post thoughtful comments on their wall. Make comments about their status updates, respond to blog posts or talk about how much you enjoyed their latest teleseminar.
This accomplishes two things. First it gets you on their radar and may result in them sending traffic your way by writing about you to their list or in inviting you to participate in a joint venture of some kind. Second, writing on their wall gets your name (and face) in front of their friends, who are also your target market.
Once you are Friends with someone you can see all their Friends. By connecting with a leader in your industry, you suddenly have a pool of people who are also your target market. Look at their list of Friends and start inviting them to connect with you as well. When you do this be sure to include a personal note. Say that since you are both Friends of the industry leader you thought you might have similar interests and would like to connect.
Join Groups That Attract Your Target Market
If you join groups related to your industry, you’ll know that everyone in those groups are potentially your target market.
How do you find groups? On your profile page, in the upper left side under the search box is a link to groups. You can search for groups in a particular industry or geographic region. Additionally, on each of your Friends’ profile pages, you’ll see a list of groups they belong to. Click on groups that sound interesting and read their descriptions. Join ones that sound appropriate.
Once you join a group, become active. Post to discussions or start your own discussion. Showcase your knowledge, expertise or interest in the topic. Respond to what others are writing. This is a great way to become known to the group.
As you are participating in the group, start inviting people to become Friends. When someone makes an interesting post, send an invitation mentioning that you enjoyed what they had to say on the topic.
As a member of a group, you can see a list of all the members of this group. You can also send Friend invitations to people who haven’t participated, just as you did with Friends of your expert Friend. These won’t be as powerful connections as ones with people you’ve had a dialogue with, but they’ll still be your target market.
A Word of Caution
Don’t get too gung ho about inviting everyone on your new friend’s list of friends and in your new groups. Facebook has a limit of how many new invitations you can send in a given day or week. The exact number isn’t posted anywhere, but if you exceed this amount you can get a warning and could get cut off from Facebook. If you stick to no more than twenty invitations a day you should be safe.
When you are sending invitations, don’t copy and paste a standard message. This can lead to a warning from Facebook. Be sure to customize each invitation you send.
Building the Relationship
Once someone becomes your Facebook Friend you need to start getting to know them. Don’t just focus on the number of Friends you have. You still need to get these people to know, like and trust you.
Start by posting a note to their wall once they accept your invitation to become Friends. A quick thank you and a comment about something on their profile will suffice. If you discover they are Friends with someone you know particularly well, ask how they know this person. The key is to start a conversation.
When you first log into Facebook you are taken to a home page where you can see recent status updates of your Friends. Keep an eye on the status updates and comment on them when appropriate.
By using these strategies for building your Facebook network, you won’t have close, personal relationships with everyone who becomes your Friend, but you can start getting on their radar.
Join me tomorrow when I write about what to do with your Facebook list of Friends.
Andrea J. Stenberg
If you send me an invitation to become Friends on Facebook and mention you’re a reader of The Baby Boomer Entrepreneur, I promise to accept your invitation.
Thank you very much for writing this, Andrea. I have received countless invitations to become friends with people with no explanation as to why it would be beneficial to either of us, and I think it’s important to make it known why this is not productive.
Janet,
I think the problem is that when people are online they sometimes forget social niceties. How many of those people who invited you to become Friends without a personal note would walk up to a stranger in the mall and ask for their phone number? Not many.
Thanks for your feedback.
Andrea
[...] J. Stenberg of The Baby Boomer Entrepreneur address this very subject in her recent blog post, How to Grow A Useful Facebook Network. In her post she explains how to build a targeted network of Facebook friends, how to approach [...]
Andrea,
Thanks so much for this post. It was especially helpful to me, personally, re the proper way to send an invitation to connect.
Leslie
Leslie,
Glad you found the post helpful. I don’t know about you, but I find I’m learning new things about social media every day.
Andrea
Thanks for your article. I was wondering… Does your business have a page or a separate listing in Facebook? I ask because I would like to be able to keep my business friends separate from my personal friends. I’d like to contact my business friends using “Fun Car Tattoos” and not my name. Should I set up a group or another page for my business?
Any help you could give me would be appreciated!
Thanks!
Jo Anne Cohn
(smile)
Jo Anne,
Yes, you can have a business page, and probably should if for no other reason than for Search Engine Optimization. You can also have a business group as well.
However, the only way to really connect with people is through your personal Facebook profile. For example, when you invite people to join your Facebook group, the only people you can invite are your Facebook friends.
How do you resolve this personal/professional dilemma? First, you can create friend lists which lets you send messages and invites to selected people. For example I have a friends & family list, a colleagues list and a networking list.
You can also create a group for just family. By making the group by invitation only or even secret, you ensure outsiders don’t see your private conversations.
Hope this helps Jo Anne.
Andrea
Thanks so much! I’ll go on Facebook and add you as a friend. Also, I have a blog for women who are just starting out new businesses. Would you like to be a guest blogger and write about using Facebook?
Jo Anne
(smile)
http://www.funcartattoos.com
P.S. Here’s the link to my blog – Women Enterpreneurs, the First Year!
http://funcartattoos.typepad.com/
[...] How to Grow A Useful Network with the Social Media Site Facebook From The Baby Boomer Entrepreneur: Advice on using Facebook as a tool to grow your business network. [...]
[...] How to Grow A Useful Network with the Social Media Site Facebook From The Baby Boomer Entrepreneur: Advice on using Facebook as a tool to grow your business network. [...]
Fantastic information,This is the first time i heard about this. keep it up this good works.
Thanks,
Micheal
Ampere Software is a global software product engineering servicing company founded by young technocrats to cater the needs for providing specialist product engineering (architect, development, testing and maintenance) services to the startup software product development companies, Mid/large stage ISVs, ASPs and almost all other information driven enterprise companies.
[...] How to Grow A Useful Network with the Social Media Site Facebook From The Baby Boomer Entrepreneur: Advice on using Facebook as a tool to grow your business network. [...]
How to Grow A Useful Network with the Social Media Site Facebook From The Baby Boomer Entrepreneur: Advice on using Facebook as a tool to grow your business network.
thanks your post
jammer
sinyal kesici
What à stupid article/ like à manual for community SPAM.
Hope that *social Media Experts* like you will not find to many
believers. Have you ever considered how social networks work???
Its Not going to à person at à public Space/ tipping their shoulder and
asking for friendship….so you will never build up à valid
network.
Tom,
Sorry you think my advice is off base. But I think you are wrong on a number of counts.
Many people use social media sites (including Facebook) as a business tool. Just as they wouldn’t be offended if I approached them and introduced myself at a networking meeting, neither would they be offended if I did it virtually. Remember, social media is also known as social NETWORKING.
By spending time on pages and groups and profiles of other BUSINESS people who are leaders in my industry or have a similar target market to mine, I’m likely to virtually “meet” other people with similar interests. And by personalizing each invitation, including a rationale as to why I think we should connect, I’m not spamming at all.
The proof? I have many colleagues, clients, suppliers and even friendships that started because I took the chance and introduced myself to a stranger.
I only approach people whose profiles make it clear they are using Facebook for business purposes. If someone is there only to connect with their family, talk about how much they drank on the weekend to or to find a date, I’m not any more interested in connecting with them then they are in connecting with me.
And as always, people have the option of declining my invitation if they wish. However, because of how I go about “meeting” people virtually, I rarely get declined.
Tom, I guess you and I will have to agree to disagree on this point.
Thanks for visiting my site and sharing your thoughts.
Andrea
Thanks mate a lot for the post. Lots of social networks nowadays.. Hard to participate in all lol
Thanks so much for posting wonderful stuff. Networking on Face book is relay a good to organize your friend.
I couldn’t agree more about building relationships. Great information. Great post. Cheers bro.
By spending time on pages and groups and profiles of other BUSINESS people who are leaders in my industry or have a similar target market to mine, I’m likely to virtually “meet” other people with similar interests. And by personalizing each invitation, including a rationale as to why I think we should connect. This sucks most time of yours.
seems like a battle between SEO vs SMO (Social Media Optimation)
Personally i think we should separate between personal facebook and business.Focus on the right person or group
i think i do not think facebook is that useful for people.
Thank you for sharing. Great!
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Excellent post, Thanks for your guide, I’ve gained a lot of useful information now!
I agree 100% Great article thanks for posting.
im new to face book page. hope i will create a fine page after reading this article.
My friend just started a facebook page and its great
Facebook is now crossing over to business users which makes it become an even more powerful networking tool. Facebook is changing the way the web works forever and for the better with communication at the hub as it should be, after all is that not why the internet was created in the first place.
If someone is there only to connect with their family, talk about how much they drank on the weekend to or to find a date, I’m not any more interested in connecting with them then they are in connecting with me.
San Diego MLS
hi andrea
i want to thanks for your post
its very usefull for me
keep share
thanks
I only approach people whose profiles make it clear they are using Facebook for business purposes. If someone is there only to connect with their family talk the weekend to or to find a date.
Simi Valley Real Estate
Thanks a lot of very very lovely site. I use to face book long time, i think a business boy and a educated boy must be share on the away but is not to be done some person may would you like to cheek for more user. Thous we are very love it.
Dog Life Jacket
Thanks for sharing this great article with us. I like this site.
Makale
Thanks for this useful post.