Subtle Selling on Facebook

You can advertise openly on Facebook if you are prepared to pay the price but you can also engage in subtle selling at zero cost if you put your mind to it.

Some three months ago I signed up, created a profile, and set about building a bank of 'friends'.

Within weeks I had 1000+ which prompted me to start a group.

Big deal; that's what everyone does.

Perhaps so, but I have my own agenda.

I give freely on both the Profile and Group channels of my expertise in creative writing; regular informative postings with a subtle end tag.

Each of these tags is linked to one of my series of creative writing courses.

Now here's the kicker...

Not a day passes but I get acknowledgements from ClickBank that I have clocked up more sales.

These are sales of not one, two, or three of my products but ALL of them.

In the process during the months of April and May I aggregated more in dollar volume than I did in the whole of 2007.

The moral is: do not enquire of the reasons why - just sign up at Facebook and give it a try...

HOW TO BRAND YOURSELF ON FACEBOOK

For effective Facebook branding, find groups that fall in your category and join them. Make friends among the group members. Go back and read over your personal profile. If you were one of these people you want to connect with, what would be your impression of you? Is that a profile of someone you would like and trust?

Fill out every box in your profile. The purpose of social marketing is to connect with the right people. Who knows exactly what they will see that will make the connection happen? So jam every G-rated bit of yourself that you can into that profile. You never know who will connect with you because your favorite movie is "The Maltese Falcon." Give them plenty of intersection points.

As visitors write on your Facebook wall, compare what they say to your brand. You must know what your brand is, have it sharply defined then eliminate what shouldn't be there. Get rid of anything that doesn't contribute to your brand.

To strongly connect with the right people, put out there who you really are. Write on other walls. Put up a comment about their pictures. Ask questions. The more you are part of their Facebook life the more chance your brand will make an impression. Plus, they see you as being serious about the medium.

Don't make your profile too busy. If you include a bunch of apps, it will obscure the real you. Keep it simple, so it's easy to see your Facebook brand.

If you can do video, add a YouTube application to your Facebook profile. And if you can't do video, learn to. Visitors can really bond with you when they watch your well-planned 2-minute video. Optimum, of course, is an on-brand video that enhances who you are.

Promote your profile. Just doing a profile isn't enough. It will sit there forever, adding no value to your life or anyone else's. Strategy #1 is to join those targeted groups and interact with the other group members. And once you have a bit of experience with that ... define exactly what would be the ideal group you'd like to join. Then create it yourself. What better way to find the specific people you want to connect with?

Evaluate your Facebook brand at least weekly. Update something. Social marketing is not a sport for hermits. You need to demonstrate that you are serious, and serious visitors will notice.

You will get to meet those targeted people that otherwise would never have found you.