Facebook Marketing Tips: Building a Facebook Community the Right Way

By Rodney Brooks, on May 23rd, 2009

While it is a powerful marketing and business development tool, Facebook was originally developed as a social networking application. The first stage in any Facebook marketing strategy is therefore to build a large network of highly qualified contacts.

This business television show, part of yourBusinessChannel’s Facebook marketing series, explains how you can put yourself at the center of an online community.

The first essential step, is to create a brilliant profile page. This will be the heart of your community, so make it attractive and rich in content.

Social marketing experts stress the importance of having high quality photos of you and your products on your profile page. They recommend investing in professional photography and graphic design, to make it look really good.

The next step recommended is to reach out to others.

Just as in real life, in social marketing the rewards you receive from your networking reflect the effort you put in. A very effective web strategy when you are looking to establish a wide network is to start by identifying and befriending key influencers. These are people who are credible and popular and have their own large networks of Facebook contacts.

Another very important internet strategy when building your Facebook network is to engage in ongoing dialogue with your contacts. That means taking the time to comment on other people’s article posts, status updates and photos. They’ll appreciate it and most probably return the favor.

It is also critical to stay active and update your profile with news and valuable content as often as possible. This helps to build your profile by reminding your contacts that you exist and showing that you are an active person.