Introduction
Facebook is certainly one of the biggest internet phenomenons of recent times. It has become so huge that almost all internet users and countless others know about it or use it regularly.
It is for this reason and so many others that internet marketers have jumped on the band wagon and started harnessing it's marketing and selling power for their own gain.
Huge companies like Coca Cola and Nike are making millions of dollars extra per month using Facebook as a marketing tool. But not only the huge companies are harnessing the power of facebook marketing. Many small business owners, website owners and other internet marketers and people who work from home have discovered how to make money and boost their incomes using Facebook and other social media marketing sites and techniques.
In this special report you will discover a bit more about social media marketing and Facebook in particular. I am going to reveal a lot about Facebook, Facebook's fan pages, how to use it to market your business and how to use it to make more money online.
Don't worry if you don't know how to create a fan page or how to use it to market your business. I am going to explain it in easy to follow steps that even a 10 year old would understand.
By the end of this report, you will be able to create your own money sucking facebook fan page from scratch and you will be able to harness the power of Facebook and fan pages to boost your online income easily.
Please make sure that you read the report through from the beginning to the end, even if you are not a facebook marketing newbie anymore, as I am sure that you will discover a lot of facebook marketing nuggets.
What is social media marketing?
Social media marketing used to be divided into two factions. Social networking sites where you could connect with others, become perceived as an expert in your niche, build your own brand, create a great customized profile, add 'friends', join or create 'Groups', comment, message, add images, videos, and other media, etc., and link building sites - where you could do your content publishing - put your blog posts, articles, photos, videos, and people sometimes had the option of voting your content up or down.
There wasn't a lot of 'social networking' between people (at least not at first) on the link building sites, and the main attraction of these kinds of sites was quality content. Also, in a social networking site, you could make a rich, full profile but in a link building site, you didn't have a big opportunity to customize your profile.
Until now. Now, you can have a Facebook Fan Page. Facebook is included in the "social networking" sites I talked about above. But Fan Pages include the elements of a "link building" social media site. All in one package. And, you can have as many Fan Pages as you want, in whatever niche you want.
WHY FACEBOOK?
Facebook has recently reached 500 Million active users. On average, at least half of those users log into Facebook on any given day. The average amount of 'friends' a single user has is 130 and, more astonishing, users visit Facebook for over 500 BILLION minutes per MONTH. That should answer the question, "Why Facebook?"
GROUPS OR FAN PAGES?
Well, this is really a no brainer, but it's good to have an explanation of the differences, because each has its own functions.
The best description I've seen is from Mashable:
"Groups are great for organizing on a personal level and for smaller scale interaction around a cause. Pages are better for brands, businesses, bands, movies, or celebrities who want to interact with their fans or customers without having them connected to a personal account, and have a need to exceed Facebook’s 5,000 friend cap."
SO, WHAT EXACTLY ARE FAN PAGES?
According to the Facebook Pages Manual - which you can download and use for guidance in setting up your Fan Pages - Pages were added to the Facebook milieu so that businesses, organizations, bands, and celebrities could keep in touch with their fans in "an official, public manner."
For us, the key word here is "businesses" because when we use a Fan Page for a niche specific keyword/product, that is our business.
With a tightly keyword focused Fan Page, you will be indexed fast by the search engines. Your individual fan page will let you be recognized as an expert in your niche with exposure to maybe thousands of people each day, build your list, generate traffic to your blogs or websites, and much, much more.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION FOR
FACEBOOK FAN PAGES
FACEBOOK FAN PAGES
There really isn't much difference in the techniques you use for search engine optimization of your Facebook Fan Page than you would use for your blog, or articles, or a website - anything you want to be noticed and indexed for a specific keyword by the search engines. Here are some things to keep in mind when setting up your Fan Page:
1. Every Fan Page you create should have a tightly focused Theme and, if you develop several Facebook Fan Pages, do not promote one page on another page. Keep them totally separate.
2. Make sure you pick a niche that is active and has a lot of people searching for whatever you want to promote on your Fan Page. Look for the hot trends in Click Bank, Yahoo, Amazon.com, for starters. Search out magazines at your favorite newsstand. Go through the magazines in the niche you are exploring and look for what's selling. You can believe that if you find a magazine for your niche, that it is a popular niche with your potential customers.
3. Do explicit market research with your favorite market research tool (I like Market Samurai and the keyword research portion is FREE.) This is a very important step. If you don't get it right, you won't get the traffic from the search engines. Take your time; give it a lot of thought.
4. Go to Google Keyword Tool and enter your main theme keyword and look for additional keywords you can use that have a lot of searches each month. In Google (or Yahoo), you can put in a keyword in quotes (phrase match), to see how much competition there is for pages that use that keyword. Compare the Global Searches Per Month number from the Google Keyword Tool with the number returned by Google (actually, Yahoo's numbers tend to be more accurate), and look for keywords for a high number of monthly searches and a low number of competing websites. This will make it easy for you to rank for that particular keyword.
5. Once you have determined your main theme keyword and additional keywords you would like to target, use the main theme keyword in your Fan Page Title and in your Profile.
6. Talk about your Face Page on the Social Networking sites. The most popular ones, aside from Facebook, are hi5, Ning, Bebo, Orkut, Linkedin, Friendster, and MySpace. Use Twitter and Foursquare for microblogging. Do some quality content publishing on various web2.0 sites, such as HubPages, Squidoo, tumblr, Scribd, and ezinearticles. Always, link back to your Facebook Fan Page.
7. In the profiles you create for the different social networking sites, send a link back to your Facebook Fan Page URL.
8. Everybody knows that article marketing is the best way to get your blogs and pages indexed by the search engines quickly. They are great authority sites and the search engines love them.
Write several articles, making sure you use the keyword you want to target both in the article title, description, and the content of the article. In the resource box at the end of the article, send the viewers back to your Fan Page or, if you have an opt in page on your Fan Page that offers something free that is relevant to the article, send your readers there. Not only will you get indexed quickly, your will begin to build back links to your Fan Page.
Here are some top 15 article directories rated by their Alexa Rating:
| # | URL | Alexa Rating | Google Page Rank |
| 1 | ezinearticles.com | 126 | 6 |
| 2 | articlesbase.com | 354 | 6 |
| 3 | suite101.com | 659 | 7 |
| 4 | buzzle.com | 759 | 6 |
| 5 | articlesnatch.com | 1,467 | 5 |
| 6 | helium.com | 1,527 | 6 |
| 7 | goarticles.com | 1,710 | 4 |
| 8 | articlealley.com | 2,200 | 5 |
| 9 | articledashboard.com | 2,833 | 5 |
| 10 | ideamarketers.com | 3,369 | 5 |
| 11 | bukisa.com | 4,728 | 5 |
| 12 | amazines.com | 4,759 | 3 |
| 13 | articlecity.com | 5,453 | 5 |
| 14 | artlcierich.com | 5,827 | 3 |
| 15 | isnare.com | 5,913 | 6 |
Some of the article directories are "no follow" but that doesn't matter because, if your articles are well written, they will be picked up by other publishers and published on their blogs, in their newsletters, on their
websites, etc., giving your article and link a lot of exposure.
9. Visit blogs and forums that are relevant to your Fan Page niche, post a useful, helpful comment, and a link back to your Facebook Fan Page. Those are just some of the ways you can optimize your Facebook Fan Page. Just remember - use your keywords as much as possible and update often to keep your Fan Page "new and interesting", and the search engines will love you!
A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE FOR CREATING YOUR
MONEY-MAKING FACEBOOK FAN PAGE
Whether you already have a Facebook profile or not, go to www.facebook.com/pages/ and you will be brought to a page that says "Create a Page."
When you come to the Create a Page screen, you can start by doing the following:
1. Click on "Chose Brand, Products, or Organization"
2. Fill in "Page Name" (make sure to include your main keyword if possible)
3. Click on the box stating you are the official representative.
4. Click "Create Official Page."
If you aren't logged in, or don't yet have an account, you will be prompted at this point to either log in or create an account.
Now it's time to start adding content to your new Fan Page.
The first thing you need to do is add an image for your Page. Pick an image that represents what your Page is about rather than an image of yourself.
After you add your photo, you need to edit the thumbnail to make sure it includes the portion of your photo that is most relevant. After the image is uploaded, pass your cursor over the top right-hand corner of the uploaded image. It will open a box with a pencil that says "Change Photo." Click on "Change Photo" and a drop down box will appear. Click on "Edit Thumbnail" and follow the directions to make any adjustments and then click "Save."
There is a small box under the photo that asks you to tell something about your Page. Make sure to fill this
box out.
Next, click on "Info" tab at the top of the page. On this page, you'll have two fields to add information to, if you wish. The first field is "Basic Info" and basically contains a place to put the date your business was founded.
The second field is "Detailed Information" so you can explain more about your business.
When you finish with these two section, click "Done Editing" and move to the next screen.
Under your photo, you will see "Edit Page." If you click this you will be brought to a section where you can customize your Fan Page however you want to. There are way too many choices to go into all of them here. You need to explore your options and pick the ones that best meet your needs, and the interests of your potential "fans." Once you've created your first Fan Page, it will become increasingly easier to do more pages.
I would suggest you visit the right sidebar. Under "Help with Your Page" is a link "For tips and information about Facebook Pages, click here." Click there and it will take you to a page that will explain everything, under the Resources tab. There is a Quick Start Guide and a Pages Manual that you can download and refer to as you proceed.
Here are some tips to keep in mind:
1. Keep your title short because when you add content your title is added to each post.
2. If you want to, you can chose a "vanity" url after you have twenty five fans.
3. The maximum size for an image for your Fan Page is 200 pixels (width) by 600 pixels (height). Use the full size if at all possible.
4. Fill out the About Us box right below your picture and include a clickable link back to your main blog, or wherever you choose.5. Using the application "Social RSS" you can bring your blog posts onto your Fan Page.
6. Let your fans post also on your Fan Page so when someone comes to your page, it looks "alive" with a lot of interaction.
Those are just a few tips for your Fan Page. More will be scattered throughout the rest of this report.
MONETIZING YOUR FACEBOOK FAN PAGES
One of the easiest ways to make money with your Fan Pages is to find a product you want to promote on one of the marketplaces, such as Click Bank or Amazon. Build your niche Fan Page around the product. But don't jump to do this! Make sure your Fan Page is up and running before you start trying to "sell" to your Fans.
The good way to go is to first offer some free content that is of high quality - maybe a mini-course related to the niche. More people opt-in to a mini-course than to any other kind of free offer. Just make sure it is high quality and relevant to your community.
After your Fan Page has become trusted and popular, you can use a tab to send your Fans directly to an affiliate sales page. It's just like anything else. Once your Fans trust you and believe in you, they are more accepting of the quality products you recommend to them that are relevant to their needs. It's a no brainier!
Remember also to put your affiliate link, where appropriate, into any eBook, mini-course, newsletter, etc. that you give away to your Fans for free.
Another option is to build your list with your Fan Page. If you create a landing page using "Static FBML" (Face Book Markup Language), which is one of the available Applications, you can offer anyone who comes to your Fan Page the chance to sign up for your free mini-course or whatever, for free, without selling anything.
Set up your auto-responder with aweber.com or getresponse.com, add the application "Static FBML" to your Facebook Fan Page, and follow the simple directions.
You can also make money with your Fan Page with your product and with CPA offers. Studies have shown that when people read about your offers on your Fan Page and then easily refer your Fan Page to their friends, their friends are more likely to buy whatever you are offering based on their friends' recommendation.
CONNECTING AND BUILDING A RELATIONSHIP
WITH YOUR FACEBOOK FANS
One good thing about Fan Pages is you can send updates, via email to all of your fans at the same time. Not so with your profile page. So, when you have a special article, or a promotion, or some really great information, you can let all of your fans know. Just don't spam them!
If you have set up your SEO properly - putting you keyword in the title and using it elsewhere on your page - when people search for the keyword they will automatically find you. When they do, make sure they find a well-structured, lively page that gives them more than they expected.
Here are some interesting statistics from Facebook:
1. The average Facebook user has 130 friends.
2. More than 25 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) are shared each month.
3. Over 300,000 users helped translate the site through the translations application.
4. More than 150 million people engage with Facebook on external websites every month.
5. Two-thirds of comScore’s U.S. Top 100 websites and half of comScore’s Global Top 100 websites have integrated with Facebook.
6. There are more than 100 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.
7. People who access Facebook via mobile are twice as active than nonmobile users (think about that when designing your Facebook page).
8. The average Facebook user is connected to 60 pages, groups and events.
9. People spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook.
10. There are more than 1 million entrepreneurs and developers from 180 countries on Facebook. Statistics from Facebook press office.
DRIVING TRAFFIC TO YOUR FACEBOOK FAN PAGE
You can use the Facebook Fan Page application called Fan Appz to set up Top 5 Lists, Polls, and Quizzes and there is also a Discussion feature application you can use to ask a question to get a discussion going.
You can then "promote" these items on your blog or website, or on Twitter to get more people involved in the discussion or whatever you have chosen.
Go to Yahoo, for example, and look at their "Trending Now" list and find something interesting to talk about. On today's "Trending Now" list, Number 9 is "Bed Bugs." You could make a Top 5 list on where are the best (worst?) places to find bed bugs, or take a poll on people's experiences with bed bugs, or write a quiz on what to do if you are confronted with bed bugs (sprinkle a few drops of Lavender Essential Oil on the bed and they will vacate!), or just start a Discussion about bed bugs in general. Then, put a comment on your blog and send out tweets telling people about your Top5 List! Many Facebook users check out the Top5 lists each day and if yours are unique and interesting, you should be able to generate a lot of traffic from them.
Your Fans will respond and their friends will see their responses and perhaps get involved, maybe even becoming a fan of your page.
Keep your Fan Page active and interesting. Give people something to look forward to frequently.
Another thing you can do is add a "Welcome" page for the first time someone visits your page. You can set it up however you want to welcome them, point out features of your Page, explain your niche and what you are trying to accomplish, and telling them how glad you are that they dropped by. You can set it up so that the next time they visit your Fan Page, the Welcome Page doesn't appear.
If you know of another POPULAR marketer who is in the same niche as you, you can search their profile and "friend" their friends. Most people will "friend" you back. When they do, send them a message thanking them and inviting them to visit your Fan Page.
If your Fan Page is getting a decent amount of traffic, you could also do a feature on that POPULAR Marketer, let the marketer know you featured them on your Fan Page, and they will usually talk about it on their blog and/or Fan Page, sending their fans and friends to your Fan Page. Just remember to be sincere.
Don't forget to put a Facebook Fan Page BADGE on your blog. People can just click on it and go right to your Fan Page. This is a great way to let them know you have a Fan Page on the same topic as your blog.
DRIVING TRAFFIC FROM YOUR FACEBOOK FAN PAGE
There are so many ways you can use your Fan Pages to get people to visit your blog. By using the Application "Social RSS" you can have your blog posts appear on your Fan Page. It will just be an excerpt of the post and below the excerpt is a link that says 'Read More Stories' and another that says 'Subscribe to stories from this page.' So, not only do they have to click and go to your blog to read the rest of the blog post, they have two other chances to visit your blog or subscribe to your blog "stories."
Write updates on your Fan Page that mention free things you are giving away on your blog, or a contest you are having. Give them the link to get to the correct page or post on your blog.
Offer a free report or eBook if they go to your site and fill out a poll you are taking. Make sure it is something worthwhile and on topic for the niche you are promoting.
Mention that if they go to your blog and buy a product you are selling on both your Fan Page and your blog, that there is a special discount, or coupon, they can avail themselves of if the click over to your blog and order from there instead of the Fan Page. They will appreciate the heads up.
APPLICATIONS
There are hundred of Applications available for Facebook Fan Pages. Some of the ones you may want to have (they all have good instructions and descriptions) include:
1. NetworkedBlogs - Network your blog with Facebook's huge blogger community.
2. Sweepstakes - Within minutes you can generate and launch a branded sweepstake. Your Fans enter the sweepstakes and the application picks a winner at random.
3. Social RSS - This app lets you add your RSS feed to a boxes tab, a dedicated tab, or your Fan Page wall and automatically updates.
4. Fan Appz - Great suite of marketing apps for social media to help Facebook Fan Pages connect with, monetize, and grow their number of Fans. Uses Top5Lists, Promotions, Quizzes, Polls, and virtual gifts, among other things.
5. Social Tweet - This application lets you tweet directly from Facebook.
6. Show & Sell - Set up a visual mini-store.
7. Promotions - This application lets you offer special promotions to your fans.
8. Discussion Boards - start a discussion and see where it takes you. This can be used like a forum for your fans.
9. Notes - This is a great application that lets you write notes back and forth with your fans.
10. Photos - This application is great for putting images or photo albums on your fan page and giving it more visual appeal.
11. Videos - Videos are very important now. This app lets you put videos on your fan page.
12. Events - schedule special events for your fans to attend
13. Surveys - take surveys to learn more about your fans
12. Coupon - special offers and coupons for your fans
13. My Fan Site lets you use custom html and css to design a landing page for your fans
14. Mobile - lets you view the content your fans upload with Facebook Mobile, gives you a phone book view of your fans, and lets you subscribe to their mobile content
Go through the list and read the descriptions and then pick the ones most applicable to your niche and your "fans."
CONCLUSION
The whole concept of Facebook Fan Pages is immense, as is the subject of "Social Networking" which is growing by leaps and bounds. This article is just the tip of the iceberg and there are new developments and things to learn appearing each day.
Facebook Fan Pages are practically a "must-have" for any business or online marketer who is serious about fostering their "community" and making money online at the same time. It will be definitely worth your time to check it out.
Useful resources: