Facebook is a much talked about website especially right now.  It is indeed the trendiest of the social networking sites and believed to be used far more for business networking than any other social site (though I believe this is just a rumor and don’t have any hard and fast data to confirm this).

As you probably know I’ve been a heavy Facebook user for the last 18 months and have built a network of over 3000 friends.

You can join the group here. (Note you must be logged into your FB account for these links to work!)

Admittedly, as my time is becoming more compressed with business activities I’ve had less time than I’d like to devote to Facebook.

But there are quite a few secrets you may not know about the lay of the FB land as well as common ettiquette you need to know to be able to succeed with your campaigns.

I’ve been working on some training materials based on my own experiences using Facebook but today I want to talk a little bit about a recent launch which was done by my friend Simon Ford in Australia.

A little background on Simon tells you he had a hospitality business for backpackers.  Basically he had little houses and small units which he rented out specifically to people who are backpacking through Australia. (sound familiar…targeting a smaller niche inside an already established hospitality market)

He did things slightly differently in that he had no on-site staff and only accepted people who were willing to stay for a minimum of 30 days.  Of course, the traditional hotel industry said his business would fail but instead it flourished.

So Simon has some experience doing event launches and running a successful business.  He’s now turned his attention to online and Web 2.0 marketing.

He really has a good grip on what FB marketing is all about… building relationships where people feel like they’re getting genuine value from you and not just being sold to with a blatant advertisement.

As my friend you may have even gotten my initial introduction which asks a little bit about you, then tells you a little bit about me, then includes an invite link to my group.

Simon advised me to take out the link because it seems disingenuous.  He said just put a little sentence telling them to request an invite to the group if they’re interested.

The whole point especially in the social media space is to give value before you ask for anything in return especially before asking them to buy your stuff.  There’s a reason it’s called a friend request and NOT a CUSTOMER REQUEST.

Simon did three main things in his launch and you probably recognize a few of these from Jeff Walker’s product launch formula.

1.  Did a massive build up of value for him and his product through the use of notes.  Simon’s FB Note

2.  Had a couple of videos made and promoted them. Sample Simon FB Video

3.  Formed a group specifically for the launch where people can gather and have conversation

He did a few other minor things like having his own blog, twittering, putting the videos on YouTube, and posting the links to his notes and videos through his FB news feed.

Facebook was his main marketing platform and in a little over two weeks he has sold over 1300 copies of his book Social Traffic which goes for $47.

One of the biggest things I talked to him about on our Skype phone conversations was the importance in the social sites of building deeper relationships with 10 to 20 people instead of attempting to reach the masses because it just doesn’t work in social media.

Social media is about individual or small group communication not Mass promotions.

Check out those links to see what he is doing and join the TaggZilla Facebook group here.

I do know he used only free tactics and will have more updates for you on the power of Facebook for your marketing coming soon.

Here’s a link to all his videos on FB and all his FB notes are here. Again, make sure you’re logged into your FB account for these links to work.

Originally posted 2008-12-01 16:09:18. Republished by Old Post Promoter

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