Facebook is really ADbook

Over the last 3 weeks I have spent a majority of my consultations talking about the power of social networking for business. It's not that my clients don't believe that it can be effective they just can't see how, they have no desire to sit for hours chatting to their highschool friends -- and what does that have to do with business anyway?


Well, from my own experience, for both the Entrepreneurship Centre and my own 2 businesses this is what has worked for me on Facebook alone:

• The Marketplace -- I bought a bed from one of my closest friends that I didn't even know she was selling! I bought it within 18 minutes of her posting it.
• The Calendar - We've listed workshops and special events and had enrollment due only to learning about it through facebook.
• Status Updates - whenever I use my status update to say I've uploaded new product to my jewellery website, my personal web stats go up and the first time I did that I sold a piece within 18 hours of posting it.
• Photo Album - again with my jewellery, sold a piece just by creating a photo album with images of my jewellery.
• Groups - After creating the Young Entrepreneurs of Kingston group we had over 20 members in the first day.
• Business Page - the Entrepreneurship Centre has a page, and without inviting anyone to become a 'fan' we have18 fans signed up. It's a great audience to use as a focus group when we need them.

And none of those things cost me a dime - well, ok the bed did! In total I probably spent about 15 minutes on Facebook to accomplish all of these things. Now what about paid options?

• Ads - Within 30 minutes of posting an ad that targeted 15-29 yrs olds in Kingston and Napanee only we had over 30,000 views of the ad and 18 click throughs! And do you know what it cost? $2.22. There's no other advertising medium out there charging rates that low with such a quick and high return.

With all these options with ADbook, I mean Facebook, make sure you business is taking advantage of this tool, just don't get swallowed up (too much) chatting with your highschool buddies!