A Guide to Facebook for Bloggers
Facebook has grown to become the largest social networking website in the world with well over 250 million members. It has become the networking tool of choice for individuals from varied backgrounds and industries, no longer just catering to high school and college students. Hence, it is not only a great networking platform, but also a fantastic marketing outlet for bloggers and web entrepreneurs.
There are two main ways that bloggers can market on Facebook. They can either create a Facebook group or a Facebook fan page.
A group allows bloggers to create a network where readers can become group members and write on the group’s wall or in its discussion threads, share links, upload photos, etc. As a group administrator, you can mass message all members and the messages that you send will appear in member’s Facebook inboxes. A fan page on the other hand simply acts as a profile for your blog; however, instead of having friends like a traditional profile, you have fans. The advantage to this is that you can mass message updates to all fans, while there is no way to instantly send a message to all your friends. However, just like a traditional profile, any updates you make will show up in your fans’ friend feeds.
Group or Fan Page?
I have conducted research on both via starting both a group and a fan page for my blog AM Beat . I invited around 1300 members to each and within a week attracted around 130 members for the group and just under 100 members for the fan page. I think the main reason for this is the fact that fan pages are still relatively new and Facebook members are more used to seeing and accepting group invitations over fan page suggestions.
Despite this, I still recommend creating fan page. Having a fan page allows you to update your own wall and have these posts appear on your fans’ friend feeds. This keeps your fans engaged with your page, is fantastic for branding, and can draw traffic if you link to previous posts.
Marketing a Fan Page
The easiest way to market a fan page is to suggest it to all your friends and then ask your closest friends and family to suggest the page to their friends. In addition, make a blog post inviting your readers to join your Facebook page.
You can join the John Chow page and the AM Beat page .
You can also use Facebook’s CPC advertising model to market your page though this is really not necessary.
Overall a Facebook fan page is a great way to build a community of readers and makes it easy for existing readers to share your blog with their friends, family, and other contacts. It is free to set-up, should not take more than a few hours work, and has an invaluable effect on blog branding.
This post was written by Aditya Mahesh, founder of AMBeat.com, a complete resource for entrepreneurs complete with advice articles, start-up profiles, interviews, news analysis, and more.
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130/1300? Seems kind of low to me, but maybe not. Kind of surprised at such a percentage. I currently have a fan page that I’m trying to build up, but it seems quite a bit harder than getting followers on any other platform. I think Facebook will continue to grow, so it’s good to start fan/group pages now and take advantage of that growth.
Jon’s last blog post: What’s The Best And Worst…
Facebook Groups have a lot of potential to attract more visitors to a blog or website.
“Members” invite other members and spread the word on a “virally way” only if they are very interested on the “group topic” and if they get a useful information.
The best way to increase the number of members in your facebook group is to have a base of members like 1000 – 2000 members first.
When you have this base of members is more easy to increase the “new members of your facebook group”.
When you have a lot of members in your group like 50000 – 100000 is more easy to promote your fan page with a link or event post in your facebook group.
Facebook takes more time to be productive than Twitter, maybe its the simplicity of Twitter but I prefer to get followers than FB friends, of course I do prefer to have them both.
Marketing Business Review’s last blog post: 3 Tips To Create Awesome Headlines That Sell
That wasn’t as complete as your meta title described! I think this could be done with much more detail!
I agree. This is a bit more like a guide for Dummies, or a Complete Idiots Primer. Not complete for sure.
Maybe you should have a do over!
Anyway I still think Twitter is better to market your way and a lot faster to build a list followers.
Marketing Business Review’s last blog post: 3 Tips To Create Awesome Headlines That Sell
This is a good introduction to facebook fan pages. I have been thinking about them lately and this will get me going in that direction. Thanks
Thanks for help, just created a Facebook fan page after reading this, also will be creating a facebook group, lets see which is more popular
James Hartje’s last blog post: Foster Wheeler: A Stock You Can’t Miss Out On
I learned something new. I did not know their were Fan Pages and Group pages. I plan to research this further… thanks!
Doug Dillard’s last blog post: Never Pay for Premium Web Hosting Again
Thanks John. I’m looking for this explanation all this time
Another Blogger’s last blog post: Blog Title-Meta Tag-Post Title-Content-Keywords
It wasn´t John who wrote this post. It is a Guest Post.
Marketing Business Review’s last blog post: 3 Tips To Create Awesome Headlines That Sell
I know about creating Groups and Fan pages. The problem is getting enough people to join it. When people see that the Fan Page doesn’t have many members, they won’t bother joining.
I’ll get around to creating a fan page. As soon as I have a marketing plan of how to get members to sign up for it.
Thanks for sharing that information. I just started my own blog at melindacurle.com.
Melinda’s last blog post: Develop a Thick Skin
This is a good guide for the Facebook beginners, but I think it could be more informative
I’m about to start this for both my main blogs. I hope it gets me more exposure.
Dean Saliba’s last blog post: Would You Like To Win A FlipHD Camera? Contest Has 10 To Give Away!
Many people don’t exploit Facebook and use it effectively. Just read you E-Book for the 2nd time got some great info that I keep applying to my website to make it better.
James Hartje’s last blog post: Foster Wheeler: A Stock You Can’t Miss Out On
thanks for this tips , really .
I agree that this isn’t very “complete”, but keep the Facebook tips coming. I like seeing different ways you connect with people.
Logan’s last blog post: Vegetarian Tips
Oh yes, facebook is one of those tools which you can use to increase your traffic by tonnes.
By the way, John Chow is losing the battle against Problogger…
Vote for him…
http://www.hiburrito.com/en/PollRotation.aspx?IdPoll=460
Saurabh’s last blog post: Sucess would come eventually
creating a facebook group or page is two of the ways to market your company brands, service products in Facebook.
Thanks for the tips by the way.
Proson
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FaceBook has immense possibilities if we can explore.
Shanker Bakshi’s last blog post: Playing With Emotions
Facebook definitely has good marketing potential, when used correctly. Direct Agents has recently made the same choice, preferring a Fanpage over a group. You can check it out here http://www.facebook.com/pages/New-York-NY/Direct-Agents-Interactive-Advertising/140063062488?created.
Thanks for the post, John.
I have tried FB group and fan page, but has not yet get into it seriously. There is also a blog network application in Facebook that I am seeing used by other bloggers. But this application can also be liked to your page.
Vic – BusinessAccent’s last blog post: The beginning of business wisdom
I like the idea of marketing or promoting my blog to facebookers. This article helps me a lot in implementing it. I will try to do it in the near future.
Facebook was the center for SPAM, but since Twitter took over, there are less spammy content on Facebook.
-Mike
Free Arcade Games’s last blog post: Perfect Shot
I got a facebook account but I am not active on it. I didn’t have the time to interact with my friends there.
Ridiculous blogger’s last blog post: Be happy with a drop domain
I have built a facebook fan page, thanks to you recommending to set up one, and I attract about 100 people every 2 days.
Igor
Mastermind Marketing Strategies’s last blog post: How To Monetize Social Media Without Pissing People Off
yes i use fan pages too, they are very useful
Thank for the positive feedback…10% conversion may be a bit low, but most people, especially if untargeted, are unlikely to join…that is why you need to reach a targeted audience
Aditya Mahesh’s last blog post: How to Keep your Business Technologically Relevant
Should mention that Facebook will ban you as a spammer if you send the same link multiple times etc. through your group page, actually for many different reasons. Only positive thing is that they don’t ban your IP first time around so you do get a second chance.
Tread lightly!
Crude Oil Trader’s last blog post: Halliburton 2Q Earnings Plummet, Beat Expectations
I have thought about starting an online money making group on facebook for awhile. It’s nice to be able to share with people that have similar interest. It’s a fun and easy way to promote your blog.
We can start an ad at facebook which has a direct link to fan page. I did it and it works.
Mairsh
Great post John. We have featured the article in our new post “The Best of the Blogosphere: July” http://blog.directagents.com/2009/08/the-best-of-the-blogosphere-july/
Keep up the great work!