I think I made a breakthrough

I really dont get the idea of marketing to your friends on facebook. It is kind of annoying. I know this guy that all he does is tell what a wonderful life he has and how he is such a famous person and you should listen to his stock advice he randomly gives on FB (and gets paid for you to click thru). What he is not saying he is a welfare fraudster on the puter 24/7 looking to scam people however he can. Double annoying.

Just think about it. How many times have you actually fell for peoples FB marketing?

Ya I would probably stay away from annoying your friends with your website promotion. There are several ways to market on Facebook that are quite effective. Have you tried creating groups and fan pages for your website(s)? Also it helps to have a Facebook account that is geared specifically towards 1 niche. That way you are seen as an authority figure for that niche and you are more likely to achive more friends, fans, etc.

I don't see the harm in it a real friend wouldn't mind giving you a hand up
G.W.

The last thing I want is my friends trying to sell to me. I have talked to a few people about this and some of them get pretty upset by it. Its definitely not something I will be doing..

First rule of marketing is NOT to market stuff to your friends!

yeah, i'd say that 80 - 90% are friends i've made gaming or chatting through facebook chat and stuff, not lifelong friends or anything. But I'm not going to be asking them to buy from the site, that's just annoying... I agree.

I would just ask them to visit digg and dig for my site. Purely that. Alot of them know that I'm involved with IM, and some think it's cool, most don't understand it.

But I think I like the 'think small first' approach, and select a small group I've known for a while, and ask them to do me this favor, then slowly grow outwards, asking more and more people, but not the same ones' twice.

Thanks for the feedback...

Avoid your friends with your website promotion. Friends don't like to be sold to them. They are on social net working to have fun. There are several ways to market your niche on Facebook that are quite more effective than targeting your friends.

again.... not selling to my friends... asking my friends to click on something for me...

One of the things I've noticed personally as I've often posted things on my Facebook promoting internet things I'm up to, is that most of my friends (real life friends, not just followers) seem to have characterized me as a spam bot in their heads and don't really pay any attention to anything I write anymore. I guess it all comes down to what you plan on using Facebook for.

Do people not even read threads here? Every single one of you that have responded thinks that Timber is trying to "market" or "sell" to his friends.

It's blatantly obvious if you actually read his post, all he wants to do is ask them to Digg his website on Digg.com to get the traffic from that site.

If I'm not mistaken, that isn't selling or marketing anything to his friends, it's simply asking for a quick favor that will take them all of 10 seconds to visit Digg and click on a button.

It amazes me how many people can respond to a thread without even reading it and understanding the question the OP was asking...

First of all you must not approach your Social Networking Friend to help for your business if they do it by their own wish then it's ok. Sorry the idea they said as per my openion it's not ....

What an odd response.

I have a friend who's a network marketer. She linked from her website to her FB profile. All of us went to check it out. A few days later she took a before and after pic and explained how she was losing weight due to her "products"... whole bunch of us asked for more info.

Had another who mentioned how happy she was to have found a different network marketing co. Many of her friends wanted more details.

A couple of others either mention webinars they're on or add photos from conferences. No one minds.

I have a friend who's daughter was the 4 year old little girl who made it to the top 10 of America's Got Talent a few years back. Whenever he asks us to do something for her website or lets us know her latest album is on iTunes. We're all there.

Another friend is a musician who travels the world. Again he promotes his albums, website, etc directly to his friends on FB. We don't mind a bit. He's not pitching us from a group or Fan Page. We're friends.

My Pastor asks us to review his books on Amazon all the time. We're happy to do it.

Another friend updates us with her latest handmade jewelry. She has a Fan Page but sends the links to her personal friends too. We go check out her shop and buy gifts. No problem.

Another friend asked us to download her family business's new iPhone app. No big deal. We even bragged to other people that "a friend of mine created that".

Another friend works for the local Easter Seals and has on several occasions asked that we get involved in a fund raiser or event. And we do it.

I've never had a friend ask me to buy directly. They just mention what they're up to and I get to make the decision how far down the rabbit hole I care to travel.

Sure your friends may not be really close friends but you're also not asking them to die for you either. Shoot if someone can ask you to fight a Mafia War you can ask 'em to digg your site.

I don't even know you and I'd at least check it out to see if it's doable (not interested in helping to pull a scam). Now if you asked everyday or tried to hard sell... yeah, you'd be entering into the "gonna be ignored" to "becoming annoying" zones.

For the most part people are pretty level headed about stuff. If a friend asks for a favor and they have time they'll do it. No big deal. If most of them know what you're up to or you explain what the point is they probably won't care and just do it. That's the thing about having each other's back. Besides you never know if one of them will read your article and say "hmm, I'm thinking I need this" and you become their go to guy.

Rashell

Man telling your friends about your business in order to get money from them sucks. Create fake accounts and use a fb bot, then a fan page with a autoresponder sequence for the niche. Then start finding groups and adding friends. Then once you have alot of friends send them to your fan page. Put small headline on fan page with a link to your website. Lead them to a squeeze page. Grab their email and market to them.

This is an interetsing thread; i believe most Facebookers are so used to filtering out useless content that to ask in a status update please "digg" a website is harmless. If someone sees it between the farmville, mobwars and the "friend likes: Anything that forces me to like so i can see it" updates and "diggs" the site i dont see anyhting wrong with it.