Facebook is useless for small businesses, eMail works better.

Facebook is a pretty good way to increase mindshare for your brand or business. It is difficult sometimes (for me anyway) to wrap my head around how prevalent social media, and in particular FB, usage is.

(insert opinion> It used to be that if your business did not have a website, it was not considered an authentic business in the eyes of the folks who are never offline. Now, it is more like if you do not have a FB page or account which is reachable from your website, you are not a real business with an online presence.

FB has the deep pocket corporate money. It is already a huge ad serving platform. Big companies have paid to modify their prime time TV commercials to make them show their facebook pages. And new commercials are now produced making sure there is a place for the icons and the URL's.

FB is stable, (for the most part) used regularly by hundreds or millions of people around the world, and is being copied by Google (+1).

It is possible that FB is going away, just like anything else can disappear, but for righ tnow, it is a great place to build brand congruence.

I had at one time over 50,000 people in my "list" and now I only have about 10,000.

I never use the "list" as I have found that "lists" are not as effective as social media marketing.

email is like a twitter DM. As soon as they see the email is spammy and "make a million bucks by tonight" they glaze over and move on.

We have integrated all of our biz and ads (which we hardly spend any money on) INSIDE of the gaming/social media experience.

We built brand names and have built hundreds of thousands of gamers that use social media to connect with us. We built bots (like GiftAuto) that tap into our many facebook accounts and AUTOMATICALLY send our hundreds of thousands of friends we have their game gifts. And with the "free game gift" they are getting from us, is attached a little message about something we are promoting.

That is the exact detail of what we do that is "innovative" and advanced social media marketing. (of which people attempted to poke fun at me a few days ago)

The key to todays marketing is to engage the customer where they spend the most time online which is GAMING and SOCIAL MEDIA.

So set up a system where they are getting help in these 2 areas and slip them an ad when they get their free crap. Plain and simple.

OMG! They are there to play a game or enjoy their facebookness....OMG!

Huh?!?!?!? Nobody WANTS to be sold anything anywhere. That is a copout excuse.

I HIGHLY doubt that you will get the same delivery rate as aweber. Or have the same amount of analytics at your disposal.

And I don't get why people worry about price...you can get up to 25.000 subscribers for $130 a month, if you cant cover that cost from a list of 25k people you shouldn't be in this business...honestly.

Why worry with hosted scripts, having your ip blacklisted etc...when you can have a professional team working to keep you "solvent".

can you tell me more please

Good point T

Agreed. I think FB can do well for some niches, I'm sure there are companies killing it with FB. However, for the typical small business owner I don't think FB is the answer.

Thing is though, malls where designed for retail commercial use only, right from the bat. Hell, they even did things like removing carpeting because they thought the friction of walking on it would slow customers down.
Malls back then where build in remote areas accessible by car only, you would have to have at least a little buying mindset to go there.

The fact that people thought (think) they are great places to socialize is secondary to its intended purpose. With Facebook it is exactly the other way around. The purpose of FB is/was social behavior first and buying behavior became second to that.

But I am from a later generation so what do I know, you are probably right, maybe in 15years FB users will be grown a custom to buying things when they are actually wanting talk to their friends about the fight last night.

Hey Sparkle....don't forget to send us a piece of that $100 pie....GiftAuto automatically gets gifts from your cafe world friends and sends gifts back...

Had to plug it since you are a facebook game spender

What you mean by "it isn't used as a shopping platform now" :confused:

Take a look:
Facebook Apps for Ecommerce


3 Facebook Commerce Success Storie



and .. a "free WSO offer " brought to you by mashable
4 Ways to Set Up a Storefront on Facebook

Facebook is an invaluable resource for marketers, especially network marketers since it has millions and millions of users. You just have to find the right users to market to. You wouldn't talk about MLM to users that are members of a religious Facebook group. The same way you wouldn't try to sell a comb to a bald man like myself. Facebook success has also made it a Spammers paradise! It's all about developing relationships, the same you would do it with an email list. The money is still in the list but it is now in Facebook!

I have had a lot of success with Facebook for my offline business (Photography and Video). A good proportion of my new business comes through this, and recommendations from my followers. As with all social networks, it is important to build a relationship with your potential customers first, before trying to sell to them. Too many people can't wait to sell. Provide them with good content and they will follow. Same goes for Twitter.

Get them to your fanpage and from there to your website, where you can collect their email address and sell to them later. Have patience, Not everything on the internet works instantly!

You can build trust and known expertise on Facebook. Then when someone is ready to buy, your name will be top of mind. Or when someone asks for a referral your name (and Facebook fan page) will be top of mind.

Invaluable stuff.

It wasn't that many years ago when the naysayers were saying there was no money on the internet because people wanted everything for free. Oh how times change.

All comments have their points but for me I want both directly to buyers and to facebook contact list. I just launch a campaign on silver jewelry 3days ago on facebook and I received considerable reply to my campaign so I think it's not that bad.

Unless it has analytical stats and information i tend to do more research.

It is true that Facebook is not the best scene for eCommerce based business to live off of (not yet anyways). Facebook and most of the other social marketing sites help convert follower and fans into a way to control business image and get feedback, but social media is ever growing and evolving. I won't be surprised if in the near future this changes.

The four essentials about an online presence is a very well built Website, Social Marketing, SEO and advertisement (includes all types E-mail, PPC, billbaords, commercials, etc.)

You can use one without another but that will hinder the total progression of your business especially if your a small local business or just starting. It all comes down to conversion rates, advertisements -> audience -> Fans, Likes, Friends, Followers etc. -> Sales

As we all know E-mail advertisement has almost an equal conversion rate as Banner ads (2%-2.5% that is about 1 out of 50 reach out for more information)

To be viewed as a Email Spammer or a naturally grown socialized business that is the real question. I suggest looking at your targeted audience, see what means of communication will create a larger conversion rate and go from there.

YEAH! so the next time you are driving on the highway and see a billboard, raise your arm, shake your fist and DAMN them!

The nerve of those people trying to advertise to you when you are driving.

And those *******s trying to slip ads to you while you watch your favorite tv show. You don't watch tv to see stupid products! You watch tv to see your shows.

You should start a movement or something.