social marketing campaigns - advice from Facebook?

I recently read an article on TechCrunch that Facebook provided its current Page holders an “Insider’s Guide to Viral Marketing”.

The Guide provides viral marketing guidance through two Facebook services: advertising on Facebook and creating Pages. I have to admit, at a personal level, I’ve always been very skeptical of advertising initiatives on Facebook. I find it invasive and a nuisance. I typically ignore it. Meh. Lately, I’ve seen a lot of my friends becoming “fans” of certain Pages. They mostly relate to people (musicians, authors, comedians, etc.) or apparel (e.g. a new clothing line). I see it as just another way for them to define themselves, personally, in this new medium. One of my good friends, let’s call him Greg, recently went to the extreme and posted the following status update: Greg is gonna puke if he gets one more “someone is a fan of…” notifications. Who the hell cares????

However, we’re a small business and we’re always thinking about better ways to get the message out there and you can’t deny Facebook’s 70 million active users. So, I decided to read the Insider’s Guide to see how I could use it for a products/services business. The guide suggests Page success is in constantly highlighting new information through your page (this will then be seen on your fans news feeds); you are encouraged to use photo’s, video’s and events to keep the audience engaged and return to the page; and you increase the social influence of a story/page as people become fans and their friends see they are fans. OK, other than the last one, isn’t this what your corporate website should be doing? Yes, they can click though the Page to your corporate website but now you are maintaining more than one online presence which is time consuming for a small business.

I see the benefit of more exposure and we’ve talked about creating consumer trust as a key element to e-commerce so what a better way then through friends and family recommending your business in casual conversation, or, in this case Facebook? When I looked at it this way it made sense. I created a Page for Business Ready (using the guidance provided by the Insider’s Guide) and hope to sign up my friends who are genuinely interested in what is going on with the company as we launch in our inaugural year online. Let’s see if it in turn leads to their friends (who I may not know personally but are interested in starting their own tech company) becoming fans. And, as for Greg? Oh yeah, I’ll be asking him to become a fan. Only because I’m trouble.

Build it and they will come? Let’s see.