I remember the first day I heard about Facebook. Not only was I overwhelmed with the thought of what I heard he could do or was doing, but when I looked at him I felt like I was way over my head.

Facebook has taken several different forms since that day and seems to evolve with the times. Today, there are more users trying to market their products or services through Facebook than ever before. In fact, just today I have seen several advertisements on the internet about social media and social media training.

Facebook’s growth is not going to stop. So if you’re not using Facebook to market your products or services, you need to get involved before you get left behind. Many tens of millions of users around the world, primarily in the United States, are frequent visitors to Facebook every day.

Your friends

The whole basis behind social networks is to be able to ‘live’ in the world of your friends. Years ago we could be nosy neighbors, maybe even read the gossip column in the local paper. Today, we want our friends to post what they’re doing at all times. I have several friends that I ‘lost touch’ with, but I still see almost daily updates related to what is going on in their life.

A basic model of locating friends within Facebook is that of your network. Where you live, what you do, where you’ve worked, and who your friends are can exponentially increase your number of relevant friends on Facebook.

your groups

As an internet marketer, you can use groups in a variety of ways. You can join groups to network with others who have the same thoughts, concerns, or needs as you (or can solve them…) or you can create groups for the same reasons. As far as I can tell, there aren’t much better ways in the world today to attract such a strong fan base.

It’s important to remember that as part of this aspect of social media, when you or a friend, or anyone else, joins a group that you’re ‘related’ to, you’ll get a note posted to your feed. It may not seem like a great feature, but imagine someone praised you or your product and now it instantly appears on 10,000 Facebook user pages.

Free and paid advertising

Facebook offers free and paid advertising methods. I have used both and on both I would give mixed reviews.

Free classified ads are great, especially when using an image. If you’re on the right networks, your ‘ad’ can appear in front of literally millions of people with just a few minutes of work under your belt. Really! This is where you want to offer a product for free, possibly to get the user initially interested.

Facebook paid marketing ads are available much like Google AdWords pay-per-click works. Facebook allows you to narrow down your target audience quite nicely, and since Facebook is a social monster by design, your ads are shown to an audience more in tune with what you’re offering.

I would encourage any business, whether owner or marketer, small or large, online or traditional, to take a look at internet marketing with Facebook. Our book ‘Facebooking Craze’ is free to download and will give you more information on social media marketing. Marketers interested in getting more online sales for their business should grab a copy at Facebook.com-ask.net