Tips for Starting your own Facebook Group

Here are a few tips for starting your own Facebook Group

1. Define Your Goals - Before you create your group decide on what your goals are. This might include building brand awareness, improving customer relations, and finding new customers. Make sure to keep your goals flexible because over time your group will evolve based on the interests of its members. Remember social networking is not about control, it’s about starting conversations and building relationships.

2. Name Your Group - What you name your Facebook group will immediately effect people’s perception of your group. I recommend including your company and/or product name, this will help ensure that everyone joining your group is actually interested in taking about your company or product. Something simple like “Company X Snowboards” will do. People will be turned off if they join a group named “Snowboarders of the World Unite” only to find out that it was a place created to only talk about Company X Snowboards. When it comes to social networking, full disclosure is always a good policy.

3. Build Your Friends Network - This will take some time, but I recommend scouring Facebook for people who have interests related to your product and services and invite them to be your friend and join your Facebook group. You will get a lot of rejections, but each person that accepts your friend invitation and joins your group will be genuinely interested in starting a relationship with you and your company.

4. Join Related Groups - One of the best ways to increase the size of your Facebook group, is to join and participate in other groups that are relevant to your company and products, and invites members of that group to come and join your group as well. Make sure you continue to participate in these groups, and avoid spamming unrelated groups.

5. Cross Promotion - If you are active in other social networks or forums, be sure to mention them on your Facebook group. You can also attract people to your Facebook group by linking to it from your webpage, your Myspace page, your forum posts, your blog, and don’t forget to send out a link to your e-mail list. Many people spend time developing multiple streams of internet marketing, but forget to cross promote them.

6. Keep the Conversation Going - Make sure you are active in your own Facebook Group. Don’t just start it and then walk away. Keep the conversation fresh and updated. Visit your group daily, and make sure you respond to everyone whether their comments are positive or negative. Your Facebook group could be a great place to find out about specific problems people have with your products and services and resolve them before they have a negative impact on your company.

7. Keep your Group Informed - People love hearing things first, so any new information you have about your company, your product, or your industry will make a great topic of discussion. A Facebook group is a great way to promote your products and services with a two way conversation without sounding like too much of a salesman. Just make sure you have permission before dishing out too many company secrets.

I’d love to hear other peoples tips on how they are using Facebook Groups to connect with their customers, please leave a comment below.

source: http://www.virtualmarketingblog.com/facebook-groups/

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How To Sync Your Twitter and Facebook Status Updates

Well, managing friends and social networks isn’t exactly convenient these days because there are so many online services and communities to help you stay in touch with and keep track of other people — Facebook, Twitter, Ning, Plaxo, FriendFeed, Loopt, Brightkite, GChat…the list just goes on and on. One thing you can do to make it all a little easier is to sync your Facebook and Twitter accounts so that the status messages you enter on one site show up at the other too. Here’s how to do it:

Syncing Facebook and Twitter from Facebook:

1) Search for “Twitter” in Facebook and add the first “Twitter” application that shows up in the search results. (It’s made by Twitter itself.)

2) Allow Twitter to access your profile.

3) Log into your Twitter account (via the Twitter application inside Facebook).

Now your Facebook messages will also show up in Twitter! But there’s one more step to send information from Twitter back to Facebook…

4) After you test out the Facebook to Twitter functionality by typing a message and clicking on “Update,” click on “Allow Twitter to Update Your Facebook Status”

5) Allow status updates from Twitter back to Facebook.

6) Check to see if it works, by logging into twitter.com from a different browser window and entering a status…

Well, as you can see below, it worked! If you’re an avid user of Twitter and Facebook and you’re finding it difficult to manage status updates, you might want to think about merging the two utilities…

source: http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/01/22/how-to-sync-your-twitter-and-facebook-status-updates/ More...

Facebook Layouts: How To Change Your Facebook Background

While Facebook has clearly become the ideal social network for those wishing to stay in touch with their friends, one thing has always been missing: the ability to change your facebook background with layouts.

Some protest, “But I don’t want any backgrounds–I don’t want to sacrafice speed and simplicity.”

That’s fine. You don’t have to change; however, the lack of ability to actually style your facebook experience is ridiculous. And, finally with PageRage, the ability to style your facebook is now achievable.

I’ve personally looked through a handful of solutions to styling your Facebook background, and without a doubt, PageRage is the best one. Why? Because with PageRage, your friends have a choice to either (i) view your background and install PageRage, or (ii) use Facebook the way they always have: in a plain way.

How PageRage Works:

With PageRage, you must install a Firefox or Internet Explorer extension/plugin that allows you to view stylized facebook backgrounds. After you choose a decked-out Facebook background, your friends can view yours, too; but they must also have the Firefox or Internet Explorer extensionfound here.

The steps to install PageRage are very simple:

1. Download the plugin for your browser (just click yes whenever the browser asks you a question–and yes, I’ve been using it for months PageRage is 100% safe. )
2. Make sure you’re logged into Facebook
3. Head back to PageRage and select your layout
4. Share with your friends: I’ve found this to be the most important step because your friends can view your styled-out profile only if they have downloaded the plugin, as well.

So there you have it. You can now surf and style out your Facebook profile.

So why am I writing about this?

I’ve always been a fan of letting your users enhance and customize their experience. The lack of ability to style out your Facebook profile should not be a decision made by a group of kids in Palo Alto; but a decision made by the user. Looking at the reverse side of things, like MySpace, so too shall the ability to make MySpace plain. I for one, don’t like how MySpace is overly customized in that the user isn’t allowed to turn off all of the designs. This is now possible, too, throughSanitySwitch

Best of luck, and have fun pimping out your profile! You can keep track of PageRage through their blog here.

source: http://venturedig.com/tech/facebook-layouts-how-to-change-your-facebook-background/

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14 Best Facebook Applications

1.) Top Friends – Tired of the old blue and white? Take back your profile with Top Friends! Now you can completely customize your Top Friends Profile!

2.) iLike – iLike lets you add music, playlists, and videos to your profile, dedicate songs to your friends, and see who’s going to what concerts.

3.) Call me on Skype – Skype is the coolest way to communicate on Facebook. Once you have your free Skype account, you can call your friends for free.

4.) Flixer – Tell your friends about the last movie you saw and keep track of what you want to see next. This application may contain content that is unsuitable for the general Facebook user.

5.) Likeness – Dare to compare. Find out who you’re like!

6.) Horoscopes – Add a RockYou horoscope to your page and get updates every-other-day covering all zodiac signs.

7.) Super Wall – Super Wall is the best way to find and share entertaining videos, pictures, graffiti, and more with your friends!

8.) Super Poke – Use Super Poke to… um… do stuff… to your friends.

9.) Moods – The original emoting app with the most users, emoticons, and ability to create your own emoticons straight from your webcam!

10.) Causes – Causes lets you start and join the causes you care about. Donations to causes can benefit over a million registered 501(c)(3) nonprofits and major presidential campaigns.

11.) Hot or Not – The FASTEST way to FIND HOTTIES on facebook! Have fun rating other facebookusers 1 to 10 and maybe meet some too ;).

12.) Nes Games – Over 3000 games in-browsing gaming. Rating system, reviews and chat included! And, completely free application!

13.) My Flickr – Flickr photos meet Facebook with the My Flickr app. With My Flickr, you’ll be able to display your Flickr Photos and Photosets to your Facebook friends for them to comment on.

14.) Bumper Sticker – Over 20 million Facebook users use Bumper Sticker to express themselves, entertain, and inspire one another by creating, collecting, and sharing stickers.

source: http://www.bashbosh.com/top-ten-best-facebook-games/ More...

Top 10 Best Facebook Games

• Tower Bloxx – Very addictive and fun flash based game on Facebook!

• Crazy Taxi – Drive your taxi as fast as possible while jumping over the traffic!

• Word Challenge – Word Challenge by Playfish is the addictive new word game featuring vivid animations, 40,000+ words, 20 vocabulary types.

• Bowling Buddies – Go bowling with your friends! Featuring stylish 3D graphics, easy controls, tons of achievements, customised characters and more!

• Who has the Bigger Brain – Think you are smart? Play this highly addictive brain training game to prove it!

• Mob Wars – An epic game of Mafia warfare, played on Facebook.Very popular and addictive game!

• Pet Society – In the world of Pet Society you and your pet can have a great time! You can play games, decorate your house and even bring gifts for your friends when you visit them.

• YoVille – YoVille is a world where you can buy new clothes for your player, purchase items for your apartment, go to work, and meet new friends.

• Kickmania – Kickmania! is an animated game. Low level violence – high level fun! Kick anyone’s butt and watch them fly… into a wall of bricks!

• Texas Hold’em Poker – On of the most popular overall Facebook games. Allows you to play Texas Hold’em poker with your Facebook friends and other real humans! Virtual money – not real one supported!

source: http://www.bashbosh.com/top-ten-best-facebook-games/ More...