Conversation Starters: Facebook

Last summer I started a MySpace account and a Facebook account. My goal was to experiment with these social networking services to promote HRmarketer.com and my children's book.

Less than 15 minutes after I registered with MySpace I was contacted by an attractive young woman wanting to be my "friend". That pretty much answered the question about how viable MySpace was going to be for me.

After that experience I just let my Facebook account sit, incomplete, with no intention of ever using it.

My how things have changed. I can't stay away from my account today and everyday I'm connecting with friends, family and business contacts and evangelizing HRmarketer.com and SeniorCareMarketer.com and my personal interests as well.

Facebook has grown exponentially over the past 12 months, and while there is still debate over whether or not Zuckerberg and company can create a profitable long-term business model, HR suppliers can use Facebook to promote your organizations.

When you look at "the race to mass market chart" from the recent Fortune article, it's amazing how quickly Facebook (and social networking in general) has been embraced by the market. And the biggest growing demographic now is the 30-year-old+ group.

Here are the 10 things marketers and PR pros in the HR marketplace need to know about Facebook:

• It's quick and easy to sign up for an account at http://www.facebook.com/
  
• Unlike other social networking services, you can only set up one personal profile (the Facebook user agreement allows only one profile per person and they are not to be used for business entities). New enhancements coming to Facebook will allow you to keep separate groups of friends, family and business contacts.
  
• How much information about yourself you want to share in your profile is up to you (personal, business, photos, videos, etc.), but if you're going to use it for business networking, then at a minimum include that information.
  
• Use the Facebook Find Friends search tools to connect with folks. Or you can do Google searches for folks you want to connect with. Lots of us HR marketplace folk already there along with journalists and editors.
  
• Adjust your privacy settings to decide who sees what in your profile.
  
• Associate yourself with networks. Networks can include a school, work place, city or region.
  
• Create a Facebook Page for your company (like Effective Resources Inc. and Salary.com – if you've got one too up send me the link). Facebook Pages were introduced to allow businesses, products, celebrities and other entities to have a presence on Facebook and connect with consumers.
  
• Create a Facebook Group for your company (like our Human Resource Vendor Group – 122 members and growing – and our Human Resources Media Group). Facebook Groups are centered on a common interest that people share like a business, cause, hobby or activity. Examples include marketing and PR professionals, human resource vendors, recruiters and practitioners of social media to name just a few.
  
• Create and promote business events on Facebook (like the HR Technology Conference and Expo). This is an excellent way to reach out to HR folk, vendors, fans, friends and users on Facebook to let them know of interesting things coming up. Ideal events to promote on Facebook include trade show special events, webinars, lectures, product launches or any other gathering – both live and online – where people can gather, socialize or learn.
  
• And if you're interested, Facebook Ads allow businesses to advertise on a "pay-per-click" basis and target their ads in a variety of ways (similar to advertising on a search engine – iCIMS advertises this way for example). Additionally, Facebook ads can have personalized aspects included that incorporate your page fans and group members in them to lend a more personal touch to those that view them.
  

This is just the beginning and the social media marketing and PR power that Facebook will continue to yield is boundless. As I wrote in my Twitter post, we're working on a new eBook tentatively titled "Conversation Starters" that's all about social media marketing and social networking for the HR space, and Facebook will definitely be a part of that.

Our goal is to keep it simple, succinct and strategic for you all. There is already a butt-load (yes, I actually wrote butt-load yet again) of best practices information on the street about Facebook and other social media services, like latest one I found from The Advance Guard called About Face. There's also the Facebook Pages Insider's Guide and the Why Facebook blog.

There are a wealth of opportunities for marketing and PR on Facebook, and many applications to enhance ones' personal profile and business page – far too many to go into detail here. Spend some time searching for businesses similar to yours and visit their pages to see what kind of information, applications, events, etc. they include and how they seem to be utilized by fans. Browse through the applications on Facebook to see if any would be useful or beneficial to your fans. The help section on Facebook can answer many questions you may have and assist you in discovering opportunities you may not have been aware of.

But most importantly, be trustworthy and transparent in your networking, marketing and PR – be a part of the HR marketplace conversation.

Friend me and let's get to networking! (It doesn't matter that friend isn't a verb. It is in Facebook.)

Post by Kevin Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn)