I got my first big burst of traffic in October 2007, when an employee discovered Gannett Blog and posted a note to a Gannett group on Facebook. Overnight, daily visits soared to . . . eight! (For comparison, we recorded more than 6,200 yesterday alone.) I was sold on social networking as free source of marketing for my tiny venture. Author Seth Godin described this in his book, Small is the New Big, when he wrote: "Small means that you will outsource the boring, low-impact stuff like manufacturing and shipping and billing and packing to others, while you keep the power because you invent the remarkable and tell stories to people who want to hear them."
Now, as I launch my first for-profit blog, I'm using Facebook daily to gather artwork and other content that its users make available free. For example, one of my Ibiza friends, Paulo, used his account to publicize a promotional party for the opening of producer Baby Marcelo's The Face of Ibiza opening this Saturday. While blogging about the TV division wage cuts early today, I grabbed the event's promotional poster -- it was a .jpeg image (left) -- from Paulo's feed, and posted it to my new site. Paulo's employer, Angelo, got free publicity. I got free art. (And the local newspaper and cable TV outlets -- well, now you see why layoffs are on the horizon again.)In the middle of all that, I posted an update to my Facebook page: "Covering a sudden flood of news on my other blog!" Within minutes, I started getting a steady stream of "likes your link" acknowledgements. That was a strong reminder that Gannett Blog readers already expect more from me on Facebook. So, please join me there.
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Hi Jim,
ReplyDeleteYou need to set yourself up with a page on Facebook, which is an option for public figures, businesses, etc.
This way, people can become fans of your page and you can do status updates that will show up in your fans' news feeds.
No offense, but I am not going to "friend" you on Facebook. I reserve, and many people do, Facebook for my actual family and friends. I put up pictures of my kid on there and don't want to mix work and pleasure.
I used LinkedIn for work. I also use Twitter for work.
Facebook, though, is not somewhere that I want strangers peeking. I use the heaviest privacy settings and nothing about myself is visible, not even a portrait shot, without friending me.
You will get a lot of followers, though, if you set up a fan page.
It's a better option than creating a group because you can broadcast updates. With a group, people have to visit the group page to read the messages, which few people both with.
Here is the link to make a facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/FacebookPages
Sorry, I have to laugh like hell at posts like this. You want absolute privacy? Stay off FB and e-mail photos and/or updates to a family/friends e-mail group.
ReplyDelete9:18: You must not be aware of how Facebook settings work: I do have privacy. The only people who see my photos are my friends. The only people who see my updates are my friends. Not friends of friends, not strangers. Friends only. Friends that I pick. It's not a problem.
ReplyDeleteJim is NOT my friend, so he shouldn't expect people to friend him.