Ian G Brown.com

Facebook is a great place to network for business purposes. However, I continually see people making the same mistakes. I don’t want you to be one of them.  

However, before we discuss four of the mistakes, you need to understand the etiquette on Facebook, and indeed, on all social media forums.

The definition of ‘networking’ is ‘the cultivation of productive relationships for business’. Yet when I go to Facebook, many times I see network marketers “spamming” by ramming their links and business opportunities down their visitor’s throats. People’s walls are filled with them telling you how they can help you make a million dollars if you just click on the link. It is just not how it is done.  

You need to be adding value to your visitor’s lives.  People like to connect with and follow people that help them and give them information that will contribute to improvement in their life.  Helping someone is not necessarily linked to selling them something. Successful entrepreneur’s ‘give’ greater value than the price they ask for their goods or services.  

To illustrate, consider one of your mentors. Does he or she ‘give’ to you by way of information and support? Or are they always trying to sell you the next tool or piece of software? I expect it is the former. These are the people that we are ‘attracted’ to. So you need to come from a position of giving too.  

Trust is VITAL! You must build the trust of your prospects before you do anything else. Your prospects need to be confident that they can trust you to guide them in the right direction. People don’t join companies, people join PEOPLE.  They are attracted to people they know, like and TRUST. And once that trust is in place, some may even do business with you.    

You build trust by ALWAYS acting with integrity and authenticity in everything you say and do, and by following through. So if you say that you are going to send someone an email by 5PM today, then make sure you do. If you don’t, immediately you have lost their trust by failing to follow through.  

Having defined the platform from which we must communicate with our clients and prospects on Facebook, let’s look at four areas where people fail to meet the standard. 

 1.         Sending Friend Requests Without An Accompanying Message.

The first thing people look at when they receive a friend request from you, before they accept it, is whether there is an accompanying message. Would you walk up to someone at a party, give them your business card, and then turn and walk away without saying a word? Of course not! However, this is exactly what you are doing when you send a “naked” friend request on Facebook.  

You need to send a short message of introduction with the friend request. For example, comment on their photo or ask a question. But DO NOT talk about your opportunity. Basically, you look to start a friendly conversation. (And when you receive such a friend request, DO NOT respond with your link! Respond in a friendly way by answering the points put in the friend request to you and asking your own questions)

2.         Leaving Your Profile Empty

After seeing the accompanying message on the friend request, the next thing people look at is your profile. You NEED to fill this in properly. Firstly, you need to include up a good picture of yourself. One where they can see your eyes and with you looking positive and happy. Pictures of you in a holiday setting or in a friends/family setting are great to have on your profile. Do not have a picture of your opportunity company logo or something else impersonal. The photo MUST be personal. It is a large part of your personal branding. Next, write something about your interests. Then you need to write about yourself in the “About Me” section. Make sure you write showing your personality and make it interesting. So write briefly about yourself, what you have been doing professionally and what you are doing now and why, without dropping company names and links. There is room for that elsewhere. Having a finished profile is important and it is the first step to developing a relationship.

3.         Failing To Network

The purpose of Facebook is Social Networking. Yet I see many people on Facebook who don’t engage in networking at all. They do not engage in conversation, they do not try to connect with their Facebook friends, they just pitch their opportunity. Before you do anything else, you should be trying to create relationships with people. You need to engage people in conversation so you can ascertain what their issues, concerns and problems are. Only having defined that, are you in a position to provide solutions.

Clearly, you cannot engage in a personal conversation with all your Facebook friends. So you work with a few at a time. However, all your posts should always be offering value to your Facebook friends. You can post links on your wall to interesting articles, posts or videos you’ve seen. You can also make comments on interesting posts of others. Another way of servicing a multitude of your Facebook friends is by creating your own group and using it to post valuable information and messages.

4.         Broadcasting Messages

Some people send out link laden messages to a large list of addresses. This practice would be fine if they knew everyone in the list personally, but in all likelihood, they don’t. This is in effect spam to some. Doing this might get the odd lead, but in fact it repels more people than it attracts. It annoys me and other people have told me it annoys them too.

If you want to send out messages to a large list, then start a Facebook Group. You then send out invitations to your Facebook friends to join the group. The recipients of this invitation then join the group if they wish. Then when members receive a message from the group, it is fine with them because by joining, they have given you permission to send them group related messages.

In summary, please remember that Facebook is all about networking, interacting, connecting and forming relationships with people. You need to do this before you do anything else.

From little things big things grow…

P.S. I’d love to get your feedback on this post today, so leave me a comment down below. And if you enjoyed this post, make sure you share it with your Twitter followers by ‘tweeting’ it using the re-tweet button. Thanks so much!

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