There is no questions that Facebook is the largest social media site worldwide.  No matter for social or professional purposes, Facebook offers a vast network for making the right connections.  As the founder of NY Entrepreneurs Business Network, I always ask myself this question – “How could small business owners leverage Facebook in terms of finding correct prospects and establishing long-lasting relationships?“  Well, now there is a Facebook app called FavRav that can get the job done hassle-free for everybody.

 

Here is how it works.  FavRav lets friends refer each other to their favorite local businesses. The application simultaneously creates an opportunity for small businesses to boost their own word-of-mouth advertising. Now dentists, realtors, mechanics, travel agents, hair stylists and thousands of other local vendors finally have an easy and affordable way to let their customers promote them, and maintain a presence in online conversations between Facebook friends.

“In order for any small business to effectively market on social networks they must have credibility and reach.” says FavRav Co-Founder, Bill Manos. “A referral is worth 100,000 ads, and FavRav gives conventional word-of-mouth referrals a place to live online, so friends can easily share the local businesses and professionals they themselves trust most.”

For local businesses, all that’s required is a FavRav profile. They would then ask current customers, clients, or patients to create a referral using the free FavRav app. The end result is an organic, customer generated referral that’s posted to that person’s Wall and instantly seen within a circle of Facebook friends. The post also contains a link to the company profile which lists contact details and additional company information.

Bill Manos, the co-founder, is currently an active member at NY Entrepreneurs Business Network.  We hope to spread the word about FavRav to help our group members find more clients by using social media.  After all, the rapid expansion of our network during its 1st year has proven the prowess and effectiveness of social media as a marketing tool.  If you’re interested in checking out more details about this app, go to favrav.com or facebook.com/FavRav.

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Pic Originated by Steve Holzner

Facebook is the biggest social network in the world. Yet what can we do to benefit from this network as far as business growth is concerned? I was asked this question a lot. According to some people, there seems to be a lack of means to promote a business on Facebook compared to LinkedIn or Twitter.

Well, for a starter, I have 7 pieces of advice for business owners and entrepreneurs when it comes to growing a business on Facebook. Here they are.

1. Fan Page

Facebook just hit 350 million users, according to its founder Mark Zuckerberg. Imagine what would happen if your business could tap into this big user pool. Is there a better way to integrate your brand with Facebook?  Of course there is.  Facebook fan page would be my answer. To set up a page for your own business, follow this instruction guide on Facebook. (Recommended reading: Social Media 101 – The Facebook Guide)

2. Posterous

I know there are many people who own multiple Facebook Fan Pages.  If that’s the case, they may spend lots of time posting things daily across all their Facebook pages, including their own profiles. Actually, this is precisely what has discouraged many people from setting up their business pages on Facebook. To solve this problem, choose another social networking platform that allows you to post on different social networking sites once and for all.  My personal favorite is Posterous.  You can read this article to learn more about Posterous.  Of course, there are other services such as TweetDeck or HootSuite that let you do the same thing. These services are hugely valuable for people who do not have plenty of time managing their social profiles.

3. Events

I’ve written many articles previously about how to promote and organize successful events. If you are an entrepreneur, don’t underestimate the importance of promoting your business offline. It could be through a Webinar or an actual face-to-face meeting. In addition to the Facebook Fan Page, the event feature probably is another thing I use most frequently on Facebook.  To check out how I promote my event on Facebook, click here.

4. Facebook Ads

Compared to other forms of advertising, Facebook ads have their unique features. To name a few, here are three of them:

• Reach over 350,000,000 active Facebook users.
• Attach social actions to your ads to increase relevance.
• Choose to pay per click (CPC) or impression (CPM) in your local currency, very cost effective.

Most importantly, Facebook ads go hand in hand with Facebook Event and Fan Page. Your event or fan page can reach much broader demographics with the help of Facebook ads.  It’s just another effective way to market your business.

5. Marketing/Promotional Tool

There is an app called “Social RSS,” which allows you to add your blog/favorite RSS feeds to your wall, boxes tab or a dedicated tab on your profile or Facebook Page. Basically, if you blog about your business or your entrepreneurial venture, then you have every single reason to integrate Social RSS to your Facebook profile.  It makes pure sense.

6. Relationship Management Tools

I. Polls – You can tap the pulse of your potential customers with custom polls for your Facebook Pages! Polls are easy to create and even easier to analyze, with beautiful graphs showing user responses across demographics.

II. Testimonials – Use Testimonials to gather your personal, professional and academic references in one place from your customers, friends, and co-workers.  This is a powerful marketing/relationship management tool.

7. Final Advice

While you may spend time targeting Facebook users not in your network, don’t forget to leverage your existing Facebook connections. The rule of thumb is update your online status often enough to attract people’s attention. One tip I have is to link up your Twitter account with Facebook profile to update your Facebook wall whenever you tweet. Spread your Facebook fan page link in different places, such as Google Profile, your Email signature section, & your business cards.

What advice do you have for our audience when it comes to Facebook business strategies?

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Facebook is probably the most widespread social media network today in the world.  The social media site has more than 300 million active users. According to Facebook Statistics, more than 8 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide).  That said, Facebook is also the biggest time waster, because most people get on Facebook for social purposes.  Both you and I know how fast time flies by when you are on Facebook.  This article is an introductory guide for Facebook users of all levels, with an emphasis on some basics that are especially included for Facebook beginners.

Facebook Insider’s Guide to Viral Marketing (From TechCrunch)

Facebook 101

How to Use Facebook for Business (PDF File)
From HubSpot: This is a complete Facebook guide book for complete Facebook newbies. This guide gives you more tips and tricks on using Facebook to market your business and drive more inbound traffic and leads.  It’s broken down into three segments: 1. Introduction to Facebook; 2. Setting up your Facebook profile; 3. Using Facebook for business.

A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook
From Master New Media: Michael Pick has done an excellent job in covering the nuts and bolts of Facebook to help all beginners speed up their learning curve.  The article covers the following points: 1. What the Facebook buzz is all about; 2. The core social networking features on Facebook; 3. Facebook’s rich content aggregation; 4. Why people love Facebook; 5. Why people hate Facebook; 6. A handful of must-have Facebook applications to get you started.

How to Use Facebook: 5 Tips for Better Social Networking
From ReadWriteWeb: This article aims to illustrate how to use Facebook effectively for social activities. As I have already pointed out, Facebook can become a huge time waster if you don’t learn these skills covered by Richard MacManus.

How to: Use Facebook for Professional Networking
From Mashable: A great Mashable how-to tutorial in the Facebook category. The author, Boris Epstein, covers the following aspects for business people on Facebook: 1. Setting up your Facebook for business networking; 2. Using Facebook groups for networking; 3. What to look for in a professional group; 4. How to participate in groups.

A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook for Non-profits
From Wildapricot: Although the title says it’s a beginners’ guide for non-profits Facebook users, three quarters of this article have nothing to do with non-profits. In fact, the author has covered most fundamental aspects a beginner needs to know about Facebook.  If you do not know what Facebook message is or how to add friends on Facebook, this article is a must-read.

The Updated Unofficial and Smartass Guide to Using Facebook
From Sugarrae: Sugarrae is Thesis Wordpress theme user.  I have included her thesis tutorials in several previous articles (here and here).  It just occurred to me that she’s also written a great post on Facebook.  Again, she covers all the fundamentals for Facebook users at the beginning level.  If you haven’t heard of Facebook Wall, this article is right for you.

Facebook Pages vs Facebook Groups: What’s the Difference?
From Mashable: As the title indicates, this is, apparently, an article about Facebook Pages and Facebook Groups.  When I first started out using Facebook, I have to admit I was very confused between groups and pages.  Now when I read Howard Greenstein’s article, it makes a lot of sense to me.  Therefore, I would recommend it to any Facebook newbies.

4 Reasons Why Marketers Should Choose Facebook Pages Over Facebook Groups
From InsideFacebook: To be honest, I don’t have any Facebook groups set up yet.  But I do have two Facebook Fan Pages (here and here).  In this article, Jessica Lee explains the rationale behind the theory “why pages are better than groups for marketers.”

100 Ways You Should Be Using Facebook in Your Classroom
From OnlineCollege: This is definitely a kick-ass tutorial.  The article demonstrates how to engage students in a manner that might not be entirely possible in traditional classroom settings, a good read for parents, educators, and students.

My Favorite 26 Facebook Applications for Business People
From WebStudio13: In this day and age, business owners must learn how to grow their business by leveraging social media sites. No doubt about it. In this post, the author shares his favorite 26 Facebook apps which allow better task management and more efficiency for business purposes.

Other Useful Articles and Resources about Facebook

• Facebook for Business SuperGuide – From Interactive Insights Group
• Facebook Marketing: Articles and Resources – From Dosh Dosh
• The Facebook Marketing Toolbox: 100 Tools and Tips to Tap the Facebook Customer Base – From Inside CRM

Great Websites about Facebook-related Subjects

• Check Facebook
• Inside Facebook
• All Facebook

How did you learn about Facebook?  Feel free to share your resources with us.

To ensure you receive future series on Social Media 101, please don’t hesitate to subscribe to our feed.

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FacebookFail

Honestly, I can’t believe I am writing a post about this. Hey, what can I do? Being a social media enthusiast and a blogger, feels like it’s my duty to offer my share of advice, especially when hearing some noises on Twitter earlier about Facebook being down. People are still talking and whining about it. Truthfully, even though you are a die-hard Facebook fan, is it really that big a deal? OK. Let me share 6 things I was doing earlier that allowed me to essentially forget about Facebook while maintaining my productivity. I want to start with 4 symptoms first that tell me Facebook is not working.

Symptom 1 - My whole computer screen is blank when I try to log on to my Facebook account.

Symptom 2 – If I am fortunate to log on to my Facebook frontpage, the loading time is extremely slow.

Symptom 3 - I have a Facebook fan page named “NY Entrepreneurs Business Network.” When I try to share the event on the fan page with my Facebook friends, it doesn’t appear to work. In other words, I can’t post those events on my Facebook wall.

Symptom 4 – The annoying Facebook notification appears to malfunction. For example, it always tells me someone has posted a new link on my wall while, in fact, my Facebook wall is being very quiet (maybe everyone else was enjoying a good Friday-night movie).

So, what happened to your Facebook? Did you have any symptoms?

Here are my 6 remedies/the things I was doing when Facebook was down:

1. Check Twitter to see what other people say about Facebook. Use the hashtag #FacebookFail. Haha… it would be funny to see it becoming a trending topic on a Friday night.

2. As a matter of fact, I was uploading some events for my entrepreneur group. Just so you know, I am an organizer of a NYC entrepreneur group. We have expanded to over 1,300 people now. I’ve written some nice posts about it in the past. Click here to check them out.

3. Stupidly, I was even trying to figure out where my computer went wrong. Lessons learned. Next time, if Gmail or Facebook ceased to work again, the first thing I would do is to check Twitter.

4. Answering emails. Due to the hectic schedule in the daytime, I usually answer the majority of my emails at night. This has kept me busy for a while earlier.

5. Writing a blog post about it. I realized just half an hour ago maybe it’s time to offer some productivity tips. I wrote a previous post about 7 Things to Keep You Productive When Your Internet Goes Down. But that was a while ago. Call me crazy. Now it’s 1:07 am (EST) on a Saturday morning. I am writing a post about Facebook being down.

6. Final word of advice – Maybe it’s god’s way to tell you to slow down with your social media activities. Have some rest…. For me, perhaps it’s not a bad time to organize my weekend calendar.

That is it for now. Hope these 6 tips can give you some ideas about how to stay productive without Facebook. What did you do earlier when Facebook was down?

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Facebook is the biggest social networking site in the world.  The site now has more than 250 million active users, and more than one million developers and entrepreneurs from more than 180 countries (Facebook Statistics).  Most importantly, Facebook is free.  In the Web 2.0 era, business owners must learn how to grow their business by leveraging social media sites (See Why).  No doubt about it.  In this post, I will share my favorite 26 Facebook apps which allow better task management and more efficiency improvement for any businesses.

11 Social Networking Apps

These 11 apps enable small business owners to integrate other social networking tools into the Facebook platform.  The result of the integration is an even stronger and more powerful social networking environment which breeds more opportunities for business success.

1. YouTube Video Box (907,592 monthly active users) – Share your favorite videos on your profile and Facebook pages. Easily find videos, add them to your favorites and share with friends. Additional features include viewing your friends’ favorite videos and synchronizing your YouTube.com account.

2. Twitter (284,681 monthly active users)  –  See what you and your friends are up to on Twitter and update your Twitter status, right from Facebook!

3. Social RSS (209,218 monthly active users) – Social RSS allows you to add your blog/favorite RSS feeds to your wall, boxes tab or a dedicated tab on your profile or Facebook Page. It updates automatically and lets your readers subscribe to the feeds if they wish!

4. Yoono (46,694 monthly active users) – Yoono allows you to connect to all your social networks and instant messaging services in one easy to use browser sidebar. Get all your friend updates wherever you are on the web and update your status across Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and more.

5.  Social Chat Rooms (20,026 monthly active users) – Social Chatrooms is an application that Connects users from different Social networks and allows them to chat with each other directly from their profiles.

6.  Eventbrite (15,541 monthly active users) – Eventbrite gives you all the online tools you need to bring people together for an event and sell tickets.

7. Citysearch (12,536 monthly active users) – Use your Facebook user identity to rate and review local businesses on Citysearch.com

8.  The Visa Business Network (5,824 monthly active users) – A place that can help you and your business succeed. Connect with other small business owners, learn ways to manage your business more efficiently, and grow by reaching the millions of potential customers on Facebook.

9.  My LinkedIn Profile (5,288 monthly active users) – Promote your LinkedIn account with a badge on your Facebook profile.

10. MySpace (3,948 monthly active users) – MySpace application lets you add your MySpace profile in Facebook. Share your MySpace profile, friends, music, public comments and much more with your Facebook friends.

11. Tag Biz Business Network (541 monthly active users)  – Business networking is an essential, but often time consuming, activity. Tag Biz is designed to network for you, it will save you time and expand your business network. Anyone who is interested in doing business on Facebook should use Tag Biz.

11 Productivity-Boosting/Task-Management Apps

These 11 business apps will essentially allow you to manage your tasks and collaborate with others more efficiently, thereby, drastically boosting your productivity!

1. Links (Default Facebook App) – With Facebook Posted Items, you can easily share anything on the internet by posting it to your profile including websites, blogs, videos, and songs, as well as content on Facebook, like profiles, photos, notes, groups, and events. I regularly post my blog posts and Meetup event announcements to my Facebook profile.  It has been working well for my own businesses.

2. Slide FunSpace (8,582,043 monthly active users) – Over 6 BILLION videos and more exchanged on Slide FunSpace! Find & share videos, posters, graffiti, and more with all your friends!

3. Promotions (454,471 monthly active users) – Promotions for Fan Pages is a Facebook verified application for companies & agencies to run branded interactive promotions on Facebook Fan Pages. Promotion formats include: sweepstakes, contests, coupon giveaways, instant wins, gifting, quizzes, etc

4. Memorable Web Addresses for Profile, Page or Group (133,742 monthly active users)  - This application allows you to create a short, easy to remember personalized web address for your facebook profile, group or page. You can share the link with other people so they can go straight there.

5. Testimonials (71,104 monthly active users) – Use Testimonials to gather your personal, professional and academic references in one place from your customers, friends, and co-workers.

6. Polls (13,781 monthly active users) – Tap the pulse of your potential customers with custom polls for your Facebook Pages! Polls are easy to create and even easier to analyze, with beautiful graphs showing user responses across demographics.

7. Doodle (11,509 monthly active users) – Doodle takes the pain out of finding the right date and time for a group of busy people to meet. With three simple steps you can create a poll and find a suitable date. Doodle closes the gaps between calendars. Facebook members can use Doodle for free and can invite participants inside and outside Facebook to meeting polls.

8. Skype Me (6,085 monthly active users) – Skype is a free VoIP service that will bring you closer together to your friends. It’s a very efficient tool.  You can make calls from right inside Facebook.

9. Business Cards (1,598 monthly active users) – Business Cards will help you network better on Facebook. Personalize your card and attach it to your Facebook messages! View postings and network with others!

10. Calliflower- FREE Conference Calls (570 monthly active users) – Calliflower makes it easy for people to plan, participate and follow-up on engaging and meaningful conference calls that bridge business and social networks.

11. My Money (266 monthly active users) – Manage your finances right from your Facebook profile, simply and securely! View account balances, transfer money, review histories, and more. Many layers of security protect your information, so that you, and only you, can access your account.

4 Other Useful Business Apps for Future Entrepreneurs

These 4 apps will help create future leaders in the business world.  The aim of these apps is to create a virtual competitive business environment for practicing and skill development.

1. weRead (Books iRead) (389,544 monthly active users) – weRead lets you share your bookshelf. See what other business leaders are reading. Millions of books and reviews.  As a young entrepreneur myself, I’ve realized it is not the money I can make, but the skills I can develop and the person I’m becoming during the process of achieving my goal that matter the most to me.  Reading good books everyday is a must for success in the business world.

2. kaChing – Stock Investing App (27,073 monthly active users)  – This is an awesome tool for investors/traders.  You can try your hand at investing on the web’s most realistic virtual investing environment.  This app lets you:

• Compete with your friends to see who’s top dog
• Learn how the best investors make their money
• Access top-rated investing ideas

3. Friends Finance (5,637 monthly active users)  - Start your own company, hire your friends, and make virtual millions! Use your fortune to buy awesome gifts for your friends. A super fun and addictive business game to play!

4. Thirty Day Challenge (5,468 monthly active users) – In a nutshell… The Thirty Day Challenge is about making your first $10 online. The entire training program is free for all Facebook users.

Note: All apps are ranked according to the number of its active members (as of 8/22/2009), its ratings and reviews.

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It’s been officially confirmed by both companies that the world’s largest social network company Facebook is acquiring the social media feed aggregation site FriendFeed.  What does this all mean?  Well, according to Robert Scoble, coauthor of the book “Naked Conversation” and a strong advocate for Friendfeed, “(It’s) a huge win for both companies.”

If you are an average social network user, chances are you probably haven’t heard of FriendFeed.  As a Friendfeed user, you can set up an account and then integrate all of your different social media sites, such as your Wordpress blog, your twitter feed, or the story you’ve voted on Digg.  According to Friendfeed, “It’s a service that makes it easy to share with friends online. It offers a fun and interactive way to discover and discuss information among friends.”

Earlier this year, Facebook has emulated some of Friendfeed’s killer features, such as the ability to “like” items, and the real-time news stream.  It seemed like the relationship between these two sites goes way back.  With this acquisition, Facebook apparently wants to employ more of Friendfeed’s killer functions so it can keep Twitter at bay in this “Social Meida War.”

Currently, Friendfeed has an excellent search engine, which allows its users to search for content from their friends anyway they want.  On contrary, the search engine on Facebook only allows you to search for friends, pages, and groups, very limited.

In any case, this acquisition may work for the best interests for both companies, but it leaves the future uncertain for Friendfeed’s current users.  As former Friendfeed executives are now employed by Facebook, will the Friendfeed service be discontinued?  Facebook will, without a doubt, become more powerful as a result of this acquisition.  Its battle with Twitter in the future still remains to be seen.  Please share your thoughts and opinions about the acquisition in the commenting area below.

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