Facebook is becoming more and more popular with time. Facebook went viral a long time ago, with friends sharing ideas, content, photos and videos with each other. Facebook friends link to content they like and this leads friends to visit the linked site.

The recent redesign, which added a graphical timeline feature and out-of-the-box apps you can add to your page, has presented challenges for many, but new opportunities for those who know what they’re doing.

How big is your network of friends on Facebook?

It’s important to remember with Facebook fans that when someone clicks the Facebook Like button, this posts an update to their profile and feed. This update is sent to people you have already marked as friends, and all of your friends’ profiles are also updated. The more friends you have, and the more friends they have, a single post can reach many thousands of people.

How Honest Opinions Matter

Many marketers use Facebook and other social media platforms to maximize their marketing reach. This is a good idea in general, but you have to be careful how far you take it.

Today, celebrities tweet with all their hearts, but many of the tweets aren’t really their own thoughts. In fact, someone else often manages your Twitter account and tweets on your behalf. And now there are sponsored tweets where celebrities are paid to promote a product through a tweet.

We live in a celebrity culture to some degree, so this type of practice may sway some readers, but many will be much more swayed by what their friends say on their Facebook page. In this case, their interests are more likely to align, their opinion is more respected because they’re more familiar with each friend than a celebrity they’ll never meet, so if a Facebook friend likes something, they’ll often hear that social signal. .

viral marketing

Many of the social networks can do a certain amount of viral marketing where the “word” about a product or service can spread very quickly. It used to be that only bad news traveled fast, but thanks to social media, that’s no longer the case. Genuine fans of a company or product can get together and sing its praises.

For those with products or services in the market, Facebook can be a great way to build a following so that word can spread much faster when a new product is launched.

In some cases, this has been used to build so much early hype around the release of a new hardcover book that the first printing sold out before it was even published, starting a second printing before the first printing was even out. the book shelves. On several occasions, this has caused the book to hit the New York Times bestseller list just because of Facebook fan pre-orders, which had the effect of getting the book to the media much faster. .