Facebook

I’m intrigued to find out how people are now using Facebook, both personally and professionally. I use it for everything from keeping in touch with friends and family across the world to promoting businesses via fan pages, getting in touch with people who interest me and running groups. I use it to promote both not-for-profit organisations and commercial businesses and I only have one profile. I manage the info people can see through lists so my family get to see ‘private’ things whilst professional contacts get to see my professional side. I don’t add people just for the sake of numbers, they are added on merit and I generally must have had some type of interaction or want to have in the future, but they are not all friends in the real life sense.

How many others on here use Facebook and to what extent? How do you think it rates against the other tools out there like Twitter? How do you feel when people try to connect for professional / networking reasons? How many profiles do you have? Questions, questions!


I have a personal FB page and I've set one up for our gites. I''ve also created a Twitter account for the gites linked to the FB page but only one way. Who knows if it will work from a business perspective?

Hi Katherine

I use Facebook to keep in touch mainly with Family and Friends and link it with Twitter, my Website, my Blog and Survive France. I find using them together helps me to stimulate conversations, I miss my 3 brothers and 4 sisters and like to keep up with their news. I also like to use it to keep in touch with local friends as some of us live a long way apart and it is a good way to keep what I am doing painting wise to the forefront and therefore at the front of my to do list and of course keep in touch with my other artist friends.

I just love the technology and learning to use it. It certainly beats sitting in Front Of the Tele…

Nice meeting you… Gina Hams My Website is http://www.ginahams.fr and there are links from there.

Hi Kathryn

I use facebook to keep in touch with family & friends & to follow groups I’m interested in (including Valerie’s Start Business In France). I also have a fan page for our site www.UK4Me.co.uk which can be found at www.facebook.co.uk/UK4Me and I have linked this to my UK4Me twitter page so my UK4Me profile updates on Facebook become tweets on twitter. I have a personal twitter too which I don’t tend to use as much now but I do follow others on this who interest me. For each website/business ideas we generate we will probably create a facebook page & a twitter page as I think it’s interesting to see who follows you and how it then gets passed on. For example I found Survive France Network through James being a fan on my facebook page for UK4Me and I’m assuming James found us from Start Business in France. That’s the great thing about social networking, its the best way of networking given the investment is your time and not a financial cost where finance is often limited for new or small businesses.

Suzanne
www.UK4Me.co.uk
UK Stores Delivering Overseas

Hi Kathryn

I use facebook as a way to generally waste my time after having been found by some long lost friends through a limited page I had set up. I now spend way too much time playing games which is distracting to say the least. I would like to set up a business page as my friends and gaming friends do not overlap and I wouldn’t want them too (god forbid) as I am a very different person in my professional life to my personal. I also use it to post my photos from my life for those friends who didn’t see me for many years, my being in different countries. If I can spend less time messing around on it and chatting I will set one up with my portfolio and business profile.

Hello

I use Facebook as a tool and have a business profile on there. I am picking up fans on a regular basis and use it to keep them updated on what my company is doing. I am just about to launch an ebook which I will push through online publishers then once the funds are in I plan to place an advert on Facebook to push sales further. I know people that have had great success with Facebook as an advertising tool.

Guess it depends what product you are planning to push in my case a book on health and fitness. The key advertising ploy is losing weight and keeping it off, dieting the correct way. So I reckon that as women generally spend a fair amount of time concerned about how they look it should sell well.

Twitter is another tool but has limitations as it really is just for updates. Linked into your own business website it is a good option as you can place news feeds in direct. One very good tool to use is TweetDeck this will allow you to update Facebook,Twitter accounts,Linkedin, and MySpace all in one go. http://www.tweetdeck.com/

Happy posting :slight_smile:

Jason

This is interesting

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8612292.stm

publicity is good! use it but don’t see it as you only option… unless you can afford an add on the right hand side!.. that must cost a fortune now.!!!xx

There are so many tools to use, that it can be tricky to know which one to choose from and how to use it. There is a lot of “watch-follow and learn” before you can really see which tool os best for you. It also depends on what you are trying to achieve.

Thanks for the replies. I’m intrigued that people keep two profiles, one private and one business - why do you feel the need for both? I think I would find it difficult because in my life work and friends blend and there is a huge grey area which is why I use lists. Also, logging in and out would be a drain on time, I tend to keep FB open all day and drop in and out of it as I want to.

I agree with Valerie on Twitter and I know I haven’t really invested enough time in building up quality people to follow.

Hi Kathryn,

Like Sandra I have a private Facebook for family & friends and a public one for business. I have also set up a fan page to interact with my forum members and anybody interestied in running a business in France at large. Although I was very reluctant to use Facebook to start with, I thoroughly enjoy it now, as it is a great way to get to know your customers and have direct feedback. It also drive some “quality” traffic to my site.

I have also been using twitter for over 10 months and also enjoy it, but it a different way. I see Twitter as a great way to find useful resources on running a business, using social media, e-commerce. It is more of a personal development tool for me, provided you select people to follow. Great way to find partners and poor for quality traffic .

Fan page http://www.facebook.com/startbusinessinfrance
Twitter @Valerie_50

I tried twitter as well, and the same as you didnt gell with me

Hi Kathryn
I have 3 profile pages on FB, one for private, one for Charlan B&B and one for AFS Immobilier. I also have 2 fan pages, one for Charlan and one for AFS. It generates hits to my websites, inquiries, meeting some really nice people and most importantly some work! Tried twitter and could not get on with it, do not use myspace and of course I network on Survive France. Hope this helps. Sandra

Hi Kathryn,
Like yourself i tend to use facebook to keep in touch with freinds and family all over the world, as it is a tremendously easy tool to use. My personal page is generally for the friends, family and people who i , like you, have a common interest with. Facebook unfortunately can be a competion as to who is the most popular…" Ive got 5,000 friend!"…i dont think so! But people are all different and its probably just me who likes to know the people i communicate with.
I also use the site a work tool, having created a Facebook page for buisness purposes, which in the scheme of things is very good, for it gets you out to the masses ( hopefully ) and depending on your site, links like minded people with interesting information, expanding their knowledge and yours.
Anyway, hope this helps a bit,
Bye for now, Steve