1.  Why MUST business owners, entrepreneurs and independent professionals utilize Facebook® as a core marketing tool?

Because…

• It connects you with your marketplace
• Its a database of people's wants and needs
• Critical mass (120 million members) Average session time is 20 minutes

2. What is Facebook® and how does it differ from other social networking platforms like MySpace, LinkedIn, etc?

• Facebook® is … a relationship management tool that allows you to manage two types of relationships: people you know already, people you don't know yet.

3.  Four ways Facebook® is unique:

• Design is clean and user friendly (lots of white space, easy on the eyes)
• Feeds create consistent visibility
• Members are responsive, can connect with movers & shakers in business
• Applications: share information from YouTube & Digg.com straight to your Facebook acct.

4.  Why is Facebook®'s explosive growth more important to business owners today than MySpace's growth?

• MySpace started as a site for teenagers.
• Facebook started at Harvard college (more people on Facebook have college degrees, therefore they are high quality contacts)

5.  Three ways Facebook® will dramatically change the way we communicate and do online marketing 3 years from now:

• Integrated email (it will possibly become a place where you can combine & manage your gmail, hotmail, & twitter accts)
• Engagement (interact with other people and companies)
• Micro-niches (sub-communities: women, environmentalists, car lovers)

6.  Different ways to utilize Facebook® in order to attract more targeted traffic to accelerate my online leads and sales:

• Build up your core group of friends (look for them in groups, use advanced keyword search www.Facebook.com/advanced.php — will search existing friends and networks
• Create radical strategic visibility
• Watch a YouTube video:  Username: FacebookMari            Video title: "Facebook in 5 minutes a day"
• Groups—start an "open group" about something you are passionate about, your niche
• Create a "fan" page: you can have multiple pages for your business (that get indexed by Google) Scroll to the very bottom of the page to the link that says "advertising". Click on "Create new page". You can have unlimited "fan" pages.
• Create an event. Choose title carefully…you can't change it later. Allow invitees to write on the event wall and upload pictures.
• Social ads—can buy one week's worth or make it a recurring ad

7.  Different ways to utilize Facebook® in order to capture more sales/profits from my existing customers.

• Acknowledge people's birthdays, anniversaries and new babies on their wall
• Create a "secret" group. It is by invitation only. Can be a mastermind group.
• Get people involved using competitions, polls, contests

8.  What are some of the mistakes people make on Facebook® and how can you avoid them?

• Focusing on quantity over quality. If you grow too fast on Facebook, they will terminate your acct.
• Sending duplicate messages.
• Having "the one and only mindset"… "all you need is Facebook". It is better to think of Facebook as a tool.

9.  How do you decide whether to accept a Friend Request or not?

• If the person has a picture it add credibility
• Personal message from potential friend
• If the person has what's seems to be a made up name, don't accept them
• Hand pick who you want to be in your friend community.Facebook limits you to 5,000 friends.

10.  Does a Friend list on Facebook® have the same value as an opt-in email list?

• There is value in both.
• Keep in mind that your Friends haven't given you permission to send marketing emails to them.

11.  It seems there are thousands of Applications to utilize with Facebook® … how do I choose THE ones to add first?

• Note (edit and import blog posts)
• "Posted items" allow you to share links
• "Third Party Application" www.friendfeed.com (YouTube, Twitter, blog, posts can all be put onto Facebook with friendfeed)
• Do a search in the Facebook search bar for "HTML". Create a Profile HTML You can copy and paste your opt-in box into your Facebook profile.

12.  What's the ideal daily ritual I can engage in to maximize the power of Facebook®?

• Status update—enter new info every day, people like to communicate with people who are active on Facebook
• News feed—make comments on any item that is relevant or important. Can re-arrange the friends in your news feed (top 10, etc.)
• Acknowledge people's birthdays
• Look at friend requests
• Look at notifications to see who has tagged you in a photo
• Look at your profile; add comments to your wall
• Look at your email