How to Properly Network on Facebook

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Facebook is the largest social networking platform on the web, and it’s also one of the single top performing, most visited websites of any kind. There are literally hundreds of millions of regular users around the world. All of this means that there is a huge opportunity for you to use the service as a networking platform. If done correctly you can tap into an atmosphere filled with potential prospects and partners.

One of the first steps in networking correctly on Facebook is to make sure you go about setting up your own profile and your own settings correctly. You want to be open, approachable and friendly, but you also need to maintain your professionalism. This means that you need to watch what you say, be careful about the pictures you post and generally conduct yourself as you would if you were around a bunch of important business colleagues in person.

If you’re also using Facebook as a tool to connect with your friends and family that shouldn’t be a problem either. You can create groups and different settings for the visibility of your profile and certain information depending on those various group settings. For example, you can open up certain elements to people you classify as “friends” while everybody else you are connected with would not have that information available to them.

It’s also important with Facebook that you go ahead and set up a fan page for your business. This is where you can specifically make a page that’s about your business, whereas your own private page has to be focused more entirely on yourself.

With a fan page, you can  entice people to check out your website or interact with your business in other ways, you can give them more information and details about promotions, current events or anything else that you had in mind. You can also design the page to look basically like anything you’d like, so you can get creative and you can end up with a page that you’re proud of.

The two of these don’t have to be mutually exclusive, in fact a great fan page and a great profile will work in conjunction with one another. The fan page is where your business can shine, and your own personal profile is where you can individually interact with potential prospects and other interested parties. Some people may head straight from the business, other people may first be looking to establish a trusting relationship and so forth. Therefore they each play their part and they both are important to your success.

Do not forget to join other groups while you’re on Facebook either. You should find a wealth of other prominent groups related to your industry, niche or field that already exist. By joining these groups you can immediately gain access to hundreds and potentially thousands of people who are assuredly interested or involved with what you’re doing.

Once you join these groups it’s important that you actually get involved and go ahead interacting with other members. Share ideas, make comments, post useful links and above all don’t excessively self-promote. You want to be a useful, contributing and insightful member that people respect and rely upon.

That is something that stays true from site to site, no matter where you’re spending your time online or in the social media, web 2.0 world. You can’t just be a drone for your business, and you can’t just advertise and promote. You have to get involved, form relationships, establish trust and provide value for people. In this way social networking is much as it is in the real world. It’s about building bonds and relationships, offering opportunities to people that they want to take advantage of and creating a positive atmosphere for yourself that you can succeed in.

You could ask a hundred different people and get a hundred different responses for how you should properly network on Facebook. But the key factors listed above will largely say the same. Set up your profile and page correctly, join other groups, interact with others and ultimately get your name out there and get in touch with a wide range of people. When done correctly, there is an unlimited potential for networking on Facebook.