I have recently been introduced to Facebook . Better yet I have introduced myself to this Social Network Group.
My purpose for taking this plunge was based on overflowing evidence that in order to make a splash with a newly formed website, this Social Networking Group and others like it, were key to popularity and in the cyber world popularity equals hits. By the way hits equal money.
So, I set out to learn about a cyber world and its language. I want to share with my readers what I have learned thus far and how this pertains to the Classic Car Business.
Facebook is truly designed for socializing. So learning to use it as vehicle for selling is a bit tricky. I found four different ways in which people are using this cyber tool:
- People who are lonely and are looking to make friends. I am sure that it can help such people. I am also sure that this can be a very dangerous use of this tool. My advice is to stay away from using it for that purpose.
- People who like to communicate with their friends. The ability to chat with several friends at once, share ideas, compare schedules, and share movies, books, ideas and even photos. This is great for a person without other things to occupy their time.
- People who are looking for long lost friends. Personally I think that for the most part, people who use this tool for that purpose will be mostly disappointed. I recall years ago, before Facebook, I found an old Navy buddy by letting my fingers do the walking. Once we connected, I found that I had real fond memories of him but he hardly knew me and my memories of him were better than the reality of him. Go figure.
- Then there are People, like me who want to network with others so we can further our business interests. You advertise for me I’ll advertise for you. You do this and I’ll do that. This is what I call “socializing with a purpose”. You still have to schmooze but both parties are aware of the motivation and it is okay.
The problem you have if you are a number four like me, is finding the other number fours and then ridding yourself of the 1’s, 2’s and 3’s without insulting anyone. Remember the key is to be popular.
This is how I have proceeded so far. When I first signed up for Facebook like everyone I put out my invitations for friends to all of my e-mail contacts. I happened to have quite a few of these, having the e-mail addresses of the owners of Classic Cars who had used my Free Classic Car Listings. This helped me accumulate over 80 connections quickly. The problem was that now I had at least 70 individuals who were connected to me and were not connected for the same purpose I had in mind.
That makes a mess for anyone trying to conduct business. You are now getting notification about birthdays, people who want to play cyber games, people wanting you to answer questions, you are told about their favorite bands, bars, about last nights party, their latest tattoos, who is getting married, who is pregnant, and on and on. In the mean time there are 10 of the eighty who want to “socialize with a purpose”. They want to schmooze a bit, find good business associates, and promote their businesses.
So I started up a “Group”. I called the group Classic Car Lug Nuts hoping to attack individuals that were either in the Classic Car business or in businesses that fed from the Classic Car business. Here again though, without being very selective which means turning individuals down running this risk of unpopularity, I found I had too many of the unproductive kind of connections.
I then formed another group and called it All About Details Friends. I hand picked from the Classic Car Lug Nuts Group individuals who had indicated that they were interested, like me, in schmoozing a bit but they consider this “socializing with a purpose”. Finally I have Facebook friends. (See some of my friends: Classic Cars Only )
I am now told that want I really want to do is use Facebook as a website and gather a following. If any of my readers out would like to take me through the step by step process of setting up Facebook as a webpage I would appreciate it. In fact I would like to “socialize with a purpose” with them.
