Levergaing Facebook

With more than 225 million users throughout the world, Facebook has surpassed MySpace as the world’s most popular social network. Nearly every politician, political organization, product, person and non-profit are “on” Facebook—but are they using it correctly to help them achieve their online goals? To help ensure that you’re taking advantage of Facebook to do just that, here are our top 10 ways to use Facebook to get your message out...

1. Create a Public Page
Every candidate should have a page on Facebook. You can have an unlimited number of supporters and easily disseminate unfiltered information about your campaign.

2. Add Content
Add videos, notes, blog posts and news articles to your page that your supporters can “like,” share and comment on. These features also allow you to measure which information your supporters care the most about. 

3. Update Your Status
As simple as it may seem, updating your status can be an effective way to get your message out to the Facebook community. It shows up in users’ news feeds, and they can share it with other Facebook users.
 
4. Ask Your Supporter to Donate Their Status
According to Facebook, more than 30 million users update their statuses at least once each day. Develop an application that allows users to update their status with your messaging. This will make your application more prominent on a user’s profile and also show up in their friends’ news feeds, helping to spread your content to other potential supporters.

5. Utilize FBML
Facebook Markup Language allows page developers to create their own applications to feature tools that aren’t available by traditional Facebook applications. With FBML, you can allow users to sign up for email updates and make a donation without leaving Facebook.

6. Advertise
Facebook allows microtargeting based on geographic radius, language, and other profile information. Look for opportunities to target groups based on your specific message and don’t be afraid to focus on a single town or small geographic radius. You can also direct users to a specific tab on your page—use this to direct users to new initiatives and applications.

7. Start a Cause
Once users join, they are asked to participate in a challenge to invite a certain amount of friends to join your cause. The top five recruiters are then featured on the main page. This inspires activism and rewards those who work hard for you while increasing the number of people who are receiving your messages. 

9. Use Facebook Connect
This tool allows you to link your page with your Web site. Facebook users can publish stories from your site to their Facebook page which will then show up in their friends’ news feeds. Recent studies have shown that an established website experiences an increase of growth from using Facebook Connect.  

8. Promote an Event
Promoting an event on Facebook is an easy way to inform people about it. You can invite your supporters, ask them to invite their friends, and promote the event with an ad targeted to the people you want there.

10. Engage Your Supporters Daily
Adding new content every day means visitors see fresh content, and current fans are brought back to your page on a regular basis.

David All is the president of The David All Group and the founder of TechRepublican.com. You can follow him at twitter.com/davidall.
Jerome Armstrong blogs at MyDD.com, and is a principal at WebstrongGroup.com. You can follow him at twitter.com/jeromearmstrong.