I’m using facebook.com more and more these days. One of my facebook friends, Lee Oden, owner of the Online Marketing Blog, has been doing research on how online marketers use facebook. Here’s what I think:

I use facebook alot to connect cloggers together. Clogging is a form of dance similar to tap dance. I’ve set up a group called the ClogOn Community. Not only do I invite all cloggers I find in Facebook because of the “interest” search option, but I also invite all my current clients from my clogging shoes website to join Facebook so we can all keep in touch and get to know one another. What I’ve found is that clients that can put a name with a face are often times much more prone to develop loyalty to a particular business.

Sales increase because, as I get to know my clients and put names with faces, trust is built. I’ve recently set up a deal with another client for a highlight video of their team.

I use facebook for the following websites:

• http://www.ClogOn.com
• http://www.HighlightSports.com
• http://www.DoorCountyReviews.com
• http://mollermarketing.com

In summary, the Groups have worked the best for me - tying all my target audiences in to groups or finding already existing groups to become a part of.

How do you all use Facebook?

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I admit, I’m pretty new to StumbleUpon.com but just today I saw one of the reasons it’s recommended as a great Social Network and SMO tool.

We have a new Door County Wisconsin blog that we just stared about a month ago. My wife, who loves to write, has been in charge of the content. She wrote a really good article on Saturday about how to make reviews on DoorCountyReviews.com so today I went to the article and added it to my StumbleUpon account. About 30 minutes later we had over 60 page views on the blog. I know, that’s really nothing, but to go from 0 page views to 60 in a few minutes is rewarding to me, especially when part of our business plan is to work with local businesses who will care about traffic (or should).

So, point is, if you haven’t signed up for StumbleUpon.com yet, I recommend it. It’s a great way to promote you’re own stuff and share it with a huge community, which in turn could turn in to traffic, which in turn could turn in to sales.

So much to do with an eCommerce business, isn’t there? Welcome to the life of an entrepreneur.

UPDATE: I did the same thing with a few of my articles from MollerMarketing and have had over 100 visitors today from StumbleUpon.com!

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I recently signed up for Facebook.com, a Social Network for everyone. My little brother in law sent me a message right after I signed up that said the following, “dude, you’re 30 years old…have two kids and are married….why are you on facebook?” I laughed as I read his inquiry. As I thought about it though, here are 4 of the main reasons I signed up for Facebook.com:

1. My mentor, Mat Siltala, is a Facebook user. As an eCommerce Business Consultant myself who was taught by a great SEO specialist, I want to do what the best are doing. I read certain SEO and SMO Blogs all the time about different ways to get potential buyers to come to my site; if I don’t implement the ideas that are working for others, how can I expect success?
2. Status updates. If you are a fan of Twitter (or know anything about it), then Facebook Status Updates are right up your alley. As you create your network of friends on Facebook, you can be kept up to date on what they are doing. You can also share information about your site, articles you’ve written that need bookmarked, etc.
3. Free Classifieds. I just set this up today. Yet another free way to promote products to a specific target audience.
4. TRAFFIC, TRAFFIC, TRAFFIC! In the past six months, after Facebook opened up to non-collegiates and developers, the site has more than doubled in number of unique visitors, growing from 23 million users in December 2006 to 47 million in May 2007.

So, there you have it.  Add me to your friends list and network yourself all over the web.

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Wow, what a change in traffic! Yesterday I added a plugin for del.icio.us and digg, two of the top SMO services on the internet. I submitted a new article about Michelle Sorro from the Apprentice. Today I’ve seen a huge influx in traffic - from 25 visitors yesterday to 761 visitors and counting today! Yahoo! (literally) - most of the traffic is coming from this Yahoo site: http://apprentice.tv.yahoo.com/trump/06/index.html.

So, if you haven’t got a del.icio.us or digg account, get them and use them. Make sure you submit articles to the right categories and avoid spam. Use the links to “Socially Bookmark” your favorite pages.

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