This is the first of a 5-part series about social media marketing using Facebook by guest blogger, Alexander Alaric .
One of the reasons people use Facebook for networking, especially for business, is because it is a protected environment.
Unfortunately, many new users get caught by the Facebook spam Nazis and get their accounts shut down. These guys mean well but unfortunately sometimes the “baby gets thrown out with the bathwater”.
Even seasoned Facebook users have had their accounts disabled and banned. Robert Scobleizer (a long-time and experienced Facebook user) wrote about how his account got shut down here. He later got it reinstated but why make yourself go through the hassle.
So, let's start out with some of the Facebook basics and avoid having your account shut down. Because after the effort it takes to build up 500, 1000, or more friends you want to protect your account and the time that you've put in.
There are some basic rules that you want to follow. When you are sending friend requests always include a personal message and only send the same message to 8-9 people before sending a different one. Realize this is a general guideline and Facebook changes their algorithm periodically. To be ultra safe at the start you may want to send only 5 of the same personal message each day.
I have successfully added 74 friends in a day (and know people who have done many more than that) but you must do it the right way and vary your messages to avoid problems.
This ‘message' field is available when you do a friend request. To be clear here's a pic of what I'm talking about :
They won't tell exactly what their filter is but right now it seems if you send 10 or more of the same messages on the same day it triggers one of their filters and you'll get an account warning. You get enough of those account warnings, seems to be between three and five, and your account will be disabled.
So the thing to remember is to vary your messages when you're sending friend requests. I recommend, and this is what I do, that whenever you're requesting a friend you include a personal message of how you know them or if you know one of their friends mention that name and what kind of business or reason you're contacting them.
Also when you are e-mailing people within Facebook, you must vary your message here as well. If you are coming out with some new product or some new cool website you want to set up an event to notify all your friends instead of attempting to e-mail them all individually because that will cause your account to get shut down.
Events are one of the Facebook applications that I'll discuss further later in this article series.
You now know some of the basics of the Facebook community and how to interact with people without getting your account shut down. Follow these basic guidelines and you'll have a good Facebook experience.
Basically, don't send the same friend request more than 10 times per day, and don't send the same email to your friends more than 10 times per day. I'm talking when you're doing cutting and pasting. These are guidelines that are working right now but to be ultra safe you could do only 5 of the same per day.
These guidelines are worth repeating because fb is very protective of their environment so play within their rules and everything's cool.
Now for another huge bugaboo…mass emails. You know the ones that are sent to you and 100 other email addresses in the ‘to field'
Here's an example:
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As you can see there are many email addresses that this was sent to and this makes people (especially Facebook people) angry. You'll often get angry messages back in response and even some hate messages. Also, many of those people may unfriend you and talk poison about you in the community. This can hurt your ability to make new friends.
It's just not worth it. So Stay away from this. The right way to do it is by using the Events application. Setup an event and invite all your friends to it through the events' invite function. That's the only way to do this correctly.
Email is a 1-to-1 communication and you should always think of it as you have a face-to-face conversation with someone sitting across the table from you or next to you on a couch or in a chair.
Next time I'll talk with you about powering up your networking using a huge time-saving tactic.
To discover more about Facebook and claim your free social media marketing bonuses click here.
Just now working on my FB page again and glad I found this helpful info today. I post my link in many places but have not sent e-mails – maybe because I found it so annoying to receive them. The list has grown slowly, now considering ways to pick up that pace.
Interesting Article! Well, I have 1,600+ friends on Facebook but only few of them I know personally.
Thanks for list down the basic rules that we must to follow during adding new friends in FB to avoid accounts being disabled and banned.
Personalize is vital to build the relationship with your FB friends! Never spam your friends with the email! Agreed with your that event application in the FB is great tool to announce the new product or service to the FB friends!
To your success,
Bryan Hee
I have an account in facebook but i got few friends. Your article is really a big help. After reading this i want to make friends and I’ll make use of your strategies to protect my account from shotting down. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us!
Nice article..
Its really amazing to have so many friends on myspace without having profile.
I will follow your steps to make my friends network over myspace. Because i like myspace very much other than any other network.
I got lots of friends on FB and LinkedIn but no business…..
Olivia,
To answer your question “how Do you find people that you want to extend an invitation to become your friend?” I talk about that more in parts 2 & 3 of this series.
Since I hate when people give an answer like that where you have to wait the easiest and most straightforward thing you can do is go into the ‘groups’ link, search for the topic(s) that interests you, and extend friend requests to members of those groups.
I do recommend you stay focused on your profile. So when using it for business make friends with people in that industry. DOn’t go making friends with people outside the industry because then your profile and message you send to people is incongruent which you want to avoid at all costs.
Stay congruent and consistent.
Hi Alexander (and Ros),
This is very helpful. I have an account with a number of people asking to be “friends.” I have not made an attempt at monetizing social networking, but I’m getting the picture.
I’ve always differentiated between the word friend and acquaintance. The former is too important and valuable. However, with social networking, I guess we’ll just have to say, there are friends and then there are FRIENDS.
All the best,
Tom Justin
My question is how Do you find people that you want to extend an invitation to become your friend? I’m often baffled at how people find me.
INteresting comments. Facebook is a great platform to meet people and business contacts. You gotta know how to play the game by their rules to avoid any problems with your account so learning the basics is key.
Also, You should never approach it with “I only wat to know you if you’re going to buy this stuff” type of mindset. That is going to come across in your communication and negatively affect your results.
Think of it like a big convention or gathering place where people interested in the same types of things and topics you’re interested are easy to contact. You can get to know them and see if it makes sense to work together on a project. If not, you can just be friends and exchange ideas.
And bobo, I appreciate your concern and I would never advocate using your friends list as a mailing list. I address this very thing in future posts in the article series.
Bottom line, they are NOT opt-ins to your list. THey are facebook users and your friends. When the time comes for you to have some kind of event you can send them an invite through the events application and those that choose to come, then click thru to your opt-in page and join, then and only then have they opted-in for your email updates.
There’s a right and wrong way to participate in Facebook and I want to give you some guidelines that have served me well within the community.
Hi Alexander, and Rosalind,
I havent yet made a penny, so Im no expert. Friends are the social side of f b and fans are the business side.I kniow its possible to convert friends to fans , but its not recomended. I would rather have fans becouse I only have 75 friends. and they dont buy anything
joe/pops101
i dont get it, you use a friend site to create a mailing list to sell to?? that unethical, you are only there to harvest emails, not make friends. it seems that the web is flooded with soooooo many sites with not enough paying customers that underhanded tactics are being used to create “customers”. i sure wouldnt buy anything from anybody pushing their crap to me under the guise being a “friend”!
the business today to make money is just to sell a business in a box , the same old idea being rehashed and repackaged as NEW and IMPROVED!! the ones making money online are the veteran web sellers from the 90’s who have perfected the snake oil sale,,,i am embarrased to say that i am their prey, i buy anything that could so-call make me money online and quit my job, the wish of millions of poor saps who the charlatans prey on,,,,,,,,this sucks
Amen to that, Nothing new under the sun Just rehashed for suckers like me!!
You can make a ton of cash on facebook apps.
I don’t really like using social networking sites as a platform for marketing because it doesn’t really seem ethical to me.
“I only wat to know you if you’re going to buy this stuff” kind of thing….takes all the fun out of it.
And then you get the spammmers…
I have never used facebook. What is the advantage of using it?
Thanks for the great post… after reading this I realize I was getting real close to getting shut down … I look forward to the future posts.
Thanks, Rosalind
This is a very good article, looking forward to the future ones.
You always have very good ideas and content.
Warmly,
Sue
This is an excellent post… I have around 1000 FB friends, and got them the old fashioned way, lol. I’d surely hate to be deleted at some point.
I’m just starting FB advertising, so look forward to the rest of the series.
Nick Cifonie
Mmmm, Nazis? C’mon, they are hardly Nazis.
Thanks very much for mentioning that, Fred.
I bristled on reading it, then hummed and haa-ed over editing the word out. In the end, I left it up to the author… but, you’ve given me a good idea for a new article. 🙂
Cheers,
Ros