My parents recently celebrated their fortieth wedding anniversary and invited 160 of their friends and relatives. Guests flew in from around the country so the event served as both an anniversary party and reunion. As one of the volunteer photographers I snapped hundreds of pictures of people; some I’ve never met before.
I was faced with two difficult tasks after the party. First, distributing the pictures to the almost two hundred guests who attended. Second, putting names with faces. Both seemed like daunting tasks because I didn’t know everyone at the party and it would have been a huge chore to copy that many DVD’s.
Some of my regular readers may remember that I abolished my Facebook account last year due to viruses. Over the last month or so I re-established a Facebook page and connected with friends and relatives who I knew were going to be invited. The evening of the party I uploaded 120 pictures to my account and assigned names to the faces I knew. In Facebook terms, this is referred to as tagging.
Within a very short time after tagging the pictures of people I knew, I started receiving notifications that others were being tagged. Most of the activity was from people I had never known before. Many of the pictures also had comments from people I had never heard of. I finally had an epiphany about Facebook. If used properly, Facebook and social networking websites could be an excellent marketing tool.
It wasn’t until this weekend that I realized the true potential of online networking. If I captured this much attention in minutes, imagine how much a business could get with a significant effort. None of the business classes I’ve taken ever talked about the potential of hitting such a broad selection of demographics in such a short amount of time.
Take a step back from my example of pictures and think of them as advertisements. Imagine using Facebook (or other social networking sites) to their fullest advantage. I can imagine a well thought out marketing plan to include social networking sites as a primary sales tool. Rather than pictures of a family reunion, a business could have pictures of an event they sponsor.
A fish and gun club could organize a child’s fishing derby. During the derby, a photographer could wander the event snapping pictures of each family. Of course the photographer would also have to record the names of the people, but that seems like a pretty easy obstacle to overcome. At the same time, each visitor would have to become friends with the fish and gun club via Facebook.
Here’s where the magic happens. As soon as the pictures are uploaded to Facebook and the names have been associated with the faces, other people will see them. If I am tagged in a picture on Facebook, then all of my friends will have the opportunity to view the pictures. If I’m having a good time with my daughters then people are apt to comment on the pictures. Using the names of those who have commented, the fish and gun club can request to be friends with them and build a database.
During the next sponsored event the club has many more names of people to whom they can send invitations. Each year the list of names will grow provided they can maintain a proactive sales and marketing initiative. Hopefully you can see the same benefits social networking sites like Facebook have for business and personal use. Facebook isn’t only about linking up with friends; it can be used to build your business. In this economic climate, a free website like Facebook seems to make sense if used correctly.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner. You can text him at (978) 413-2840 or call him directly at (978) 919-8059.)