I hear a lot about Twitter and I am trying to become a Twitteraniac , but I am just not there yet. I do love Facebook though. I went on originally for business networking and that worked, but as with everyone I ended up connecting with friends from long ago. I have a good number of friends and I started participating is some of the fun stuff to reconnect with people. I had a good time, but at the same time I let people know who I am and what my business was. The truth is I didn’t try to do anything to make money, I just thought my business was in my profile and that was all I needed to promote it a bit.

I started to use the “share a link” option to post links to articles that I thought were informative and good for anyone in business. Maybe people noticed, maybe they didn’t. I am not sure, but I do know they did noticed when I posted links to my own articles because they emailed, sent messages through Facebook and called me. Obviously informational articles grab attention, but we all know that.

Responses to Article Links

When I posted articles from my own site I would get maybe one person to reach out every two articles and I got a small job every here and there, BUT when I posted a link to an article I posted on YouMoz I got four jobs with in one day. In total I got 8 jobs from posting that specific link on Facebook, all from people I haven’t seen in a long time. It is actually pretty cool to see what my friends grew up to create.

So, What Worked?

I think it is a combination of things. By posting links all along I let people know I know about this industry, I read it and I keep up. Then I wrote something informative with tips and information for businesses and I submitted the article to a site that is well respected. I don’t think anyone that hired me knew what SEOmoz was, but it is not hard to determine that it is a respected, professional site industry experts visit..

As with any social media site I was reaching people I wouldn’t otherwise have an opportunity to reach, but I also had another advantage- people knew me. Some knew me from elementary, middle and high school (and college) and  I automatically had a little more trust than I would have. Also, I was able to inform some local acquaintances and let them know what it is I do. When I asked them why they chose to get in contact with me they said they had read about SEO and Internet Marketing, but did not know how to find someone they could trust. I guess I looked a little trustworthy.

IMPORTANT!!!

I DID NOT spam Facebook with what I do or beg people to call me or constantly send links to my site. For those of you that do it – we notice and we hate it! Please, please, please stop!

The bottom line is Facebook can be used to not only market your company, but also obtain more clients. You can make money with social media, it is more than just fun if you do it right.

Have a nice day!

Melissa

UPDATE—-

Another article to read – Study: ROI May Be Measurable in Facebook, MySpace After All