As a part of the Web 2.0 evolutionary wave, social media and marketing have really come to the forefront of a professional marketing campaign. While MySpace started out as a leader, Facebook has now bypassed it to be the social network everyone uses. It seems that everyone you talk to is a Facebook user, regardless of their age. Facebook tears down walls separating people and lets them come together sociably in a common forum. Because of this unique quality, Facebook can be a great way to reach your target audience - whatever that may be - quickly and effectively. Facebook is a sophisticated tool to find that audience, and you're really missing out on a prime traffic generating method if you aren't on it. Facebook claims millions of active Facebook users each and every day, using it to keep in touch with friends and colleagues, making new friends, utilizing applications and much more. People are devoting a lot of time to social networking, and during that time they could be looking at your product or service too. This article will examine the methods you can use to promote your online business through Facebook and use it as a powerful marketing tool.

The way most companies will get people to see their business is to use the "social ads" service that Facebook offers. Social Ads are the simplest and most direct method of advertising on Facebook. They allow you to tailor your ads to appeal to a select group of people on the basis of their gender, age, interest, or some other characteristic that you choose. This allows you to transform your marketing strategy into a super targeted strategy, and you won't have to try so hard to get people to click on your ad. And a high click-through-rate (CTR) will mean more visitors and more sales, giving you an increased yield for your advertising dollars. Also, you have the freedom to add a picture to your ad, which is highly recommended, as it can get you a better CTR. How does a picture help? When you give visuals along with your advertisement, it draws the attention of more people and brings them in. You need to pick something that people will want to know about, something that can catch attention. If you don't have a clue how to make an ad look appealing, you could always pay someone else to do it for you.

A free method for marketing on Facebook, rather than spend the money on advertisement space, is to create a group or fan page for your business on Facebook. When done correctly you could see massive amounts of traffic flowing into your website from Facebook. It seems users of Facebook are addicted to joining groups that represent what they are interested in, or possibly becoming a fan or a certain page. So you can definitely make use of this and create your own fan page or group and start getting people to it. Best of all group pages allow members to invite other Facebook users to the group. But you will initially have to introduce your fan page to people through some method of advertising it, such as the Social Ads. Groups on Facebook have been known to get thousands of members joining up over night, and fan pages can get thousands of visitors too, all you have to do from there is turn this interest into website traffic.

Facebook can be a social network achieving an objective for you as a marketer. Facebook has the potential to be of great benefit to your business, as well as support your marketing ability to potential clients. Just keep experimenting and testing various options so you can find the Facebook success formula that works best for you.

Santos Crumrine is a well-known blogger who writes informative articles on different topics such as marketing, online business, home business, network marketing etc. Checkout his article on empower network strategy and on Ambit Energy prospecting