What? Come on don't tell me you did not know that you can advertise on Facebook. Have you ever been to Facebook? If not, you should try it out.

What is Facebook?

Facebook is a social networking site that allows you to connect with people you already know and make new friends in the process. There are tons of applications and games. There are also tons of businesses already on Facebook.

How do you get a profile on Facebook?

Go to www.facebook.com. When you get there, you can create an account for your business. Make a profile page. Include everything that you want people to know about your business. You can choose to find friends for your business by importing your address book from your email account. If any of the recipients have an account on Facebook already, it will send them a friend request for your business page. Then you are off and running. Once you have friends added for your page, you will be shown to their friends as ‘people you may know'. It is essentially a way to exponentially increase your friend list and get your name out there.

What else can Facebook do for your business?

Every single page on Facebook has ads. Some of these are pay per click. You can put an ad up and get specifically targeted customers with pay per click. Also, every single Facebook application has at least one banner ad at the top of the screen and sometimes banner ads at the bottom too. Some of these applications tend to be a bit addictive so people keep coming back to them again and again. A lot of people will get curios about a banner that catches their eye or one that they see repeatedly on a lot of pages. When they get curious what do you think they do? That's right! They click on it. If that is your banner they click on, then guess what. That's one more effective advertisement for you. Because Facebook has such a widespread user base, your ads will be seen by people all over not just the country, but the world.

Keeping on top of your Facebook account

You should probably check your Facebook account at least once a day to accept any friend requests and update your status. Your status is a way to let everyone on your friends list know what is going on with your company. For example, if you are going to have a huge sale on your products next weekend, then in your status message you could have a countdown to the sale day, or you could even use their event planner to send out invitations and get RSVP's back. That feature is very useful as well. In essence, Facebook has the potential to be a very useful tool in your marketing arsenal. Used properly, Facebook can increase your client base by a very broad margin and the best part is that a Facebook account is free.