In the advent of social sites like MySpace and YouTube, Facebook has emerged as one of the largest internet hubs for online social interaction with more than 400 million active users, according to Facebook's official site statistics. Moreover, an estimated half of those users are actively engaged each day in some form or manner. So with all these figures you'd think that Facebook would be a marketer's paradise, right? Wrong.

I hate to say it, but Facebook is like being in high school and the more popular you are, the more friends you'll have. The real secret behind marketing on Facebook, and where so many smaller companies fail, is understanding that it's less about selling and more about connecting. While it may be true that Facebook offers advertisers the opportunity to create, target and track their ads on the network, the true benefit of its expansively diverse user base is the ability to integrate your company’s unique personality and allow your friends/customers to promote it for you.

Think of Facebook as a form of buzz marketing, aka word of mouth, in which each user is a potential salesman (or woman) who can convey your message to their 500 friends, who in turn each have 500 friends of their own and so on (ad nauseum). However, in order for buzz marketing to work you need to offer your customers an incentive (what I call the “What’s in it or Me” factor) that encourages them to share in what you have to say. In many cases this could be a prize giveaway scenario, but there’s also polls, events, sponsorships and (perhaps the most important) sharing.

By sharing not only what you have to offer (images, events, special offers), but encouraging your fans and customers to share, you will find that they feel more engaged and willing to share your content in turn. One method of accomplishing this is by posting content that relys on customer participation as in the case of Blendtec . A perfect example of a company that has embraced the “connect not sell” mentality, Blendtec encourages its fans to make suggestions on things that could be blended with its products in a series of web videos (YouTube) called Will it Blend?. Past suggestions have included bricks, an iPhone, computers, gaming systems, and even Facebook itself. The company also offers its fans various drink recipes that can be created using its products, providing added value to their already reliable products.

In the end, all of this goes a long way in creating a distinctive brand for your fans and customers to rally behind and excited about sharing with the rest of the online community, saving you some tedious legwork and earning you some serious virtual “street cred.”

About the author

Rondal is Productive I.T.'s resident graphic designer and all around creative instigator. He tackles each day with red Bull-induced enthusiasm, is a self-professed Twitter addict, and harbors an inexplicable fear of all things fuzzy.