I’ve already wrote several posts glorifying facebook.com (I love it so much from both a personal and a professional aspect). So far most of my posts about Facebook was about how well they marketed themselves, and how they are better than MySpace, Nexopia, and other competitors. Here are a few of them if you want a good read.

Today I would like to turn that table around, and explain to you the marketing value that Facebook can give to YOU!!!

Facebook has this concept of groups. Groups can be created by any user, and it can be restricted to a certain geographic/social network, or it can be global. When a group is created, people will come to the group and leave messages on the wall, or get involved in the discussions. The discussions follow the form of a forum, where a topic is posted and you can reply under that topic on and on. Or alternatively you can start a brand new thread.

Whenever one of your friends join a group, you will see that on the homepage, where you are notified of all recent activity from your friends. And with a catch enough group name, that’s how the group subscription rate spreads virally. You can send out mass messages to everybody in the group. Also, you have the option to link it to any external website from the group, which can get you traffic and exposure.

Facebook has perhaps the most intricate notification system to keep you updated of new friends, new groups, new posts, and new events, and that’s where I would like to put the viral marketing focus on.

Here’s an example of a Facebook group that generated tonnes of traffic to a website called BlowingUpBill.com. As you can see, it entices users by a catchy group title - “I will blow up my car if this group reaches 500,000 members” (click on the link and you’ll see the actual group come up). This group however seems to have alterior motives than just promoting that website or trying to collect funny videos, as the website suggests - on the group you can see a link to a website that supports Obama for the US Presidency run next year. That was an effective way to promote him to over 30,000 members who joined so far.

Also a good example of a viral spreading group is the group titled “If 100,000 join this group my fiance will let me name my second child Spiderman”. The group with the largest numbers I’ve seen and am a part of is “F*ck this, I’m going to Hogwarts” group, a Harry Potter fanclub on facebook.com. It has almost 100,000 members now. Yes, I’m a Harry Potter fan and I’m part of that group. Shush.

I started my own group on Facebook too. “Young Entrepreneurs of Canada” is the title. And when I think of a creative group name and a way to market it and monetize it, I will jump on it. It doesn’t cost anything - I may as well. Come join my group if you want to hear more of my rambling bullshit.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 1st, 2007 at 12:41 pm and is filed under Cool Websites, Marketing and Media, Web Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.