We reached a huge milestone for The Frugality Game on Facebook yesterday: 10,000 fans. It feels great to hit that mark before tomorrow’s launch.

Along the way, I’ve learned a lot about what works. In future posts, I’ll dig in-depth to explore the details. For now, here are some initial thoughts.

• Have a good product. This doesn’t mean that your product has to be perfect. Since The Frugality Game hasn’t even launched yet, many people have become fans based on the just the concept, the pitch and the prizes.
   
• Leverage other efforts. Since many social media projects don’t start with a huge budget, you need to tie into what’s already happening and apply it to social media. Repurpose existing contest and tie into existing promotions. For example, I was able to get a $1,000 prize for pre-registered users extended to fans.
   
• Offer rewards. When you’re in budget meetings, social media is about what it can do for your company. But when you’re online, it’s all about what you can do for your audience. Not everyone responds to prizes, but enough people do (and enough large brands have set the example). We also offered fans an early invitation to the game.
   
• Use your connections. Everyone who knows you or your brand should know that you’re on Facebook and how they can benefit. If some of your friends and family let their friends know, the multiplier can be significant. We asked our employees to become fans, then ran a contest for them to recommend it to friends.
   
• Customize. Adding a custom landing tab can give you a great way to offer your pitch. We included information about the games and prizes, an arrow pointing to the “Become a fan” button, and a email sign-up. Remarkably, 35% of fans have also pre-registered with the email sign-up.
   
• Engage. But don’t over-post. Once a user clicks “Hide” or “Unsubscribe” because they feel spammed, they’ll probably never see your updates again. However, realize that you will lose some people along the way, and that’s okay as long as your increase is bigger. Also, responding quickly and frequently to comments has increased the sense of community. When people ask questions–answer!
   
• Advertise. Advertising on Facebook is one of the biggest opportunities in marketing today. Prices are still relatively low, since not everyone has figured it out yet, and you can target your exact audience. Viral growth is a powerful multiplier, but it relies on the size of your initial population. Get the most out of your efforts by investing in well-targeted ads to grow your initial viral seed.
   
• Test. When advertising, try different images, different copy and different demographics. When you find something that works, test variations of that. You could spend a few dollars per fan if you don’t test, but potentially much less if you do. I found advertising combinations that resulted in a new fan for every $0.09-0.45 spent. More on how to do this in a future post (subscribe).
   
• Find the right fans. Once you have a few fans, figure out what they have in common (look at profiles to find out what else they’re fans of). Then advertise to more people like them. This helped me realize that women who are fans of TigerDirect.com might also become fans of The Frugality Game (they did, in astounding numbers).
   
• Get creative. Social media is so hyped right now that people expect extraordinary results with small budgets. Prove you can deliver something with a small budget, then don’t be afraid to ask for more. Companies like to invest in things that are working (and producing measurable results).
   
• Go viral. Our final push to get over 10,000 (we added about a thousand fans yesterday) came when I posted:
  

  We’re giving away $1,000 today! Last chance to invite your friends before the drawing…just go to http://Facebook.com/FrugalityGame and click “Suggest to Friends” under our profile picture. Stay tuned later for the announcement of the winner.

  Dozens and dozens of fans posted and commented that they had invited their friends. We’re still seeing significant growth from that blast. Obviously, that wouldn’t have worked without the other elements already in place.
   

If you’re interested in learning more about how to leverage Facebook and increase fans, please comment, subscribe, and post on Twitter and Facebook. Thank you!

Why? Thanks to advanced targeting mechanisms, you can reach your exact target market. That means that every cent you spend goes to reaching the ideal audience. And that can lead to a great return on investment.

As long as the resulting profit is more than the cost of advertising, you keep going.

With more than 200 million active users (half of whom check it daily), Facebook is not just the land of college kids anymore. You really can reach almost anyone. For example, in the United States, there are 2.3 million Facebook users over 64 years old.  Even if not all of your customers are online, many of them are.

Consider this: your healthy gourmet restaurant in Irvine, Calif. has decided to sponsor a “young professionals speed-dating” night, and you really want to attract a crowd of local 25-35 year-old singles who care about their health. And you want them to be college graduates. Done. You now have instant access to more than 1,100 of them.

Another scenario: say your target audience is women over 30 who live in Texas and raise goats. They’re on Facebook! 1,140 of them, in fact. Now imagine that they find your ad for “Join the Texas Association of Women Who Raise Goats.” Do you think they’ll pay attention? Of course they will! You’re tapping into more than a thousand people who really care about what you’re doing.

How much is it worth for:

• AARP to contact seniors with a special membership offer on their 55th birthday (500 people/day)?
• A downtown Los Angeles dry cleaner to reach the 200 men who work at Ernst & Young across the street?
• A Porsche dealership in Dallas to contact 500 local Porsche fans? 1000 local BMW fans?
• A surf shop in Santa Monica, Calif. to reach 100,000 local beach/surfing fanatics–especially if the shop’s not on the beach?
• A job hunter to get a resume in front of a local hiring manager?
• “Save the Whales” to put a fundraising pitch in front of the 880 people who like “saving whales”?
• Your organization to reach the people who will buy, donate, get involved, spread the word, and/or become a fan?

No matter who you’re trying to reach, they’re on Facebook.

If you’re not already advertising your product, service, business or charity on Facebook, now’s the time to start! Here are two simple options to begin:

• Do it yourself. – My handy step-by-step guide to advertising on Facebook walks you through everything you need to know to get started.

OR:

• Get help. – Pick up your phone and call (949) 891-2001. I’ll give you a free initial consultation to help you plan. If you’d like further assistance, I can run the whole process for a small fee.

Don’t delay. I know I sound like part of the Facebook ad sales team, but I promise I’m not. I’m using Facebook ads as an aspect of my job search because I believe it’s worth the investment. And I’m sharing my thoughts here because I think the investment can be worth it for you, too.

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Like this post? Tweet it: Every small business should advertise on Facebook. Why? Ultra-targeted audiences. http://djgpr.com/target

• brand?
• company?
• organization?
• charity?
• cause?
• issue?
• product?
• service?
• anything that someone might like?

Then give people an opportunity to become your fan on Facebook.

With more than 200 million active users (half of whom check it daily), Facebook should be a key part of your communications strategy.

Since it’s such a great tool for reaching a targeted audience, I’m exploring Facebook as part of my job search strategy (forgive me for a little self-promotion now).

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Know anyone looking for a communications specialist?
Send them my resume! Thank you.
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Today, we’ll cover the basics of creating your first fan page. You can also check out my step-by-step guide to advertising on Facebook.

Creating a fan page costs nothing, and it allows you to connect with your audiences in meaningful ways. Facebook treats pages like personal profiles: your fans will receive updates from you on their homepage, just like they do from their friends. You can’t buy that. Obviously, you want fans.

Here’s the step-by-step guide to creating a Facebook fan page:

Step 1: Visit facebook.com/pages/manage/ and click on “+ Create Page”.

Step 2: Choose a category, name your page, and state your authority to speak on your client’s behalf.

Step 3: Now you need to add content. Add (1) a photo, (2) a blurb, and (3) some background with a link to your website. If you have other stuff to add–even better!

Step 4: Check your settings. Click “Edit Page” under your profile picture. Here you have options for gender, age restrictions, published/unpublished, and applications.

Step 5: Publish. Double-check everything first, then change “Published Status” under “Settings.”

Step 6: Get fans. Congratulations! You have a fan page. Celebrate! But don’t think that we’re going to stop there. Now you need some fans. You start. Click “Become a fan!” Then you’ll have the opportunity to suggest that your friends also become fans.

Step 7: Advertise your new page to your target audience. Follow my step-by-step guide to advertising on Facebook. If you select your fan page as an ad’s destination, Facebook will automatically include social actions: users can become your fan directly from the ad, as well as see any of their friends who are already fans.

Don’t forget to send people to your page from other places as well (like your website and Twitter).

Step 8: Update your page regularly (but don’t spam).

Continuing adding photos, wall posts, video, links, discussions, etc. Make your page valuable and worth people’s time, and your fan base will continue to grow.

You can even target updates to followers with specific demographics.

Step 9: Track metrics (Click “View Insights” under your picture). Here you can see who’s interacting with your page and how.

That’s it! You’re well on your way to Facebook success.

If you’ve developed a fan page, share your experience in the comments! How have you used fan pages? How has your brand benefited as a result? What challenges did (or do) you face?

If you’re just considering creating a fan page, what’s holding you back?

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Like it? Tweet it! A step-by-step guide to creating and promoting a Facebook fan page: http://djgpr.com/FBfan

You can also become a fan of “Helping David get a job” on Facebook!

Here’s the step-by-step guide:

1) Pick your product/service. Since I’m currently looking for work, I’m going to experiment with advertising myself on Facebook.

2) Choose or create your landing page. This can be any existing page on your website (or a new, target landing page, a Facebook fan page, etc) but it must be a webpage, not a file (you can’t link directly to a PDF).

3) Go to facebook.com/ads/. Click “Create an Ad.”

4) Write your ad; upload a picture. This is what the Facebook user will see beside their profile. Don’t be afraid to get creative. Facebook makes it easy to try and test lots of options against each other. We’ll get to that in a minute.

4) Pick your target. This is where the magic happens. As you can see, I’ve chosen to target men and women over 30, who have graduated from college, live in regions where I’d like to work, and have a job title that oversees communications specialists.

Facebook tells me that there are only 80 people whose profiles match those qualifications, but that’s okay, because those are the exact 80 people I want to reach.

5) Choose your budget. Here, I’ve decided that I’m willing to spend up to $2.00/day to get my ad in front of these 80 people. That daily budget is shared by all the ads in this campaign. Since I’m only running it through the month of June, the most I’ll end up spending is $16.00.  In reality, I’ll likely spend less, since I’m targeting such a small audience.

Choosing between “Pay for Impressions (CPM)” and “Pay for Clicks (CPC)” is a little harder.

CPC means you only pay when someone actually clicks your ad. This is a nice way to think about things: after all, aren’t you willing to pay 50 cents to get your resume seen by a hiring manager in your industry and target location? I know I am. Because this ad will only be shown to your ideal customer, each click is worth the money. Again, if no one clicks, you pay nothing.

The other option is CPM: how much you’re willing to pay for 1,000 impressions–not how many times it’s read, but how many times a page loads that has your ad on it. Since I’ve discovered that it takes significantly fewer than 2,000 impressions to get a click on my ad, I’ve chosen to bid on impressions instead of clicks.

6) Review and order. You’ll need to have a credit card handy.

7) Split test. Repeat the process to add some additional ads to your campaign. As long as they’re all part of the same campaign, it won’t cost you anything more. This lets you try a different headline, copy, target, photo or bid. Experiment! Then you can stay with the ads that give you the most bang for your buck. Try using your existing ad as a template: click “Create a Similar Ad.”

8) Track at facebook.com/ads/manage/. Find out what works and what doesn’t, and adjust accordingly.

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Like it? Tweet it: How to advertise on Facebook: a step-by-step guide. http://djgpr.com/FBadbasics

Get rid of some stuff. Now that everyone (including your boss, your mom, and your five-year-old) knows how to use Facebook, some things just don’t belong there. Specifically:

1. Embarrassing photos of yourself. If it’s in someone else’s album, just remove the tag. The photo still exists, but casual observers (and potential bosses) probably won’t see it.
2. Embarrassing photos of others. Do you really want to be that person?
3. TMI (“too much information”). We’re not interested in how long you spent in the bathroom today.

Add some stuff. Specifically:

4. A photo of you. It may be good for youngsters to have a picture of something other than their face. But no one will be able to tell me from all the other David Garcia’s if they can’t see who I am.
5. Friends!
6. Links. When your friends want to know what else you’re doing online, will they be able to find it?
7. Groups/fan pages. These tell people what you’re interested in (a way to connect), and many professions have groups to help you network. Take advantage.
8. Favorites. A tidbit about your favorite band might spark a conversation with another fan, which could, in turn, strengthen a relationship.
9. Contact information. Make it easy to reach you. You can always restrict who has access.

Intermediate:

10. Delete some applications. Most applications are, at best, unnecessary. At worst, they may be spamming your friends or selling your personal details. Choose your friends carefully and your applications even more carefully.
11. Increase your privacy settings for some things. This allows you to be more open with what you share. For example, I can include my home address on my profile, because it’s only available to a list of people I trust.
12. Decrease your privacy settings for other things. How can you expect to get the most out of Facebook if no one can find you? Back in the day, you couldn’t find my profile unless you went to BYU or knew one of my friends. Now that I use Facebook as a valuable networking tool, I’ve set parts of my profile (including my websites) as “visible to everyone.”
13. Join another network. This makes it you easier to find for people from your job, at your school, or in your area.
14. Use the “like” button. It’s a simple way to let someone know that you noticed: liking is the new “poke.”
15. Comment. If you have something to say, say it. Think about how good you feel when people talk about what you posted. Now do that for others.
16. Post more photos. When you’re getting to know someone on Facebook, where do you look? Their photos, of course. They do the same.
17. Get a better profile picture. Don’t have a good photo of yourself? Grab a friend and a camera, go outside, and take some! It’s a fun activity.
18. Post links. But only really good links. Otherwise, your updates will get the “hide friend” treatment.

Advanced:

19. Watch out for imposters. It’s possible to pull info from a MySpace page and use it to creating a convincing (but malicious) profile on Facebook. Never assume that your friend network is airtight.
20. Disconnect Twitter. You heard me. I love Twitter. But linking your Facebook and Twitter accounts is redundant and a sure-fire way to annoy both audiences. Twitter followers don’t need that self-serving “#fb” hashtag, and your Facebook friends will just end up hiding your updates. Keep ‘em separate. If something’s important enough to post in both places, then post it in both places separately.
21. Get an eye-catching profile picture. If you want a custom photo like mine, here’s how. Or we can make a deal, and I’ll edit your photo for you. Just ask!
22. Finally, get your own vanity url. Something like http://facebook.com/DavidJGarcia. In the past, the only way to send someone directly to your facebook page was with a complicated link (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=17817624) or a redirect (facebook.davidjgarcia.com). Starting this weekend, however, all that changes. You’ll be able to register for www.facebook.com/yourname. The catch? You’ve got to get it before anyone else. This may create a virtual land rush, so make sure you get yours before you’re stuck with something like facebook.com/doej0hn72 (further reading).

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Do you like this post? Then tweet it! Anything I missed? Disagree? Agree? Add it in the comments. And don’t forget to subscribe or come back tomorrow, because I’m posting new content every day this month.

You absolutely won’t want to miss tomorrow’s post! It’s an exclusive audio interview with Brooke Eddington, managing editor and account executive at Xposure Inc. She’ll share her valuable insight on diversity PR. This is a hot topic, and Brooke has some amazing, timely advice.