Adding Facebook To Your Network

Facebook has become the one of the most popular social networking websites around. It has outpaced MySpace and is still lightyears ahead of Twitter.

The only social site that can match Facebook is YouTube, and they are really two different services.

If your website is not connected to Facebook (FB), then you're not taking the web seriously.

But if you're serious about making FB work for your website, it's very easy to do. And once you've got it all set up, everything runs almost automatically.

Your website or blog (you should have both) is the hub of your network. But FB is perhaps the most important spoke of this neat little wheel. Facebook is just another extension and tool you can use to increase your brand or business' image.

Here are some easy step-by-step instructions on how to use Facebook with your website.

1. First, sign up for an account with FB. You'll want to create your own personal page with your name and your picture. This is for you, not your website or business.
2. Invite your real family and real friends to become friends with you on Facebook. Look for some long lost friends or old classmates you haven't heard from in a while. You'll find this part to be fun and engaging but don't get too wrapped up in it.
3. While logged into FB, create a Fan page for your website. Upload an image that represents your website, and name this fanpage after your website (It is absolutely important you create your Fan Page while logged into your Personal page.)
4. Connect your website's Fan Page to your Twitter account (Facebook will prompt you for this automatically.)
5. Invite all of your friends and family members in your personal page to join your website's Fan page.
6. Create a simple Facebook badge for your Fan page and pur the code on your website.
7. Everytime you add a new post or page, add a link to it in your Fan page. Your new links will also automatically post to your Twitter stream.

The last four steps in the process above are very critical. They will help bring more traffic to your website and further solidify your network. Let's look at each one a little closer.

Some people are really devoted to Twitter. They can post dozens, even hundreds of Tweets a day. But most of us don't have that kind of time. Rather than try to become a super Twitter guru, just link your Fan Page on Facebook to your Twitter account.

This is why it is important that you're logged into your personal FB page when you create your Fan Page. Yes, it is possible to have a separate Facebook personal page for your website or business, but officially that's against Facebook's rules. If you don't care about no stinking rules, then go for it.

But for those that want to follow Facebook's guidelines, you're only supposed to create one personal page for yourself. And from there, you can create as many Fan pages as you want.

And the only way Facebook will let you link your fan page to your Twitter account is if you have a personal account.

And everytime you add a new link or picture or anything else to your Fan page, it will automatically get posted to your Twitter page. Leaving you free to do more important things.

Unless you or your website is very famous, no one is going to rush to join your fan page. This is another reason it's important you create a personal page first.

No one wants to be the only one at a party. So even if you have an interesting website, if no one else has joined your fan page, new visitors will be hesitant to join.

That's where your real friends and family can help. Send them an invite to your fan page first. They're likely to respond and join without a second thought; even if they're not interested in the website.

So when real visitors come to your Fan page, they'll see several other people are already there. They don't know it's just your mom and Aunt Betsie and your old college buddy. Your visitors, who really are interested in your website, will see that other folks like this website enough to join. So they'll join too.

I'm surprised more people don't do this simple little action that only takes a couple of minutes. You'll see a lot of websites and blogs with all sorts of Social Media icons. But relatively few people include a Facebook badge on their site.

The benefit of a FB badge is that it shows how many people are already fans of your page. Of course, if you only have two fans, you might not want to put the badge on your site. But if you've got 15 or more, by all means, include the badge.

Plus, it's very prominent and displays your page's icon.

This is the easiest part of the entire process, but very critical nonetheless. Just like no one wants to be the only one at a party, no one wants to be at a boring party either.

So everytime you update or add something new to your website, let everyone know about it on your fan page also. If you created a new blog post, copy the URL and attach in your website's fan page. If you've updated something on your site, put a post on your page also.

This is social media so keep it social. Keep it active. Keep things moving.

Now that you've followed all of these steps, your network is nearly complete. Everything is running smoothly and interactively and almost automatically.

Here's how the beautiful machine will work:

• You create a new wonderful post about some topic that relates to your website idea.
• You attach a link to your new post on your website's fan page in Facebook.
• Facebook automatically posts your new submission to your Twitter account.
• Now you've got two new links coming to your website; one from FB and one from Twitter.
• One of your Facebook fans likes the new post and comments on it. One of their friends (who's never been to your site) sees the comment on their wall and visits the fan page.
• This new visitor likes your page and becomes a fan also.
• Someone is searching Twitter for information and just happens to come upon the Tweet Facebook posted to your Twitter stream.
• They click the link and come to your Fan page. They like it so much they become a fan also.
• And just like that, two new people who never visited your website before are now fans and will (hopefully) visit often.

Now your network is almost complete.

Related Articles:

Link Builders
Promoting Websites
Using Twitter
Social Networking Websites