A little while ago I created a Facebook Group dedicated to music. I sent invitations to a few friends I know have similar tastes, and we started to share music: YouTube videos, SoundCloud tracks… There are only about 30 people in this group, but every day someone shares music with other members; whether it’s completely new or a classic. That’s a personal use of Facebook Groups, which works because people are already on Facebook.

Facebook Pages vs. Facebook Groups

A Facebook Page is supposed to be public, so anyone can see it and ‘Like’ it. However a Facebook Group can be private; it shouldn’t bother anyone. With a Facebook Group you could for example share things you want to share with your employees only, or with your existing customers only… There are plenty of reasons why you could create a Facebook Group for business.

For example you could create a Facebook Group to answer questions people often ask to your customer support team. You could also organize a group class – to train your existing customers – without having to make everything public, so you don’t necessarily reveal all the details of your product or service. This of course depends on your business, and on what you sell, but if you’re creative you should find interesting uses.

Why Doing it on Facebook?

Then why using Facebook and not your own site or blog ? Well, everyone is on Facebook already, so it means people don’t have to sign up (they’re already members) but simply join the group or respond to an invitation. They don’t have to remember their details… Everything is there, on Facebook. Chances are they’re already logged in and they can access your Facebook Group from their own Profile in just a few clicks.

That’s what I call taking advantage of an highly powerful yet underused platform like Facebook… Facebook is far to be perfect but you can’t say it’s a bad service. It’s fairly easy to use, and reliable. With Facebook Groups you can create polls, share photos and videos, create documents and events that you can easily share with other members of the group… There is a whole range of tools that you can use.

And the best part is that… It’s FREE! So if you want to do business on Facebook, you should not only create a Facebook Page, you should also maybe create a Facebook Group, for your employees, or your existing customers, or people who have very interested in your products and services and want to learn more about them… There are plenty of possibilities that can all help you establish a stronger online presence.

One of the great other advantages of this program is that you can schedule (recurring) tweets. Yes, you can fully automate your Twitter activity by getting the system to automatically tweet your updates whenever you want! So you can tweet messages while you’re at the beach, at the movies, at the stadium… and even while you’re sleeping! How good is this? This is truly a great feature and the best part is: Social Oomph lets you try this free for a few days! However, I must warn you… if you try this upgraded feature, you WILL want to upgrade, no matter how much it costs. The good news is: it’s pretty cheap!

With the free version, you can schedule messages to be tweeted once, as many times as you want. Good… but not good enough! With the trial and paid versions, you can schedule messages to be tweeted as many times as you want. You can indeed schedule recurring updates! If you have your messages ready, setting everything up only takes a few minutes, and you can then tweet for life without even connecting to Twitter, connecting to the internet and using a computer! To make money online… automation is key!

Too easy!

This is must-have if you’re an internet marketer or alike. Social media marketing has become very popular in the industry and every day thousands of dollars are made on Twitter with 140 characters or less messages… that people haven’t even tweeted themselves! Even if you aren’t in the industry Social Oomph still is a social media program you must definitely try. As a reminder, it’s free, but the real value is in the upgraded version! A must-have if you want to make money on Twitter! Who wouldn’t want to do that anyway?

With SocialOomph, you can automatically send a direct message to new followers, and it is very simple. You just have to create an account on the website (it’s free) and add your Twitter account in the dashboard (click Accounts and Add Account). Grab your Twitter username and password, fill in the blanks and enter the message you want your new followers to receive (don’t forget to tick the Auto Welcome box at the top of the message). Press Save and… that’s it! You couldn’t think of an easier way to do this. You don’t need to do anything from the Twitter interface (besides checking that the direct messages are actually sent maybe).

Social Oomph even gives you a few tips on how to write a welcome message. You probably already know what you want to tell your new followers, but their advices do make sense. Read them. Then if you ask me if you should do that or not… I can just tell you that only you have the answer to this question. I guess it really depends on your profile. Is this for a personal Twitter account, or for business? What kind of business? And so forth… I hope this helps! Social Oomph also provides other (free and paid) services to improve your social media productivity. Is is definitely worth a look.

I heard a lot about Twitter these last few days, everywhere: at work of course, at home, at uni… The user base has grown quite significantly these last few months, but many accounts aren’t actually used that much, as HubSpot recently revealed it: Announcing the June 2009  State of the Twittersphere Report. If you’re wondering about all the buzz, I strongly suggest you to take a look at this report.

Make sure you follow Marketing Meerkat on Twitter @mktgmkt so you are notified every time a post is published! By the way, there’s an article about Twitter in this week’s Time Magazine…