On September 15th 2009, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook “now serves 300 million people across the world.”  It seems the site’s growth hadn’t exactly come to a stop, either, as about a month and a half later, stats indicate the number of users has risen to at least 325 million.

Facebook users in 2009

If you want to go to Facebook looking for instantaneous sales than you’ll arrive at the wrong place. Facebook gives the opportunity to build an ongoing relationship with your customer and that’s what Facebook is most useful for: building relationships.

It’s a platform to build ongoing relationships and “remarket” to your customers, as Facebook says in some of their own marketing copy. Understanding that these users are not ready to purchase is key to success on Facebook.

Facebook users

That means it’s more important to build a relationship with a potential client or an existing customer rather than closing a sale right away. So how does this law show up in practice? The most obvious form is through the Facebook Ads for pages and events.

Through these advertisements, users can become a fan or RSVP to an event directly from an ad. At that point, you have the opportunity to interact directly with that individual and build a relationship. If you had directed a user to your website, you would have been forced to have them enter a form or make a purchase right away. The odds of getting a user to fill out a form or make a purchase immediately is far less than getting them to become a fan of a Page or RSVPing to an event.

In order to become an effective Facebook advertiser, you need to have effectively defined your market. We help you take advantage of the 11 targeting factors that Facebook currently provides. To help define your market, we must go through the market segmentation process. This involves defining the need your company satisfies and then more thoroughly defining who your customer is.

We all want customers, but as we’ve continuously emphasized: Facebook marketing is not about instant sales. With that in mind, below are two practices that are good to keep in mind when setting your goals:

1. Don’t blow your budget in a day

2. You need to make sure that you are at least “engaging” your facebook visitors. If you want to see them again you must not wait two weeks to follow-up. The same goes for your fans. Follow-up with your fans often and consistently.