Facebook Connect has been around for some time now, but it seems its adoption in the local marketing sphere needs more of a drive.

Intergration of Connect can take many forms, and from the testimonials that Facebook have on their blog it seems to have a huge impact on not only traffic but the obvious viral effect that takes place.

Connect allows users to share content by interacting and taking action on your site like commenting, reviewing, making purchases, rating, and more. The natural viral effect that Facebook has, through streams and notifications, creates a “viral loop” through the users Homepage by introducing their friends to your content. This viral loop is essential if you have embarked on a pull marketing strategy; users introduce their friends to your content, hence instilling a sense of trust and familiarity with it which gives them the confidence to in turn share it within their extended circle of friends.

Apart from the viral effects of Connect from your content point-of-view, it offers users and easy subscription to your services. By making use of Connect in your website, users are a couple of clicks away of registering without the time consuming efforts of filling in forms that sometimes create a drop rate of users.

One last thing about Connect is the instant gratification it offers. Once a call-to-action has been answered, it is instantly streamed into the users Homepage. This is powerful function when dealing with NGO’s and other socially driven initiatives like Causes

I believe that if you are offering the right content to users that Connect is an essential part of any Online marketing toolkit.

Marketers that have to thus far relied on traditional media are now shifting their focus to encompass social media like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, which all provide pre-segmented consumer groups with no or little effort (and money) from the marketing department. Blogs, from the humble beginnings of people rambling on about their personal lives are becoming a channel for business to promote and reinforce their transparency to their customer groups and stakeholders.

Research, done Michael Stelzner of the Social Media Success Summit, shows the hierarchy of social media tools as utilised by SME’s and corporate alike.

Experience with social media is the main factor in deciding which tools are used and to what extent they are being utilised.  The research shows that Twitter is the leader in social media tools with blogs in 2nd, followed by Linkedin, Facebook and YouTube.

So now you know what everyone else is using, but how do you decide how much to invest yourself? The research shows that it will depend on your experience with the social media. 72% of respondents from the research had only just started using social media or had only been doing it for a couple of months. Their investment varied from 2 hours a week to 10 hours a week. For the more experienced, and arguably, the more successful in the social media realm, the time invested jumped to 20+ hours a week. So how do you justify allocating resources to social media, when it will take up nearly 45% of your working week? The table below should speak for itself.

So whether you are just starting out or are a fully fledged guru in social media, the ROI speaks for itself. All it takes is some time, a communication strategy, the relevant social platform and a system to deliver your message.

Facebook Public Profiles, previously known as Pages, is a profile page that any Facebook user can see and interact with, hence building dialog with them.

Facebook is very excited about the new Public Profiles and especially the new feature they have introduced, called the “Wall Tab”. Based on the “Share” button, the wall tab allows profile owners to post links, photos and news to the profile. But what makes this new feature special is that these posts are then posted on the Homepage of all fans. This is where value of your content becomes integral and sparks a viral effect. Fans then have the option to comment or give a “thumbs up” on the post, once this has been done the post goes to the Highlight section of their respective Facebook friends. If no action is taken on a post by users, but they decide to make a post on your public profile’s wall, this will then show up on their friends News Feed. What this means is that one post on a public profile can be seen by hundreds if not thousands of Facebook users within your fans network(s) through either active or passive distribution. There is a limitation though. When fans like or comment on a text update, there is no viral distribution; only when there is content attached such as links, photos, videos, and notes.

Public Profiles is a great way to get your brand out there or to reinforce its current positioning, depending on your selected online strategy. As a word of warning though, users enjoy relevant and accessible content, not  hourly updates about what is going on in the office, that is what Twitter is for. Spamming your fans this will definitely dilute your brand, reduce your profile effectiveness, loosing you fans and inevitably market share.

“With great power comes great responsibility” Stan Lee.