Best Ways to Make Money on Facebook

 Whether you are marketing, selling, or advertising on Facebook you need to know how to make money on Facebook with your efforts.

Everybody uses Facebook. Okay, slight exaggeration. But with over two billion users worldwide, including more than 214 million in the United States alone, it is very, very widespread.

It’s revolutionized news, culture, social interaction, and more. But it’s not just a way for you to keep in touch with old high school friends, share your funny dog photos, or post videos from your beach vacation.

And the reality is that no matter what business or market you are in, chances are you can reach a segment of your audience on Facebook.

Facebook is also a powerful money-making platform. In fact, there are many ways you could potentially make money on Facebook. Let's take a look at the various ways you can use Facebook to market, advertise, and promote your business - or just make some money on the side.

1. The Facebook Marketplace

This is one of the simplest ways to make money on Facebook. Essentially, Facebook allows you to sell items on a special section of the site. Many towns, cities, and communities have set up buy/sell pages or you can simply search by geographic location, product name, or category. That way buyers can quickly see a wide range of choices in the surrounding area.

You can post used or new items to sell, everything from laptops to cell phones to cars to furniture. It’s like Craigslist on steroids. Here are some tips when it comes to selling on the Facebook Marketplace:

• Make sure to include clear pictures of what you’re selling.
• Provide details like model number, condition (be honest), etc. 
• Make sure you are selling it for the right price. Check what the same or similar items are selling for from other Marketplace sellers or on other sites like eBay or Craigslist.
• Keep in mind there is some negotiation with potential buyers and many will try to low-ball you. If you don’t think it’s a fair price you’re under no obligation to take the offer.

Chances are you're not going to create a full-time business buying or selling items on Facebook, but this is a quick way to make some extra cash. If you're already selling items on eBay or Craigslist this is another avenue for you to reach more people and expand your potential audience of buyers.

2. Facebook as a Traffic Driver

The great thing about Facebook is that its algorithms examine where you go online, what you click on the site, what videos you watch, etc. Then it brings more of those types of posts to your attention. Facebook is also, of course, a way to connect like-minded people, organizations, and companies.

You can take advantage of this to make money on Facebook. You’ll do it not by selling to people directly on the platform as with the Marketplace but rather compelling people to click on links on your Facebook page that takes them to your e-commerce site, landing page, or other website connected to your online business.

This is often referred to as two-step marketing. You're not trying to make a sale on Facebook (because people generally aren't there to buy), rather you're trying to get their attention and interest and get them off of Facebook clicking over to your website.

There you can sell them products or ask them to sign up to your email list (we’ll cover that in depth in the next section). This Facebook traffic is very qualified—these are people interested in your product offers. When you run ads on Facebook you can target by demographics, interestes, and even people who have already expressed interest in your product, business, and brand so the traffic is very qualified.

To boost your traffic, you need to post regularly to your Facebook page. You can post sales pitches, product launches, and other related things to your business. Strong copy and compelling offers can bring in a lot of traffic. But you should also have useful content on your page that engages the prospect—that’s what’ll keep them coming back. You could post industry news, funny stories, etc. Photos and videos are very important these days—people want to watch them. And they don’t have to be professionally produced.

If you have a blog, you should also post a link to every new post on your Facebook page. Same with any new YouTube videos or any other content you post elsewhere online. It’s all about driving as much traffic as possible. You may even consider paying for ads just to have people see your free content and go back to your website as well. This way you can build a retargeting audience and run ads to them in the future.

The idea is to include content that gets people to like your Facebook page, so it shows up in their news feed and they send it to friends too.

3. Using Facebook to Generate Leads

This goes right along with #2 but we wanted to focus on this way to make money on Facebook because it’s very effective, although it is more of gradual way to earn income.

Basically, all the Facebook users out there are potential leads for your business. Not everybody, of course, just those folks who are interested in your products. The cool thing is that Facebook makes it easy to find these folks… and for them to find you. Again, you need a Facebook page for your business.

You’ll include useful content to engage the users. And then you’ll also include links to your website or a landing page asking them to sign up to your list to get a newsletter or updates, as well as special offers. It’s important that you give them some incentive for sign up, like a free ebook or special report related to your niche.

With Facebook you can also include an email opt-in form directly on your Facebook page.

You should also go out to fan pages or Facebook groups that are in the same industry or niche and start posting—this networking can bring more people to your page or directly to your website or landing page.

Once these people are on your email list you can continue to send them offers, as well as useful content like a newsletter. This is a great way to warm them up to the idea of buying from you. And you can offer them increasingly more expensive products over time as they buy the lower cost products first and then are ready for higher ticket items.

Another strategy that is working well is to post links that simply go to content pieces or blog posts on your website. You're simply running ads to good quality content you've created. Once they arrive to your content, there you can offer a content upgrade by way of getting onto your email list. This is a less direct method but can make your ads more cost effective.

4. Facebook Ads

The old saying goes, “You have to spend money to make money.” And that’s certainly the case with running paid ads onFacebook. You’ve seen these ads, they’re the little banners on the right side of the page, as well as the sponsored posts that show up directly in the news feed.

Again, cookies that follow you around online, follow you to Facebook. So that ads that appear are something you might be interested in and you’re more likely to click and even buy the product. When you’re an advertiser that’s great news because your ads are getting front of the eyeballs of the right people.

One note of caution. Like any type of online advertising, Facebook ads can be pricey and it’s quite easy to spend a lot of money with no return if you don’t know what you’re doing.

So before you use this method to make money on Facebook, you should have all your systems in place, you should have been in business for awhile, and you should have some cash in reserve because there will be some trial and error before you find ad copy and an offer that works. You should also having good tracking in place so you know exactly which ads are working and which ones are not; that way you're not wasting money on ads that don't work and can pump more money into the ads that are working.

A related method to this is boosting posts. When you find a post on Facebook that is working well and engaging your prospects, you can “boost” it by paying some extra money. Boosting puts it in front of more people.

Boosting posts is the simplest way to do a Facebook ad; once you find a boost post that works well you should use Facebook's more advanced ad options to promote those posts that do well.

5. Bringing Customers to Your Bricks-and-Mortar Business

Customers expect every business they interact with to have a Facebook page. This includes businesses with physical locations like shops, retail stores, restaurants, and more. So it’s important that you have a Facebook page that clearly shows your location, what your place is all about, what products or services you offer, etc.

You can also include news of sales and discount offers or special events. For example, you can post about the weekly happy hour at your restaurant. And if somebody posts a question or comment – be sure to respond in a timely manner. Get a conversation going with your fans.

The goal here is to have people like your page so your new posts are in their newsfeed. Then when they see a special offer they like, they come in to your physical location. You want to keep your place of business top of mind with your prospects so they come visit you.

Admittedly this strategy only really works if you have a physical business, but it’s worth mentioning here. Also you should encourage all of your customers to like your page and have them follow you on Facebook for news, specials, coupons, and updates. A simple sign at the register encouraging people to follow you on Facebook can work or you may even incentivize people to follow you by offering something.

Another important note: you can only run paid ads to a business page; not your personal profile.

6. Sell Affiliate Products

Affiliate marketing is one of the quickest ways to get started doing business online. And the cool thing is that Facebook is a great way to get into this type of venture. It makes it so easy.

The basic model works like this:

1. You sign up for an affiliate program. There are dozens out there but a great place to start is ClickBank, CJ Affiliate, and Amazon.
2. You promote products from those sites on a Facebook page centered all around a specific hot niche.
3. Whenever somebody clicks on the link and buys the product, you get a commission – generally from 5 percent to 25 percent.

As with any strategy to make money on Facebook, it’s important post regularly and engage with your audience. That creates trust and makes more likely people will buy. Also, be sure to track those numbers so you know which campaigns are workign and which ones are not.

A Variety of Ways to Make Money on Facebook–Choose One

There are many ways to profit from spending time and effort on Facebook. It’s one of the most versatile platforms for making money online. Try one or several of these methods to see which one works best for you. Best of luck.

Best Books on Business Success of 2012

 Best Books on Business Success of 2012: Here are the top 20 books on Amazon from last year on Business Success 1. Street Smart Disciplines of Successful People: 7 Indispensable Dis...

Here are the top 20 books on Amazon from last year on Business Success

1. Street Smart Disciplines of Successful People: 7 Indispensable Disciplines For Breakout Business Success (Volume 1)

A Word from John and Mark. Why do you need this book? How is it different? Why do people like it? What's all the buzz about? And what are "street smarts" anyway? Street smarts are what you get from doing it, not from reading about it.

2. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

Mindset is "an established set of attitudes held by someone," says the Oxford American Dictionary. It turns out, however, that a set of attitudes needn't be so set, according to Dweck, professor of psychology at Stanford. Dweck proposes that everyone has either a fixed mindset or a growth mindset.

3. HOW TO PUBLISH A #1 BEST SELLER ON KINDLE - NO COST PUBLISHING AND MARKETING SECRETS OF A BEST SELLING AUTHOR - HOW T...

HOW TO PUBLISH A #1 BEST SELLER ON KINDLE - NO COST PUBLISHING AND MARKETING SECRETS OF A BEST SELLING AUTHOR - HOW TO BOOK & GUIDE FOR SMART DUMMIES: CHRISTOPHER DAVID ALLEN:

4. The Millionaire Real Estate Agent: It's Not About the Money...It's About Being the Best You Can Be!

"Keller presents the million-dollar benchmark as a symbol of excellence, rather than a monument to materialism." -- Chris Leporni, Realtor Magazine"The Millionaire Real Estate Agent is the step-by-step handbook for seeking excellence in your profession and your life."

5. Three Simple Steps: A Map to Success in Business and Life

"...an inspirational and thought-provoking read..."-Publishers Weekly"Trevor Blake has provided a clear and concise road map for those of us who believe we were born to make a difference but needed help getting started. The empowering and inspirational message will change your life. ... It did mine!

6. The Squidoo Success Formula Training Guide - Everything You Need To Know To Make Money From Squidoo!

The Squidoo Success Formula Training Guide - Everything You Need To Know To Make Money From Squidoo!: Wendy Bon, Jason Katzenback

7. How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

This fizzy musical was a Broadway smash in 1962, and boy, is it a product of its era. Executive washrooms, gray-flannel-suit businessmen, hip-swinging secretaries--they're all preserved in the movie's brightly colored amber. J. Pierpont Finch (Robert Morse) is the window washer who climbs the corporate ladder in a few days, guided by a how-to book.

8. M&A Integration: How To Do It. Planning and delivering M&A integration for business success

Read, think and learn:How to get the most value out of your dealWhat the stages of a successful integration areAbout different strategy and delivery issuesWhen to start planningTools, techniques, and checklists that will get you through everythingLessons learnt and pitfalls to avoid from the experience of hundreds of deals

9. The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success

"Thorndike wants to give any manager or business owner the confidence to occasionally do things differently from your peers ... to make the most of the cards they're dealt and to delight their shareholders." - Financial Times"[Thorndike's] findings turn received wisdom about CEO success on its head.

10. The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success (Wiley Desktop Editions)

Praise for The Social Media Bible"The social media phenomenon is still ramping up, and this book provides useful and timely business advice."-Vint Cerf, Father Of The Internet"Social media and customer care are rapidly coming together. The Social Media Bible is a must-read for any professional who wants to stay on top of this rapidly changing topic.

101 Free Ways To Advertise Your Website

 

1) Yahoo Answers.
2) Myspace.com
3) Yahoo Groups
4) Stumbleupon.com
5) Forums
6) Craigslist.org
7) Site maps
8)E-Book Giveaway
9) Website Design
10) Submit To Directories
11) Tell a Friend
12) Search Engine Optimization
13) Squidoo.com
14) Social bookmarking sites
15) Article Promotion
16) Site Explorer
17) Epinion.com
18) Alexa.com
19) Newsletter Box
20) Scribd
21) Get Links from Relevant Websites
22) Increase the Size of Your Site
22) Send out Press Releases
23) Advertise On Online classified Ad Sites
24) Use Firefox Plug-in
25) Add a Forum to Your Site
26) Add a Blog to Your Site
27) Optimize Your Blog for The Search Engines
28) Comment on Other Peoples Blogs
29) MySpace News
30) Digg
31) Banner Exchanges
32) Traffic Exchanges
33) Pop Unders
34) Technorati and ping it when your blog content changes
35) Use a ping service like pingomatic to ping RSS aggregators
36) Submit your blog to all of the RSS directories
37) Link to other blogs in your posts
38) Use Stumbleupon to stumble your posts.
39) Ask your readers to submit your posts to social bookmarking sites (Digg, Reddit, etc.)
40) Start a group blog.
41) Join SpicyPage and promote your blog
42) Join a webring.
43) Sign up for BlogWoods and promote your blog
44) Exchange Ads (not blogroll links) with complementary blogs.
45) Trade blog roll links with related blogs.
46) Use Twitter
47) Publish videos on YouTube
48)Search for Wikis related to your.
49) Join Hub pages and post links to your blog from articles you write.
50) Pray.
51) Create a MySpace Page. Put your blog on it, and get some friends.
52) Tell people you will link back to them if they review your blog
53) Most brands are not well established online, you review related content and it will rank well.
54) Review relevant products on Amazon.com.
55) Create product lists on Amazon.com
56) Review related sites on Alexa
57) Review products and services on shopping search engines.
58) Swap some links.
59) Try to get links from within the content of relevant content pages.
60) Sell items on eBay.
61) Target niche social news sites like DZone, Sphinn or Hugg
62) Whenever you send an email to someone, always add your website url as a signature.
63) Do email signature swaps
64) Tag blog posts at social bookmarking sites
65) Add photos to your blog with appropriate keywords – Google Images generates traffic too.
66) Tag blog photos at Flicker
67) Make a custom 404-error page for your website. You can provide a link back to your main website or even try to monetize it by offering a related affiliate program within your niche.
68)Outsource grunt work.
69) After someone orders from you offer a one-time offer that compliments your product.
70) Participate in Blog Carnivals
71) create a network of blogs in different niches, and then link them together
72) Give away stock images with a wee watermark of your URL
73) Find and discuss memes
74) Create a Yahoo Group in the niche your site sits.
75) Bookmark your site on Del.icio.us and if you’re really keen, add a Del.icio.us button to your homepage.
76) Place a free ad for your company on Gumtree.
77) Syndicate your site’s content by using an RSS feeds.
78) Submit your RSS feeds to aggregator sites.
79) Don’t worry about PageRank – worrying about PageRank is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum.*
80) Get a custom t-shirt made with your website URL on it, and wear it often.
81) Get a custom t-shirt made with your website URL on it, and wear it often.
82) Send out a newsletter!
83) Giving away an eBook is an excellent way to generate word-of-mouth about your site.
84) Ask bloggers and other Web site owners to review your site and/or products.
85) Add a “Tell a Friend” function to your site, so people can easily recommend you to their mates.
86) Share your banners on banner exchange sites.
87) Create a “lense” for your site on Squidoo
88) Do you have really hot content on your site that geeks would love? If so Slashdot will bring you a mass of traffic.
89) upload a favicon.gif file so that your users have a nice icon when they bookmark your site.
90) Set up a feed on MyYahoo.com so your site gets regularly spidered by the Yahoo search
91) Use Ping-0-matic to ping blog directories. Do this every time you publish.
92) Print your blog URL on your business cards, brochures and flyers.
93) Use Trackback links when you quote or refer to other blog posts.
94) Increase the list you ping
95) Use Facebook
96) Social Networking
97) Micro
98) Email Marketing
99) RSS Feeds
100) Get outside links to internal pages
101) Use free hosting and build sites and link them back to your main site.

16 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog

You've got your blog set up and you've started posting pithy, useful information that your niche market would benefit from and enjoy. Days go by, you keep publishing, but no one comments and your traffic stats are barely registering. What do you do?

Like any website you own, you must do some blog promotion to start driving traffic to your site. Here are 16 steps, in no particular order of importance, that you can start doing now to get traffic moving to your blog.

1. Set up an email subscription form on your blog and invite everyone in your network to subscribe: family, friends, colleagues, clients, associates.

2. Set up a feed on MyYahoo.com so your site gets regularly spidered by the Yahoo search engine.

3. Read and comment on other blogs that are in your target niche. Don't write things like "nice blog" or "great post." Write intelligent, useful comments with a link to your blog.

4. Use Ping-0-matic to ping blog directories. Do this every time you publish.

5. Submit your blog to traditional search engines.

6. Submit your blog to blog directories.

Tip: Create a form to track your submissions; this can take several hours when you first start so schedule an hour a day for submitting or hire a VA to do it for you.

7. Add a link to your blog in your email signature file.

8. Put a link to your blog on every page of your website.

9. If you publish a newsletter, make sure you have a link to your blog in every issue.

10. Include a link to your blog as a standard part of all outgoing correspondence such as autoresponder sequences, sales letters, reports, white papers, etc.

11. Print your blog URL on your business cards, brochures and flyers.

12. Make sure you have an RSS feed URL that people can subscribe to. The acronym RSS means Rich Site Summary, or some may consider its meaning as Really Simple Syndication. It is a document type that lists updates of websites or blogs available for syndication. These RSS documents (also known as 'feeds') may be read using aggregators (news readers). RSS feeds may show headlines only or both headlines and summaries.

13. Post often to keep attracting your subscribers to come back and refer you to others in their networks; include links to other blogs, articles and websites in your posts

14. Use Trackback links when you quote or refer to other blog posts. What is TrackBack? Essentially what this does is send a message from one server to another server letting it know you have posted a reference to their post. The beauty is that a link to your blog is now included on their site.

15. Write articles to post around the web in article directories. Include a link to your blog in the author info box (See example in our signature below).

16. Make a commitment to blog everyday. 10 minutes a day can help increase your traffic as new content attracts search engine spiders. Put it on your calendar as a task every day at the same time.

How to Really Make Money on the Internet With an Amazon.com Affiliate Site

You've probably heard before a lot of hype about how much money you can make with affiliate programs. Maybe you've even set up a site yourself, only to find that after buying the domain, a few bucks a month in hosting, software or a web designer to design your site, etc., that the piddly affiliate fees hardly even covered your cost. Well, here's the hype-free way to really make money with an Amazon.com affiliate site. And it'll only take a day to make the site. The secret? Low cost, low effort.

Here's How:

If you don't already know it, learn some basic HTML. You have to do this to keep your costs down and still get what you want. Even if the site is basically laid out for you, you're going to need to know how to insert images, create hyperlinks, and do some basic text formatting.

Decide on your topic.

You're going to be doing product reviews and recommendations, so pick a topic that you enjoy and know something about. If you can't stay passionate about the topic, that will show, and it also won't hold your interest. Choose a narrow enough niche to be distinctive, e.g., bands from your city, left-handed guitarists, music for a certain kind of dancing, authors of a certain religion, books about arts & crafts, etc.

Choose your domain name.

Make it keyword-rich, not clever. Think how people will find your site in the search engines. Here are some ideas (all available when I first wrote this, though a cfew have been snatched up):
Music: BandsFromTexas.com, BandOutOfBoston.com, SouthpawGuitarists.com, ClassicPsychedelia.com, Non-Stop-Hip-Hop.com, Merengue-Music.com
Books: Mormon-Authors.com, Arts-and-Crafts-Books.com, Books-by-Stephen-King.com, ClassicBusinessBooks.com
Others: Best-Baby-Toys.com, MomsMags.com, FelliniMovies.com

Register your domain name.

 If you're not technically inclined at all, register your domain wherever you set up your hosting in step 5. Otherwise, you can save a few bucks by choosing a lower-cost provider. Not a big deal for one or two sites, but it can be for ten or twenty. I use GoDaddy, who have great domain management tools and are less than $10 a year. The least expensive I've found from a reputable source is 1&1, whose price is around $7 a year last I checked.

Set up your web hosting.

This is where most people get burned. For this kind of site, you do not need $10 a month web hosting! Our Online Business Guide has a list of Cheap Web Hosting for Under $10. Some are as little as $4 a month, with unlimited domains, i.e., you can run several sites like this on the same hosting package.

Install blog software. "Blog, you say?" Yes. It will give your site all the structure you need, plus make it easy to quickly post new content. My pick is WordPress, which is open source (i.e., free), easy to install and use, and yet very powerful. Many hosts have a one-step installation process for it, or you can download it and follow their installation instructions.

Make it pretty. One of the great things about WordPress is the huge variety of templates available for it -- they can completely change the look-and-feel. Our Weblogs Guide has a list of 5 Sites for Free Wordpress Themes, where you can find hundreds of free WordPress themes.

Set up categories. Most blog software allows you to create sub-categories to help organize your entries. This will help visitors narrow in even more specifically on their interests. For example, BandsFromTexas.com might have one group of categories for genre — rock, country, blues, etc. — and another for city of origin — Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, etc.

Sign up as an Amazon Associate. It's simple and free. Just visit Amazon and click on the Join Associates link at the bottom of the page (here's a direct link for your convenience). Your site should already have at least the basic setup done, even if you don't have any content there yet, as they'll review the site manually before approval.

Create your blog posting bookmarks/links. There are two links that are going to be essential for you to make this easy. First is the blog posting link. In your blog software, on the posting page (see their instructions), at the bottom of the page there should be a "bookmarklet". Click on the link (and hold the mouse) and drag it up to your Links toolbar in your browser (assuming Internet Explorer), or your Favorites menu. This will allow you to blog a product with one mouse click.

Create your Amazon Build-A-Link bookmark/link. This will make it easy to build the link with your affiliate ID built in. Log in to Associates Central, look in the left navigation sidebar, go to Build-A-Link, and under Static Links, find Individual Items. Click and drag this onto your Links toolbar or Favorites menu.

Build your first link. Go to Amazon and log in with your Associates account. Find the product you want to review and use the Site Stripe (gray stripe at the top of the screen that you'll see when logged in as an Associate) to get your personalized link to the item. They also offer a variety of other options for creating links and banners.

Blog your review. Now click on your blog posting link (Press It! by default in WordPress). If you're using WordPress, you should now see two pieces of link code in your posting form, the first one ending with "Associates Build-A-Link >< /a >". Delete through that point. The second part is a link to the product with your Amazon Associate ID built in. Now just write your product review, choose the appropriate categories for it, and hit Publish.

Build out your site. Before you promote your site, you want to have some substantial content there. Write several product reviews. Have at least 2-3 in each category you've created. You may also want to make a categories for articles, news, and commentary about your topic. The more content your site has, the better. And the great thing is that while you're writing all this, the search engines are getting notified automatically, assuming you turned on the notifications mentioned in step 6.

Promote your site. The best free way to do this is to communicate with other bloggers writing about similar topics, and to participate in online communities where your topic is discussed. See the Online Business Networking category for ideas, as well as the Internet Marketing category.

Tips:

1. You have to learn some basic HTML and basic concepts about running a web site. It's just not that hard. If you have to rely on purchased software, you won't be able to get exactly what you want, you won't know what to do when things go wrong, and you'll end up spending money you don't need to. Spend the time to learn it. It will be well worth the investment.
2. I slightly recommend music over books and other products, mainly because you can listen to the clips of an entire album in about 10 minutes and get a good enough feel for it (without buying it) to do a short review. If you have another topic that you're passionate about, great, but make sure you have a unique angle on the topic. People can get reviews about a lot of those consumer products anywhere. You need to give them a reason to come to your site.
3. To pick up some extra pennies, sign up for Google AdSense. It probably won't generate a lot of revenue, but it's free to sign up and completely effortless to maintain.
4. Set reasonable expectations for earnings. You've only invested $20. You're going to make 5% on most products. That means that you need to sell $400 worth of stuff to make back your investment. To make $20 an hour, what you write must generate $400 worth of purchases. You get credit for other purchases customers you send make while at Amazon besides just the product you linked to, so it's not as hard as it may sound. It won't make you rich, but it's not hard to be profitable, and it builds over time.