I'll admit it. After reading a story in Wired 2.0 about how blogging is quickly becoming a professional's game, I've become hooked on the whole notion of leveraging social networks like Facebook and Twitter for business purposes. I somehow missed out the whole MySpace craze (thankfully, visiting a MySpace page now just makes my eyes hurt) - but Facebook has me hook, line and sinker.

You should be thinking about marketing your business in the places where your target markets are these days. Believe me, that's rarely in the classifieds sections of your local newspapers anymore.

Now, industry social networks like ActiveRain are great for connecting with your peers; but let's face it, Consumers aren't hanging out there. If you're looking for buyers and sellers, in this day and age you need to be a little more creative.

I got thinking on how you can take this idea and use social networks like Facebook or Twitter to really power your business and I came up with a few things.

1. Encourage past clients and new clients to ‘friend' you or ‘add' you to their networks. Include links to your profile in your marketing materials, business cards etc. Build out a brand new online "sphere".

2. Create Groups - This is the most obvious way to use the social network. Create a "Portland Homebuyers" group for example and help first time buyers with their questions. Leverage your expertise to become the expert in the group.

3. Creating a unique Group is also a great way to keep in touch with business networking contacts you meet - maybe it's at a local Chamber of Commerce meeting or even a Brand Mastermind group.  You can engage in post conference discussions, share information in a neutral open forum that doesn't demand the intimacy of an email or telephone contact.

4. Shares - You could use Facebook to market properties to a select group or share properties with your friends . A handy bookmarklet lets you add external links to your Shares. You could add a link to a property from your own site, even a vFlyer page.

Think about it, you could have an exclusive Group of Realtors in your market, maybe its even inside a single branch office, and you could share great listings with each other even before they hit the MLS.

5. If you're a blogger, add your RSS feed to your profile. Facebook lets you add a Blog feed to your Notes. Active Rain even let's you option into posting to twitter automatically.  You could find new readers and even drive traffic back to your blog by sharing your posts with your network.

I think that maximizing your exposure on social networks like Facebook and Twitter are going to be increasingly important to small businesses - especially in industries that are already so network-dependent like real estate. Unfortunately, due to the fleeting nature of these sites, the trick is going to be to stay on top on where everyone is. The real danger is arriving too late and finding your audience has already moved on.  

Carpe diem,

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