The Facebook Marketing Book by Dan Zarrella and Alison Zarrella takes a look at how Facebook has changed over the years since its development back in 2004 and follows its evolution into one of the most (if not the most) powerful marketing tool available to businesses and individuals alike.

Chapter by Chapter Breakdown

The book is broken down into 12 different chapters:

1. Introduction to Social Networking
2. Facebook Profile Basics
3. Facebook Page Basics
4. Facebook Group Basics
5. Facebook Events
6. Facebook Application Basics
7. Customizing Your Facebook Page
8. Developing a Facebook Content Strategy
9. Cross-Promoting Content on Facebook
10. Facebook Page Management
11. Advertising on Facebook
12. Analytics and ROI

Zarrella and Zarrella are certainly more than capable of being trusted as credible resources for writing a book that deals with Facebook as they both have extensive experience in the social media and writing market. Of special interest to online marketing experts will be Chapters 7 and 8, which detail how to customize a Facebook fan page in order to appeal to a target audience.

Long has it been assumed that Facebook is “something for the kids” to engage in. In fact, Facebook now spans a much wider audience than most traditional media can even hope to reach. Similar to Twitter, Zarrella and Zarrella point out that Facebook goes well beyond simply knowing how to set up an attractive profile page. Rather, the key to finding success with this particular social network is INTERACTION.

Whether you are creating “groups” for your fan page, users can take advantage of all of the free features that Facebook provides. For instance, longer Facebook icons provide more room for branding right on your Facebook fan page! And because the page icon is the first thing that people will see, you will want to make sure that you represent your brand as well as you can. Zarrella and Zarrella recommend a “perfect” icon size as being around 200 pixels square or a longer icon that is 600 pixels high by 200 pixels wide (pp. 135).

A Word About Facebook Tabs

Zarrella and Zarrella also strongly recommend taking advantage of Facebok Tabs. In order to do this, you may need to spend a little time familiarizing yourself with FBML (Facebook Markup Language) OR, you may want to invest some money into hiring a professional designer to develop some custom Facebook tabs and/or Facebook applications. The bottom line here is all about improving the functionality, look and feel for your potential Fans.

In addition to all of the aforementioned, making sure that you have FRESH CONTENT every day is important. It lets fans know that you’re alive and that you are an active Facebook user who is open to comments, suggestions and the like. Offering EXCLUSIVE stuff to those who are your Facebook fans is a great way to make fans feel special while improving upon your branding.

In future posts, we’ll come back to Zarrella and Zarrella regarding Facebook; but for now, definitely make sure you grab a copy of their new book, The Facebook Marketing Book. It offers some really valuable insight into what’s currently going on in the world of social media and social networking, and for just under $14, you can’t find a better deal.

**Note: This is a guest post written by one of our readers, Britney Baker. For more information on how to submit a guest post, please send an email to javfire [at] yahoo [dot] com or see our guidelines for guest posting.

5 Proven strategies for successful email marketing campaigns

1. Select and target specific customers in order to get the best returns from your e-mail advertising campaign.

Selecting the right potential customer is by far the most important part of an e-mail advertising campaign. If your e-mail advertisement does not reach a person who has both the means and the will to buy your service or product it will be useless. If your company has a market research department they will be able to select potential customers. If your company does not have its own market research department there are a variety of firms which can obtain the list of the e-mail addresses of potential customers based on information which you will provide them about your product or service. It is a complete waste of time, manpower, and money to send random e-mails to people who either can’t afford your product or service or who cannot be persuaded to buy it.

2. Avoid the “Junk Mail” folder.

It is important to understand that most potential customers are not actually seeking your goods or services; if they were, they would simply go to your website and give you their credit card number. If this were the case, you obviously would have no need for an e-mail advertising campaign. Since most e-mail advertisements are in fact unwanted, e-mail service providers spend a considerable amount of time, energy, and money creating effective junk e-mail filters. In many cases a junk e-mail filter will send an unwanted e-mail advertisement to a junk e-mail folder without even allowing the potential customer to see it. Avoiding the junk e-mail folder is the most difficult and time-consuming part of an e-mail advertising campaign. E-mail service providers are constantly updating their junk e-mail filters. In order to avoid the junk e-mail folder you must avoid anything that would flag your e-mail as junk mail.

3. Create your e-mails to have a professional appearance.

When a potential customer opens his or her inbox, the first thing he or she will see is the subject of your e-mail. It is important to be sure that the subject is polite and friendly, also being brief and to the point. Your subject should be interesting enough to entice the potential customer to open and read the e-mail. The potential customer will also be able to see the name of who sent the e-mail. It is important to make sure that the subject and name to not make the customer suspicious. If a potential customer since that’s a scam, or a threat of computer viruses they will most likely delete your e-mail without opening it.

4. Meet the customer’s needs.

Once your potential customer chooses to open your e-mail it should immediately convince the customer that your company can meet his or her need. In some cases you’ll have to convince the customer that he or she has a need which needs to be met. Keep the content of your e-mail advertisement simple. There are an endless number of combinations of e-mail services, virus scanning software, and junk e-mail filters, so the simpler your e-mail is the more likely it is to open easily without making your potential customer suspicious of a scam.

5. Give the customer a comfortable path to buying your product or service.

Once the customer has opened your e-mail and decided to buy your product or service, he or she will need a secure way to pay your company and receive your product or service. PayPal is an excellent method of secure payment. If you are going to accept credit cards directly from your customer, you will need a secure website. If you are shipping an item to your customer, be sure to let the customer know what shipping service you will use, as well as which security or insurance options you will include with the package.

An e-mail advertising campaign can be a very effective way to improve your business and solicit customers. Above all, your advertising e-mails should showcase your company’s quality and commitment to service.

Britney Baker reviews prepaid cellphones for PrepaidCellphones.net. Her latest review looked at Tracfone.

[photo credit]

Chris Brogan, from New Marketing Labs, offers some valuable insights into the world of social media and social media marketing campaigns. He also offers up three great responses to common social media misconceptions on his blog.