I've been on a Facebook marketing kick lately and have been reading Clara Shih's book The Facebook Era. I'm also eagerly awaiting my copy of Paul Dunay's Facebook Marketing For Dummies as I know it contains invaluable insights.


In this post I want to ask a question that pertains to Facebook. First, however, let me set it up with some background.
Let's go back to around 2004/2005 when blogs were the social medium of choice for the most part. In those days, one could leave a relevant comment on a popular blogger's blog post and almost be guaranteed traffic back to their own. (Keep in mind this predates "nofollow" tags.)
I experienced that very phenomena myself. I'd go hang out over at Seth Godin's blog (this was during the time when he accepted both comments and trackbacks), leave a comment or two and, invariably, I'd see traffic from it back to my site. I could count on about 10 percent of that traffic staying with me too. It wasn't a bad strategy for such a nascent time.
The field is way too crowded today and there are more blogs than Carter has liver pills (to borrow a quote from my grandmother), so that technique doesn't work nearly so well as it used too. However, I'm of the opinion that the old is new again, this time in the form of Facebook Pages.
To test the waters on the marketing efficacy of Pages, both for myself and for clients, I set up a Facebook Page for my new book The Digital Handshake.
One technique I'm using to market it is by a) finding other authors in my field who have their own Pages, b) becoming a fan and c) favoriting their Page on my own. Not only that, I'm writing Wall posts mentioning their books, sort of as a way to express good will and camaraderie. I'm also commenting on their Wall when it's suitable to do so (meaning when I have something to say that's relevant, but not in any way promotional). Think of it as the same technique as commenting on blogs.
My question is, do you think that technique will produce similar results as back in blogging's good old days? Does becoming a fan of, say, Chris Brogan's new book, Trust Agents, mean that some of his fans will become mine? I think it's a possibility, though I'm not sure how to measure the effect, other than by an increase in raw numbers.
The other thing that I'm wondering is whether Facebook Pages are the nouveau riche way of marketing via Facebook, over and against using Groups, personal profiles or Ads, for example. According to Facebook guidelines, aside from Social Ads, they are the only legitimate way for a business to market itself, so perhaps that's a moot question. Still, that doesn't stop businesses from utilizing these other means.
What do you think of my theory? Is it fraught with holes or does it have substance? And, is your business using a Facebook Page? If so, what has been your experience so far?