Get 1000 Free Well-Qualified Leads in One Month Using Facebook

Imagine if you had access to more than just the name, phone number, email address and time zone of your leads, you know, the ones you paid for. Imagine that you knew where they worked, what their hobbies and interests are, who and what are important to them, both family and friends and in the wider cultural scene. Imagine if you could already select only those people who were already predisposed to be interested in your product or service. Imagine also that you got all of this information for free!

Wow! That is the beauty of Facebook. The account is free and there is no reason not to open one if you have something to promote.

Before you go after leads or as Facebook calls them “friends”, you need to set up your own profile page. This is extremely important because this is how you brand yourself to people you are going to choose as friends. Upload a nice picture of yourself showing a close up of your smiling face. Do not upload a picture of your dog, cat, baby, your product, your favorite sunset, your favorite cocktail or a picture of you in a large scene where we can’t see your face. Don’t upload a group shot because we don’t want to have to try to figure out which person is you. This seems like common sense but from all of the crazy profile pictures I have seen, the sense isn’t particularly common. The main reason I suggest a close up of your face is because every time you post on the wall, send a message or chat, a small icon of your profile picture appears. If you have a close up of your face, you are still recognizable. If you have any of the other pictures I mentioned, you will not make as big of an impression on others because it will be harder to recognize you.

Next, fill in the boxes on the profile sharing with others what you would like them to know about you. Show some uniqueness, what your passions are. Give your potential friends a reason to want to connect with you. You can include such things as your favorite sports, hobbies, television shows or movies if you wish. You can state your religion or politics. I would only include details about your religion and politics if you feel strongly about them and want to connect with others based on them. If not, I would leave them off. Add a few photos of yourself if you feel that they help to show others who you are. For instance, if you have photos of yourself with leaders in your industry, this can be helpful. I have a lot of travel photos because I am in the travel business and I want others to see the beauty and joy of visiting other places.

The leads that I personally focus on are all network marketers. Because of that, I include the websites to my lead generating system, my blog and my primary network marketing business. Make sure to add a paragraph about what you offer other people who will become your friends. I write that I am an Online Business & Marketing Coach. I teach businesses to dominate the search engines and to structure their web presence for massive profitability.

You must decide who you want to see your profile using the Facebook privacy settings. I choose “everyone” because I have only put things on my profile page that I wish to share with the world. My philosophy is that it will be easier for people to become friends with me if they can see something about me first. Keep in mind that all of the Facebook friends that you are going to make will start out as strangers. The easier you can make it for them to want to be your friend, the better.

Once you have set up your profile page, it is time to find some friends. Since I want to be friends with network marketers, I look at Facebook groups and pages for network marketers. A simple way to get started is to search MLM in the search box in the upper right hand corner of the Facebook page. Many groups will pop up with MLM in the name. Find groups that you like and join them. All you have to do to join is click on the group and click on the button “Join Group”. You can do the same for Facebook pages. It is not necessary to join a group in order to contact members, but I like to join so I can have easy access to the group later since the groups you join appear under your profile information.

To start with, pick a group whose members have a high likelihood of being interested in what you have to offer. In the lower left hand corner of the group page, there is a box that says “Members”. Inside the box is a link that says “See All”. Click on that link and all of the members will pop up in another screen. Next to each person’s picture icon is a button that says “Add Friend”. You can add friends that way. However, I prefer to right click on the photo and open a new tab. This way I look at the person’s profile to determine if I want to be friends with this person. This is very important and is why I have so many specially qualified friends.

I want to see that the person is serious about building a network marketing business. I look to see if they have a website to a business they are promoting, what groups and fan pages they belong to, and if I can detect a general positive attitude. I also look to see how many friends they have. When I started building a friend list, I chose only those people who had at least 100 friends. Now I will add a friend who has fewer friends if I can see that they are serious about building a business.

I will not add anyone who has the privacy settings so secure that I can’t see anything about them. I will not add anyone whose main fan pages are Mafia Wars or Farmville because these people are more interested in playing games than building a business and their constant posts will become annoying. I click on the person’s website if I am not familiar with it. Once I got a surprise when a potential friend had a pornography website. I am glad that I clicked on that link and didn’t add her as a friend.

When I click on the “Add as friend” button, there is a link that says “Add a personal message”. I click that and add the person’s first name, I would like to network with other network marketers on Facebook and sign my name. This way the person knows why I want to be friends and will not wonder why a stranger is asking for friendship. This procedure works really well.

Facebook does not like spam, so you can only do up to about 50 friend requests a day. That is why it takes a month to build your list of 1,000. As you are building your list, you will discover who the movers and shakers are in your industry and you can befriend them as well and learn a lot from them. They will have groups and fan pages and you will want to join. You will find that as you go about this process, other people will want to be friends with you. Check them out just as I mentioned above to determine if they are people who fit in with your goals.

Adding friends this way is time consuming but it is the best way to get a quality list. To see my Facebook profile, click here.

In my next post I will tell you how to market to your friends.