One of the biggest hurdles people face when using Facebook and similar sites is that the social networks can become a, 'time sink'. You turn around and find you have spent hours making nice friends, had lots of chats, but none of it is leading to potential business prospects.

Perry Belcher a social web guru has set himself an interesting target, to make $1 each month from every Twitter Follower he has. He has over 100,000 Followers and also Follows most of them back! Now that is some target to set yourself using free advertising.

However it's not really free, because you are exchanging your time instead of using paid marketing methods. His first aim is to get as many people as possible to become a Friend on Facebook after they Follow him on Twitter. As Facebook has a 5,000 Friend limit when you reach more than 5,000 Followers on Twitter what's the answer? It's Facebook Fan Pages, there is no upper limit on a Fan Page. So you will have to change your Twitter invite to the Fan Page profile instead of your Personal profile. Given the importance of Facebook you definitely need to set up a Fan Page in your Brand Name for when you reach that magic 5,000 Friends limit.

My next two articles will cover how to make best use of a) Facebook Groups and b) Facebook Fan Pages and the different audiences they can serve.

For this article I will assume you are under the 5,000 Friend limit and want to make sure you use your time every day on Facebook productively.

I will take you through a 30 minute daily routine for Facebook. For this process to work I first typed into a Notepad file a pre-prepared greeting that focuses on my friends. I call it an introduction and just say how I think I can help my new friends (areas of expertise etc but no sales pitch) and end it with a link to my Blog underneath my name. This is my 'value added' offering to my new Friends. Now on to my daily routine:

1. I Log into Facebook and am taken to my Home Newstream. This will tells me everything I need to know. I scan the stories in my Newstream. If I have any 'spammy' Friends I hide them from your Newstream by clicking Hide on the right hand side of one of their posts. I consider 'spammy' to be the constant use of updates as 'sales pitches'.

2. I look at the bottom right of the Home Newstream and see which of my Friends have Birthdays that day. I right-click the link that is their name and select Open In a New Tab, doing this for every Friend with a Birthday that day. I now go to each tab and on that Friend's wall type Happy Birthday [Their first name] and click Share. I then close all the tabs when finished. This shows I acknowledge an important event in my Friends lives.

3. I am now back at my Home Newstream, I click on the top right where it says Friend Requests etc. This takes me to a new page that starts with Suggested Friends. I decide whether to connect with Suggested Friends on two criteria. If they have no picture I click Ignore and if they have very few Friends I Ignore them. The 5,000 limit is a real thing and you want people to connect with you on Facebook because they Know you rather than a friend of theirs is trying to get them more friends. The only exception to this is when we have more than 30 Mutual Friends then I Accept.

4. On to Friend Requests. I usually accept all except those with no picture I also avoid making Friends with people in the same business opportunity as me. This is a straight commercial decision. I am looking for potential clients as opposed to people who already have the product I am selling. Instead I direct them to my Fan Page or my Group to connect with me. This is not a hard a fast rule but I aim to reserve Friend spots for potential clients or industry guru's because that helps my Home Newstream and social reputation.

5. I Ignore all requests to quizzes, farm towns, mafia games etc. This is marketing activity time not play time.

6. I may join Invites to Groups of Friends of mine as a professional courtesy especially if they have joined my Group. I avoid joining Fan Pages of Celebrities but do join Fan Pages of industry gurus. I join Fan Pages of Friends again as a professional courtesy especially of they have joined my Fan Page.

7. Next I read my Inbox. I delete the junk sales pitches, I read potential joint ventures and respond if I am interested. I politely decline if I am not. If they persist after I have said, 'no' I just delete the mails. I always reply to anyone who took the trouble to reply to my Introduction and help out with any questions, often taking the opportunity to point them to my Group if I think they can get fuller answers there.

8. I now go to the Friends tab and I click on Recently Added. Next I click on Create List. My Friends Box will now come up. Once it's loaded I type in today's date as a 6 digit number e.g. 060709 as the name of the List. I then click on Create at the bottom of the box. This creates a new List on the left side of the panel. At this point there are no Friends in the List.

9. I now click on Friends, Recently Added and select the Friends who were added that day and Add them to the List I just created. I now have an ongoing series of Lists and know when that person became my Friend.

10. I now go to my Inbox and click Compose Message. In the To field type I in the List name I just created. I use a simple title like, 'Introducing Myself in the Subject field. I then 'cut and paste' the introductory message from my Notepad file into the message body and click Send.

11. Then I Log out.

You will eventually get into a rhythm and this whole process will only take 30 minutes. In this time you will have wished your Friends Happy Birthday, replied to any meaningful mails, greeted your new Friends and commented on any posts in your Home Newstream that catch your eye.

Andrew Peel is the owner of APeel Solutions an Internet Direct Marketing Consultancy specializing in providing premium solutions for clients that allow them to achieve financial freedom.

Andrew Peel - APeel Solutions - 'creating entrepreneurs daily'

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