Facebook Insider's Guide to Viral Marketing

Recently I blogged about how my dad is obsessing over Facebook and therefore, my work life lately has been centered on creating a Facebook page, Fan Page, and all sorts of (not so) fun stuff as a means of using Facebook as a marketing tool.

Though I still can't seem to find the article that started the whole thing, I managed to track down the "guide" my dad has been reading and basing most of his ideas off of:

Facebook Insider's Guide to Viral Marketing - Get more Business Plans

Overall, I think the guide is a good place to start for those who are Facebook helpless like my dad was (despite the fact that the title implies you can control whether or not something goes viral-which we've learned in class isn't true). It describes what facets of Facebook are most useful to someone trying to market via Facebook and mostly gives good detail.

However, it doesn't always explain things in the best manner. For instance, they don't do a good job of differentiating between Facebook user profiles and Fan Pages. I was able to tell the difference, but my dad (who is technologically illeterate) had a hard time remembering which page was being talked about and repeatdly flipped back through the pages to try and find the answer.

Also, there were times that I felt the writers were purposfully leaving out important details or providing misleading information to try and encourage businesses to use Facebook as a marketing tool. For instance, its easy to send an update to all fans with a Fan Page, but not so easy to message all your friends on your user profile. The guide convienantly leaves this out.

Overall though, I think for those just starting out, the guide is helpful. If you have the time (or are possibly interested in using Facebook for your job) read the guide and let me know what you think!