The social network giant, Facebook, was the creation of Mark Zuckerberg, a student at Harvard university in 2004.
At first, FaceBook, a social networking site, was focused towards Harvard college kids only and gradually evolved over 4 years to incorporate other ivy league faculties, most universities in the US and Canada and anybody above the age of 13 with a valid email address.
Facebook's popularity has escalated astronomically in a few years as people have flocked to the site.
Current guesstimates vary to somewhere between sixty million, eighty million and 120 million active members.
Those figures have definitely caught the attention of online marketers worldwide and have created a valuable marketing tool as well as the original social networking profile.
Anywhere on the net where individuals gather in such number has to be worth checking out as a marketer.
Facebook members can join one or two networks, arranged by area, college, city, email or business workplace, connecting to other users across the world.
This straight-forwardness of "making friends " was very talked-about among new scholars to colleges everywhere, easing the strangeness new scholars felt when they first entered the unknown varsity territory.
Creating their own user profiles, including photos, private and pro data and interests, permits other users to join their circle of mates or to be invited to join other circles of buddies.
This viral effect can increase private exposure swiftly and is a tool utilized by online marketers to extend their inventories of customers.
Once you have a pal, or circle of friends, you can interact with them in many ways.
You can send messages to them through the Facebook interface or, more commonly, by "writing on their wall, " which is a public message format.
A blogging feature is available too for member's use.
Today, web marketers have discovered the real strength of using Facebook to hook up with their customers on a very private level, building trust and close, stronger relationships with each client.
Opt-in promoting is not as personal as the Facebook connection and, while still an invaluable tool, is losing some of it's strength in the face of the numbers of people that may be reached with social networking.
One of the selling mantras embedded in nearly every set of selling instructions is to Imitate Success.
It might be good practice for your Web business to follow the highly successful net gurus and do what they are doing.
You will find them on Facebook.