As part of the release of Version 2 this month, Ashop Commerce has started to expand its marketing into Facebook with the new fan page http://www.facebook.com/ashopcommerce.

Stage one was a simple goal of 25 fans in 25 hours, thankfully met with some excited fan's in the first 7 hours of opening. Being new to the platform, we felt like we were trying to run in thongs (Flip Flops for UK and US readers!), not knowing what to expect and just jumping in, praying that the community would want to be involved.

Whilst 25 fans was a small goal and by no means impressive, all new marketing models need to start somewhere. Whether it be social networking or traditional advertising, it's important to touch your toes into new things and find what works best for your business. For some products, you might find a different medium works better purely based on the customer type you're trying to target e.g. B2B rather than B2C customers.

Only time will tell if Facebook can expand our market and build a stronger community, but from our initial feedback, we're at least heading in the right direction.


Social Networking Tip: Link all your social communication platforms together. i.e. If you have newsletters, blog, Twitter and Youtube. Make sure you feed posts and info between each platform to maximise exposure for each new update.