Common Sense PR: Facebook Style

The basis of any PR campaign, no matter what tool you use, is to identify your target audience, right?

Then what the heck is going on with the folks on Facebook?

I don’t know if you are experiencing this, but I’m getting a lot of invites to events promoted on Facebook from my ‘friends.’ The problem is that they are just blindly emailing all their Facebook pals their promotion, whether they are in the target market or not.

For example, I’ve gotten invitations to events and classes where I will learn:

• to find true love in 2009 (I’m happily married)
• the strategies to keep the weight off during my pregnancy (I’m not pregnant, and not planning on being pregnant any time soon!)
• the right way to create a new business (I’ve been in business for more than 5+ years)

I use Facebook to promote my events and teleseminars. It’s helped me reach people in my target market I wouldn’t normally be able to access. That’s a Good thing. But when I invite people to my events, I try to identify the people who would benefit from the event - not everyone on my friends list.

It’s like blanketing every reporter on your media list. Just because you have a contact, doesn’t mean they are interested in what you have to offer.

The key to any PR program is to build relationships - and that includes on Facebook. In my case, I may no longer call you a ‘friend’ if you continue to spam me with irrelevant stuff.