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When I originally started this blog after I got into affiliate marketing, my main objective was to attract the attention of other well-off affiliate marketers. Recently, I’ve had an influx of visitors that are completely new to making money online. A lot of them aren’t sure what kind of options there are, or they might think if they write one blog post a day and leave comments on other blogs they’ll be a millionaire in a year. Well, lets not say it’s impossible, but it’s improbable.

The lack of education for newer members, or the exposure they get to poor information in the internet marketing industry, is causing a lot of problems for those with the ability and drive to work hard to build an online empire. So, while this post will be a been-there-done-that rant to veterans of the industry, it should serve a good purpose to those that are just entering internet marketing.

Facebook is the second most popular website on the Internet, only succumbing to Google’s dominance. As such, you’ve got the largest community-based website with millions of people available and open to different advertising. Whether you’ve got no money to start out, or your bank statements read millions, there are money making opportunities available to you, and what your options are can sometimes be limited by that. While there is no “silver-bullet” in Facebook, it is probably one of the most recognized and simplest platforms for advertisers and marketers to use, whether you’re an individual affiliate or a lead for a large corporation marketing division.

I’ll be covering the 3 most commonly used advetising options on Facebook: Social Branding with Fan Pages, Applications, and Facebook Ads.

Social Branding/Fan Pages

This is one of the most simple ways to get your brand name, product of blog attention to itself. You can find my Facebook Fan Page here. A fan page is basically a group where Facebook users can go on and check news about whatever you are marketing. To join your fan page, a user has to ”Like” the page first. To indulge users to like your Fan Page, you can offer them a coupon, a free download, a video, or any other bonus you can think up as. This is known as incentivized marketing. It’s especially useful for businesses with offline stores. Say you own an ice cream parlor. If people like your page, you can offer them a free scoop of ice cream from a printable coupon. This not only brings in customers, but helps build your social presence.

A fan page is a great way to start branding whatever you are advertising, because as more people like your page, the more people that will actually see it. If 10 people Like your page, those 10 people will have a message on their Facebook timeline that says they liked your page. They’re friends can see these messages and in turn, go and like your page to. You can reach out to everyone that likes your page by sending them messages to their inbox, as well. This is all free and widely available to anyone that has a Facebook profile.

Applications and Games

Another area that is absolutely blowing up with nearly infinite room to grow further is the gaming sector of Facebook. If you’ve been on Facebook longer than 10 minutes, you’ve probably already seen or heard someone talking about how they have to harvest they’re next set of crops in 10 minutes in the game “Farmville.” It is a silly game, and an absolute time-waster with no real goal to reach for, however, silly games like Farmville and hundreds of others make millions of dollars each month for their developing companies.

Anyone can build and submit a game for approval on Facebook, however, you have to have the skills to do it, and if you are anything like me, you might not have the patience or time to learn a new programming language. Games can be outsourced for as little as a couple hundred dollars for a simple browser-based text-and-image game, to 10s of thousands for flash games.

Despite the costs, the payoff can be quite large. If you’ve got the cash to build a game, integrate a fan page and social interactions into the game, you are halfway into making a success with it. The hardest part is getting it off the ground once it is complete, but with some strong marketing effort you can turn that little game into the reason you will retire.

Facebook Ads

This is my holly grail. The reason I started making money online was thanks to Facebook Ads and affiliate marketing. Combining these two, I am able to make 10s of thousands of dollars per month.

If you don’t know what Facebook Ads is, or what the ads look like, head to your Facebook profile. Now look to the right and you will see 3 ads lined up in a column. There you are. Facebook ads allows you to target Facebook users through a demographic targeting system. You can target by age, sex, location, where users work, where they study, what they’re interested in or what Facebook Fan Pages they have liked. Ads can be bid on by cost-per-click or cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPC or CPM).

Much of the success of Facebook Ads is based off the ability to target by demographics, which no other advertising platform allows you to do at such a level like Facebook does. You can also choose to create ads for your Fan Page or application/game, really bringing everything full circle. It is ingenious for Facebook to give us the opportunity to do this, because it allows us to make money, makes Facebook money, and in the end, sends all the traffic right back to Facebook, allowing users to be advertised to even more! (Of course, you aren’t limited to only promoting fan pages or games. You can promote affiliate offers, blogs or websites off of Facebook, as well).

Depending on who you are targeting, you can start advertising with as little as a few bucks a day. Once you start generating more revenue, you’ll more than likely start spending more money advertising as the system really is that important once you get the ball rolling. It is as great for branding as it is for direct-response marketing.

Now, these three aren’t the only ways you can use Facebook to make money online. There are a lot of ways to spam and over-abuse the system, however, they’re only short term solutions for advertisers with no real plan for long term success. I suggest if you want to make money on Facebook, do more research on the subject first. Read up, plan and make sure you have the resources for what you plan to do before you take action.

For more information about making money on Facebook, you can read all my other posts about Facebook by clicking here.

If you’d like to set up a personal consultation on how you can integrate Facebook into your business, you can read more about my services in my forums.