As you can tell from the image above, I'm a part of the Facebook Network.(I hope you like my new default picture :p)

And as you can tell from the next picture, I have a good amount of "facebook" friends at the college that I'm currently attending. I also have high schools friends and friends who are from different regions who are part of my network. I point this out to let you know that I'm not some marketer who has ramdomly friended a bunch of people and created a huge list of people who I can't personally relate to. This means that if I was to ever advertise anything directly to my friends, I would have that "personal factor" working for me because people tend to mostly buy things from recommedantions of people they know.

1) Spamming on Facebook

So before I get into why the traffic from Facebook sucks in general, here are reasons why advertising in these social networks in general is not the best way to use up your time. If you're a member of Facebook, you've probably noticed that people have started to try to spam facebook with CPA offers. From what I've heard and read in many blogs, they are not doing so well. This has to do with people's attitudes in these networks relating to spamming on the network. THEY HATE IT. This means that you may even have something I may want, but because you're spamming the network, I'm not going to listen to you. I'm probably going to Google or something and do a search instead. Selling offers ruined the atmosphere of mySpace, and people don't want Facebook to go the same way. So my advice is to not waste your valuable time spamming these social networks because it won't convert.

2.) Buying traffic from Facebook via PPC

So you may now say, then I should just buy traffic from Facebook right? Hmmm, it depends as with anything, but my personal answer is a no (at least for now) because the system is not optimized for selling.

I'm going to illustrate this with an example. So lets say you want to sell video games on Facebook and that you are going to target young adults (maybe because they are impulsive buyers etc etc).

The first problem arises from the fact that people in these social networks are not usually in the "seach mode" or " buy mode" to which many internet marketers refer to. So what you have are some random people stalking other people's profiles who just suddenly click your ads to see what it's about because they either have nothing to do or they are procrastinating in order to not write their 10 page paper or do their math problem set. THATS BAD. Why would you want to advertise and spend your money on targetting people who are not after buying things? And thats why so see so many people whining and complaining about how their facebook traffic is not converting.

When someone goes to a search engine, they are usually in one of two modes. They are either searching for more information on a subject or product ("search mode") or they are looking for a place to buy information on a topic or a product ("buy mode"). As a marketer, you want to be targetting people in these modes, not the lazy Facebook people who have nothing to do at 2 PM on a Tuesday like me.

I'll also admit that I click a lot of the Facebook ads just to see what they are about...as I mentioned above...and just mainly see what they they are trying to offer me. The problem is that I have not intent of buying anything most of the time when I click Facebook ads.

What about if I am on "Buy Mode"?

Now lets say that I am in "buy mode" and I'm on facebook. Then your ad about hats shows up on my profile and thats what I'm looking to buy. You would probably say jackpot, but I don't think so.

What I would probably do is look at your offer and then...what would you expect me and most people to do?...and then...YOU GO TO A SEARCH ENGINE and see other offers. Most of the time you're going to find so many things on search engine results that the poor little Facebook offer gets forgotten (UNLESS IT IS SOMETHING TOTALLY UNIQUE).

3.) Selling very Unique Stuff on Facebook

Which then brings me to my point of what is a good product to advertise on Facebook. EXTREMELY UNIQUE STUFF like customized shirts! I'm talking about stuff that I can search all day long and I probably won't find it anywhere else. I believe that only with these very unique offers will you get good conversions on places like Facebook.

Otherwise, why would you buy something staight off Facebook when you can research it more throughly and probably get a better offer and maybe a better price? You have to remember that people like to look at multiple sources before buying things!

And thats my opinion of Facebook traffic. I hope that I was able to add some value to your experience here! Additionally, if you have any comments to add to this article or you just want to ask me a question, JUST SCREAM IT OUT! :)