To a lot of people, Facebook is nothing more than a social network that was once loved by college students and other young folks the world over but is now the hodgepodge of kids-to-adults-to-grandma with a smartphone.

Facebook ranks as the 2nd most popular website in the WORLD according to Alexa and understandably so.

And of course, with it being the 2nd biggest site globally, breeds the most fertile ground for anyone wanting to make a profit for their business.

There are different ways to do this like investing in ads to appear on time lines and that right-side bar thingie (hear my thoughts on paid ads in this video), or creating your own fan page and promoting it with ads; but there’s also a more cost-effective way to get customers for your business…

Facebook Graph API.

What is Facebook Graph API?

Well, what is the driving force behind any business?

Customers.

How do you get customers?

You pay to advertise to them.

But what if you can advertise to them without paying for it? What if you can take the ol’ “direct-sales-marketing” approach akin to the old door-to-door salesman tactic by visiting Facebook user after user and pitch your product or service to them?

Well… you might say “yay” or you might say… “That sounds like a lot of work.” Plus, you don’t want to be spammy. Understood.

So I’m going to show you a little trick that will help you get the right customers without coming off as spammy or scummy or whatever else that would make people want to knock you over the head with an ice pick!

BUT I do have to warn you…

In order to be successful in this, you must NOT use this technique in a way that’s abusive. If you do, you’re obviously going to suck and not make any sales. Use with caution.

How To Find Your Customers With Facebook Graph API

On top of your Facebook page is this:

That search bar is all there is to it. Embedded in there is the ability to locate people by interest. So this will work depending on your niche and how many people you are connected with.

The beauty of this is you not only have a connection to your own friends, but the friends they are connected to as well!

So let’s say your niche is in cat food (odd, but whatever)…

Where it says “Search Facebook”, type in something like:

“Friends of friends who like cat food”

(Again, ODD, but this serves as just an example) 

So as you see in the image above, when I type out my search query, I get a few search suggestions which may have come from previous search attempts or key phrases that are popular.

Anyway, I type that in, hit enter, and…

Search shows up with no results. Nobody on Facebook is willing to admit to liking cat food. That’s good to know! I’d be concerned if it actually did turn up some results.

But, you see my point? If you were to play with this feature and fine-tune your search based on what your company offers and your niche market (of which you have to know before hand through avid research of the market place) you can pull up a list of potential customers who are ALREADY qualified for your product!

Because you are searching based on your niche, the people you pull up are highly targeted and thus are already interested in what you have… the rest is up to you!

Once I Find My Customers, How Do I Sell To Them?

That will be the discussion for my next article! In my next article, I’m going to show you how to engage with your potential customers and turn them into BUYERS!

If you want to learn how, drop your name and e-mail address in the box below to get my UPDATE when my next article is live!

Trust me, you won’t want to miss it!