If you are on John Reese‘s list, I’m betting you know a lot more about Facebook this week than you did before. John got it in his head that he should pay more attention to Facebook recently and I just have to report some wild things that have been happening that I don’t think even John knows about.
John is building his Facebook friends list right now. Not one or two at a time, but hundreds and hundreds at a time. Last I saw he was at 2122 friends and counting. John was one of the relative few who noticed Facebook only allows 5000 friends.
That question wouldn’t come up for most people since the average Facebook friend list is most likely far from 5000 members. Kind of a non-issue for most users.
Anyway, I am on John’s friend list and, as it started growing because of his mentioning it this week to his list, I began to notice MY friend requests going up. A lot. Last week I probably got a few friend requests. This week they are pouring in.
Why is that?
Since the only thing that has changed this week is John mailing a couple times about his Facebook profile, I have to assume it is because people are pouring through HIS list and adding people they know from it.
Apparently the IM world is now fully Facebooked or headed that way.
Focusing a lot of people in on one social media site brings about some wild effects. John isn’t just showing more people what can be done with social media, but the growth of his network is affecting many other people like me. Just from a couple of emails.
I never really pushed my Facebook account that much. I play on the newer, edgier social marketing scene. Facebook and Mayspace are like AOL to me and other hardcore social marketers.
Yet, since John has had me more focused on Facebook, I’ve been playing with it more and am finding neat social marketing tactics I didn’t know had been developed into the app since it came out. My social media snobbiness bites me in the ass sometimes.
The notes and posts sections are really cool. That’s where you can drop links from anywhere on the net. (i.e. all your sites and other blogs, twitters, HubPages, etc.)
But since I was blowing Facebook off as a light-duty social site (which is was for a long time), I hadn’t noticed those and other features that make it a worthwhile place to put down some roots for marketers.
So thanks John! Shining your light on Facebook is going to help a lot of marketers get more traffic, even if they don’t yet know why or how.
By the way, if you want to be John’s friend you’d better hurry. He will certainly hit the 5000 friend mark and after that, you’re out of the loop.
You’ll probably always have me to poke though. I can’t imagine approving 5000 friend requests manually!