I admit, I have a slight Facebook addiction and through my self justification of this time waster --- I realized a few of the reasons I am so addicted to Facebook:

  • There is always something new to see, whether someone has added new pictures or updated their relationship status.  I believe there is some certain interest in anything new --- most of these 'new things' I couldn't care less about in real life and would never seek out the information -- but its there right in front of my face and NEW so I look at it.
  • It's real --- real people, that are also at their computers updating their status, adding pictures and adding friends.  These people are LIKE ME.
  • Pictures and videos -- I read all day...emails, the paper, notes...how nice is it to see engaging PICTURES and VIDEOS.  The cheesy line of "a picture says a thousand words" isn't too far off when it comes to looking through someone's Facebook photos.
The thing is...these three things are the same reasons that blogs are so great to engage prospects!  Now, being focused on business blogging, my end goal isn't to get someone to visit my corporate blog five times a day, but it is to engage the reader and the same tactics that make social networking so addictive can work, even for the non-social networkers that are out there searching for the solution to their problem on search engines -- having a well search engine optimized business blog that includes the newness factor along with real, human interaction (showing people that I am normal and like them) and having some great engaging videos and pictures can be a great tactic to engage your prospects in a deeper conversation to learn more about your business, just as Facebook can be a great place for individuals to learn more about one another (whether necessary information or not).