[digg=http://digg.com/business_finance/Expectations_of_Facebook_Marketing]Clients interested in social media marketing are almost always interested in what they can do on Facebook. And it’s understandable why; users spend hours each week looking at pictures and interacting with friends. When discussing Facebook marketing, it is important to have reasonable expectations about what is possible and what is most likely to happen, given your client’s requests. When putting together a Facebook marketing plan, below are a few things you should and shouldn’t expect.Expect:

• Expect to do a lot of audience research if you want good results building an application.
• Expect negative reactions if you decide to send out mass messages to random people or you are making a lot of random friend requests. Facebook could suspend your account if you do this. Conversely, you should try posting videos, notes and pictures and allow people to look at what they find most interesting.
• If you build an application, expect to have to put in some time promoting it before it promotes itself.
• Expect a lot to your application usage growth to come from friends inviting other friends and news feed notices going out showing that someone has added or utilized part of an application.
• Expect that you should to utilize other social media sites like YouTube, Twitter, Digg, and blogs to achieve the greatest results.

Don’t expect:

• Don’t expect people to become fans of your brand or business, just because you created a page.
• Don’t expect people to put a great deal of time and effort into conversation with your brand, unless they are uniquely touched or are passionate about your company.
• Don’t expect great results, if you aren’t doing anything that brings value or entertainment to the end user.
• Don’t expect a lot of people to click on your ads if you are simply looking for brand awareness. Offering an incentive or posting a low price for a product will most of the time increase your click through rate.
• If you build an application, don’t expect users to tell friends on their own. It’s best to have sharing built into the application.
• Don’t expect a great campaign to last forever.

Please feel free share any tips or advice if you think I may have forgot any. Additionally, here are some more great resources to check out:The Top Five Viral Facebook Techniques – AllFacebook.comFacebook Developers Network – Facebook.comA Failed Facebook Marketing Campaign (About Walmart) – Social Media Optimization BlogFacebook Marketing Stunt Backfires – Marketing Pilgrim