Stelzner is a well-known white paper writer, author of the book Writing White Papers: How to Capture Readers and Keep Them Engaged and founder of Social Media Examiner.

But he literally had to be dragged kicking and screaming onto Facebook.

“I thought it was just for college kids,” Stelzner says. Then a friend he respected invited him to join, so he did.

But within a short period of time, he stopped updating his Facebook page. “I spent a lot of time on Facebook and frankly accomplished little. At least on Twitter I knew I could strictly talk business.”

So he just fed his Twitter updates into his Facebook profile and fan page. “All along I was treating my Facebook page like Twitter. I thought that by simply posting updates I would build a loyal following.”

Things changed when Mari Smith showed him the right way to use Facebook.

Watch the above video to learn more about Stelzner’s Facebook story.

Create a Facebook Page

Armed with that knowledge, he created the Social Media Examiner Facebook page in March 2010. By July of the same year, the page broke the 12,000-fan mark.

“And these folks are active,” he says. “They post questions, support each other, reply to our questions and promote our articles. A vibrant community was building right before my eyes. Almost overnight, Facebook quickly became the number-one source of traffic on Social Media Examiner.”

You may have heard that Facebook is one of the most cost-effective ways of advertising on social media. “Nowhere else can you target users as surgically as you can on Facebook [and] you can do it for a fraction of the cost of the same targeting on other Internet properties and offline outlets,” write Mari Smith and Chris Treadaway in their book, Facebook Marketing an Hour a Day.

Build a Community on Facebook

But according to Stelzner, Facebook marketing isn’t just about placing ads on people’s pages. He compares Facebook to the Social Media Examiner site. People can comment on the articles, others can respond to those comments and everyone who goes to the site can see all these comments. “FaceBook is like the comment section of our blog taken to an extreme.”

“Facebook has 500 million users,” he says. “That means that your customers are already on Facebook – a huge percentage of them. And they’re on there almost every day. I’ve heard that 250 million people are on Facebook every single day.”

And a recent Nielsen study found that those 500 million people are spending an average of 7 hours a month on Facebook. But they only spend 2 hours a month on Google, Yahoo, AOL, and MSN.

“If people are already on Facebook and they’re already spending an enormous amount of time there,” Stelzner says, “then how can you get them to notice you? That’s where the marketing comes in.”

And that’s why Stelzner created Facebook Success Summit 2010.

16 Facebook Lessons From 22 Top Experts

Scheduled throughout the entire month of October 2010, the summit was designed to give you all the tips and techniques you need to master Facebook for business use. You will receive 16 hours of training from 22 Facebook experts. They’ll cover everything from setting up Facebook pages to growing an active fan base.

And because this conference is online, you can attend the sessions in the privacy of your home or office. For a fraction of the cost of a traditional conference. No airports, rental cars, hotel rooms or expensive restaurants. All you need is a computer, computer speakers, and a high-speed Internet connection.

When you register, you’ll receive an email with a link to a website and your login information. At the appropriate times, just go to the website and login. That’s it!

Just look at some of the speakers you will hear:

• Mari Smith and Chris Treadaway, authors of Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day
• Brian Solis, author of Engage!
• Paul Dunay and Richard Krueger, authors of Facebook Marketing for Dummies
• Jesse Stay, author of I’m on Facebook, Now What? and FBML Essentials
• Justin Smith, founder of Inside Facebook and author of Facebook Marketing Bible

You will also hear how companies are implementing their Facebook marketing campaigns, including Microsoft Xbox, Intel, SAP, Cisco and the Washington Redskins.

These social media pros—the world’s leading Facebook experts—will be your personal trainers during October 2010. They will teach you everything you need to know to successfully market your business on Facebook. You’ll learn how to:

• Develop a Facebook marketing strategy
• Customize your Facebook page
• Start a Facebook advertising campaign
• Create a community around your product or service
• Optimize your News Feed to take advantage of viral marketing
• Use Facebook analytics and apps

“The marketer’s job has changed from creating and pushing messages to one that requires listening, engaging, and reacting to potential and current customer needs,” says Erik Qualman in his book Socialnomics. “Consumers are looking to peers for recommendations on products, services, health issues, and more via social media. Today, 76% rely on what others say, while 15% rely on advertising.”

And Facebook is the biggest social network in the world.

So are you ready to dump traditional, interruptive, “in-your-face” advertising in favor of social media marketing? And can we please stop calling it an “advertising campaign” and start calling it “customer engagement”?

Your customers and competitors are on Facebook – isn’t it time you joined them?  Click here for summit details.

If you don’t agree, read these articles on Social Media Examiner:

• 3 Reasons Facebook Trumps Twitter for Business
• 5 New Studies Show Facebook a Marketing Powerhouse

If you DO agree, grab your place in line for this first-ever online Facebook marketing conference. Their online venue holds 2,500 attendees (and their last event sold out)!

“Let me get this straight,” you may say. “You want me to use Facebook to market my business? Are you crazy?”

Not if you provide products or services to postmenopausal women. Women over the age of 55 make up the fastest-growing Facebook segment, according to Paul Dunay and Richard Krueger, authors of Facebook Marketing for Dummies.

Would your product or service appeal to anyone over 35? “The fastest-growing demographic is the 35- to 54-year-olds… the next fastest-growing demographic is the over-55 crowd.”

According to the authors, Facebook has over 200 million active users, and a quarter of a million people register every day. About 3.5 million people become a fan of a Facebook Page every day.

Yes, you read that right. A fan of a Page. You don’t have to be a rock star to have fans on Facebook!

All you have to do is:

1. Buy Facebook Marketing for Dummies by Paul Dunay and Richard Krueger.
2. Register with Facebook.
3. Create a Page for your business. A Page is the business equivalent of an individual Facebook Profile.
4. Finish reading the book.
5. Start spreading the news.

Everything Starts With a Page

Your Page has multiple tabs and can include your contact information, hours of operation, recent news, upcoming events, photos, videos, podcasts, and other types of content. You can pull in blog posts and other syndicated content.

And when someone becomes a fan of your Page, they can post information to it that all of their friends will see. Their friends will even know they became a fan of your Page!

And you can respond to their posts on your Page that all of your fans will see. You can begin a conversation with potential customers about your products and services right on your own Page that will be seen by all of their friends and all of your fans!

That’s because Facebook takes every interaction and creates a “story” about it that is distributed by News Feeds. Every Facebook member constantly receives updates about their friends’ activities.

Members can even recommend a Page to their friends by clicking the Share button on every Page. If a friend raves about a product or service, aren’t you more likely to try it?

And did I mention that Pages are indexed by Google and other search engines? Are you beginning to see the business advantages of being on Facebook?

Like the business use of all social media, Facebook is all about identifying “evangelists” for your product or service. Then you let those evangelists help you build your business.

And it doesn’t matter if you’re a B2B business. If increasing numbers of businesses are getting on Facebook, that’s where your customers are hanging out! Shouldn’t you be there, too?

Engaging Customers on Their Terms

Here are some of the things a business can do on Facebook:

• Share an interesting article on your Page to engage your fans
• Comment on posts on your Page to communicate with your fans
• Update your Page to generate a story about it in your fans’ News Feeds
• Create a Discussion section on your Page to interact directly with fans
• Create or join a Group related to your industry to find more fans
• Create an Event related to your business to meet fans
• Create a Marketplace to sell your products on Facebook

Last but certainly not least, you can advertise on Facebook. There is one caveat, say the authors: “Facebook members are typically not in the habit of clicking ads. They are on Facebook for social purposes.”

On the other hand, “the Facebook advertising platform’s ability to target ad demographics is already legendary. The ad targeting capabilities make it relatively easy to get your message to the right demographic within Facebook.”

Suppose you want to target “MBA graduates who are 3 to 5 years out of school and working in Southern California who like rock music and whose favorite food is sushi.” You can!

How? Facebook indexes every member’s profile in detail, including all of those psychographic variables that make marketers drool. So when you create your ad, you can include keywords to describe your target audience.

“By adding keywords to your targeting, you can reach consumers based on the interests listed on their profile page. Never before has there been a mass medium that allows for this kind of precise targeting. Identifying and then reaching a specific audience has never been this exact and cost-effective until now.”

And because your Page has tabs – one for the Wall, one for Info, one for Photos, etc. – you can add more tabs and turn them into landing pages. “Conceivably, you can create a customized landing page within Facebook for each ad and audience segment.”

And if all of this seems too daunting, Facebook has a team of sales professionals that can help you create a marketing campaign.

Third Party Apps Enhance Customer Experience

Facebook Marketing for Dummies covers all of this and more. You can choose from over 52,000 Facebook applications created by third parties; more than 800 apps were written specifically for businesses. Here are the authors’ “must-have Facebook applications for your business”:

• My Network Value
• MyOffice
• Tag Biz Pro Business Cards
• LinkedIn Answers
• SlideShare
• Static FBML
• Phonebook

The book concludes with tips on Facebook etiquette, Facebook resources and Facebook blogs. And if you don’t want your boss to see that picture of you taken at Kelly’s Tavern, Appendix B includes extensive information about protecting your privacy on Facebook.

Social Media Examiner gives this book a 5-star rating.

Related article: 5 Ways to Promote Your Facebook Fan Page

Are any of you using Facebook as part of your marketing plan? If so, please comment!