I turned 35 last month, and if you’re anything like me your special day is filled with “Happy Birthday” Facebook posts from friends, family and acquaintances.  You can do the candid wall post thanking everyone for their birthday wishes, but if you use your personal account for networking, your birthday can be a great exercise in basic networking techniques.

I’ve been trying to thank everyone individually for their birthday wishes, but I’m not going to lie: I haven’t been as timely with everyone.  I have just been chipping away at them over the last couple of weeks.   It’s funny how something as lighthearted as a birthday can give you some real business perspective. I’ve already set up two business meetings (and found a horse for sale) as a result of responding to birthday wishes because I took a minute to respond directly to each person.

Here is an example where I connected with Dan. We both are interested in the constitution so I tried to tie the response to this common interest.

When responding to comments on a networking level, a new feature that Facebook recently launched really comes in handy. By clicking “See Friendship” in the upper right-hand corner of someone’s page, you can see your communication together (it goes pretty far back, too, which is nice) and pages you have in common. This makes connecting with people you don’t know as well on a personal level much easier. Imagine instantly seeing what you have in common with them.  Facebook describes the new feature like this:

“Friendship pages make it easier to view all of the content related to a specific friendship and help friends focus on their common histories. Friendship pages create a visual list of Wall posts exchanged, mutual friends, events both people attended, photos both people are tagged in, and things both people “like.”

Comments on your Facebook page or your Web site are an opportunity to engage with your clients and prospects.  It is the  social media phase between casual reader and customer: it’s where you are connecting with the potential customers.

Whether you’re new to Facebook or a veteran Facebook user, there’s always something new to learn since the platform is constantly evolving. Check out my “Facebook 201: Improving your Marketing Strategy” class next week and learn how to effectively develop, distribute and evaluate content through Facebook.