Certainly, in the past 12 months, more and more businesses have jumped on to the Facebook bandwagon. Realising that many of their customers were actively using Facebook, they set up pages for their brand and ruthlessly marketed their product or service. What was the result?

Your target customer knows Facebook better than you:

The result was worse than if you had not bothered at all. Social Media is interaction, loyalty building, patience, collaboration, listening..not aggressive marketing. Indeed, some profiles were even removed by Facebook because they were being used as nothing more than a direct marketing tool.

Any good will customers had towards a brand was quickly destroyed. Brands seemed to be completely out-of-touch by doing it all the wrong way; and previously loyal customers, were quick to disassociate themselves.

Facebook can be  a stand-alone element of your business:

Set-up your Facebook Business Page, and then use applications to pull in content from your blog and Twitter account  to keep your page full of fresh, frequently updated information. Resist the urge to turn your page into a watered-down version of your website. Include some offers, media or conversation on Facebook that does not appear anywhere else.

British employment website MyJobGroup.co.uk said it polled 1,000 British workers and found that nearly six percent, or 2 million, of the UK’s 34 million-strong workforce spent over an hour per day on social media while at work, amounting to more than one eighth of their entire working day.

“Our results clearly show that UK workers are spending increased time whilst at work on social media networks, which, left unchecked, could have negative repercussions on the productivity of many companies across the country,”

MyJobGroup.co.uk said that work time lost on Facebook, Twitter and other social media networks could potentially be costing Britain up to 14 billion pounds ($22.16 billion).

The research showed more than half of British workers (55 percent) confessed to accessing social media profiles at work, with many spending so much time friending, tweeting, adding photos and video, as well as updating their profiles, that companies’ productivity was suffering as a result.

Despite the negative effects on the economy in the midst of a fragile recovery, many workers polled were in denial about the ill-effects of social media on their efficiency. Only 14 percent of respondents admitted to being less productive as a result of social media and 10 percent even claimed social media had made them more productive.

What’s more, there was still widespread resistance to banning access to social networks at work, with over two thirds (68 percent) advocating some form of access during working hours. Only one third wanted sites like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube barred during work time, demonstrating the growing importance of social media to the daily routine and the widespread resistance to its access being limited.

“Whilst we’re certainly not kill-joys, people spending over an hour per day in work time on the likes of Facebook and Twitter are seriously hampering companies’ efforts to boost productivity, which is more important than ever given the fragile state of our economy,” a spokesman for MyJobGroup said.

Companies would do well to monitor use of social networking sites during work hours and ensure that their employees are not abusing their freedom of access to these sites.

What is your take on this? Are we taking our jobs for granted by accessing social media profiles at work? Please let us know with your comments.

The internet site was started six years ago by Mark Zuckerberg with only a few hundred users.

But in the last 15 months, the company has exploded, adding around eight new users every second.

According to Facebook each of its users have around 130 ‘friends’, and will share 70 different bits of their life with them each month, from pictures, passions, home movies and more.

This year the US social networking website announced that it was simplifying its privacy controls and applying them retroactively, so users can protect the status updates and photos they have posted in the past.

The announcement came amid growing concerns about privacy on the website – most recently complaints that the site forced Facebook users to share personal details with the rest of the online world or have them removed from Facebook profiles altogether.

Congratulations to Facebook. Over 500m users in 6 years..phenomenal!