There’s no denying that social media marketing has changed the way the human race communicates with one another. And unless you live under an extremely large rock, then you’ve probably heard of Facebook, the biggest Web 2.0 powerhouse of them all.

But if you think that Facebook is a networking tool that’s more suited for your annoying kid neighbor than building up your brand, then it’s time to get schooled in the art of Facebook marketing.

Once upon a time, small and large companies alike had access to very little knowledge about their clientele bases (does anyone even remember these dark ages of advertising?).

Therefore, in order to develop better products, tweak advertisements and successfully position their brands to become instantly recognizable names, these companies intensely mined for data about their customer segments.

But this privilege certainly came at a price: marketers and advertisers had to fork over thousands – even millions – of dollars just to learn basic information about their clientele base, including age, location and even gender. But thanks to the popularity of social media, you can have this privilege at a very affordable price.