I received a message from Gabe Hunninghake at Alkastream this afternoon requesting that I check their new Facebook page at www.facebook.com/alkastream.

I don’t know anything about Facebook other than the kid that started it has made billions of dollars and they made a movie out of the story. My kids set up a Facebook page for me some time ago, but I never use it. I understand that this blog also has a facebook page and that 93 “people like this”. It doesn’t seem to me that 93 “likes” is very encouraging based upon the fact that nearly 50,000 people have visited my site.

When I checked out the Alkastream page on Facebook, I was surprised at how busy it was. There were announcements and videos and comments. I noticed that they started the page three weeks ago and that they had over 1,200″people like this” as I write this article. Geez…over 1,200….I started developing an inferiority complex.

I decided to check out some of the water ionizer companies to see if they had Facebook pages. It turns out the new MLM company Evontis has 100 “people like this” and their page has been up since November. Suddenly I didn’t feel so bad about my total of 93, as their Dealers would all be clicking on “like”. Then I checked out Enagic and they had 4,700 fans. That makes sense to me as they have thousands of dealers who communicate with each other through conference calls and obviously their Facebook page. The IonWays site had a page that had nothing on it but a picture of a water ionizer. That was a surprising disappointment because it seemed worse than having nothing at all. Speaking of nothing at all, I couldn’t find a page at all for Chanson or Watershed.

What does all of this mean? The Facebook sites for the MLM companies Enagic and Evontis offer notices of conference calls but little else. In light of the fact that their sites lack any useful information (like my Facebook site) it is no wonder there is so little interest. IonWays and the direct marketing companies like Chanson and Watershed are non-events, which tells me they either don’t care, or they don’t “get it”. What I learned during my little investigation is that if you provide information, you are more likely to attract people’s interest. It didn’t surprise me that Enagic was out in front of the pack as they are much better at marketing than everyone else.

What did surprise me was how fast the Alkastream guys are gaining in popularity. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have been surprised because they seem to be doing everything right in all facets of their business. They have recognized and addressed the fact that people are looking for clean, ionized water that is affordable. They responded quickly and efficiently when changes needed to be made to improve their products. They help their dealers instead of competing with them. It seems logical to me that they would have the Social Networking thing figured out as well.

When I discussed my findings with my 20 year old son this afternoon, he said to me “Dad, Social Networking is real and it is relevent, so you should check it out”. Thanks son!

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author (and his son).