Facebook Updates To Your Fans

Do you manage a Facebook Page for your business? Would you like to create some momentum with a  Facebook campaign but don’t want to invest YellowPages prices to run a contest through a Facebook Application?

A great way to send your Facebook fans a promotion or a discount is to go to “Edit Page/Marketing/Updates”. 

Your Fans will get an “update” under their “messages” feature in their Facebook Profile. 

Facebook Page Updates come in to a special updates inbox under your Facebook messages. Just view "all messages" from anywhere in Facebook.

For Weber Automotive of North Olmsted, we’re making sure fans know where to look for their special promotions, and now we’ll start sending them on a regular basis to encourage more traffic and fans.

Give it a try – make sure you’re using your other networks to get the word out (like Twitter, LinkedIn, and an email campaign) and have fun!  Happy updating : )

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Blogging for Businesses

The following is a great article with quick and easy Blogging tips. As the new year begins, my own business resolution is to “eat the dog food”. A phrase I’m stealing from Dave Urick of Urick Computer Consulting, a member in our local North Olmsted BNI Chapter, meaning (apparently) to believe in what you sell/provide so much that you are using it, doing it, eating it, etc..

My niche, at Your Digital Footprints, is to focus on teaching the small business owner how to expand their on line presence using social media tools like Google Local (aka Google Maps/Places) Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and WordPress. And to be more specific, I like to teach them how to get exposure for their business in an hour a week, and NOT let social media’s sexiness turn into a time vacuum.

However, I have neglected my own blog as I focus on my clients’ goals. No more! Great timing Social Media Examiner.

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/7-blogging-tips-from-top-bloggers/

Fight the Facebook Temptation – No Cows, No Jewels, No Mafia, No Gifts, No Questions!

Did you get on Facebook to build your business? If you’re like me, you were not even remotely interested in a “social networking” tool until you found out there was a way to build brand awareness and get closer with your customers.

So we decided a Facebook Page was the best option, but we had to create a Facebook Profile in order to make a Facebook Page.  No problem. Getting back in touch with high school, college and old work buddies was an added benefit – maybe pick up a couple of new customers right?

But then, as if it were the too-good-to-be-true, the no-such-thing-as-a-free-lunch caveat, it starts with posts like these that show up on your Facebook Wall:

• “Help Sara find her cow”
• “Marshall answered a question about you. Find out what he said”
• “Cathy wants you to accept this gift in honor of breast cancer awareness. Click here.”
• “Heather found out she should be a naughty elf for Halloween. Take this quiz to see what you should be”
• “Help Greg win this round of the Family Feud”

DON’T click! Don’t help find cows or build farms or take quizzes or accept virtual gifts or find out what people said about you. When you do, you have to grant the “app”, or application, access to your Facebook information.  All of it. Regardless of your privacy settings.  The article below covers how this is a major breach of privacy policies, but it still happens.

Instead, hover over the top right corner of this intrusive message on your Facebook wall until “remove” or “block” is an option. Then elect to “block all messages from application”.

Read the Wall Street Journals article regarding apps and Facebook privacy concerns here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304772804575558484075236968.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEADNewsCollection

YouTube Video #1; Making Your Facebook Page Stand Out

I did it! I got a client that is ready to use YouTube in order to promote his business.  Finally a client that’s ready to experiment.  Now I have no excuse not to start educating myself on using YouTube and how easy it can be.

I took 4 1/2 minutes to shoot a brief video from my Droid Incredible about a simple tip to help small business owners make their Facebook Page look more professional and stand out among their competition.  It took me another 15 minutes to upload it with the YouTube application on my phone, and 10 minutes to assign the appropriate tags and summary to maximize on an effective keyword strategy.

Now, I’m not saying this is the most professional YouTube video, and I’m assuming my client will have somebody else shooting the video for him.  Plus I doubt he’ll be sitting in his kitchen as I was (AKA my home office).

The point is #1) Make Your Facebook Page Stand Out : Use a profile picture that is 200 pixels wide and 600 pixels in height.  This gives your company four times as much space in search results, which is a huge advantage over your competition.

and #2) You too can start using YouTube to promote your small business with a minimal time investment.  Give me another week, and I’ll be an expert!  Contact Your Digital Footprints to learn YouTube made simple.  Expanding your online presence doesn’t have to be costly or time consuming.

Brands Getting Great Results With Their Facebook Page Campaigns

Facebook has so many utilities for your business.  This video highlights Facebook campaigns for the brands M&M, Sephora, Pedigree and Levi Strauss.  If you’re a small business, you can implement smaller scale campaigns to boost your brand awareness in the same way.

My favorite quote was from Megan O’Connor, Director of Digital and Social Marketing for Levi Strauss & Co:

 “we found that for a minimal investment, we drove significant traffic, which did result in an increase in sales in our stores”