facebook marketing guide for business

B Y

T R U S T E M E D I A

Facebook for Business

5 0 R E A S O N S & T I P S F O R U T I L I Z I N G F A C E B O O K I N Y O U R M A R K E T I N G E F F O R T S

•Facebook has over 500 million active users•Brand management. You can display your portrait or logo on your Facebook pages•Users can search and see company profiles•You have the ability to build and maintain a meaningful network•Use to establish credibility, reputation, crisis management, and customer relations•Avenue for marketing press releases and events•Opportunity to showcase your business knowledge and become a thought leader•Lead generation•Will get to know your target audience•Gain insight into what your customers want and need•Learn more demographic information about your customers

http://blog.inboundmarketing.com/bid/50140/50-Reasons-Tips-for-Utilizing-Facebook-in-your-Marketing-Efforts



•All age groups are seeing a significant rise in social media use, including 65+•By 2014, approximately 165 million people will be using social networks•As of March 2010, 33% of Facebook users where fans of a brand•41% of users join Facebook fan pages to let their friends know which products they support•37% of users join Facebook fan pages to receive coupons and special offers•35% of users join Facebook fan pages to stay current on new products•31% of users join Facebook fan pages to learn more about the company•28% of users join Facebook fan pages to meet people with similar interests•Consumers are starting to reach out to their social network for recommendations before making a purchase•Facebook is quickly becoming the first thing internet users visit first during a day•40% of internet users share information by posting on their Facebook page first•21% of female social network users have woken up to check their Facebook in the middle of the night•34% of female social network user check Facebook first thing in the morning




•Apply keywords to your profile for Search Engine Optimization•Link to your blog in posts for other viewers to read•Connect to your twitter and other accounts and feed timely updates to your connections•Join groups and gain insight and knowledge. You can also use groups to find new connections, ask for help, ask questions, and find resources•Ask and answer questions. You can showcase your knowledge and expertise by answering questions•Promote your remarkable content•Create your own group targeting your audience•Point fans/friends to your blog or contest•Discuss topics and participate in discussions•Place a call to action on your page•Take advantage of the profile photo space you have available•Create custom tabs around your business, such as welcome page, newsletter sign up, storefront•Highlight events you are attending or events you are hosting•Engage your audience with relevant and valuable information




•Post pictures of your products or team members•Post pictures of customers/client showing satisfaction from your company product or service•Post and comment frequently•Showcase your company’s sponsorships – post pictures of banners, t-shirts, etc.•Be clear on your objective•Monitor and participate in comments on your wall•Find unique ways to encourage people to like your page or be friends with your company•Use videos if you have them. Show videos from your team speaking about your product or service. Show videos of your product being used or displayed.•Do not hard sell, censor comments, spam, or post false information on your page•If you have a page as a company, make sure your real name and photo are also displayed somewhere as well



Mistakes

C R E A T I N G A P R O F I L E P A G E A N D N O T A F A N P A G E .

There is so much more you can do with a fan page than a profile page.

•You can create custom fbml.•You can create various parts to Facebook page using “tabs”, (which have been moved to under your profile picture).•You can take advantage of the large amount of space provided for your profile picture.•You can add “like boxes” to your website and other content.•You are not limited to the amount of “fans” you can have.•You have access to Facebook insights, where you can see demographics of your audience and statistics for your page content.

…the list goes on and on.

N O T E N G A G I N G

If you are shutting off comments, you are not utilizing Facebook.If you are shutting off your wall, you are not utilizing Facebook.If you are not promoting your own content, you are not utilizing Facebook.

Facebook is about engaging your audience and sparking engagement with you.

You are missing out on the entire point if you are not encouraging interaction.

L A N G U A G E

You may use foul language at your place of business with your customers, but DO NOT use that kind of language on your Facebook page. If you are truly looking to promote your business and grow your business, you can do so properly. You do not want to turn away potential new customers by language that can easily be avoided on your page.

Administration

W H O O W N S M Y P A G E ?

Companies used to create a ghost account for administering their pages. This way, if someone left the company who was in control of the company fan page, access could still be granted to the new person handling the social media profile. This method also provided no hang ups, such as no one could access the page and a new page would have to be created again from scratch.

You also see instances on Facebook where the business has a profile page and a fan page. This was another way have a general ownership profile page.

In the past, a profile had to own a fan page. With the new changes Facebook just laid out for fan pages, that is no longer the case. The fan page is considered a person now. This should no longer be a problem moving forward.

Who Sees My Posts?

W I L L A L L O F M Y F A N S S E E M Y U P D A T E S ?

The answer to this is no. Your fans will only see your fan page posting if they go directly to your wall for information or your posts make it into the NewsFeed.

The NewsFeed on Facebook is a feed of information that you can see on your screen. It contains recent postings from people who you are connected with on Facebook.

Facebook uses an algorithm called EdgeRank that determines what posts get shown in the NewsFeed. Each post on Facebook receives a quality score. Things that influence your score are: the number of interactions you receive on your post, i.e. the number of “likes” your post receives, how many comments and shares your post receives, and the time interval between each “like”, comment, and share.

One tip is that people do not like to interact with self-promotion. Remember, no one cares about you, but you. So, interact in a personal way and then use Facebook ads to target your existing fans with promotions.

W I L L A L L O F M Y F A N S S E E M Y U P D A T E S ?

What and When Should I Post?

W H E N I S T H E B E S T T I M E T O P O S T O N F A C E B O O K ?

Research shows that posting on the weekends and in the morning before working hours provides you with the best chance for engagement. Based on Research, the best optimal frequency is posting every other day.

Source: Science of Facebook - http://bit.ly/aWL2JX

BuzzWords in Facebook

Pages

http://bit.ly/aWL2JX

F A C E B O O K U S E R S L I K E F O O D .



L E A S T “ L I K E D ” F A C E B O O K P A G E T Y P E S



V I D E O S H A R E D M O R E O N F A C E B O O K T H A N T W I T T E R



V O L U M E O F F A C E B O O K S H A R I N G B Y D A Y



L E A S T S H A R E A B L E W O R D S O N F A C E B O O K



M E T A M E N T I O N S



W H A T T Y P E S O F C O N T E N T S H O U L D I P O S T O N F A C E B O O K ?

What types of content you post depends on the type of business you are in. I would suggest experimenting with different types of content. Try promoting your blog, press releases, news articles, quotes, trivia, videos, presentations, small talk, and ask questions.

Tip: People on Facebook like to talk about Facebook. If you have any information, news, or articles to share regarding Facebook, tweak it however you need to tweak it to relate to your business and share it.


F A N D I S T R I B U T I O N F O R F A C E B O O K P A G E S



C A T E G O R I E S F O R S M A L L F A C E B O O K P A G E S



S U B - C A T E G O R I E S F O R S M A L L F A C E B O O K P A G E S



F A C E B O O K F A N P A G E S W I T H U R L S



A V E R A G E F A C E B O O K F A N S B Y C O U N T R Y


How Important is Uniqueness?

A R E C U S T O M F B M L T A B S I M P O R T A N T ?

Yes. It is another place to allow your brand to flow on your fan page. It is also a great place for calls to action, such as Newsletter sign up forms, contents, blog subscriptions and feed, etc. Since your wall is a place to interact, your “tabs” create a place to personalize your branding message and generate leads. It is also a great place to share more information about your company, such as the Welcome tabs you often see which provide a more custom feel about the organization.

The good news is that you don’t have to use FBML anymore (Facebook’s custom html coding language). You can now use standard html, JavaScript, iframe any webpage, and even incorporate Google analytics. Don’t worry if you are already using FBML. All your pages will still work, you just won’t be able to add new FBML tabs starting sometime probably in March or April 2011.

How Do I Grow?

H O W D O I G A I N M O R E F A N S ?

You need to provide something remarkable to your audience that makes them want to become a fan of your page. You should provide valuable content to your audience and encourage your audience to engage with you. Try to always use calls to actions on all your posts encouraging your audience to share your information. The more you ask to have your content shared, the more people who will share your content. This is going to help you get found on Facebook and get your content shared in the NewsFeed.

You must also remember why people become a fan of your business. There are many reasons, such as: being invited through your monthly eNewsletter, clicking through from your website, clicking on a Facebook ad, referral from a friend, looking for promotional offers. If you are providing valuable information that is important to your audience, then your fans will share your information with their friends.

H O W D O I F I N D M Y A U D I E N C E ?

There are a number of ways to find your audience.

1. Pretend you are going to place an ad (but don’t really place it). As you narrow down the demographics of people you want to target, you will receive a ballpark figure of how many people on Facebook fit your targeted audience demographics.

2. Use Facebook’s Friend Finder feature. Using this feature, you can upload a contact list from excel or import your address book from various different email programs.

3. Something else to remember is that Facebook has 600 million users worldwide, including over half of the US population. Your audience IS on Facebook.

4. Target ads based on company, age, gender, interests, and location.5. Perform a keyword search ad campaign.6. Create ad campaigns around people who “like” a certain TV show, music genre, celebrity, or movie

that is highly relevant to your business and fits your target audience demographics almost perfectly.

7. When placing an ad for a specific location, using the City or Town name in the ad can greatly increase your click-through rate.

Facebook Post Topics

S H O U L D I P O S T A B O U T N O N - R E L E V A N T T O P I C S ?

Sure. Why not? You can talk about the Grammys or the MTV Awards or TV shows. Use whatever gets a lot of interaction. Just find a way to make these

“hot” topics fit into your business. Find an angle and work with it. Then, filter the relating messages more and more toward just your business

industry until you have squeezed out all the non-interested parties. In the end, you will have nurtured leads and will be having a conversation around

your industry with interested people. Pull them in and nurture them.

Changes

I M P O R T A N T C H A N G E S T O F A C E B O O K

You can now switch into page mode from your profile. You can engage with Facebook content as a page. Your page is able to “like” other pages and comment as the fan page, as opposed to your personal profile. This is great as it allows you to interact with your fans and read your NewsFeed which is full of your fans interactions. You will now also receive email notifications when a fan interacts on your fan page.

As talked about earlier, you can now have your tabs be iFrames. You will now be able to bring a lot of existing information into your Facebook fan page.

Welcome

S H O U L D I C R E A T E A W E L C O M E P A G E ?

My answer is yes. It is a great way to let people know more about your company and what to expect from you as a company as well as on your fan page. It is also a great place to convert visitors, either “liking” your Facebook fan page or providing an email address, etc.

Facebook Places

W H A T T H I N G S S H O U L D I C O N S I D E R W I T H F A C E B O O K P L A C E S ?

Facebook has a specific page called a Place page and those pages are for specific locations. It is still a very new feature to Facebook. If you own a location-based business, it may be better for you to use a Place page than a Fan page because there are some additional things you can do with Facebook Places, such as provide promotional offers and deals to your customers. The deals are things you offer people who “check-in” at your location, much like Foursquare. You pay for deals, just like you have to pay for Facebook ads. The plus side is, it is mobile based, and is the only form of mobile advertising Facebook offers right now. Smartphone users can check-in to your place of business and get a deal from their phone.

This is very useful if you are a small business owner with one or two locations. Being a huge franchise owner with thousands of location based stores will be hard to manage, and I would suggest sticking with your Fan page for now.

Contests

H O W D O I L E V E R A G E C O N T E S T S T O M Y A D V A N T A G E ?

1. Ask your audience to post on your wall or comment on a post to win your giveaway.2. Ask new users to “like” your page to be entered to win your giveaway.3. You can use an app, such as Wildfire, to help you run a more detailed contest.4. There are a lot of rules to Facebook contests – what Facebook will allow you to do and not to

do. You can either brush up on the reading materials and launch a simple campaign as in #1 and #2 or you can skip the reading and use an app, like in #3.

5. Some businesses are reporting a decrease in the amount of responsiveness to contests. The newness to entering Facebook contests is decreasing. There are also websites mentioning all the Facebook contests, so many people are sitting at home entering the contests and the information being received is of poor quality. Therefore, you should always make sure your giveaway is relevant to your industry and not just a generic item, such as an iPod. It is also important to remember that the content ROI is still valuable. The ROI is just not as high for some companies any longer. You may be better finding something inexpensive, such as a report, and allowing everyone who “likes” your page to receive it.

Social Media Questions

I S S O C I A L M E D I A M A R K E T I N G A L L I T ' S H Y P E D U P T O B E ?

Yes.

Google and Bing have already admitted that social authority plays a role is page rank. Google admits it places more emphasis on inbound links than

keywords. Social media is the best way to spread your content fast and far while creating inbound links. Without it, how will your website ever

make the first page of search engines?

D O E S S O C I A L M E D I A M A R K E T I N G O P E N P A N D O R A ’ S B O X T O N E G A T I V E P E O P L E ?

No.

They are already out there. If you think for one second that they aren't saying something bad about you to their friends, family, and on a social network you don't know about, you are wrong. If they are going to do it,

they have already done it. Only difference is, before you didn't know anything about them telling the world about you. Now, with social

media, they can come directly to you and you actually have a voice to answer them. This gives you the chance to establish reputation and

credibility with your customers. Over 70% of people who leave negative comments become repeat customers when responded to on social media.

H O W D O I S H A R E F A C E B O O K I N F O O N M Y S I T E O R B L O G ?

Install the Facebook “like box” on your website and blog. You can find it on Facebook.

http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like-box/




H O W D O I G E T M Y B L O G O N F A C E B O O K ?

Try using an application.

I have use the application Networked Blogs. Install the app to your page and follow the directions. You need 5 people to confirm you own the blog, so

just ask your friends to help out. Ask your friends to watch their Suggestions Section on their Facebook page to confirm for you . Once

confirmed you are the own by your five friends, the application updates and posts to your wall instantly when you post a new blog.

http://www.facebook.com/networkedblogs

http://www.facebook.com/networkedblogs

W H Y W O U L D O N E N E E D S O C I A L M E D I A ?

Besides social authority now being part of Google and Bing’s page ranking algorithm and social search being introduced to search engines, there are many other benefits to social media.

Those companies who have a blog, average 55% more web traffic than those who don't.

Social media costs less than direct mail campaigns. Direct mail gets thrown in the garbage, TV ads gets tivo'd out, email gets spammed, calls are caller ID'd and not answered. I am not saying anything bad about email campaigns. I truly believe in them and they are great inbound marketing. It is important to mention here the fact that spam filters will discard your email. With social media you are reaching those who are buying and those who may buy in the future (the soft sale). When they are ready to buy, who are they going to go to? They are going to go to the people they know, who are in their face (like with email campaigns). If you are not reaching them, you will never win that soft sale. You will also gain referrals from your contacts who have friends who are looking to buy. Who will they refer them to? Those they are in contact with. It's a great way to stay in their face.

W I T H S O M A N Y S O C I A L M E D I A O U T L E T S , I S I T B E N E F I C I A L F O R A B U S I N E S S T O U S E T H E M ?

H O W C A N S O C I A L M E D I A I N C R E A S E S A L E S F O R A N O N L I N E B U S I N E S S ?

Social Media Marketing carries extensive SEO advantages. Google ranks your organic page listings (not the pay per click on the top or side) by how many links you have to your website. They give higher authority to inbound links to your site than they do keywords. Inbound links are more important to Google. Imagine the inbound links you have created to your website through yourblog, twitter, facebook, and several other social media networks, especially, when that link gets passed around. It's enormous. This leverages the SEO playing field for your site to rank higher in Google organic page ranks. Organic links have a 70% higher clickthrough rate than PPC, and now you also reduced your marketing spend on PPC advertising, driving more traffic to your site through organic listings.

What else can you do? Direct people to sign up for your emails through social media. Social Media Marketing is great lead generation to increase your email database. Promote open houses, events, promotions, your listings, contests, and the list goes on and on.

Social Media Marketing is extremely important for crisis management when something goes wrong. You will have a voice out there for your side of the story. The Hudson plane was on twitter within ten minutes of landing in the river. Can you reach your customers that fast?

Other benefits include: branding, credibility, and reputation. This includes social network sites, blogging, forums, chat rooms, etc. You will be placing your brand name and logo in front of millions of prospects. You will gain credibility by responding to posts on your blog and in your social networks as well as your reputation.

H O W I S T H E M A R K E T F O R S O C I A L N E T W O R K I N G ?

The market is phenomenal. There are 600 million facebook users. Over 10 billion tweets sent on twitter. 2 billion videos streamed each day on YouTube. Will it slow down? No. It is only getting bigger. Facebook is growing exponentially. Twitter is growing as well. Location-based social media is increasingly expanding. Google and Facebook are in a search war. MySpace has turned its look over to look like Facebook, received a new logo, and revamped their genre. Facebook and Bing have developed social search. Google is performing social search now as well with Twitter, Flickr, etc. All have had a total revamp due to popularity and their evolution. There are people out there who haven't even started their campaigns and half the world is on social media. And now your search bar will be socialized as well. Hotmail already is. It's only just begun.

W H A T I S C O N S I D E R E D T H E B I G G E S T " D O N ' T S " I N S O C I A L M E D I A M A R K E T I N G ?

Don't hard sell.Don't just talk and not listen.Don't use as an advertisement for yourself.

W H A T A R E S O M E A D V I C E Y O U W O U L D G I V E S O M E O N E W H O I S N O T Y E T F A M I L I A R W I T H S O C I A L M E D I A M A R K E T I N G ?

Do listen.Don't hard sell.Do be personable.Do create remarkable content to share and spread your links around.Don't use as an advertisement for yourself.Do not overload friends pages with useless comments or information.Share and help others spread their message.Engage consistently.Respond when necessary in a timely fashion.Offer valuable information.

W H A T A R E S O M E E F F E C T I V E W A Y S F O R S M A L L B U S I N E S S E S T O U T I L I Z E S O C I A L N E T W O R K I N G S I T E S ?

A R E T H E R E S O M E S I T E S T H A T A R E M O R E E F F E C T I V E T H A N O T H E R S ?

You utilize social networking sites to increase inbound links, increase page rank, credibility, reputation, brand awareness, crisis management, thought leadership, and to listen to your customers. Which ones are most effective will depend on your target audience. If you are band then Reverbnation may bring you more leads than Facebook. You will need to determine which of the many, many sites are best suited for you to reach your target audience.

You can find a list here:

http://info.trustemedia.com/list-of-social-networking-sites-and-descriptions














H O W D O E S Y O U R C O M P A N Y O B T A I N L E A D S ?

Blogging produces 55% more web traffic than if you didn't blog. Thus, increasing leads.

Social media creates a community and information about your website as well as information being shared… thus creating more inbound links to my website, thus increasing page rank, thus increasing leads.

Content marketing with a landing page and non-friction conversion form creates many leads as long as you are providing valuable and useful information for your audience.

SEO - having great on-page and off-page SEO tactics will improve your page rank and your leads.

These are the best methods in my opinion.

H O W D O I L I S T E N T O C U S T O M E R S ?

If you are wanting to find out what they want or need you can listen to them in their social networks, on your own social network pages, through surveys and polls on your website, in your emails, and in your eNewsletters. You can also create a blog post, promote your blog, and then read the comments.

H O W C A N T H E S U C C E S S O F S O C I A L M E D I A B E A C C U R A T E L Y T R A C K E D ?

You can do this a couple different ways.

The first one is check your Google analytics. It should tell you your referring sites to your website and you can plainly see who is coming from what social media websites. You can also see the breakdown of referring social media sites in your Hubspot software.

Second, use a tracking code. Give your social media community a tracking code to use to purchase from your website and you will know where the visitor came from.

Third, check your website traffic totals. Have they increased since using social media? Have your sales increased since using social media? The promotional code suggestion will eliminate this being coincidental.

Has your community increased? How about name mentions on the internet – have they increased? Depending on what ROI you are looking for will depend on how you measure your social media ROI.

A R E T R A C K I N G D E V I C E S A G O O D W A Y T O T R A C K S O C I A L M E D I A C A M P A I G N S ?

I S T H E T R A C K I N G S O F T W A R E E X P E N S I V E ?

If you have a goal in place for what you want out of social media, then you should track your social media. If you have no goal in place and have no idea why you are doing it, then maybe you do not need to track your social media.

There are a ton of social media tracking tools that are free: Hootsuite, Socialoomph, Tweetreach, Twitalyzer, Facebook Insights, TweetDeck, and many, many, many more. Just perform a search and many will pull up in your search results. Try them out and choose the best one for you.

S H O U L D B U S I N E S S E S H A V E A T W I T T E R A N D F A C E B O O K A C C O U N T O R I S O N E M O R E B E N E F I C I A L T H A N T H E O T H E R ?

Here is a great report on that:

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/5925/Twitter-or-Facebook-Which-Is-Right-for-Your-Business.aspx


















W H A T I S F A C E B O O K ’ S N E W S F E E D A L G O R I T H M ?

“Facebook's Algorithm: EdgeRank

Facebook, unlike the super-secret Google, has shared their algorithm for ranking content on Facebook and filtering what appears in the news feed. The algorithm consists of three components:1. Affinity - the number of times 2 people (or a person and a page) have

interacted2. Weight - the number of times users have interacted (commented, liked)

with the content in question3. Recency - the time since the content was posted, note that Facebook

moves and changes very quickly, and my news feed, for example, never has content more than 24 hours old.”

Source: Hubspot’s Inbound Internet Marketing Blog

H O W D O I G E T M Y C O N T E N T I N T O T H E N E W S F E E D ?

“20 Tips to Get Your Content Seen on Facebook

With the understanding of how Facebook ranks and filters content, what can you do to make sure your content makes the cut? Here are 20 ideas.

•Post a variety of content to attract interactions from a higher percentage of your users, raising your affinity score.•Focus on positive and fun content on Facebook. Sex sells.*•Talk about Facebook - Facebook is the number one most shareable topic on Facebook.*•Respond to comments that your fans post on your content to increase the number of interactions per post.



•Respond to comments that your fans post on your wall to increase your affinity score.•Experiment with targeting posts to get a higher feedback score (percentage of impressions that turn into interactions).•Post regularly, but not too frequently (more than once a day) to give each post a good chance of gaining traction.*•Post content outside of main work hours - Facebook users interact more when they're off the clock.*•Include images on blog posts you publish to create a more eye-catching post.•Don't forget to write an appealing meta description for any links you post, because Facebook automatically pulls this in for links.



•Use share links on your blog articles and landing pages to encourage users to post your content directly.•Integrate landing pages within Facebook to get higher conversion rates - Facebookers don't like to leave Facebook.•Post videos directly instead of links to articles with videos, so users can watch the video within Facebook.•Include links in video descriptions to drive traffic back to your website.•To share photos but protect your copyright and get better analytics, use Flickr integrated with your Facebook account.•To share photos for maximum interactions, post photos directly to Facebook.



•Refrain from using complex language or jargon in your posts for maximum response.*•Ask questions and specifically ask for feedback from your fans.•Use Facebook Insights to measure which content performs the best on your specific page.•Encourage user-generated content, including user-created photos, comments, or links.

*Source: 5 Questions and Answers About Facebook Marketing”


http://danzarrella.com/infographic-5-questions-and-answers-about-facebook-marketing.html




F A C E B O O K R E A C H E S M A J O R I T Y O F U S W E B U S E R S

As Facebook continues to solidify its role as the world’s top social networking site, eMarketer estimates that more than half of internet users in the US were logging on to the site at least monthly as of the end of 2010.

This year, eMarketer forecasts, 132.5 million US web users will use the site. That increase of 13.4% in the number of users means Facebook will reach almost nine in 10 social network users and 57.1% of internet users. By 2013, 62% of web users and almost half (47.6%) of the overall US population will be on Facebook.

Inbound Marketing Agency

Hubspot VARInbound Marketing ProfessionalInbound Marketing EducatorHubspot’s Inbound Marketer of the Month June 2010

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262-204-7855 (PULL)

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888-895-6670

Website:

www.TrusteMedia.com

Email:

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