Courtesy of sproutgeek.com

Facebook For Business: According To Mari Smith

Mari is a big fan of the Timeline design, and she has spent months determining how best to use it for business. To Mari Smith, Facebook is a necessary platform that all old and new businesses should invest in. The best way to learn from her, is to check out her own Facebook page. There, she shows you exactly how a page should be run.

The 101 Profile From a Facebook Expert

On first glance you can see that Mari keeps the conversation going – with nearly 2,847 people talking about her posts. Here are some tips from the queen of Facebook.

• For Mari Smith, Facebook is meant to inspire community. She pops in every now and then and announces LIVE discussions for the next 60 minutes. This encourages people to ask her questions or give her feedback, live on her page.

• She posts blogs from other people, which helps her connect to them and adds fresh relevant content to her wall. Only practical advice is shared.

Courtesy of Twylah.com

• If there is one person that knows how to use Timeline apps, it’s Mari Smith. Facebook apps make your page functional, and Mari has 8 of them. Among these are Youtube Videos, a Facebook Course, Google+, Free Webcasts, Mari’s Top Fans, A Free Chapter From Her Book and a big list of apps you should be using on Facebook.

• Mari ensures that she’s the prominent source of Facebook knowledge by publishing DIY or practical info posts. She’ll publish directions, and an explanatory image. By making her images not only attractive, but practical – she gains more fans.

• To Mari Smith, Facebook is about engagement – so she asks her fans questions and encourages a lot of interaction. She also makes great use of the ‘whole page’ function, to enlarge interesting images on her profile.

• Mari Smith is the best at what she does because she’s put the time into her own credibility. She posts images of herself writing on the Facebook ‘wall’ in the FB offices – and she is often interviewed about Facebook as an expert. She makes sure the world knows when something like this happens, you should too!

Courtesy of marismith.com

For an expert like Mari Smith, Facebook will be a constant challenge because it always changes. For you – the business owner – Mari can be that unparalleled source of Facebook knowledge that you need to keep your profiles current and popular.

One of the best things you can do for your Facebook page is to model it after one that works. This is how you learn to implement new strategies and test new processes. Mari is to Facebook what Brian Clark is to content, and Darren Rowse is to blogging! Thanks Mari!

Join our Facebook page here!

Do you know of another Facebook expert that you want to share with us?

Courtesy of pilotnewmedia.com

#1: Run Customer Service Polls on Facebook

Create a system of questions designed to improve how you relate to your customers and provide them with real world, and online service. Ask your fans directly how you can improve your service offerings and make it easier to communicate with your customers. These Facebook polls will act as live feedback, and can help you solve ‘hidden’ issues in your business.

#2: Use and Promote Twitter Hashtags

Create a customer service ‘tweet-line’ out of a hashtag, which your customers can use to communicate directly with you. They can tweet complaints, queries, thanks, suggestions and more to your hashtag feed. It’s a great way to neatly and efficiently manage your customer service issues online. It also makes replying orderly, and fast.

#3: Host Live Customer Comment Interaction Sessions

Promote an event on Twitter, that will attract your fans, customers – even your competitors. Chat with them about your brand, and use the real time feedback to unearth some truths about your business. These live sessions can be very valuable, especially if you attract a large ‘crowd.’ Get feedback on new services, products and processes in no time.

#4: Launch a Customer Service Facebook App

Need a long term customer service interface? Get a Facebook timeline app created that your customers can use to reach you directly. Link it to an email account, and manage complaints, suggestions and queries here – in a neat and professional manner. This is a great idea for small businesses, that need to consolidate their online customer service.

#5: Promote an Interactive Pinterest Page

Create a pinboard on Pinterest, dedicated to customer service. Encourage fans to comment and provide feedback on images and videos that you post. This will attract more interaction, and customers will be more willing to share their true feelings with you, if the problem is illustrated in an image. It’s also a great way to collect poll answers.

Promoting customer service means properly utilizing technology on your social pages, and the built in infrastructure that is already available to you. The trick is to track these efforts, to create a customer service profile, that is fed by several social media pages. Using this detailed analytics data you can progressively and systematically improve your business.

It’s the customers that really matter in any business. If your customers aren’t getting the service they expect, you won’t be in business for very long. Continue to collect data, and apply it your business – but also keep an eye out for ‘chatter’ about your service profile online. You’ll want to manage positive and negative feedback as it happens.

How do you promote customer service on your social media pages? Share your tips with the SMM community!

Courtesy of vionicapps.com

The Facebook Promo Do’s

#1: Do Use Your Facebook App Space

You can add a custom made app to your timeline, and drive traffic to it with Facebook ads and content marketing. These apps can be highly interactive, are great for collecting email sign-ups, running text marketing campaigns, or selling products directly from your page.

#2: Do Use Your Timeline Cover Image

Use your timeline cover image as additional promotion space, to plug your products, webinars, content or event. Its prime real estate, and you’ll get lots of responses.

#3: Do Use Your Timeline Pinning Function

Craft a great, engaging post and get lots of people to comment, share and like it. Then pin this promotional post to the top of your page, for 40% more interaction over time.

#4: Do Compliment Your Promo With Ads

Use Facebook’s new reach generator and ‘post as ads’ system to turn your posts into adverts, and to drive traffic straight to your optimized timeline profile.

#5: Do Create a Viral Group For a Competition

Create a group and add people to it. Get your friends and their friends to add more and more people to the group – and get them to enter the competition or giveaway.

The Facebook Promo Don’ts

#6: Don’t Request Long Comments Outside Apps

Get your fans to comment or reply to competitions by doing it through your Facebook app. Otherwise your brand timeline will be cluttered with random answers and banter.

#7: Don’t Use Check Ins or Likes as Entries

Facebook prohibits users from using the check-in or like function as a way to enter a competition, or take part in a sweepstake or giveaway.

#8: Don’t Post One Announcement

A promotion runs for a while, which means it needs to be hyped, planned and executed on the platform. One announcement, or random promo post won’t help your cause.

#9: Don’t Announce Winners on Facebook

Facebook still doesn’t allow winners to be announced on Facebook. Use Twitter to do this, and then publish a congratulatory post on Facebook to cover your tracks.

#10: Don’t Wait For Responses To Happen

Posting a promo on Facebook and waiting for responses can be like watching paint dry. Figure out how to get people involved. Comment on other groups, drive traffic to your promotion, tweet about it, offer incentives and get moving!

There you go, the do’s and don’ts of launching a promotion on Facebook. Oh, and whatever you do, don’t include ‘Facebook’ in your display, cover or ad art. Facebook doesn’t allow it. Other than that, get creative – use every avenue available to you, including your blog!

How do you promote products and services on Facebook? Share with your SMM community!

Courtesy of socialtechpop.com

Mandatory Personal Timelines for Everyone

Facebook has finally made the new personal timelines mandatory for all users. This means if you haven’t switched over yet, you only have a few more weeks to do so – or it will change on its own. Timelines allow you to create a profile of your life, that your friends can interact with.

It also documents everything you publish – like a running story that never ends! So far, it’s encouraged a lot of users to put more thought into what they publish on Facebook – which has elevated the content value of the site. Hide the stories you don’t want people to see, and create a multimedia portrait instead.

Applications Add a Fresh Dynamic To Facebook

The Facebook applications that were released a few weeks ago, will really start to change the way people use the social network. The applications are refreshingly personal, and encourage real sharing between friends. The foodspotting app for example, is geared towards finding unique dishes, using the recipes, trying the food and sharing your views on the outcome.

We can look forward to engaging with people on a more personal level – sharing experiences and hobbies. Right now, these apps are for personal timelines only, but we have a feeling that they’ll have a lot more relevance to businesses, once Facebook changes our business pages.

Look Out! Business Pages Will Change!

The big news is that Facebook is planning to launch timeline for business fan pages. Marketers and small business owners are hesitant about the kind of interaction they’ll get from this HUGE change. It will restructure everything. Exactly how Facebook plans to do this and succeed – is as yet unknown.

Hopefully, you’ll still be able to add special sections onto your page, to attract fans. But this radical change may mean that the functionality we’re used to is thrown out of the window. Whatever happens, we just have to trust that Facebook has our best interests at heart.

Right now, many small business owners are creating second Facebook accounts – for professional reasons. The new timeline functionality allows you to set up a professional profile that will document your progress as an industry leader. You should think about doing this if you want to harness the power of Facebook for ‘celebrity’ reasons. Niche experts are getting a lot of success from this move.

Hold off on the application development for Facebook, until it’s clear what their intentions are for the business pages. Once they’re released it will be easier to chart a way forward. Until then, explore the features of your personal timeline.

Timelines for business pages? What do you think of this bold move by Facebook, and will it work? We want to hear from you!

Courtesy of ukwebcreations.com

The New Apps on Facebook

There are over 60 new apps to choose from, and they’ll give Facebook users the chance to share real world experiences with their friends online. Everything from listening to music, to cooking, reading and watching movies – can now show up in a user’s timeline. Users can select who can or can’t see their updates.

This introduces a higher level of personal sharing on the platform, and reinforces Facebook’s plan to eventually become a place for reporting activities as well as chatting to friends. Now you’ll be able to share your tastes, music interests, movie preferences and favorite foods in real time. We all know that our tastes change, now there’s a way to share and track them.

Apps Available For Developers and Businesses

In the past, apps have been a huge industry for professional app developers and large app development companies like Zynga. But for smaller businesses, launching popular applications has always been a challenge. Because these apps are hidden away, users don’t use them as much as they could. This has all changed now, thanks to applications that run directly from a personal timeline.

We can expect the worth and ROI of small business applications to increase, as they become an integral part of someone’s profile. It does mean that your app will have to be very good, and serve a particular function – but if you get it right, the viral potential has definitely increased thanks to the new placement.

While Facebook has only just launched large brand apps, we can look forward to a future of better placement and returns for small business applications. There is speculation that Facebook might even redesign business pages, so we’ll be on the look out for that. If they do, they’re going to have to be very careful. The timeline is great for personal use, but in a business context, it’s tricky.

The Future of Timeline Marketing

App developers will be scrambling to invent apps for the timeline now, and you should think about doing it too. Before, apps were the top way to increase interaction between fans and your business. Now, there will be a much deeper connection, and even more involvement. Social marketers will be using apps in the future for product placement in social games, brand identity and viral promotion.

The question remains – will Facebook’s app platform rival Google and Apple? Only time will tell. One thing is clear. They are already breaking into the mobile platforms, and there has been some talk about putting together a gallery. To you and me, this is the equivalent of an app store. Go Facebook!

How will you use the new timeline to market to your fans? Leave your answer below!

Courtesy of blog.gliks.com

The Fan of The Week

Simply put – a fan of the week is chosen on a ‘weekly’ basis, that has contributed the most conversation on your Facebook page. These fans are key players in your community and should be appreciated. It also inspires some friendly competition between fans, as you give them some exposure if they win.

Understanding The Rules

Facebook has very strict rules on running competitions and promos on its platform. You may not run these promos using a Facebook-made app. So that eliminates all of the average Facebook features. Of course many companies do this weekly fan appreciation on such a small scale, that Facebook allows it.

In this instance, the community knows that there is an ongoing ‘fan of the week’ contest, and at the end of every week a Facebook update naming the fan is published. Short, simple and far more effective than you might think. Anything more than this, and you are going to have to do it through a third party application.

Facebook allows promos on third party apps, so use these to really impress your fans.

Creating a Featured Fan App

The most effective form of fan appreciation is when you spend some money getting an app made that really showcases your fan of the week. This is best for service-based niche businesses that would love the added exposure. The more you give them, the more your fans will comment and interact.

This can include a tab dedicated to the feature, with branding, design, image and video sharing capabilities. Choose your fan yourself, or get your community to vote for the best comment during the week. If you have a small budget, reward your fans with a prize – either digital content, or something you can send them.

You’re allowed to put up photos of the winner with their prize, which is great for future fan of the week prospects. There are a lot of great app development companies that will create an app like this for your business. Avenue Social, Appbistro and Involver are just three options you can look into. They often work to a set budget, so you can negotiate a price that suits you both.

Once your fan of the week promo is up and running, promote it on your other social sites. Do a blog about it, include a few tweets detailing what it’s about, and send out a memo to your LinkedIn community. If you have the budget – get a short video made that spreads the word, it’s a good investment in the engagement value of your Facebook community. Now you know, so start one!

Do you have any questions about running a fan of the week promo? Just ask us here, and we’ll do our best to answer it!

Courtesy of blogen.ebuzzing.com

Your Facebook Wall

The wall of your fan page is a powerful feature – it’s the place where your fan base communicates with you. Your first step, is to draft a comprehensive write-up of the position involved, using niche related keywords. Include a direct link to your business website – where you should be advertising the position(s). Choose an interesting image to go with the job description.

Invite applicants to ask questions about the position in the comment section, and do your best to answer each of them. Q&A updates will get you closer to finding the perfect applicant, which is why a recruitment campaign on Facebook is useful.

An Application Job App

Sometimes directing people away from your Facebook page isn’t the answer. If your company often posts jobs, then it’s an excellent idea to have a job application app created for your Facebook page. Here a job prospect can click on one of your category tabs, flick through the jobs on offer and submit their CV right then and there. It’s a simple, effective way to collect potential employees.

Advertise To Attract Relevant Applicants

Posting jobs isn’t going to attract enough people to your Facebook page, so you’ll need some additional help with an ad campaign. All you have to do is select the job you want to fill, and create a targeted Facebook ad about it. Instead of simply advertising ‘lots of jobs on offer,’ make it specific, so that the targeting works. Choose the age group, location and more for the best applicants possible.

You’ll want to have these adverts appear on industry related Facebook pages, where your applicants might be. If you’re going to run a targeted ad campaign for the position available, then don’t forget to ask interested people to share it on their Facebook walls. This will encourage the viral effect.

Use Groups and Pages For Promotion

Finally, to really get your job seen – you need to put together a list of niche related Facebook pages that you can ‘like.’ The more you like, the more CV’s you’ll receive. Draft a standard template email detailing briefly why you would like to post this job on the Facebook page owner’s wall. This might seem like a futile step, but it prevents page owners from flagging you as a spammer.

Once they agree, post your description and link, to get more applicants. If you have a substantial community, then you can use the group function to let your fans know about the new position. Simply add them to the group and invite discussion. For a viral boost, why not ask other page owners if they will publish your job in their groups? This can be very useful.

Use your personal network to advertise your positions, and promote your Facebook page on your website and other social media sites. You’ll be well on your way to launching a great recruitment campaign in no time.

How do you advertise jobs on Facebook? Share your tips with us below!

Courtesy of newtrend.bg

Q1: Do I Need To Start a New Profile For My Business?

No – Facebook lets you keep your personal and professional pages quite separate, even though they are linked to the same account. Simply create a business page from your personal profile.

Q2: Is it Better To Have a Facebook Page or a Group?

The answer is both. You need a Facebook page to build a community, for brand visibility, authority and credibility on the platform. Your page is your Facebook presence. A group is needed to segment your audience after they’ve liked your page. Divide your community into groups for targeted niche discussions, Q&A’s, promotions and client meetings.

Q3: Do I Really Need a Custom Fanpage?

Yes, you are competing with hundreds of other businesses in your market, and you need a way to differentiate yourself from them. A custom fanpage shows off your business identity, personality and style – and is one of the most important steps when setting up a new Facebook business page.

Q4: How Do I Get More Fans To Like My Page?

There are many ways to do this. A welcome app is important, but so is creating excellent, engaging content on a daily basis. You can connect with other businesses on Facebook, and draw fans from there. Facebook ads are a great way to gain likes, and so is cross promotion on your other social media pages. This is why you need a content strategy – and a way to measure how your updates perform.

Q5: How Do I Get My Fans To Interact With My Page?

By coming up with more interactive content, and posting it regularly. Video, images, discussions, questions and apps give your fans a reason to interact. You should also be aiming for comments, not simply likes and once of clicks. This is why Facebook edgerank is important, and why you need to learn to overcome it.

Q6: How Often Should I Post Fresh Content?

You should be posting at least one new update every day. This can be content you’ve sourced from other authority sites, or content you’ve created that you want to syndicate to your Facebook community. The key is to keep the conversation going, which means giving your fans something to talk about.

Q7: Which Apps Should I Integrate into My Page?

There are literally thousands of apps to choose from on Facebook. The best apps however, are custom made for your business by an app development company. You can choose from quizzes, trivia, social games, contests, utility and promotional apps – the sky’s the limit. In the meantime, use a Facebook gateway app like Wildfire or iWapa, to add a mini-website to your page.

Q8: When is The Best Time To Post Interactive Content on Facebook?

Experts differ on this, but the most common answer is at 8am in the morning on weekdays, especially on Wednesday and Friday. You shouldn’t be too concerned about when you post however, as long as you’re posting daily.

Q9: How Am I Going To Manage All of This Content?

There are dashboards you can use to queue up and pre-schedule posts, links and updates on your Facebook page. The most popular are Hootsuite, TweetDeck and Seesmic. They’re easy to use, and free up more of your time to respond to your community replies. The best solution is to hire a social media marketing company to create, manage and track your posts.

Q10: How Do I Keep Spam Off My Page?

Facebook management is also about monitoring your page. When you see a spam update – block this user from accessing your page and delete the update. If you get a sudden influx of spam, you might want to report it to the Facebook admin.

Do you have any questions about Facebook pages? Ask them below, and we’ll do our best to answer all of them!

Courtesy of Hongkiat.com

A Facebook welcome page can be a fan gateway that introduces your visitors to your business. It can also be a mini website within your Facebook page. They improve your visitor ‘like’ conversions and act as promotional tool instead of your business website. Facebook has advanced to the point where you don’t actually need to redirect your visitors to your website in order to make sales or gain clients.

When your visitor doesn’t have to click away from Facebook, they are more inclined to read what you have to say. This leads to more fans, more interaction and a better Facebook community for marketing purposes. Without a welcome page or a fan gateway, you could be missing out on a lot of Facebook based business!

#1: The Facebook Welcome App

You don’t have to hire a designer or developer to create your Facebook welcome page anymore. There are many great apps that will help you create the same look, at no cost. All you need to do is find the app that suits your page best. We recommend using the iwipa or wildfire apps.

Iwipa allows you to add jpeg images to your mini-website, which has excellent features – like tabs, scrollers and clickable social media icons. All you need to do is put together your welcome page first – then add promotional pages as you go. Iwipa comes with a great video that explains how to use it. It’s one of the simplest, easiest apps to use, and it looks great.

Wildfire allows you to create two kinds of Facebook ‘intro’ pages. The first is for non-fans, and should include a prompt to ‘like’ your page. The second only becomes visible when people like your business. It can be a promotional page, or a general page detailing your products or services – it’s up to you!

#2: Designing Your Jpeg in Photoshop

These apps require jpeg images to work. You’ll either have to hire a designer to put together a branded pic or two – or you can do it yourself with basic Photoshop skills. Be sure to check each apps recommended jpeg dimensions, they always have them – or your pic might be too big, long or wide.

Add your company branding, a nice welcome message to new Facebook fans – even add your latest product images. Use this page (or pages) to help promote your business, or to tell your fans a little more about what you do.

Having a Facebook welcome page is essential for your business. Big businesses have already caught on, with exemplary pages like Victoria Secret and Red Bull taking full advantage of this feature. Facebook is an important marketing tool, and it can’t function properly without a welcome page. Get one now!

Do have any questions about your Facebook welcome page? Any apps you’ve used and found excellent? Tell us below!

Courtesy of viralblog.com

The integrated Facebook store as it is called, is becoming a very popular choice these days. Instead of trying to convince your clients to click onto your website, they can buy straight from your fan page.

If you haven’t settled on an opinion about this new social ecommerce trend – here are a few reasons why you might want to be ‘pro’ Facebook shops this year.

The Bigger Businesses Are Doing It

Corporations like Dove, Amazon and French Connection are all jumping on the Facebook ecommerce bandwagon, with shops of their own on the platform. Usually when we see the larger companies doing it, it’s only a matter of time before the benefits trickle down and catch the attention of small business owners.

While this is only really necessary if you have a fair amount of fans that ‘like’ your business, it’s a must-have for any product-based business with an ongoing social media strategy. The shop will act as another incentive for people to friend you on Facebook, and your existing fans will appreciate the convenience.

The Future of E-commerce?

There has been some debate about the ‘Facebook store’ – but most people believe that the new functionality will only strengthen the platforms position in the years to come. In fact, it’s the only platform that can threaten the sales of larger social shopping sites like Amazon.

With hundreds of millions of willing shoppers spending hours on Facebook – not having a storefront here could actually hurt your business in the future. Instead, why not establish your store early and include it in your social media strategy?

It can’t hurt to have another sales platform online – and it certainly can’t hurt to be one of the first to benefit from this trend. Be sure to tell your social media strategist to create your shop front this month!

Consolidate Your Efforts, Get Higher Returns

Imagine running a marketing campaign on Facebook, and all people have to do is click on a tab on your fan page to access your special offers! Many businesses have been creating exclusive ‘buy on Facebook’ deals, where their clients get discount prices for buying their products via their fan page.

In the social media age, who wouldn’t indulge in a special offer if it was right in front of you? Because these marketing schemes are open to the public, they go viral faster, and people feel less pressured to buy because of the social surroundings.

Remember your goal is always to build your brand, and make those sales. Facebook might be grabbing your website traffic, but who cares if people are buying stuff on your Facebook page. Our advice? Look into it right away!

Do you have a Facebook shop front? If so, please tell us what you think of it!