Courtesy of smstrat.com

The Science of The Facebook Like System

I was browsing Facebook the other day, when a friend of mine posted a peculiar, but rather tempting, (and ingenious) update. I couldn’t help but ‘like’ the post, along with many other people in my network. Likes on Facebook are easy when you can depend on your friends to do them – but for businesses – it takes extra effort.

The update said, “I love the new sound that Facebook makes when you click on the ‘like’ button!”

Immediately this update intrigued me, because it got me to click ‘like’ for a reason other than I genuinely liked the post. Of course, no sound happened. But the principle was clear – there is more than one way to get likes for your updates. So began the grand ‘like’ discovery. Here’s what I learned about likes on Facebook.

The 10 Easiest Ways To Get Likes For Business Updates

Courtesy of brandignity.com

#1: People Are More Likely To Like Strange, Peculiar or Out-of-the-Box Images

Have you ever posted a strange image, just to see what will happen? It helps if your image is somewhat related to your business, but getting likes on Facebook is easier if you combine ‘unusual’ with imagery. Don’t forget to include a thought provoking caption.

#2: People Like Food More Than Ideas and Concepts

Take a close look at Pinterest – the entire social platform is built on how much people enjoy liking, sharing and talking about good looking food. Use food analogies on your business page, and snag more likes on Facebook with accompanying yummy food images.

#3: Use a Gimmick or a Play on Words For Likes

Have you ever tried the old ‘like if you support team x’ or don’t like if you hate them, gimmick. If someone believes strongly enough in the idea, team, concept or quote that you’re supporting, they would rather like your update than ignore it.

#4: Be Blunt About The Things You Really Like

Yes, you want people to like your updates, but are you giving them people or ideas to like? Try posting an image of a personality in your industry, along with a quote. Then ask your fans if they like this person. This is directly asking to get likes on Facebook – it works.

Courtesy of teaminternetmarketing,com

#5: It’s a FACT, Links and Teasers Get Lots of Likes

Images aren’t working, updates aren’t working – what is left? Links! Focus on finding some high quality, engaging content and post an awesome link to it on Facebook. Then craft an equally as amazing hook, some insight or a question. Get likes on Facebook with links!

#6: Put Like Boxes Above All of Your Blog Posts

It’s nice that you’re publishing your blog links on Facebook, but are people liking them? If not, add a like box to your blog. Your readers will be able to like your post immediately after reading it, without even logging in. That’s how you get more likes on Facebook!

#7: Be Engaging and Innovative As Best You Can

“Only our most valued and successful fans will be able to see and like this update.” What you have here is a compliment, followed by an innovative method of getting more fans to like you on Facebook. Get loads of likes on Facebook when you tempt people into clicking. Another interesting one is ‘Click like for good luck in business all year round.”

Warning! Be careful of creating mass ‘chain’ updates though – you can be clever about it, but very infrequently.

#8: Be a Compulsive Liker Yourself

If you like a lot of your fans posts, they will start to value your input, and will like yours in return. In fact, this is such an effective method, often your fans will just see your brand name and like you, without even reading your post. Likes on Facebook can work like this.

#9: The ‘Click Like If’ Formula That Works Like a Bomb

Even experts over at allfacebook.com recommend that you use the ‘click like if’ method. Create your normal, daily update – then integrate a ‘click like if’ into it. Click like if you agree with X. Click like if you don’t want to see orphans starve. That kind of thing. You’ll be surprised how many likes on Facebook you can get, just by asking for them.

Courtesy of latimes.com

#10: Focus on What Your Fans Care About

Use surveys, polls and marketing materials to determine what it is your fans care about the most. In other words, why did they like your page to begin with? The answer might be ‘to learn how to make more money’ or ‘to find out how to grow herbs.’ Whatever the answer, if you continually answer their core question, they will like it.

Getting likes on Facebook is a real science, but it also requires a lot of creativity. Good and bad posts can get likes, if you know how to prompt your fans to click that little thumbs-up button. Remember, when you get more likes it improves your impressions and more fans will be able to see your posts.

Try focusing on getting more likes on Facebook for a while, and see how it impacts your edgerank score. You’ll know you’re doing something right when people start talking to you on your brand page without any direct invitation to do so. A simple like campaign can make this happen, if you craft intelligent, convincing and tempting updates for your fans.

Why not integrate an interesting like prompt into one of your updates and tell me how it went? I’d love to know how much engagement you get by focusing on your like system.

In the meantime, tell me how you get loads of likes for your updates!

Courtesy of venturebeat.com

Ads Here, Ads There, Ads Everywhere

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Facebook advertising has rapidly increased. My private newsfeed now consists of strange promoted upcoming events, ‘most shared’ posts from the businesses I do follow, and endless business page suggestions from companies I’ve never even heard of – something has happened, and people are noticing.

These days when a friend likes a business, it shows up as a full on post ‘Jane Doe likes Business Page x’ sprawled across your page. These adverts are getting to people, there are too many of them. Yet businesses love the new Facebook advertising options, don’t they? Otherwise why would Facebook be doing all of these intrusive changes?

The Truth About Facebook Advertising Campaigns

In his latest post on Facebook advertising, Jason Falls takes a look at how useful the current Facebook ad campaigns really are to small business owners. For a $5000.00 investment, the return was 1.5 million impressions and 40,000 claims. That means 40K people clicked on the offer that was shown. That’s a lot of people taking interest in adverts.

Are businesses making money? Well, if that small business invested $5000.00, giving away a redeemable coupon, then according to the numbers – a heck of a lot of money was made from that ad campaign. This may be different from gathering likes and using sponsored stories to gain fans – but the proof is there – it works.

Courtesy of pagetrafficbuzz.com

It’s clear then that BECAUSE these Facebook advertising options are working, Facebook wants to make more of them. They want a diverse range of ads to suit all people, all budgets, across the world. That’s how they will increase their revenue. As ads become more social, they are also becoming more interactive and engaging.

Fans WANT the offers from their favorite businesses that are giving away coupons and free stuff, because it adds value to being their fan. As for the other ads – the cold ‘suggested business’ ads, these may work intermittently, but they are more of an irritation than anything else. It’s Facebook’s attempt at building stronger business pages. Why?

The more fans a business page has, the more Facebook advertising power is has. You can only show ads to your fans and their friends – right? Those are the rules. So Facebook has gone on a twisted ‘like ALL of these businesses’ rampage, suggesting 5-10 businesses to you per day if you’re unlucky. It’s devalued the experience for me a little.

Courtesy of thehighlow.com

Speaking About Advertising, What’s Facebook Up To?

There is a very clear increase in the frequency of Facebook advertising, offers and sponsored stories. Facebook, as Jason Falls so eloquently writes, must become a revenue engine. I fear however that this new model may lead to a breakdown in trust between user and platform. No-one likes useless adverts. They like repeated spammy adverts even less.

All you can do as a Facebook user or Facebook advertising user is to use their ‘spam’ options. If you see a spammy ad, report it as spam, hide posts you don’t like – give Facebook the knowledge it needs to keep your page free of irritations. Remember Facebook or any social media site, is not a passive service. It takes user and owner input to grow!

How do you feel about the increase in Facebook adverts?

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 blog.intrapromote.com

Navigating and Using Facebook Insights

It can be daunting for any small business to review their own analytics data. It’s nice to see that people are responding to your page – but what do you do with this information? More to the point – how do you use this information to get even more response from your fans?

Total Likes

The total amount of likes on your page is an important metric. The higher the number – the more chances you have of reaching people.

Tip! Part of your analytics strategy should be to increase your total likes!

Friends of Fans

The ‘friends of fans’ metric tells you how many people you could reach through your total likes. In other words, these are the friends of your fans who may see your posts.

Tip! You’ll want to improve your friends of fans metric to extend your reach!

People Talking About This

Your ‘people talking about this’ metric just lets you know when people are engaging with your brand. It could be anything, from liking, to commenting, sharing or checking-in. It’s a decent metric to know about, as it improves your Edgerank score between certain people.

Weekly Total Reach

Weekly total reach is really a good metric to know about. That’s because it tells you how many people have actually SEEN your content. Yes, they could have scrolled past it, or not looked at it directly – but it was there – which means they could have been exposed to your message.

Tip! It’s a great idea to try and extend your reach in any way that you can.

Total Subscribes

This metric simply tells you how many outside parties are subscribing to your page.

Courtesy of emersonecom.wordpress.com

People Saw This Post

A number will appear detailing how many people ‘saw’ your post – again it is simply telling you how many people could have seen it. It’s a start – if you increase this number only good things can happen in your business.

Overview Page

Okay, so how do you actually take all of this information and make it useful? Take a look inside your overview section. Scroll to the bottom and you’ll see a list of your posts and how popular each one was. Organize these into hierarchies.

If you don’t yet – have at least 5 ‘easy to identify’ post types that you can test. Find out which ones test the best, and try to repeat that formula. Give your Facebook fans what they want!

Likes Page

Use your likes page to check on your demographics. What is the age of your fans? Who of these are men, or women? Who is interacting more? How can you get them to respond more often? How can you get more response out of the age groups that aren’t responding?

Answer these questions and test some gender, age and location based posts.

Reach

Check on how many page views you get in the ‘reach’ section. See which days you got the increase in page views. Come up with a strategy to increase your page views. Test different things and track the progress using certain days as markers.

Use these tips to put together a mini analytics strategy to steadily improve your fan count, reach and popularity on Facebook!

Which Facebook metric do you think is the most important of all? I’d like to hear your opinion!

Courtesy of army.mil

#1: Facebook Accounts For 1 of Every 5 Page Views Online

Imagine how powerful and addictive Facebook must be to attract 1 out of 5 page views on the internet – in the world! People are literally checking Facebook several times a day.

#2: Facebook Users Like 2.7 BILLION Things Per Day

There’s a whole lot of liking going on in the world – with people clicking ‘like’ billions of times each day. For such a neutral button, the world sure gets behind the endorsement concept. ‘Like’ is also one of the most important ways for a business to get a decent Edgerank score.

#3: 57% of All Facebook Users are Female

Facebook is a female dominated online community, with women not only making up a larger demographic than men, but using the platform more often as well. Must be the social sensitivity in women!

#4: Everyone in The World Spends an Average of 20 Minutes on Facebook

Open your homepage, check out the latest updates, scroll down – add in some comments, upload an image, reply to your messages, ‘like’ a few things…that’s about 20 minutes alright. The funny thing is, people are doing this once every couple of hours, it’s not just once a day anymore.

#5: EA Games Muscled in on Zynga’s Gaming Monopoly With The Sims Social

EA Games currently has the #2 most popular Facebook game in the world, thanks to an adaptation of their already hugely popular ‘The Sims’ game. Whereas Zynga games used to dominate the landscape with favorites like Cityville and Farmville – new players like EA have found their way into this new market, with little to no struggle.

#6: Facebook Earned 1 Billion Dollars in 2011

In 2011, thanks to Facebook’s new ad platforms, their old friend Zynga, and massive amounts of online traffic coming their way,
they managed to earn a cool $1 billion – that’s no small amount of income.

#7: Mark Zuckerberg Will Earn $1 Per Month From Jan 2013

Mark Zuckerberg, one of the world’s richest men, pledged to earn only $1 dollar per month as a salary, while working at Facebook. Makes sense – he was worth a neat 17.5 billion before Facebook’s recent IPO – now he’s worth about $24 billion. You can’t spend that amount of money in one lifetime!

It’s clear that Facebook is evolving. It’s becoming more of an aggressive money-maker – something we’ll see more of now that it’s a public company. But this hasn’t deterred people from using Facebook now more than ever. Usage, users and traffic is up, up, up! The reign of this social favorite is not going to end any time soon.

Have you come across any new and interesting stats about Facebook lately? Why not share them here with your SMM community? Share away!

Courtesy of hyperarts.com

The Right Question, The Right Tone

The first thing you need to know about Facebook polls, is that they’re meant to be engaging. They’re not meant to be ‘fillers’ or random additions to your content. Every question needs to serve a purpose, and must be written in a conversational tone. People don’t care about stuffy questions. But if you make them dynamic, they’ll be lining up around the block to answer them. Here are some great tips!

#1: Ask a good question! Your question needs to relate to your niche, and it needs to be something people will want to answer. Asking self serving questions is not going to work here. Change: ‘What do you love about our services?’ into ‘We’re giving away a free gift to our Facebook fans! What would you prefer?’

#2: Ask the question in an interesting way! Be friendly, passionate, dynamic – even funny to get your fans attention. To add that personal touch, sign off the question with your name, so that they know who’s addressing them. Most of all, add in some insight of your own! Let your fans know what you think first.

#3: Have a clear objective! Like I said before, all of your questions need to have a purpose. If you need market research, then you’ll have to draft the questions you want to ask – and rework them according to these tips. Boring, dry, analytical nonsense is not going to interest your fans. Make it fun.

#4: Promote your polls! There’s only one way to guarantee that loads of people will answer your poll – and that’s if you make it important. Promote it on your Facebook page, or give away prizes each month to your top ‘poller.’ Include the best answers in your monthly emails or newsletter. Remember to combine social and email.

#5: Encourage fan additions! If your poll doesn’t have the right answer, then don’t forget to ask your fans to add one onto the list. You can even publish one answer, and leave the rest up to your fans. When they have control, you’re bound to get some excellent answers.

#6: Run a poll about your polls! Ask your fans what they’re interested in knowing about your community or niche. What questions would they like to answer? Or better yet – in a debate, which is the popular choice? Figure out a way to always create and publish great polls, even if it means polling your fans about it.

Use these great tips to create solid gold polls that will get your community talking. Don’t be afraid to be controversial, strange, wacky or mysterious to get answers. You’ll be surprised what works! As you publish them, your analytics will tell you which ones your fans prefer. Go on, try one out!

Have you come across a great poll question on Facebook? Copy and paste it here, along with the page name, and tell us why you love it!

Courtesy of aboutfacedigital.com

What Advertising Really Means

You don’t have to join an ad network to understand how advertising works. Any promotion that gives your business exposure on or offline, and attracts new people to your Facebook page – can be regarded as Facebook advertising. Many of these processes are actually more effective than sponsored ads!

You can drive traffic to your Facebook page, to get those likes from many other sources. You can also use these techniques to supplement a running sponsored ad campaign. Here’s how to leverage Facebook advertising:

• Include it in your company culture. Get your employees to interact there, and share the page with their own private networks.

• Include your page address on catalogues, menus, pamphlets and on sample products to drive traffic there.

• Place your Facebook address at the end of your email signature.

• If you frequent tradeshows or conferences display your address clearly on something visible, or on your business card.

• Get your customers to like your Facebook page online and to share it with other people.

• Share your page address with other Facebook pages, to attract interest. Just make sure you ask the page owner first, or they’ll mark you as spam.

• Include a section in your company newsletter on what has been happening on your Facebook page.

• Give people a reason to want to like your page. Add special features, tabs, videos, media and free downloads.

• Make sure that all of your websites contain a Facebook widget, which will lead people to your page.

• Create an email marketing campaign to drive traffic to Facebook, offer something free in the email to get more clicks.

• Place a Facebook app or two on your page to attract people there, and to keep them coming back for more.

• Ensure that all of your blog sites or ecommerce sites have the Facebook comment feature.

• Run lots of fun contests to entice new people to your page.

• Inform your other social communities of your Facebook community, and try to get them there (LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Youtube, Flickr).

• Get creative and use print media to guide people to your Facebook page, using QR code technology in newspapers and magazines.

Any one of these advertising techniques will help you get more Facebook fans, which will increase the overall interaction you receive on your wall. These additional techniques will help you build a powerful Facebook presence! As a Facebook marketer you should always be testing out new things. You’ll be surprised what works.

What other ways can you advertise your Facebook page? Have we missed one? Please leave your fresh idea below!

Courtesy of geekword.net

Among some of the tips and insights shared during the Twitter chat by John Souza, founder and chief strategist of Social Media Magic and SMMU were:

• Because Business Pages cannot interact with Facebook Groups, leverage your personal profile to search for and post in relevant groups that are most likely to have your best customers in them.

• Incorporate your keywords or key phrases into your Facebook Page or Facebook Group name. When launching a new company, Facebook users aren’t likely to search for “XYZ Marketing Company,” but they would search for “Marketing Advice for Small Businesses.” Therefore, using keywords and key phrases in your Page or Group name helps strategically attract target customers.

• Facebook Likes have been proven to be directly connected to driving revenue. So if you want to drive sales from your best customers on Facebook, consistently create Likeable content to post on your page.

• You may have heard the phrase, “Content is King.” Well on Facebook, exclusive content is king. Attract customers by offering content and offers on your Facebook page that they can’t get via your email newsletter, direct mail campaign or in your store or place of business.

• To attract more customers, explore ways that you can use your Facebook page beyond simply posting content and offers. Use apps to facilitate more diverse content, like video seminars, or consider using your Facebook page as a customer service channel.

Thanks to everyone who joined this week’s chat. If you want more insights from Social Media Marketing University and your social savvy peers, follow #SMMUChat every Wednesday at 8pm EST on Twitter. You can use TweetGrid, TweetChat or create a search column in Tweetdeck to make participating in the chat easier.

Join #SMMUChat on Wednesday, December 21 for our next chat. The topic will be: Attracting More Business with Video Marketing. We’ll be discussing how to strategically integrate video marketing into your social media plan. Learn how to create compelling video content, leverage YouTube to drive more web traffic, and more.

And remember, all #SMMUChat participants will receive free access to a session of our SMMU Video Marketing course.

Visit us here to submit your questions prior to the chat and don’t forget to invite your friends and colleagues.

Courtesy of watblog.com

Why Facebook is a Marketing Goldmine

If your business isn’t on Facebook yet, or you have a page but it doesn’t do much – then plan for a revamp in 2012. The stage is set for Facebook’s biggest year ever, as the world converges on this giant social network. Facebook continues to evolve to meet the demands of this ever widening user base.

In fact, Facebook marketing is becoming just as profitable as general internet marketing. And why wouldn’t it be? All of your customers are there, and they can’t wait to share with you. Building social communities on Facebook should be a priority for everyone in 2012.

But that’s not even the most exciting thing about Facebook. Because it’s grown so large, and is so prolific in our modern culture – other forms of social technology and sales are beginning to integrate with it. Just look at how many applications or e-commerce pages allow you to invite your friends from your Facebook page!

Even commenting on blogs and websites can be done using your Facebook account. This is because Facebook has taken steps to extend its reach beyond the platform. We can expect to see more and more sites online using Facebook in various ways. One thing is for sure, if you ignore it, you’ll be left in the proverbial mud.

More Users Means More Fans

Every month, Facebook adds 20 million users to its tally. That’s 20 million potential customers that might like your page. If you learn the tricky art of selling on Facebook, you stand to make a fortune. The key is, learning to tap into these markets to expand your business. Reaching foreign speakers is just one example of this.

Small businesses will see an increase in their fan communities, as they learn to harness the power of Facebook marketing. You’ll see thousands of fans instead of hundreds, and the potential to earn a lot more revenue than before.

One of the smartest things you can do for your business in 2012, is formulate a valuable Facebook marketing strategy. Sink money into expanding your community, and work to keep your page content fresh, and your fans engaged. Do this successfully, and the sky’s the limit for your business.

A word of caution: you’ll be going up against businesses that DO have a great strategy in place. If you ignore the power of Facebook, it could be damaging to your business. Catching up will take time, so get it done now. Time to brush up on your Facebook marketing skills.

How will Facebook affect your business in 2012? We’d love your insight on its incredible growth!

Courtesy of blog.journalistic.com

Finding The Root of The Problem

You land on your Facebook page, and horror! Your fans are up in arms! What do you do? The first thing, is determine the root cause of the issue. Believe it or not ‘trolls’ still exist, though these days it’s called ‘raging’ instead. Step one is to find out what you’ve done wrong. Is this an isolated incident? Who is this coming from? Why are they saying the things they’re saying?

Establish if the slander is warranted, or if it’s just someone raging your page.

Turn The Problem Into a Solution

By now you should have established whether this was a one-on-one type deal, or if it involves many fans. Here’s how you turn the problem into an opportunity to make your business look good.

• 1) It’s your fault. You’ve done something wrong! Immediately apologize to the person, or people concerned. Then go a step further. Offer them something extra for free, as a heartfelt apology. People love it when you make an effort.
• 2) It’s partially your fault. But the fan is being unreasonable and embarrassing. Apologize anyway, about the fact that the issue caused the fan so much distress. Then give them a free gift. Or two.
• 3) It’s not your fault. Your fan is going nuts! Apologize on your Facebook page, and offer to clear up the matter via email. It’s much more private and will prevent any further ‘live’ feedback. Do NOT engage this fan publicly.
• 4) What’s going on? Pure rage/trolling! Publish a brief post apologizing to your real fans, and explaining that the message was spam. Delete the post. Block and report the troll.

Rules of Engagement

Whatever you do, always respond. When you don’t respond, and your page is left full of negative feedback, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. Even if it’s a highly unpleasant experience, regarding a fan or client you’ve had trouble with, make the effort. Not for them, for your own sake.

Always respect your fan or client, even if they are completely unreasonable. The last thing you want to do is rage at them, or start a public fight. Be the bigger person, and be polite. Don’t remove all negative posts. Use them as an opportunity to show your other fans that you care about their concerns.

Do this right, and you’ll find that other fans often come to your defense. What started out as something very negative, can turn out to be the best post on your page! So keep your head, stay calm – and respond in a professional manner.

What’s the worst feedback you’ve ever received and how did you deal with it? Share your story with us!