Is your Facebook fan page supercharged and utilizing its full marketing super powers? Maybe you’ve gotten so bombarded with “social media best practices,” you’ve taken a break from your Facebook efforts altogether. We don’t blame you, (although we don’t encourage that anti “social” media behavior), but your business can’t afford not to use this flourishing marketing platform. So stop your Facebook frenzy, press the pause button on your optimization overload, and tune into our 5 simple ways to optimize, or rather, help people find your Facebook business page and become avid fans.
1. An Optimized Profile Picture
A profile picture is worth a thousand Facebook posts. It is your presence to the Facebook community and your “face” in all posts and interactions with fans. In order to optimize your picture to its full potential, keep it streamline with your company website logo and any other platforms you have online (LinkedIn, Twitter and blog). Your business profile picture can also be the perfect opportunity to capture three important features: business logo, what your business does, and a call to action.
For our /excelamktg profile picture, we include our branded “mktg” logo on top (which we use as our thumbnail), what our business does in the center, and a call to action at the bottom (we encourage fans to “learn more about /excelamktg!”).
Tip: Remember to keep your profile picture aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Avoid packing in too much imagery and/or wording, as it could be distracting and appear spammy. The masterminds at our excela creative department designed our logo.
2. Custom Photo Row
Your photo row consists of 5 pictures that appear under your page name. These photos will randomly change position each time the profile is refreshed, or a picture added. Many businesses leave their row at random, but when you have the capability to get creative, wouldn’t you? By doing so, your photo row can turn into a great way to keep your branding consistent, professional and streamline.
Tip: Choose 5 photos that will make sense no matter what order they appear. For our client Erica Anenberg’s photo row, we highlight various styles of her popular Twosome™ rings:
3. Appropriate Featured Likes
Facebook pages have the option of choosing 5-featured pages that your brand “likes” and essentially, associates with. These pages appear as thumbnails under your “Featured Likes” column. Normally, these thumbnails randomly list in any order, but in your settings you can set these Featured Likes to 5 pages that will always appear. Customizing your Featured Likes is a quick and easy way to showcase what type of business you are, what kind of message you want to emulate and it gives a custom touch to your Facebook page. After all, you are who you associate with, right? Well, your fans will look at you that way.
For our client Face Place, we chose to include celebrities who embody the type of image Face Place desires, and type of audience they like to attract:
4. Vanity URL
Your vanity URL is your virtual nametag. It will determine the success of how search-friendly you are as a business. With over 800 million ACTIVE users (not counting total pages), you need to be specific to rise above the noise. You want to ensure that your Facebook isn’t, “facebook.com/kjhdsfg123424,” but rather, a URL that is search-engine friendly like, “http://www.facebook.com/sunsettower.” To create your vanity URL, simply click on your page’s “Account Setting” in the top right hand corner and enter your desired Facebook “username” in the box provided.
There are truly endless possibilities to customize your business fan page (FBML, apps, etc.), and while these might seem like daunting tasks, they are a necessity in our social world. We are here to elevate your small business and get you on your way to Optimization Om.
What will be the first change you make to your Facebook page? Visit /excelamktg for further customized Facebook ideas, designs and insider tips for optimizing your Social Media.
Be sure to check out our Social Media on a Budget web series. Each week, our panel of experts will take a closer look into the social media hot topic of the week.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Dec 28th, 2011. 
Social strategy and social operations are causing big changes in business today — online and offline. And, as usual with big changes, there’s no shortage of confusion in the market about exactly what’s happening, what’s working and what’s not.
Pundits and industry evangelists have spread their gospel and focused their energies on social media as a new, fast and cheap marketing tool. They’ve emphasized click-through and followers. They’ve created mini-plans for mini-opportunities which can yield short-term buzz but often fail to deliver long-term value. The tactical focus of most social media programs — with an emphasis on the “tool of the moment” — has caused many senior leadership teams to view social media as a transitory fad, if not downright frivolous. However, well-conceived social business is far from frivolous or transitory.
When confronting a complex issue or decision in the absence of certainty, groups will often move to the lowest common point of familiarity — usually something concrete and specific. In tech and marketing organizations, this is called “the valley of the tools.” So it is with social; everywhere you turn there is a marketing manager or millennial intern reporting (loudly) that the company needs a … (insert social tool name here.) But these advocates and tool suggestions are often rooted in a desire to play with new things and carve out a mini-speciality, and are just as often completely disconnected from company business goals and strategy.
Some of this comes from confusing the differing needs of consumer and business environments. For example, an individual Facebook enthusiast who has found the platform meaningful may use it as the concrete tool example for achieving a business goal– the application or tool du jour. But does this tool really match the vision for what social media can – and should – do for the organization?
The disconnect is not surprising; tactical and operational staff are typically not charged with developing a vision for the organization, even in rapidly-evolving areas. This is why it is so important understand and distinguish between the two kinds of work functions: strategy and execution or operations. Senior management has the charter to shape and form a social strategy — has it has for other key initiatives. They are the ones who architect the plan and define the objectives which, in turn, determine the tactics and tools used for execution.
So … review this five-step social strategy checklist before you go charging off with your social hammer, lest you end up whacking your thumb, or putting nails into the coffin of a once-promising marketing program … or your career!
1. Identify 2-3 significant strategic organizational goals a well-executed social operations program can support.
Do you have a strategic customer care objective that could benefit from social media? Are there R&D or innovation requirements in the coming year that would benefit from social input? Are you trying to reach a new audience with your products? A strategic social program could accelerate these activities.
2. Define the operational program.
Answer the key questions as you would with any implementation plan: mission, approach, costs (direct and indirect), program duration and — most important — the measures of success.
3. Identify the needed resources.
Who will execute the program? Do they have the skills and capacity to fulfill the duties? Who will oversee the work? Are there KPIs or MBOs associated with delivery?
4. Track progress.
Develop monthly or quarterly reports to assess whether the program is on track and circulate the reports to all who need to know. We recommend developing a RACI diagram to include departments who need to be informed about the outcomes (e.g. sales or customer service).
5. Sunset the project and capture best practices.
Review what worked and what didn’t, then document the findings to leverage your results, repeat successes and change those aspects which did not perform well.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Oct 11th, 2011.
On Sunday evening I was reading a blog post over on Business on Main called Why Employees Are Less Engaged than Ever. The post talks about why employee engagement is at an all time low. According to research conducted by Hewitt Associates, employee engagement in June 2010 had its largest quarterly decline in more than 15 years, when Hewitt first began tracking this metric. The post goes into detail on some ideas to help keep employees more engaged. I suggest that you read it.
This subject is definitely something that I could be better at. Employee engagement is a hard thing when businesses are in startup mode and client interaction is number one. Let’s look at a couple of ways leaders in organizations can better engage employees using social media.
1. Facebook Groups for Employee Engagement
Facebook Groups can be used for employee collaboration and engagement if used the right way. A recent study found that when members of different business units interacted socially, they also transferred more knowledge. It is important to remember that no matter how large or small your organization… interaction between employees is a key factor in business growth. Facebook Groups can be used as a cost effective way for employee collaboration. Setup a private Facebook Group for your employees to engage. This ensures that employees can discuss and talk amongst each other without having to share personal profiles with bosses and peers.
2. Create a Twitter Account to Share Knowledge
I have known plenty of business owners and CEOs who have created Twitter accounts to share pieces of information and thoughts throughout the day. Remember to research (or even ask) how many employees are actually using Twitter. It could be important to encourage them to start using Twitter in order to collaborate.
3. Use Twitter-like Technology – Yammer
Charles van Heerden over at The Recruiter’s Lounge wrote recently about a technology called Yammer:
“VicRoads are using Yammer, an internal “twitter” bringing together all of a company’s employees inside a private and secure enterprise social network. According to Judith Pettitt, Executive Director People Services and Internal Communications, more than 20% of their 3,000 employees are engaged in providing valuable shared knowledge on various business topics. It has been especially helpful in organizational problem solving and in ‘seeding’ ideas.”
4. Use LinkedIn for Advocacy Recruitment
When looking to hire a new employee it could be an excellent idea to utilize your current employee’s LinkedIn networks to crowd source recruitment. Employees who have been trained on LinkedIn and have developed a network could be huge advocates for recruiting their friends through LinkedIn.
5. Use an Internal Blog to Promote Internal Genius
Blogs can be extremely powerful in the external marketing and the internal communications world. Setup a blog or wiki for your employees to engage and interact with content and comments. By encouraging your employees to write for an internal source… they may be more likely to write for an external blog. Writing content encourages your employees to become advocates for your brand… internally and externally.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Jul 25th, 2011.
