Social Media Tips: Facebook - A Must Have Business Tool
March 17, 2010 by DrDaveHale
Filed under Blog, March 2010
Internet Marketing Professor, Columbia, SC - Today’s business owners are all jumping onto the social media bandwagon using all of the top sites to attract clients, keep followers informed, and develop relationships. The top networking site and one becoming more and more important to business to have a presence on is Facebook. Touting more than 100 million members; can they all be wrong?
Jumping on the Facebook Business page Bandwagon
Two areas on Facebook which seem to offer businesses endless exposure are developing a Business Page and Facebook Group. The process to develop these is so easy a kid can do. But, it is equally as easy and user friendly for adults too. For that reason it would benefit your business to develop both. Both offer super options to communicate with customers, add your logo, videos, images, discussion board, comments wall and blog posts. Like anything, there are drawbacks.
Facebook Pages Benefits and Disadvantages
Your Facebook Page is open to the public. With that I mean anyone who finds your page can read whatever they want. They do not have to be on your friends list. Additionally, it will wind up on the search engines. Since you will have specific information on your Facebook pages, they become very attractive to the search spiders and will most times rank high on Google. Facebook pages additionally allow bigger logos, posting of events, import posts from blogs, email bulk updates to fans and advertising options.
No different from blogs and using Google Analytics, Facebook Pages allow you to see your traffic statistics.
Facebook Groups Benefits and Disadvantages
The groups feature allow you to develop basically a membership page in which you can invite allowed participants to communicate within a private community. Most parts of the group pages are behind closed doors except the messages, which are in plain view for the world to read. Group discussions can be written on by most people. this is nice as it makes them more viral than a Page.
Because Group updates go directly into member’s inboxes, they’re a better option for directly communicating with members, but Facebook puts a 5,000 fan limit. Not like Pages, there are no statistics provided.
To start a Facebook Group for your business, login onto Facebook, then click the Create Group button. Simply fill out the needed information and upload a logo if you have one. As with any social media platforms, make sure you have completed all fields on your Facebook page. Most people will read up on you and the group before joining so put your best face forward.
By the way, do you want to learn more about Social Media?
If so, download my brand new free white paper Social Media: A Primer Click Here
By the way, do you want to learn more of my “tricks of the trade” of using social media to boost your online profits and exposure?
Do you want to learn how to build a big online subscriber list fast? Click Here
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March 15, 2010 by DrDaveHale
Filed under Blog, March 2010
Social Network Traffic Tactic
Internet Marketing Professor, Columbia, SC - Social media basically refers to Internet-based platforms on which the users generate the content and interact with each other. This can be for social networking, business networking, photo/video/music sharing or informational reference. Confused? Think YouTube, Google Groups, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Wikipedia, Digg, Delicious, Twitter, Yahoo Answers… the list goes on.
There are definite opportunities here for branding, networking, generating website traffic and building relationships with key influencers. But is it worth it? You have to carefully consider the potential return before making the leap. It can cost a lot of time (yours or an expert’s) to tap into social media. Here are three things you should know:
1. It’s Vast. The number of websites is already huge and ever-increasing. You could spend your entire day on social media sites (some people actually do) and still feel you haven’t covered the bases.
2. It’s Fast. Social media is an important part of Internet culture, which changes constantly and quickly. Once you’re in, you’ll have pressure to keep up.
3. It May Not Last. The payoff for all that time and energy is speculative, and if you do see positive returns they may not be secure. Users can be terribly fickle. If you are going to venture in to social media remember that it is a very casual audience that isn’t interested in direct sales pitches. Subtlety may be the key to any social media success.
That may make social media seem like a terrible idea, but it really depends on the nature of your business. If you run an auto body shop in a small town, chances are that social media are not going to help you out too much. But if you sell jewelry through a home-based website business, then you may have more to gain from a high level of online activity.
By the way, do you want to learn more about Social Media?
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Social Media Tips: LinkedIn for Business
March 3, 2010 by DrDaveHale
Filed under Blog, March 2010
Internet Marketing Professor, Columbia, SC - Social media today is the cutting-edge marketing tool for all high performance businesses. For the professional, probably one of the best is LinkedIn. Incorporating this site into your social media marketing plan can assist in business growth. If you are not using LinkedIn, you definitely need to check it out and get signed up as quick as possible.
At first glance, LinkedIn may appear just to be another social networking platform. That is until you learn how powerful it could be and mean to your bottom line. Once you dive into the inner workings of the site, you will be quick to learn it is not like Twitter, Facebook, or MySpace. Specifically, LinkedIn is geared primarily for the business owner, such as a consultant, professional speaker, teacher, etc. Having membership in the realm of 40 million users, LinkedIn is among the best social media tools in your marketing box.
How can you use LinkedIn to attract more business?
LinkedIn’s Tools
On every user profile page is a section for your company listing where you can provide data about your company. You are able to insert copy for a brief synopsis of your company, how many employees, company news, and other pertinent information you may want prospective clients to know about you. This page alone can be gold for your company’s income as it offers visitors an insight into your company all on one page.
LinkedIn offers the user many great tools to build your profile page, join groups, publicize your presence, and develop yourself into an industry insider expert. If you are not using these tools to propel your business forward, get started today.
By the way, do you want to learn more about Social Media?
If so, download my brand new free white paper Social Media: A Primer Click Here
By the way, do you want to learn more of my “tricks of the trade” of using social media to boost your online profits and exposure?
Do you want to learn how to build a big online subscriber list fast? Click Here
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February 9, 2010 by DrDaveHale
Filed under Blog, February 2010, Internet Marketing, SEO, Social marketing
Lately everyone’s posting contests to win this or that job on social media networking sites - this is the new wave of professionally marketing oneself. Some businesses see this as crazy and believe people need to slow down, smell the roses and take a vacation.
The travel industry is no different. Savvy motel owners have decided to offer folks a chance to win dream vacation for two along the beautiful mountains, rivers, and oceans.
For a seven day period, businesses within a tourist town market the contest and vacation package to their area to their respective client lists on social media sites. Details of the contest, locations the winners will stay, events they will take part in, are all pre-written in the form of tweets, blog posts, and Facebook entries. All of the business promote each message equally and at the same time in order to build a following.
So how do they pick the winner? They do not. America does. The business simply tell contest participants to submit a video to YouTube telling everyone why they need a break. All of the videos are later linked together on the main contest blog, where people can then vote on their favorite video. And they let the public decide why a video submitter really should be working less and taking a break more.
Every few days, the businesses post more of the itinerary - meals and events hand selected by the innkeepers to really showcase the many fun things to do while vacationing in their area. As small, local business owner’s - they’ve always got the inside scoop on their area and specialize in creating the most memorable, romantic get-a-ways imaginable.
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Social Media Tips: Gaining Followers and Positioning Your Business for Success
February 4, 2010 by DrDaveHale
Filed under Blog, February 2010, Social marketing
Many companies and freelancers found their initial efforts in marketing via social networks with MySpace several years back. At the time, it was the only kid on the block. Today, that site’s demographic caters to the 16-25 year old group. If that fits your market, keep it in your social media strategic plan.
Twitter and Facebook are the new tools for most businesses today for marketing purposes. Other sites used are YouTube (and several other video sharing sites), OnlyWire (for bookmarking sites), and PitchEngine to gain exposure on the web.
The key to using social media sites is to integrate as many as possible to be automatically updated when you make a new blog post, Tweet, or video submission. This can easily be done today with all of the tools coming out almost on a daily basis.
You want your customers to see a social media presence on your homepage directing them and interested people to several outlets to interact with you: LinkedIn, Twitter, Second Life, Facebook, etc. Also, have links to promotional videos posted on hosting sites like YouTube, which should be one of the top tools for PR.
Once you have been on the scene for a while you will want to learn a lot about who and what to follow along the way. This will be dictated by what market you are in and who the movers and shakers are. You will learn that MySpace may not be as effective as Twitter. You will build extremely beneficial relationships via Twitter and also use it to position your company as a news and info source as well as a platform for your niche market.
They are a great way to expand your reach and create buzz around you and your products and services.
By the way, do you want to learn more about Social Media?
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Social Media Tips: Twitter and LinkedIn as Marketing Tools
February 2, 2010 by DrDaveHale
Filed under Blog, Internet Marketing, Jan 2010, Social marketing, Twitter
1. Marketing with Twitter
Use Twitter to find leads in a target market well before your competitors do. For example, if you are a wedding planner in San Diego, you could be alerted every single time a Twitter user within 25 miles from your office mentions their fiancé, thus you know they are going to be getting married at some point in the near future. You can then send a direct message to them offering your services. There are so many possibilities underlying Twitter, but this is a pretty simple example.
2. Facebook Pay Per Click Ads
Use Facebook pay per click ads in a similar way to LinkedIn pay per click ads: to get your websites in front of very niche markets. However, Facebook advertising is only good for very specific niches, as there are so many irrelevant ads on Facebook that it is hard to break through the crowd of ads without targeting a very specific niche.
3. LinkedIn Discussion Section
Use LinkedIn to get guest bloggers, people for interviews, radio show quests, and for expert “comments” for articles. Simply post a question and wait for the answers to come pouring in. At the end you can vote for the best answer you were given. This allows the person who submitted the comment to receive a special designation from LinkedIn.
Use these tips for marketing purposes of your business-to promote products, services, radio shows, guest/topics/show times, events/appearances and monthly product specials. Social media sites will also help to reduce research time, get exposure for other’s products/services (and they will reciprocate to you as well!).
These are only a few tips, strategies, and techniques to add to your social media strategic plan. Remember to plan your work and work your plan for online marketing success.
By the way, do you want to learn more about Social Media?
If so, download my brand new free white paper Social Media: A Primer Click Here
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February 1, 2010 by DrDaveHale
Filed under Blog, Blogging, Internet Marketing, Jan 2010, Social marketing
Social Media Wheel
Social networking as a marketing tools are some of the strongest tools emerging for 21st century relationship-based business and marketing that are currently available. From web sites to email to eZines and now social media, the trends point to automated relationships and social networking’s power to do that.
If you are a savvy Internet marketer or business owner entering the online marketing waters you need to be actively using Twitter and Facebook in your marketing augmenting your blog, email and web sites.
The first step any business owner should take prior to using social media tools, is to develop a distinct social media strategy plan that outlines which sites and tools you will use and for what purpose
Following are some steps to add to your social media plan of attack:
1. Marketing With LinkedIn
LinkedIn’s pay per click ad service will enable you to show your website to people within a very specific niche. For example, if you have a product that is meant only for lawyers that practice family law and are based in the San Diego area, then you can tell LinkedIn to only show your ad to users that fit this niche. The result is that your exact target customers are seeing the ad and visiting your website. It makes really focused marketing possible really easily.
2. LinkedIn “Answers” Section
You are able to go through LinkedIn question/answer forum and answer questions that are relevant to your business. For example, someone might post a question asking how internet marketing could be a part of their law firm that specializes in family law. You can answer that question and show this person various examples of tactics they could use to market their firm online.
These strategies are great for marketing purposes to promote your products, services, websites, guest/topics/show times, events/appearances and product launches. These sites will also help cut down on research time, assist in obtaining an online presence, and marketing joint venture partner or affiliate products.
By the way, do you want to learn more about Social Media?
If so, download my brand new free white paper Social Media: A Primer Click Here
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January 27, 2010 by DrDaveHale
Filed under Blog, Internet Marketing, Jan 2010, Social marketing
Your current set of Facebook friends may not be your target market. If you take a personal Facebook account and transition it into a marketing tool for your business, you will experience a transition period as you move to add people that may be interested in your business and may lose some friend links due to them not being interested in hearing about your business.
Here are some experience you may encounter when transitioning your social media efforts:
1. Twitter - Gaining some traffic generated from links posted. Some traffic from links on your Twitter home page from people checking you out. Primarily, Twitter should be a tool to locate potential customers, provide relevant information, and build relationships. Use Twitter also to links to articles, tools, and possible interview candidates.
2. Myspace - Use it to post your blog post links to automatically. So far, this is not a power house for business use as the demographics do not fit most business models. If you are targeting the 16-25 year old market, the Myspace is prime virtual real estate for you.
3. Linkedin- Use both status updates to notify people of new blogs posts and Linkedin Answers to generate material for blog postings. Since LinkedIn is primarily a business networking site, it is perfectly geared to marketing a business.
All of these sites are needed for a well-rounded marketing campaign and social media plan and can be leveraged by adding software tools that update all of them at the same time to reduce the time involved.
By the way, do you want to learn more about Social Media?
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January 26, 2010 by DrDaveHale
Filed under Blog, Internet Marketing, Jan 2010, Social marketing
New social networking sites seem to be sprouting up almost on a daily basis. It is difficult to even keep up with which are the appropriate ones for your own business interest. Although, what some companies are doing today, if they are unable to locate a networking site directed towards their niche or any that service their specific niche, they are creating their own network sites.
In January 2009, one company launched a social network to help moms return to work and for working moms trying to do it all. The company was a privately-funded, women-owned start-up with no advertising or PR budget at hand. Given the partners both came from advertising backgrounds, they understood the importance in harnessing the power of tools such as Twitter and Facebook to aid us in building their brand and gaining awareness of their new venture.
To begin, prior to launch, they set up a Facebook page as a means to begin to get the word out using a teaser campaign on our Fan Page – COMING SOON! … LAUNCHING JANUARY 15th! In so doing, they were able to gain hundreds of members for their new venture before even launching our company. They regularly updated their fans as to the progress of their site, and what the members could expect. This was a huge success given that they were able to convert those fans to members of their community within the first days of their network site opening.
Secondly, upon launch, they created a twitter page using their company name. After researching, they followed all the major players in their niche, media and job/career-related firms with hopes of them following back. Many of them did. However, not more than a month or two after, it was clearly recognized that without having the benefit of their keyword in their Twitter name, they were not being found.
After two months of tweets, they elected to change directions and start using their keyword along with their company name in their Twitter ID, which quickly took hold. After two months, they had 2500 followers. And this being in a highly niche-oriented business.
The best part is that they were able to convert most of their Twitter followers into paid members of their monthly membership site.
Following this social media plan, in just 5 months, they were a global social network seeing 70,000 views/month, 6+ minutes/view, 40% unique visitors and close to 2700 members.
Without the benefit of Facebook, they would still be in their cocoon.
By the way, do you want to learn more about Social Media?
If so, download my brand new free white paper Social Media: A Primer Click Here
By the way, do you want to learn more of my “tricks of the trade” of using social media to boost your online profits and exposure?
Do you want to learn how to build a big online subscriber list fast? Click Here
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