The need to leverage social media for business is a no-brainer at this point, but a company’s effectiveness on Facebook can be hampered if the account isn’t set up properly.
Here are four reasons why your business should be set up as a Page, rather than a standard profile.
Facebook Says So
According to Facebook’s terms of service, “Profiles represent individuals and must be held under an individual name, while Pages allow an organization, business, celebrity, or band to maintain a professional presence on Facebook.” If your business’ profile gets shut down by Facebook for violating this rule, your friends list will vanish with it.
Pages Offer Analytics and Like Widgets
Two really crucial advantages of administering a Page are user analytics and easily-embeddable Like buttons and widgets.
With the recently overhauled Facebook Insights, you can view all kinds of useful data about user activity on your page, including how many likes and comments you received each day, demographic break-downs and much more. This data can be really useful for understanding the characteristics of your customer base, and knowing which wall posts get the best reaction. This data is not available to individual profiles.
Another thing profiles don’t offer is the means to embed a Like button and other Open Graph plugins into your own site. This is a major setback for businesses hoping to grow their audience on Facebook.
Pages Can Have Unlimited Fans.
On Facebook, individual profiles are limited to 5,000 friends, whereas Pages can have unlimited fans (or likes). Once your profile friend list reaches 5,000, Facebook will encourage you to set up a Page, but doesn’t offer a tool to convert your profile to a Page. For that, you’re on your own.
Converting a Profile to a Page is a Nightmare
If you already set up your business on Facebook with a profile, converting “friends” to “fans” is no simple process. The only way to switch them over is to politely ask the friends to do it themselves. This can be accomplished either via status update or by sending them all a message explaining the change and linking them to your new Page.
A third option would be to use Facebook’s formal Page recommendation tool to suggest that friends Like your new page. However, this option doesn’t give you the opportunity to type a custom message explaining why you’re asking them to do it.
When converting friends to fans, it’s important to clearly articulate to users why you’re asking them to like your business, because in their mind they’re already connected to it via Facebook and shouldn’t need to take any further action. You’ll need to include a concise and friendly note to your users explaining that you’re switching from a profile to a Page to better serve them and ask them to click the like button to stay connected.
Whichever approach you take, there’s no guarantee that each and every one of your friends will end up clicking on your Page’s like button, and repeatedly following up to remind them to do so can annoy users.
At some point, you’ll have to decide if you’re going to delete the original profile, keep it semi-hidden via privacy settings or just let it sit there. Maintaining two different presences on Facebook can be confusing for your users, and thanks to Facebook’s friend recommendation feature, your long-abandoned profile will continue to pop up when friends of friends log in, and the requests will keep rolling in.
Posted in Uncategorised by .
Sep 11
2
QR Codes
With the rise in mobile devices, iPhones, smart phones, Android and all other mobile technology will also come, I believe in the use of ‘QR Codes’ like the one here.
You may be more familiar with the more standard barcode and the two are similar in that they are designed to hold information to be ‘read’ by a machine or scanner. The difference with QR codes is that they hole a HUGE amount of information compared to barcodes and that they can be read an understood by any scanner on any device. For example, at the start of this post is a QR code that links to my contact information and over on the right hand side of this page (and every page on this site) is a link for the page you are viewing.
However, it does not stop there why not
- a link to a ‘how-to’ video on the side of a product or
- a calendar item for an event you are running or
- directions of how to find your business or home
- etc etc etc
Posted in Uncategorised by .
May 11
19
‘Social Media? I just don’t get it’
I often hear people saying to me that they ‘just don’t get’ social media – especially when we talk about social media for business. They don’t see it’s relevance, applicability or usefulness to their business.
I must admit I am still astounded by this attitude – there is no denying that the world has changed hugely over the past few years; firstly due to the arrival of the Internet and then, as dramatically again, with social media: more and more people are using it, relying on it and spending large parts of their day on it.
Given the above truths how on earth can any business say that it’s not for them? Do you not want to interact, influence and communicate with your customers, suppliers and colleagues? Do you not need any more business or better customer/supplier relationships?
I do realise I am on bit of a rant here but it this thought struck me (again) just now, because the huge tide of change that is rapidly coming (if not here already) and most business has it’s head in the sand.
Please do call me to see how I can help you!
Posted in Uncategorised by .
Recently I was having a discussion with a ‘slow adopter’ to the whole Social Media explosion: he runs a successful business that mainly sells its services to other commercial organisations and the public sector.
He argues that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were of no use to him in his business and could see that LinkedIn may be of use but he didn’t really see the benefit. “Facebook is for kids, Twitter is frivalous and YouTube is for seeing cute babies and people doing stupid things – what business relevance is that for B2B?”
What I belive he is missing is the old adage “people buy from people”, you may do bsuiness with a corporation but it is a person that signs the contract, who does the negotiations and who works with you over the lifetime of the contract. So, why not build a ‘personal’ relationship with that person that goes beyond the formal. I’m not saying ask them round for dinner and go away for the weekend but ….. share a little…. you will move that relationship to a closer, more understanding one and who knows once you build trust, confidence and respect where you will end up; just by sharing a little.
In fact all business is P2P – “Person to Person” and it is that relationship that Social Media is changing beyond recognition. Social media is the enabler that allows you to share a little and grow and extend those relationships so that you can do more business with PEOPLE.
Posted in Uncategorised by .
Mar 11
24
Facebook demographics
A fascinating ‘infographic’ that shows the demographics for Twitter and Facebook users.
You can find interesting things such as 60% of Facebook users are over 25 – surprised?
Have a look and let me know what you think!
A recent study found that 80% of under-25s used a second screen to communicate with friends while watching TV and 72% used Twitter, Facebook or a mobile app to comment on shows. As the growth of social media demonstrates this trend will eventually get to us all!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12809388
Social media companies are working out how to integrate their platforms into TV shows – watch this space – or maybe a second screen!
Posted in Uncategorised by .
http://www.gitomer.com/articles/view.html?id=16038
Another article from Jeffrey Gitomer – this one on Twitter.
I asked an audience of 200 mature salespeople and sales managers, “How many of you have a Twitter account with more than 500 followers?”
Two people raised their hand.
One of them was me.
I couldn’t believe it, so I asked again. Same response. Yikes.
It seems as though the mature (seasoned) salespeople are resisting Twitter or simply do not understand what the power in it, and efficacy of it.
With an estimated 125 MILLION accounts and millions of tweets a day, there MAY just be something to it. Especially since the Fortune 1000 are tweeting. Every newspaper and news agency is tweeting. Thousands of small businesses are tweeting.
What are you doing?
Are you tweeting every day?
Or are you stymied by the process and don’t quite know what to do? (Like most people.)
WARNING: Twitter for business has nothing to do with being in your pajamas, having a tough day, heading to the office, or other inane useless information. It also has nothing to do with “tweeple,” “tweeps,” or other buzzwords that are cute and condescending.
Twitter is about informing.
Twitter is about passing on information.
Twitter is about value messages.
Twitter is about connecting.
Twitter is about others finding value in your messages or information and passing it on to others. Known as “re-tweeting,” it’s proof that your message had enough value, content, or vital information that people in your network were willing to pass it on to their network. Cool.
BONUS: Your message, your tweet, is actually exposed to 125 million people through Twitter’s storing and searching features.
The key action to become searchable is the “hash tag.” If you want to attract others who may be also tagging or searching for the categories that you’re tweeting about, using the # symbol in front of your subject words will group your tweets with others of a like nature.
My subjects are sales, loyalty, trust, attitude, buying motives, presentation skills, networking, and success.
Yours might be cooking, golden retrievers, swimming, Phillies, Yankees, travel, cats, or whatever interests you. People tweet about everything under the sun, and you can find them globally in a millisecond.
You can also aggregate your tweets to appear on your LinkedIn account and on your business Facebook Page, where people can “Like” you.
In short, you can send information to your entire network every day. And if others find it interesting, or valuable, they will send it to their network.
How does a daily value tweet help you?
1. It challenges you to think and write. Daily discipline.
2. It challenges you to create viral messages so that you become better known as a person of value.
3. It challenges you to create the REAL law of attraction. Attraction = potential customer.
3.5 People will proactively connect with you. If they agree with you, and they respect you – they’ll tell others to connect with you as well.
You can also create category lists of any kind to compile your own “best of” by subject. Others wanting information on the same subject will find you. People add me to their list under categories like business success, personal inspiration, and sales. So far, I have been added to 1,187 lists that are reposting my tweets. You can make your own lists, but the key is to be added to other’s lists.
By choice, I do not use twitter for interactive communication. Occasionally I’ll ask a question of my followers (and get instant response), or tell them of an upcoming public seminar, but for the most part I tweet thought provoking statements. Re-tweetable statements.
Yesterday I tweeted: It’s easy to find and attract great people – just be a great person who does great things. #gitomer. It got a hundred re-tweets in 24 hours and many comments on my LinkedIn account.
Today I’m tweeting: An objection is actually a sales barrier. Lower the barrier, and reduce their perceived risk, and the sale is yours. gitomer
I try to keep my tweets under 120 characters, even though twitter permits 140. This way there’s plenty of space to re-tweet.
Here are last week’s most popular tweets of mine:
- If you’re looking to make more #sales NOW, make certain your prospective customers value you and your company first. gitomer
- The hardest door to open in #sales is NOT the car door – it’s the decision-makers door. gitomer
There is a secret to Twitter success. And it’s the same secret for all of social media – especially business social media: Wake up and WRITE. Just like I’m doing now.
Is it working? I have more than 22,800 followers so far. You tell me.
Posted in Uncategorised by .
Facebook has redesigned the Facebook Pages that businesses use and, in my opinion, there is one great change in particular; the ability for Page Admins to post on other users profiles AS THE BUSINESS and not their personal profile.
http://mashable.com/2011/02/10/what-the-new-facebook-pages-mean-for-users-owners/
Useful? Let me know what you think.
Posted in Facebook by .
An straight talking article on how Social Media has changed the world of sales!
http://www.gitomer.com/articles/view.html?id=16056
Still not convinced you should be on board?
Posted in Uncategorised by .
Feb 11
8
Facebook Deals are coming!
If you are a business then very shortly you will be able to offer your customers vouchers, deals and other incentives to visit your place of business from within Facebook.
Posted in Uncategorised by .
+Me at Play on Google
