Greatson Media – Saco, Biddeford Maine Website Design & Hosting

Promoting your business on social media can be helpful in extending your brand, gaining visibility, and building relationships with your customers. Done right, it can be an inexpensive way to market your company.

But too many times I see companies plastering up a Facebook page just because everybody else is doing it. Or, they shoot out a few tweets and after a few days or weeks give up because no one is paying attention.

Is social media the right tool for your business? Here are some guidelines to help you use social media as a strategic marketing tool:

1. Have a purpose. Like any other marketing strategy, social media should be a tool that helps you meet a goal. You wouldn’t just go out and start buying ads without knowing what you want to accomplish, so don’t do it with social media. It might not cost anything to start a Facebook page, but there is a cost in time and that’s also a valuable resource.

2. Don’t sell. Social media is social. People use it to relate to one another and just like you wouldn’t walk into a party and start pitching your wares, you shouldn’t hard-sell on social media, either. There are ways to get people talking about your products or services, but you have to tread softly or risk losing your audience.

3. Be prepared to invest time and effort into your social media marketing. You will need to understand your target audience and how best to approach them. You need to understand what interests them, and know what it is you have to say that is valuable to that audience. Don’t post or tweet just to do it – make sure you have something to say or you will quickly be dropped by your readers.

4. Understand social media and use it yourself. There is no better way to understand Yelp, Chime In, Twitter, etc. than to participate and use them regularly.

5. Tie your efforts together and integrate them with your overall marketing strategy. You should not be doing something completely different online than you are doing offline. Avoid the split personality – don’t try to be hip and cool online if you are a traditional, conservative business offline. You risk damaging your brand and alienating online audiences who can see right through that.

6. Keep up with the changes. New sites are emerging all the time. Auction sites, gaming sites, photo sharing and music sharing – they are all expanding their focus to include building communities. Some of those communities are bound to include potential customers.

7. If you don’t have time to do it yourself, find someone who can. Often companies have younger employees who are well versed in social media and could, with guidelines, represent the company. There are many agencies that will help you with this.

8. Have guidelines. This ties in with #1 because your guidelines will be driven by your purpose. Establish guidelines for anyone posting on behalf of the company about what they can and cannot say. If you don’t want to put pricing on social media, say so. Be clear about what employees can post on their personal sites, as well.

9. Monitor constantly. Many experts in the field recommend that you start your social media adventure by listening first. Find out what your customers and others might be saying about you online. Once you are active in social media, be sure to set up Google Alerts and other tracking to monitor what is being said.

10. React but don’t overreact. If you see something posted about your company online that you don’t like, feel free to respond. But don’t get overly emotional about it, and don’t fire back. Respond with basic facts and a real desire to solve the customer’s problems – that will gain you a lot of credibility from anyone else who sees the exchange. And remember, one complaint is just one complaint, so don’t overreact.

11. Enjoy it. This is a new way to engage your customers and draw in new customers. People of every age are participating in social media, from teenagers to grandmothers, and it is a growing part of our culture. As you bring your business into the discussion, you may find raving fans who will provide recommendations for you.

12. Online marketíng is a tool – it doesn’t replace your other marketing efforts. Sure, a lot of what used to be advertised in print media is now online. But there is still an important role for all of the other marketing tools including public relations, direct m@il and advertising. Like your toolbox, each tool has a different purpose and you wouldn’t use a hammer to sand wood. Online (or inbound) marketing is a great resource that is very cost effective for businesses, but it must be a part of the larger marketing strategy or it will fail.

By Kim Deppe (c) 2012

Incoming search terms:

• social media sites for business

To develop the insights for this guide, I watched 23 different Facebook and Twitter accounts for a period of three months and monitored over 2,865 status updates. I personally consider this a fairly small data set, but it is large enough to show some important trends that warrant consideration and further discussion.

As the clients that my firm writes for are in diverse markets, purchase different service engagement levels, and have unique starting levels of follower/fans, it is impossible to state from my data unequivocally how to specifically grow a social networking account. However, there are some statistical averages and trends that I have found and wanted to share with you.

The Timing and Consistent Posting of Your Updates on Twitter Can Grow Followers

Contrary to what has been published on the web in a recent statistical report I’ve found that for our clients, a unique time schedule for status updates and tweets works for most accounts to grow their follower numbers. To test this strategy, I had our writers schedule the publishing of content based on the following schedule trying each program for a full 30 days to see which made the biggest difference if any in follower and fan counts.

Widely Reported Best Twitter Posting Schedule:

For Twitter: 6 a.m., 11 a.m., noon, 6 p.m., and 9 p.m. For Facebook: noon and 7 p.m.

After 30 days we posted content on a new schedule for Twitter:

For Twitter: 6 a.m., 9 a.m., noon, 3 p.m., and 6 p.m. For Facebook: 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.

Here is a sampling of data for several of the accounts that I monitored:

Facebook Page

Although it appears that all accounts had increases using the second schedule, the variance in the full statistical data does not allow me to make such a blanket statement. Additionally, although I monitored both Facebook and Twitter accounts for this report, there were such small differences in Facebook numbers for many accounts that it is best to consider the second schedule best to use mainly for Twitter growth.

When I looked at the overall data, I found that followers grew at about a rate of 5% using the first schedule and grew on the average of 10% on the second schedule. Although not every account had the same growth and some accounts actually grew faster on the first schedule, the recommendations in this guide were based on overall average growth across all accounts.

It is important to note that although we used a very specific schedule unique to our needs, your results may be different. I feel personally that setting a schedule and being consistent about posting at the times you personally choose are important. You may want to test several schedules to see what works best for your audience.

The Changes Facebook Has Made That Have Impacted Business Pages

Facebook made some very big changes in the fourth quarter of 2011 that have impacted how businesses can use Facebook Pages and how they interact with fans.

As a quick review, here are the changes:

1. Facebook got rid of the ability to send a note out from your Business Page to all fans. The best feature to have a Business Page in the first place!

2. Removed tabs and the ability to do FBML markup pages. (You now have to use iframes).

3. Killed off the notes and discussion sections.

4. Removed the ability to auto feed your blog to your Facebook Notes Page.

5. Lowered the value of a like. No one needs to like your page to see your wall or to interact with you and post on your wall.

6. Changed the News Feed for personal profiles. People must now subscribe to your updates to be assured of seeing them in their News Feed. Now Updates are typically lost in the “noise” that is a part of the News Feed.

These are some very serious changes and have really strangled a business’s ability to connect with users on Facebook. As a result, these changes have caused fan growth for pages under 100 fans to come to a near halt.

I do not recommend that brands and businesses abandon Facebook. Business models change and what Facebook has done to kill off brand and business interaction will certainly change over time. For now, I personally feel that these changes were made to drive businesses into Facebook pay per click advertising before the Facebook IPO. As monetization of the Facebook platform is essential for their continued growth, these strategic changes most certainly have been made to force businesses to “pay to play” on Facebook.

I still feel that businesses should be on Facebook keeping a presence there, but maybe not in the same fashion as we recommended in early 2011.

The Reality of Facebook Follower Growth and Engagement Challenges

I started following our client Facebook accounts right when Facebook was altering the data it reveals on fans and their interaction levels. Again, I would not consider the data I have recorded as scientifically accurate, but I did see some trends on fan growth for pages with different starting levels of fans.

By Nancy McCord (c) 2012

Facebook provides businesses with another way to interact with their customers or clients in addition to adding value.

Unfortunately, notwithstanding the potential, I often hear from Facebook Page owners that in spite of their hard work on creating their pages, they are frustrated by the fact that they have few fans, and the ones they have aren’t engaged.

Something that contributes to this problem is inadequate planning and no clear purpose for their Facebook Page. Purpose and planning aren’t the most exciting words out there, but they payoff big time. Once business owners take the time to put a plan, known as an editorial guide, in place, everything else falls into place. As a result of this, their fan base grows, and engagement begins to happen to the point where it no longer feels like work, but fun.

Here are some tips for creating an editorial guide for your Facebook Page.

Define Your Purpose

Ask yourself the following three questions to help you define the purpose of your Facebook Page:

#1: Why Have a Fan Page?

Hint: “everybody else is doing it” is not a good reason! Instead, consider what you hope to accomplish through having a Facebook Page.

#2: What Will Differentiate Your Fan Page from Your Website?

You need to think about what you can provide on your Facebook Page that will be different from what is available on your website. Think of ways that your fans can interact with you on your fan page that they can’t on your website. The more interactive your page is, the more successful it will be. Fans will have no reason to visit a static Facebook Page.

#3: Define Your “it” Factor

What is different and special about you and your employees? What do you provide that is different from your competitors? Build your fan page strategy around what makes your business unique.

Now that you’ve considered the three points above, it’s time to work on your editorial guide. Here are the things you’ll want to be sure to include:

#1: How Often Will You Post on Your Facebook Page?

Although we engage with our fans throughout the day on Social Media Examiner, we also have specific chunks of time set aside for certain types of content. For instance, in the morning, we post the latest Social Media Examiner article. In the afternoon, we post a link to content from a third-party that we know will be beneficial to our fans. Then, a few times a week, we post a question late in the afternoon. Although most of the questions pertain to social media, some are on other topics.

#2: Decide What Type of Content You’ll Post.

Knowing this ahead of time makes it easy to find great content for your fan page. At Social Media Examiner, we consistently find valuable content on about 20 different websites. It’s fine to branch out occasionally, but having a list of great sites you go to regularly for content makes it easy to find valuable content to share with your fans.

#3: Determine the Post Format.

Define ahead of time how you want you and your team to put posts together. Some pages are informal and conversational and others are more factual and informative, like a news source.

Since we have three people posting on our fan page, we always end each post with our names, so people will know who posted. This adds a friendly and personal touch to our posts.

#4: Plan Out How You’ll Respond to Your Fans’ Comments.

On the Social Media Examiner page, we have a goal of reaching out to everybody who makes a comment on our page. We want our fans to know we are listening to them and interested in their thoughts.

#5: Determine What to do About Promotional or Negative Posts.

It’s not uncommon for fans to post promotional bits of information regarding their services and products on your Facebook wall. This can make things cluttered and can hinder legitimate conversations from taking place. It’s important to determine ahead of time which types of posts you’ll allow and which ones you’ll delete. Be sure your entire team is on the same page regarding this.

One thing to keep in mind is that your editorial guide is just a guide, not something that can’t be changed. The goal of the guide is to keep things running smoothly without hindering you from going with the flow.

By Amy Porterfield (c) 2012