How to Brand Your Business on Facebook

What is branding? Why is it important? Your brand is your identity. It is the face you are showing your customers and leads. It can be beautiful or it can be flat out fugly. Yes, your brand is of supreme importance. Here are some tips to help you make sure you show the netizens of the world a pretty face (and this information can apply across your social networks as well as your website and blog).

Share your information.

When someone checks you out on Facebook they are looking for information about you. If you won’t share yourself how can you expect visitors to trust you. Unless you can build that trust it is doubtful that you will ever get to the point of converting leads into customers. Here are some things you should check right away:

• Do I have a (good) profile picture?
• Is my profile completely filled out?
• Have I included keywords in my profile where I can to help myself be found on search?
• Have I included links to my websites and other social profiles?
• Have I included contact information?

These basic issues need to be resolved ASAP. Your ROI just may thank you.

Set up your logo.

You can think of your logo as your social yearbook picture that will either attract a date with your target market or will send them running for the hills. The worst thing you can do? Have no picture at all. Lets face it, not many are very motivated to follow a blank Facebook profile or a Twitter egg. If you are your brand (in a way you always are) then a great headshot is your ticket. If it is a business logo that is more your flavor then here are some attributes it should possess if you want it to have a great impact:

• It should look interesting.
  
• It should represent a message or call to action relevant to what you do or how you want your visitors to respond.
• It should be an attention grabber.
• The colors shouldn’t scream “Blind me!”
• It should represent the genuine you.

Now you have shared the real you with your fans everywhere and given them a rocktastic picture to look at. Now lets look a little closer at that color scheme.

Choose a color scheme.

What are your colors? What colors represent the message you want to get across on the Web? Here are a couple links that I think just might help you out:

• Psychology of Color in Marketing
• Kuler – Color themes.
• ColorCodeHex

Ok, now that we have our colors straight we are really starting to set a mood. Now lets set a tone.

Set your tone.

Your Facebook marketing efforts can either be a bullseye or complete scattershot miss. Here is your wisdom young padawans:

• Keep your logo and color schemes uniform across your sites and social profiles.
• Speak to your visitors rather than just about yourself or your product/service.
• Keep it interesting across all channels.
• Brand to the point that if a visitor from your Google+ profile checks you out on Facebook they will feel that they are in familiar territory.
• Always be consistent without ever being boring.

Now you have something to say and people will listen (if its good content). Now lets leverage what we’ve got shall we?

Leverage your channels.

What are your channels? Social such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Search and your website/blog are also your channels. And lest we forget the granddaddy of channels: email. Here are some tips:

• Set up an email list. With an email list in hand you can send out targeted messages, stay in contact with potentially valuable contacts and leads, and offer promotions and special offers.
• Post to your social media streams regularly (I will go more into this below). To really benefit you really need to do so daily.
• Update your blog and website regularly. To really rock the content marketing your blog should be updated at least 3 to 5 times a week with fresh content.
• Cross promote between Facebook and your other social profiles.

Now to one of the keys that if forgotten will limit the effectiveness of your both your social media strategy and your content marketing.

Post consistently.

I have often heard and read the question: How often should you post to social media such as Facebook? The answer can largely depend on your business and target market. To simplify let me give you some basic rules of thumb (I am going to include tips on more than one channel here):

• Facebook = Post 1 to 2 per day. I wouldn’t advise going over 2 times. If you post too much engagement can drop.
• Twitter = I would say post between 5 and 10 times a day. I know it seems some are publishing tweets every few minutes but there s no benefit to just creating more noise and annoying your followers by completely filling their streams.
• Google+ = Post 3 – 5 times a day.
• LinkedIn = Once a day.
• Blog  = At least twice a week but I would recommend 3 – 5 times a week.

There you have it. By following the tips I shared above you will be taking some strong and positive steps in Facebook branding and social marketing.

How would you describe your approach to Facebook branding.

Life Organization Through Facebook

Do you spend so much time on social media sites like Facebook that some people who you may know could be thinking: Holy crap they really need to get a life! If so here is an idea. What if you could use Facebook to better organize your life? I am going to give you some ideas on how to use Facebook to get organized in your social life, event planning, and project collaboration.

Social Organization

Facebook provides you with some great tools to organize your social communication. From getting your thoughts out there to having great discussions with others, one on one or in groups, Facebook has you covered.

Wall

Trust me, it is ok to write on walls, no matter what your parents told you. Of course I am talking about your Facebook wall (don’t worry, I’m not encouraging your 4-year-old to whip out the crayons). When you log into Facebook the first thing you are presented with is your wall. Consider it a dynamic stream of what those you are connected to have to say. From here you can read what others share. Take the time to do this. What your friends have to say is as important to them as what you have to say is to you.

Here are some tips:

• Follow posts that you want to read every comment about. Just point at the post, click the down arrow, and choose Follow Post. You might want to do this with posts that have an extremely great importance to you.
• Don’t be afraid to hide the updates from sources that you don’t want to see. Click the same down arrow you would to follow a post, then choose Hide. If you don’t want to see any posts on your wall from that source then click hide all.
• Comment, like, and share. Social media is all about the social. The more engagement you offer, the more will be returned to you.

Messages

If you have a new message you will see a number over the message symbol on the blue bar at the top of your page. If you want to see all of your messages click the message symbol and open See All at the bottom of the list. Then click the new message button, type the names of and select the recipients, and type your message.

Tips time:

• Use Facebook Messages to hold group talks online. Just select all the people you want to be involved and type your message.
• You can even attach files and photos to messages.
• Send a message instead of a wall post when you don’t want the rest of the Facebook world to see the conversation.
• You can use messages to hold virtual meetings online.

Chat

Facebook chat, some love it and some hate it. It is a great way to conveniently hold an online 1 on 1. Just expand the chat bar in the lower right corner, click the name of the friend you want to chat with, type your message, and press the Enter key.

Can I have a T for tips:

• Click the video camera symbol to start a video chat.
• You can add friends to the chat to make it a group conversation clicking the gear symbol in the chat window and choosing Add Friends to Chat.
• You can add attachments.
• Use emoticons. It can help to clarify your meaning, makes it a lot more personal, and helps others understand how you are feeling. It really does make chat more interesting and fun as well. 🙂

Graph Search

By clicking the search area of the blue bar at the top of the page (if you have Graph Search activated on your Facebook) you will start Graph Search. You can search just like you used to, but Graph Search offers you more options. I would recommend that you explore it and see what you think.

Here is some tip-tation:

• Use Graph Search to find more detailed information about your friends.
• Choose the Tour option to see how it works.

Lists

By dividing your friends into lists you will make your wall reading and information sharing a far easier affaire. Just click More by Friends on the left side bar to get started.

Tipy tipy two by four:

• Make custom lists that have meaning to you.
• Make use of your Restricted List for those that you don’t want to share most of your updates with.
• Remember to set what update types so you only see the types of updates that you want from each list.
• When you post a status update, unless you want it to be a public one, choose the list that you want to make thee update visible to.

At this point you are communicating with your friends, professional connections, and groups you belong to in real life. You have also organized your connections into manageable lists and are learning more about your friends. Now lets take your organization efforts to the next level and organize some real world events with Facebook.

Event Organization

Yes you can organize and promote an event on Facebook all for free.

Events

To set up an event you can use (duh) Events. It is easy to use and works remarkably well.

How:

1. Type Events in Facebook Graph Search and click My Events.
2. Click the Create Event button.
3. Completely fill out the box and click Create.

Easy peasy huh?

Groups

You can do two very effective things in Facebook Groups when it comes to organizing your event.

First:

Promote and post messages about your event to groups that you already belong to.

Second:

Start a group whose sole purpose is to make your event work in the rock star way that you know it should. Here is the how:

1. On the Facebook homepage click Create Group in the Groups section on the left sidebar.
2. Completely fill in the box.
3. Click Create.

This is the strategy:

1. Create a private group for the event planning.
2. Within the group you can have discussion, share photos and files, ask questions, and share information. The perfect forum to start planning the most rocktastic event your town has ever seen.

Interest Lists

Interest lists allows you to Create or follow lists to keep up with the information that is important to you..

Here is how to get started:

1. Click Add Interests in the Interests section of the left side bar of the Facebook homepage.
2. Search for lists to follow or click the Create List button to make your own.

How to apply this to event management?

• Create a list relevant to your event.
• Follow lists that can give you great ideas for your current or next event.
• Share your list with others involved in the event.

Graph Search

The newest feature from the Facebook new feature machine. Some love it and others hate it. My personal opinion: I like it. It really does make finding information on Facebook that much easier. With Graph Search you can look up much of the information you will need to make your event happen. You might also find people and companies that can help you along the way.

We have planned and hit that epic road trip of badassness with the help of everyones old friend Facebook. Now it’s time to get some work done.

Project Organization

You have all used the apps. You have played the games. You have liked, watched videos, shared, posted, read, and laughed at Grumpy Cat. But the truth is, you can also use Facebook to be productive.

Apps

Facebook has some great apps available that you should be taking advantage of. Here are the top 10:

• Slideshare Online presentation tool and content promotion powerhouse.
• Prezi Create impressive presentations that are completely cross platform and free.
• Jolidrive Jolidrive unifies all your content from multiple services in one simple and beautiful interface accessible from anywhere.
• Wunderlist Make lists, and plans with elegant simplicity.
• Pixlr Express Edit photos totally free.
• Pixlr-O-Matic Do really cool things with images for free.

These are a few examples. Explore the AppCenter and search on Google or Bing to find more.

Groups

Here is a useful idea. You can make a private group, add your team members to it, and guess what you have? A very cool private boardroom to hold virtual meetings in, an information sharing post, and a convenient way to keep each other updated. Neat huh?

Messaging

As I said earlier, you can use Facebook messaging to hold group conversations. What does that equal in a business context? An easy to use platform for virtual meetings.

Chat

Long story short, you can also use Facebook Chat to hold group conversations. Just add the people you want involved and start the coolest meeting of your digital life.

See? Facebook isn’t just a time waster. You can use it to get more organized and be more productive. I challenge you to explore all the ways you can use Facebook to better organize your life and ind increase your productivity badassery.

What are some of the ways that you use facebook to be better organized and more productive?

 

YeKey
free Directory submission
ZicoSur.org

Bring Your Social Media Under Control With HootSuite

What is HootSuite? According to the HootSuite website:

Save your time and your sanity. Improve productivity by managing all of your social networks within HootSuite. The dashboard is designed for you and your team to listen, engage and measure all from one simple interface.

I would say they summed it up very well. HootSuite is a social dashboard designed to make your social media life an easier one. Read on to see how to get started on this amazingly sanity saving service.

Check Your Accounts in One Window

One of the coolest features of HootSuite is you can keep up with your social media accounts in one window. Rather than logging in and out of your various accounts you can view them all from one program. HootSuite allows you to manage your Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Foursquare, WordPress, MySpace, and Mixi accounts. That in and of itself is pretty impressive. Keep in mind that with a free HootSuite account You can add only five connections to your networks and advanced features such as analytics won’t work. For most of you this very adequate for your needs.

Post to All in One Shot

Another benefit of HootSuite is that it allows you to post to all of your added networks at once. Posting is easy:

1. Click inside the field at the top of the webpage that says “Click to select a social network”.
2. Choose the networks you want to post to.
3. Where it says “Compose a message…” type your post.
4. Click the Send Now button.

Easy peasy so far huh?

How-To

How do you get started? Just follow these simple steps:

1. Go to http://hootsuite.com/.
2. Bookmark the HootSuite page so you can return quick and easy.
3. Under “Sign Up Today – Free” either sign up using Facebook or fill out the form.
4. Add your profiles.
5. Set up your streams so you can keep track of the information you wish to use HootSuite to follow.
6. Explore your new HootSuite set up.

Pretty simple, and you didn’t have to download and install a single program. If you have any questions please comment below and let me know.

Tell me about your HootSuite experience.

33 Social Media Web Tools That Will Rock Your Online Marketing

The right tools can make any project easier. Whether you are working on a computer, building a deck, fixing your car, or doing electrical work the proper tools will make all the difference in the world. The same holds true with your social marketing. With the correct tools, your online marketing will work faster, easier, and more effectively. In this post I am giving you 33 tools that will rock your online marketing. Check them out and enjoy.

Posting

SlideShare

Post your presentations online. This is one very cool service. You simply create your presentation on your computer as you normally would with your presentation software, then you use SlideShare to upload the presentation to the Web. It works pretty slick and can help you in using more variety in your posting.

Quozio

Post beautiful quotes. Just go to Quozio, type in your quote, and let Quozio do the rest. Make the quotes you post more attractive.

Buffer

Schedule your posts. This can be very handy if it isn’t abused.

PlagTracker

Make sure your content is original. This service is an excellent way to make sure your work is originally you.

Google URL Shortener

Easy to use URL shortener from Google.

Listly

A list maker. This is social list making at its best.

Brainy Quote

Find quotes. If you are looking for quotes you will be impressed with this huge database.

Organization

HootSuite

Your social media dashboard. This app makes your social media services much easier to manage.

Pocket

Save websites to view later.

Tweepi

Manage your Twitter account. This is a multifunctional program that does what it does very well.

Tagdef

Look up hashtags to discover what they mean and other useful information.

Google Reader

Make the blogs you follow more manageable. With Google Reader all of the blogs you follow can be read from one window.

JustUnfollow

Manage your Tweeps. Very useful.

Paymo

Manage your business from the cloud. The functionality of this one will surprise you.

Monitoring

Monnitter

Tweet search engine.

StatMyWeb

Many website statistics. The features are truly mind-blowing.

TweetReach

How far does your tweet reach?

Klout

See how influential you are.

PeerIndex

See who you are influencing.

Facebook Insights

Valuable information about your Facebook Page.

SocialMention

A social media search engine.

Topsy

A conversation search engine.

Google Analytics

Social media analysis.

Google Alerts

Get the information you want.

LikeAlyzer

Master your social stats.

Keyword Tools

Google Keyword Tool

Find great keywords from the company that is the king of all search engines.

WordStream

Find profitable keywords from a trillion-keyword database.

Translation

Google Translate

Translation between languages

Cloud Storage

Dropbox

One of the best out there.

Email List

MailChimp

Work your email list like a champ.

Online Publishing

Webs

Your free website. You don’t even need to know how to code. You are pretty limited to their templates but it is easy and free.

Formatpixel

Publish like a champ. Check it out and you will be surprised.

WordPress

Start your blog today.

These are some of my favorite tools. Give them a try and let me know what you think.

What are some of your favorite online marketing tools?

Social Fitness

You hear it from the doctor, news media, and even the White House. America needs to get in shape. I have a good question for you though. What kind of social shape are you in? Are you too socially thin or socially obese? Are you socially weak or strong? In this article I will give you some tips on how to:

• Have social room to breathe.
• Get social stamina.
• Become socially flexible.
• Gain social strength.
• Build social power.
• Have social balance.

Breathing

Breathing may just be the most important thing any of us ever do. Without breath there can be no life. It is said that a human being can only live 4 – 8 minutes without oxygen. Lets all take a deep breath as we think about that. Now, answer me this: How long do you think your social media program will survive if you don’t give it room to breathe? Trust me when I say that if you just push and go go go you will burn out and find no joy in it. This is the Internet! It is supposed to be fun, not something to burn out over.

Here are some tips to give yourself some room to socially breath:

• Take a break once in a while. Physically, if you just continue to push with no rest, you will tear your body down rather than build it up. The same holds true with a social media program. Just understand that you are not required to sit in front of your computer for hours at a time without pause. Yes, there is more to life than just social. Go out and experience it.
• Don’t overextend yourself. There are over 200 known social networking websites on the Internet. If you are hooked into too many you will effectively have time for nothing else and you will burn out. Not to mention, you wont be very effective on any of them because you are spread too thin. My advice would be to pick no more than 4. Ask yourself these 4 questions:
  Which one do most of my target audience hang out on? Which one will I find most of my influencers on? Which one will make it easiest to display my wares? Which one will help my SEO the most? There you have your 4.
• Have a routine. Rather than an unorganized hit and miss shotgun approach have a plan. How often will you post at each site? What kind of posts will you make? How often will you engage with your stream? How will you keep up with it? Have a planned routine and work it.
• Know when to walk away for a while. Yes there should always be room for life in the real world. Once in a while go out and experience it. Then you will never burn out on social.

Stamina

Without energy the human body just wants to sit and sleep. With plenty of stamina the body wants to keep going. Social media can be the same way. With social, if you don’t have stamina you will run out of wind and stop. How do you build up some social stamina?

• Get a good social tool to work from. With the right tool your social media life will be easier and you will be able to pick up the momentum to keep going. My favorite tool is HootSuite. Check it out and I think you will love it as well.
• Practice. Just like any other activity, social media gets easier and you get better at it with practice. Keep working at it. Leverage what works. Drop what doesn’t work for you.
• Keep going. There is never a good time to give up. Keep going and it will eventually pay off. Social marketing is something that takes time and patience.

Flexibility

When it comes to your body, the surest way to injury is to never stretch your muscles. In the realm of social media, if you aren’t flexible in your approach you will come off as stiff, and you may even injure your marketing efforts.  Here are some tips to get a little social flexibility:

• Pay attention. Pay attention to what is working and what isn’t. Is it rock star or is it epic fail? Are you seeing ROI? If it isn’t working, and you have leveraged it to its capacity maybe it’s time to change gears and try something else.
• Keep an open mind. Read about what others are doing. Follow blogs. Pay attention to the news. Read books and articles. Really great ideas are everywhere. Keep an open mind to a different or new approach.
• Embrace change when it makes sense. When a change makes sense embrace it. Change is nothing to be fearful of. What is frightening is the thought of trying the exact same thing over and over while expecting a different result.

Strength

You need a strong body to lift a heavy weight. In the same way you need a strong social presence to lift a heavy social media strategy to the heights of success. How do you build a stronger social presence?

• Post regularly. At the very least you should be posting once a day to each account. At the most it should be 3 to 5 times. Post much more than that and you may be accused of being a spammer. The point is, be active so your name stays out there.
• Continuously engage with others. Yes that means reading what others are posting. Comment, share, retweet, like, favorite, etc. If someone sends you a message or comments on your post respond as soon as you can. Keep the conversation going and keep building relationships. That is what both social media and marketing are all about anyway.
• Put out good quality content. Content is not only king (yes it is important enough that I will keep repeating it) but is the key to effective SEO. Over time good content will build into a strong Web presence that will result in a true return on the time invested.
• Keep it interesting. People like interesting, entertaining, funny, informational, and different. People love the visual. Post the kind of things that your audience wants to read. Mix things up once in a while. It is ok to post text. It is also a good idea to post images, video, Slideshares, infographics, and yes even the occasional meme. The key is, if you aren’t offering them something in a way that they will find interesting they wont read your posts.

Balance

Just as in everyday life if you have no balance you will fall over, in your social media life if there is no balance something will eventually fall down. Just like any other aspect of living you need balance to be healthy. Spend your time on social networks. Also, spend time with other necessary parts of your business. Take time for a hobby. Spend time with friends and family. Take alone time for quiet. Find the balance you need and your social will stand stronger than ever.

Now take the steps you need to take to get into social shape.

How socially fit are you? Comment and let me know your thoughts.

Equation of a Successful Social Media Post

There are two types of posts in the realm of social media: those that are engaged with and those that are ignored. How are your posts doing? Are you getting the clicks that you are looking for? Are your posts selling? Ignored posts can be a great source of frustration for content writers. Are your posts being ignored? Perhaps it’s time to learn the successful post equation:

Hook + Useful + Benefit = Success

Lets take a closer look at the parts of the equation of posting success.

The Hook

The hook is exactly what it sounds like: something to get your readers’ attention. It can be something funny, shocking (yet tasteful), off the wall, or best of all it can be visual like a picture or video. Remember, the visual sells. Why is this an important point? It is important because if you don’t get your readers’ attention in the beginning you will likely lose them before the end.

Some tricks to make developing effective hooks easier:

• Brainstorm. Make a list of everything that comes to mind. When brainstorming there are no bad ideas. Keep it going till you run out of ideas for a hook. If you have a hard time getting started walk away for 15 or 20 minutes and come back to it.
• Save what you have brainstormed to use later. Over time you will have a list to fall back on if you need a hook but can’t come up with one.

The Useful

So you have hooked them in with a rock star level hook. Yes you are that good. Now what? Now that you have their attention it’s time to give them something they can use. If you get someone’s attention but have nothing to offer them you will lose that attention and have a hard time getting it back again. What is useful? Something that your reader can relate to and apply in some way. It can be something they can use in their business, to enhance their life, to find pleasure in, or even to share with others that need the information. Have something useful to offer them and you will keep their attention.

The Benefit

At this point you have hooked your readers in and provided them something they can use. Is that enough? Nope. If they can’t actually reap a benefit from what you have to say then they have no reason to use the information you have provided or to even continue reading your posts. A perceived benefit is a key to successful sales. Some examples of a good benefit?

• Something they can be entertainment by and laughter. People like to be entertained. They like things that amuse them.
• Show how what you are posting can improve their lives.
• Explain in a few words how the information can be beneficial to their business or career.
• Let them know whats in it for them.

A Successful Post

Look at what you have done. You got your readers’ attention, offered them something they can use, and showed them how the information you are selling will help them. What do you have? An epic post that just may lead to engagement and conversion.

Hook + Useful + Benefit = Success

Here are a couple examples:

“Want to save some money? Come to our big sale this Saturday and save save save! Save money and get quality merchandise.”
is better than
“Come to our big sale this Saturday and save save save.”

Or,

“Lose the old clunker and cruise in style! Visit us today for great deals on used cars. Upgrade your ride while giving your wallet a break.”
is better than,
“Great deals on used cars. Visit us today.”

Apply this simple formula to all of your posts and let me know if you have seen a difference in the responsiveness of your readers.

Share your comments. What tips can you offer on writing great social media posts?

7 Steps to Customize Your Facebook Page

Your Page is the face of your brand on Facebook. What does that face show? Is it attractive? Interesting? Is it just basic and unimaginative? The point I am making with these questions is that you want to provide something on your Page that visitors will want to return to. You want the kind of face that will cause a double take when others visit your Page.

This article is all about you putting your best face forward. Now lets make a better Facebook Page.

1. Set up a landing page.

What is a landing page? Both honest ad vague answer: Whatever you want it to be. It is a page that visitors are taken after clicking a link. It is also a powerful tool. With it you can take your visitors to a promotional offer, advertisement, getting Likes, getting email addresses and other information, displaying your blog, or whatever you want. Take the time to do it right and this feature can really pay off.

Follow These Steps

1. Log into Facebook.
2. In Facebook Search type in Static HTML: iframe tabs.
3. Click Go to App.
4. Click Add Static HTML to a Page.
5. Choose your Page from the drop down menu.
6. Click Add Static HTML: iframe tabs.
7. You will now have a new tab on your Page called Welcome. Hover over the new tab and click the pencil icon.
8. Click Edit Settings.
9. Click Change next to Tab Image.
10. Click Change again.
11. Browse for the image you want to use for the tab.
12. Go back to the tab settings and type and save a new name for the tab if you want to change it.
13. Click Okay.
14. Click the Tab.
15. Choose the App you want to use.

Available Apps

• HTML
  If you know how, enter or copy the code for the landing page so you have the greatest control over its appearance.
• Image
  Upload an Image.
• Website
  This can be a custom page you have created and uploaded somewhere, your homepage, blog, etc.
• Drag & Drop
  A WYSIWYG to design the landing page.

I don’t have time or room in one blog post to teach you HTML but I think you get the point on the value of a landing page. You don’t even need to know how to code to set it up.

If you have any questions at all in this process let me know.

2. Get visual.

I am talking about the two rockers of social media when it comes to engagement: images and videos. Post them. Yes this one isn’t very technical but it is something very neglected. Most visitors will not return to a page of just pure text. People like the visual. They want to be inspired or entertained. Give them what they want and they will return for more. Here are some ideas:

• Things and situations that are funny.
• Events you have hosted.
• How-to infographics or videos.
• Highlights of the best of your best product.
• Things that put a human face to your brand.
• Things your target market find entertaining or interesting.

You know your target market better than anyone else (or at least you should). Give them what they want and make it visual.

3. Fill in all information completely.

I know this doesn’t exactly sound like a customization but it is a necessity if you want to put your best face forward and make your Page stand out. People don’t go to your Page just to be given a sales pitch. They go to your page for two reasons:

1. Content
2. To see you

The simplest way to show them the rock star that is you is to show them your basic information. In the very least:

1. Have a Profile Pic and Cover.
2. Go to your Page.
3. Click Edit Page.
4. Click Update Info.
5. Fill out all the information that you can.

These things seem basic but your visitors will appreciate it and you will have a far more effective Page.

4. Add custom tabs.

You can go two different routes wit this one. You can either create your own tabs or you can install ready made ones. I wont go into creating your own for now. I promise to publish a how-to soon. You can find many guides on Google. Here are some pretty useful ready made tabs you can install on your Page:

Livestream: Allows you to stream live events.

Fan of the Week: Your fans like to feel appreciated. Make them feel good and encourage engagement.

Booshaka: Highlights the most active fans of your Page.

ContactMe: Makes it really nice and easy for your fans to get in contact with you.

SupportTab: This one is very cool. When your fans click this tab they are taken to a page in which they can ask you questions and search for answers.

These are just a few and there are many others. Check them out. You might just be surprised by what you will find.

5. Be content intensive.

This is a fact that you will hear me preaching about time and again. Content is king. It is important. It is key to SEO, engagement, and conversion. Make your content useful, educational, or entertaining. Be sure it is of a good quality. This one will make your Page either look like gold or Quasimodo.

6. Pin what you want to keep them focused on.

Pin posts to the top that you want to keep your fan’s and visitor’s focused on. When you pin something it stays at the top of the Page. How to do it:

1. Type your post.
2. Click Edit or Remove.
3. Click Pin to Top.

7. Highlight your latest masterpieces.

Finally, if you write an update that is particularly important in some way you can highlight it. Just write your update and click the star. It will become larger than a normal update, thus drawing attention to it.

These tips will get you a good start in both customizing your Facebook Page and making it more attractive to visitors.

I encourage you to take a second look at your Facebook Page today. Is it really all that it can be?

What tips do you have to customize your Facebook Page?

Facebook Insights That You Can’t Afford to Ignore

You are posting to your Facebook Page at least once a day (if not you should be). You have likes and are continuously adding content. I have some questions for you. What is working and what isn’t? What are your best or most inspiring post? What do your fans like and what doesn’t seem to have an impact on them? Believe it or not, Facebook itself can help you answer these questions and more: all for free. With Facebook Insights you can gain information that will help you increase engagement and grow your fan base.

Facebook Insights

Facebook Insights is exactly what it sounds like: insight into your Facebook Page.To have Insights available to you your Page needs at least 30 Likes. To get to Insights:

1. Go to your Facebook Page.
2. Click below Notifications in the box that says Insights.

Let’s take a look at what Insights can do for you.

Overview

The big graph you are looking at gives you a view over the past month of how much reach your posts have had. This important graph gives you three pieces of information:

• Posts – This is found on the bottom line. It shows you how many posts you published each day. The bigger the bubble the more posts you made. How can this information help you? It gives you a  clue into your consistency. A good rule of thumb is you should make at least one post a day and two or three posts are even better. The easiest way to get people to talk about your page is to post to it.
• People Talking About This – This is represented by the green line. It shows you how many people are talking about your Page. How can this information help you? It shows you how many people are engaging and posting about your page. It helps to give you a hint into what kind of an impact you are making. The best way to reach more people is to get people talking about you.
• Weekly Total Reach – This is represented by the top line on the graph. It shows you how many unique people have seen your content. How can this information help you? It gives you a glimpse of your reach. Here is an equation: more reach + good content = more engagement.

Posts

This is a very useful part of Insights. It gives you an idea of what kinds of posts are working the best for you. Let’s take a closer look:

• Reached – If you click Reached your posts will be sorted by which ones had the most unique visitors in the past month.
• Engaged Users – If you click Engaged Users your posts will be sorted by which ones had the most unique people click on them in the past month.
• Talking About This – If you click Talking About This your posts will be sorted by which ones had the most unique people like, comment, or share them in the past month.
• Virality – If you click Virality your posts will be sorted by which ones are the most viral. This is represented in the form of a percentage. It is simply the percentage of people that have created a story from your post out of the total number of unique people that have seen it.

Likes

If you click Likes at the top of the Insights page you will be given a closer look at those who have Liked your page. What you get is some pretty useful demographic data. The data includes:

• Gender
• Age
• Countries
• Cities
• Languages
• Likes
• Like Sources (what they liked: page, photos, etc.)
• Likes and  Unlikes

Why is this information useful? It tells you more about those you are reaching. The more you know about your audience the better equipped you are to reach and form a relationship with them.

Reach

If you click Reach at the top of the Insights page you will be given demographic data on those that your Page has reached. Let’s take a look at what you get:

• Gender
• Age
• Countries
• Cities
• Languages
• Information on how you reached them
• Page views including tabs viewed
• Number of people that arrived at your Page from click on a link on a link at an external website

This information will give you a good idea of who is seeing your content, where they are from, and how they found you.

Talking About This

If you click Talking About This at the top of the Insights page you are given information about those that are talking about your Page. Most of the data will only be available if more than 30 people were posting about your Page within 7 days preceding the last day of the date you select. What kind of information is provided?

• Gender
• Age
• Countries
• Cities
• Languages
• The number of unique people talking about your Page
• Viral reach

Now you are getting some idea of how much impact your Page is making.

Check-Ins

If you click Check-Ins at the top of the Insights page you will see how many people used the check-in feature on Facebook at your location. The trick is you need 7 people to check in within 7 days for the data to be available.

With Facebook Insights you will be equipped with demographic and statistical data that can help you see what is working, what isn’t, and what will give you the most reach and potential engagement. Check it out for yourself and let me know what you think.

Do you monitor your Facebook Page with Insights? Do you pay attention to who is responding? If not, then why not?

Design Your Own Facebook Page Step by Step

The world has gone social. This is true whether you are talking about the Web, how you interact with companies, or how you find information. Marketing your business is no different. People crave the social, they seek connection. All of this boils down to one word: relationship. Right now, and no doubt for the foreseeable future, Facebook is at the center of this social universe.

Facebook is without a doubt where the overwhelming majority of your target market is. They share, play games, and post things that are meaningful to them or that make them laugh. If this is where your market is spending its time, then this is also where you should be spending your time. Be where the market is.

I am going to walk you through how to put up a Facebook Page and offer some tips to make it work for your brand.

Set Up Your Facebook Page

1. Go to Facebook Pages.
2. Sign in.
3. Click the Create a Page button.
4. Click the box most relevant to you.
5. Fill out the short form.
6. Put a check next to “I agree”.
7. Click the Get Started button.
8. Put up a picture. I would recommend your logo. Other choices could be a picture of you and your team or good head shot.
9. Click Next.
10. Add a good description of your product or service.
11. Add other social media sites and your Website.
12. Add what type of place this is.
13. Answer what the page represents.
14. On Enable Ads click Skip. The reason is ads will cost you money and we are just setting up your page at the moment. You can make your decision on Facebook Ads later.

You now have a basic and very empty Facebook Page of your own. Now let’s make it your own.

Make Your Facebook Page Your Own

1. Click Like. If you don’t like your Page why would you expect anyone else to?
2. Upload a cover image for your page. Take your time on this one. People like the visual and you want it to look good.
3. Click About and make sure all information is filled out.
4. At the top of the page click Edit Page and then Update Info.
5. Fill out all the information.
6. Click Save Changes.
7. Click View Page.

Set Up Your Page Management

1. Click Edit Page and then Manage Permissions.
2. Make any changes you want if any.
3. Click Save Changes.
4. Click View Page.
5. Click Edit Page and then Admin Roles.
6. Add other admins if you wish and clock Save.
7. Click View Page.
8. Click Edit Page and then Manage Notifications.
9. Make your Selections and click Save Changes.
10. Click view page.

Now you have your very own Facebook Page that is set up and ready to use. Now what? I will close this post with some tips and a very important question.

Tips

• Add content. You should post to your page at least once a day, Don’t become a spammer but be sure to post consistently.
• Along with text and links also post images and videos. Always remember, people love the visual.
• Add Milestones.
• Keep your posts to no more than 100 characters.
• Use the Question feature to ask questions.
• Share your Page on your Timeline.
• Under Build an Audience send a request to your friends to like your Page.
• Email an invite to your Page to your contacts.
• Announce your Page on your other social media accounts.
• Announce your Page on your business cards and newsletter.
• Have fun and be fun with it. People like fun and interesting. If you are neither they will not be interested.

This has been a very basic intro and list of tips. It is definitely enough to get you started. Here’s to your success and getting social.

Now for the very important question:

What is the URL of your Facebook Page?

Build a Solid Online Reputaion

Whether you know it or not you all have one. It can be positive or negative but it is always there. What am I talking about? I will answer this question with one word: Reputation. Now some interesting facts:

• Your boss probably has a Facebook account too.
• That job you are applying to will probably at least Google you and search for your name of Facebook.
• What you say online can be damaging in the “real” world.
• More people than you might think do pay attention to what you say in social media.

Online reputation can be just as empowering or damaging as your reputation in the brick and mortar world. Perhaps your online reputation has an even greater impact because it is on display to the whole world.

What can you do to build a positive reputation on social media? What kind of reputation do you want to build?

As Being Genuine

It is as simple as that. Don’t pretend to be someone you are not. Don’t try to live off the B.S. card. Be real. If you aren’t genuine you will eventually be found out and trust will inevitably be damaged. If you lose the trust of your customers, followers, and collaborators your brand will suffer.

As a Content Provider

Why should I read your post? Why should I follow you? When a reader reads a post, whether it be on Facebook or at their favorite blog they are looking for content. They don’t care what you need on your farm, they could care less how drunk you got last weekend, and the fact that you need new members on your mafia crew is completely irrelevant to them. They friended you, followed you, or subscribed to you because they want to hear what you have to say. They want something that will benefit or entertain them. They want to know you.

As an Authority

Do build a reputation as an authority requires the regular posting of content. It requires research and staying on top of your game. While avoiding the B.S. share what you do know. Learn what you don’t know. Be the expert that you can be and that your followers expect.

As Being Fun

Let’s face it, no one signs into social media to be bored. People want interesting. They want fun. They want entertaining. They want the visual and attention getting. If you come off as irrelevant or boring you will lose rather than gain a following.

To be fun:

• Don’t just post text 100% of the time. Be visual. Post images and video too.
• Try to say things in a fun and interesting way.
• While being an authority, don’t be serious all of the time. It is ok to be silly once in a while.
• Post things that are relevant to them.
• Post answers to questions they have.
• Provide information about things that matter to them.
• Here is a big one: Show them how your brand is a benefit to them.

Your reputation belongs to you. You have the power to build or destroy it. You also have the power to come off as an authority in your field or as irrelevant. The choice is yours and the choices you make will have a direct impact on your life, relationships, and career.

What kind of reputation do you want to build?