Posts Tagged ‘facebook’
Sunday, January 3rd, 2010
In my previous post, I write about the advantages of social media marketing for your business on Facebook. Here, I will focus on the differences between Facebook fan pages and Facebook group pages and any advantages or disadvantages from a business perspective.
The differences between Facebook fan pages vs. Facebook groups are minor, but one of the main advantages to Facebook fan pages is indexing. Fan pages are accessible to the public and can be picked up via search engines. This means that fan pages have a greater chance of being noticed and will show up on your friend’s feeds when you join. Group pages can only be seen via Facebook and does not have public access. While that makes it harder to search, group pages have the viral advantage of being able to send or invite your friends to join; a feature that fan pages do not have.
Another feature unique to group pages is sending private messages. An administrator has the ability to send messages directly to a member’s inbox, while Fan pages can only send messages that show up on the notification bar on the bottom right hand corner of your web browser. While the notification bar alerts you when a new notification is up, users often ignore the feature due to unwanted or unnecessary “spam” messages that often clog up the notifications.
So which option is better for business and social media marketing? While most of the basic features are the same, the key differences between fan pages and groups are major enough to warrant an examination. Fan pages are more versatile because you can connect your blog rss feeds to automatically syndicate, and add web applications. Administrators are not known publically and fan pages do not connect with the administrator’s personal account. The fan page can be seen more like an entity rather than an individual. This makes it more attractive for celebrities, brands, and businesses, who may hire someone to manage their accounts. Fan pages also do not have a member limit while group pages cap out at 5,000.
In summation, fan pages are the better option for social media marketing and a businesses web presence, but groups can work great for smaller ventures related to a more specific cause or social media campaign, such as marketing an event.
Tags: business social media, communication, creative marketing, facebook, Facebook page, social media campaign, social media marketing
Posted in blogging, social media general, social media sites | No Comments »
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
As we’ve already covered, social media marketing is all about connecting with your audience, as opposed to selling products. Think of it as a conversation. The more web presence your brand or business has, the more avenues you have towards conversing with potential customers. Brand awareness, customer service, and engaging with your customers should be your primary focus, but how can you turn that into sales?
Vanity Address
Once you’ve created your Facebook page, you can apply a vanity address that reflects your business name. Use this vanity URL when linking your Facebook page on your blog and/or website. This ensures that your social media marketing campaign is established and credible.
Join the Conversation
Add status updates that provide useful links and content related to your business. Social media marketing is about engaging with your market niche and talking to them on their level, like friends. One of the best places to network in a real world environment is through parties, and social events. Not everything should be about business and finding people through parties establishes your trust as a friend first and business second. Think of Facebook as an online party. You can’t build trust by being aggressive on selling. Talk to your potential customers as friends and the sales will come naturally.
Fan Pages, Group Pages and Events
Part of your social media marketing campaign can include the creation of fan pages, group pages or events. This is another tool to build community around your business and connect with your audience. Create an event page when marketing an upcoming event and use fan pages or group pages to keep people updated on your business.
Facebook Ads
Facebook ads are a cheaper alternative to marketing your business. What’s smart about social media marketing through Facebook is that you can use profile information to your advantage by using keywords, age brackets, etc. to market to specific audiences. Through the very nature of Facebook pages, businesses can use target marketing to successfully advertise to specific users.
With these general tips, you can start to build your Facebook web presence in no time. If you decide setting up a Facebook page is too hard to maintain, or would like assistance with your social media marketing, we can gladly help. Are you ready to join the conversation?
Tags: "social networking", facebook, Facebook page, social media, social media campaign, social media marketing
Posted in social media general, social media sites | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
In my first post, “Social Media Means Connecting with Your Customers,” I talked about the importance of “getting involved” and “engagement” with your customer base. This involvement is essentially creative marketing. You’re going to have to come up with new, creative ways to engage your audience; and the ingenuity of these ideas will determine the success of your campaign. Remember, your job is (A) to show involvement yourself and (B) get your customers involved. There are hundreds of strategies to engage your customer base from YouTube videos, to contests, to polls, to giveaways. But you want to create a social media campaign that reflects your company’s image and also draws in large numbers of targeted customers. One of the big questions you want to ask yourself before launching a social media campaign is, “Do I want to direct people to a corporate website or a hub page, such as a Facebook fan page?”
Mashable journalist, Adam Ostrow, writes:
You’re probably already noticing it – business cards containing Twitter usernames as opposed to domain names, bands promoting their MySpace profile instead of their own website, and even ad campaigns directing people to participate in a social media rather than visit a branded website.
In the article, “Is Social Media Making Corporate Websites Irrelevant?” Ostrow examines the social media campaign by Vitamin Water which centers around a fan page on Facebook and the poll question: “Which athlete is the NBA’s top player: Kobe Bryant or LeBron James?”
Vitamin Water ultimately made the decision that sending people to its Facebook Fan Page was smarter for business than sending them to the corporate website. Why? Ostrow gives some answers.
- Facebook has 200 million active members and is the largest social media platform.
- The page has social media features, such as a poll and built-in wall posting, which increases participation and involvement.
- The “fan” system of Facebook is viral. Once your friends become fans, their friends become fans, and so on.
- After the poll about the NBA’s top player is over, the page will still have all of those fans and the company can continue to engage with them.
9 Easy Steps to Creating a Facebook Page
- To create a Facebook page for your business, go to this url.
- Next you have to decide which category is best for your business. Take some time with this. Always keep in mind your target audience.
- Now put in your business or product name and click “Create Page”.
- Enter a short description of your business or website address. Use keywords that a large audience can identify with. Upload your logo or a representative image for your business.
- Click on your business name in the top left corner and then click “publish this page”.
- From your new profile page, click “Add to my products”. Now you are the first “fan” of your business.
- Once you’ve become a “fan” of your business, your friends on Facebook will also see a message in their home page.
- You can also suggest your page to friends under the image/logo on your page.
- You can also promote your Facebook page with an Ad under the image/logo on your page.
If you decide that creating a Facebook page is too much trouble or too hard to maintain, we will gladly set one up for you. Just ask.
Tags: business social media, creative marketing, facebook, Facebook page, social media, Vitamin Water
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
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