Earlier this week I was a guest on Yvonne McCoy’s Blog Talk Radio show SOS 4 Your Business. In this episode we talked about why you need a social media marketing plan and what elements you need to include. It was only a 30 minute show but it should give you some ideas about how to get started creating your own social media marketing plan.
If you are using Facebook and have a business, you need to consider creating a fan page for your business. What’s a fan page? Facebook originally created fan pages to allow celebrities and large corporations to connect with more people. After all, your personal profile only allows you to connect to 5,000 people. Stars like Vin Deisel have millions of followers. That’s what fan pages are about.
the Facebook Fan Page
However, you don’t need to be a celebrity to create a Fan Page. Regardless of your business, you can benefit from having a page for it on Facebook. If you already have a personal profile on Facebook and are using it to network and promote your business, here are seven reasons why you should create a fan page:
Unlike your personal profile, Fan Pages allow you to use your business name, logo, and any other branding around your business. You can customize pages so they look similar to your website, Twitter page or YouTube Channel. This allows you to keep a consistent image between your Facebook page and any other online presence you have.
By having a Fan Page, you can differential between the personal you and the business you. This can be particularly important if you have family and friends connecting with you who aren’t as professional as you like. You can steer people to your fan page and avoid unpleasant conflict between the two.
Your personal profile only allows you to connect 5000 people. Now if you’re only connecting with people you actually know in the real world, then this limit is probably not be a problem for you. However, if you’re using Facebook as a virtual networking event, then at some point you may approach the 5000 limit.
A fan page however, allows you to have an unlimited number of fans. There are celebrities and businesses who have thousands and even millions of fans.
In addition, Read More→
When I’m out speaking to business people, just about everyone has heard of Twitter. But in spite of the phenomenal growth Twitter has experienced, the majority of people I meet still haven’t given it a try.
The main reason people give is “I just don’t get it. Why does anyone care that I’m having lunch or going to the bathroom.”
Well I can tell you now, no one cares that you’re going to the bathroom! That’s truly T.M.I. – too much information!
However, if you follow these seven simple rules you can be interesting, personable and a successful marketer on Twitter.
Some of my favorite people on Twitter are those who regularly share interesting links. They may be links to Read More→
If you are using Facebook as a business networking tool, you’re probably trying to build a broad online network. Many people on Facebook only connect with people they know in the real world. Business people who are using Facebook as a virtual networking meeting however, need to be more of an “open networker” rather than a “selective connector”.
If that’s the case, why would you ever “unfriend” someone?
I personally have only done it once. I received a very polite, and personalize friend request from a gentleman who seemed to be interested in business networking. After accepting his invitation I checked out his profile. He stated he’s looking for “sexually adventurous women”. I unfriended him immediately.
This got me to thinking. How many other people have “unfriended” someone? So I did what I always do when I have a business question. I got online, asked my Facebook friends, asked my Twitter friends and went to the ever trusty Google and “asked” it.
Liz Lynch wrote on her blog that she unfriended someone who “was trying to friend everyone and their brother by sending invitations to connect to people in my network (and who knows who else’s) without explaining how he knew them or why he wanted to be their friend.”
This harkens back to my number one advice when sending invitations on Facebook. Always include a personal note telling this person why you think you should connect. The is doubly true if you don’t know this person outside of Facebook
There are lots more stories of unfriending however. Read More→
Twitter is the hottest new social media trend and it seems like everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. Small business and marketing experts are on Twitter in droves. In spite of this, there is a small number of people who are taking the time to ask, “does it work?”
Yes you can reach a large number of people and have conversations, but do these Twitter conversations convert to actual sales? That question is haunting many small business Twitter users and is the main thing holding others back from giving Twitter a try.
When I evaluate what I’m doing online, I try to use numbers rather than general impressions. The numbers speak volumes for my Twitter use. Within three weeks of my signing up for Twitter, traffic to my blog had jumped by 30 percent. It remained high and continued to grow. Since web traffic is an important metric for my business, I considered my Twitter experiment to be a resounding success. But does this translate into sales?
I know from my business that the more traffic I get on my site, the more products and services I will sell, eventually. However, I can’t directly say “person X bought product Y because of Twitter”.
Does that mean you can’t make money from Twitter?
Well, as it happens just yesterday I heard a story about someone who can directly connect a sale back to Twitter.
Meet Ryan Wiseman. Ryan publishes FindItGreyBruce, a website devoted to promoting businesses in the two counties surrounding Owen Sound (where I happen to live).
Ryan is very systematic in everything he does online. Because his focus is on local business, he makes it his business to know what anyone local is doing online. One of the ways he tracks this activity is on Twitter. Using TweetDeck, Ryan has created searches for multiple geographic terms: Bruce County, Grey County, Owen Sound plus a variety of other local towns.
He monitors these search terms regularly and as a result, whenever anyone local does anything on Twitter, odds are Ryan’s the first to know about it.
This happened recently when a small business owner in a neighbouring town started Tweeting. Ryan saw the Tweet and started following him. This person followed Ryan back and obviously checked out Ryan’s profile. Ryan’s profile includes a link to the FindItGreyBruce website. The result: a day and a half after Ryan discovered this local Tweeter, he had a new $200 listing on his site.
“Twitter isn’t helpful unless you can track keywords relative to your business,” says Ryan. “I have a system to track and follow keywords and then I watch for opportunities. When someone says ‘I really need someone who…’ I can move in.”
The key to using Twitter effectively to make real sales is to know what your customers are doing online, track those keywords they are most likely to use and follow anyone using those terms. Then it’s just a matter of waiting for the right opportunity. If you do this consistently and systematically, you may even get a result like Ryan’s and have a customer come to you.
Andrea J. Stenberg
Have you made a sale directly as a result of Twitter? Please leave a comment and tell us how you did it.
Recent Comments