Category Archives: Facebook Marketing

Biggest Facebook Blunders by Businesses

content marketing, Facebook Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Marketing

Facebook BlundersOne of the best forms of social media marketing is Facebook marketing. Why? It’s simple there are a huge number of users. This large captured audience is difficult to obtain anywhere else (LinkedIn is next but trails by 900 million!). In addition, Facebook has the most interaction of it’s users and stands head and shoulders above any other social network. Smart marketers have quickly taken advantage of Facebook for marketing their business. But not all the marketers are using Facebook in the correct manner. In this post we discuss the Facebook blunders which most of the marketers are still performing.

Buying Fans of Facebook: one of the biggest Facebook marketing blunders is that most of the marketers buy fans from third parties and applications. Loyal fans are earned not bought and they are earned via advertising, offers and other creative tactics. If you really want to market your business on Facebook successfully and effectively, then try to build loyal fans slowly and gradually.

  • Ignoring User comments: Most of the time marketers get engaged or distrcted in other tasks and they ignore the comments of the customers on Facebook business pages. If you really don’t have the time to see their comments, then you must appoint a Facebook manager to do so. If your fans on Facebook notice that you are ignoring their comments, then they would probably won’t visit your site again and may leave your brand altogether. If you want to keep your business thriving then it is better to engage with your fans and address or solve their issues as soon as possible.
  • Not using images: you must publish the information according to the Facebook culture. Images have been shown to be more effective at grabbing the attention of users on Facebook than words alone. So, upload an appropriate and attention getting image that corresponds with your business or post. Using this approach will help maintain followers by keeping their attention and perhaps encourage sharing of your Facebook page which will reward your business in the future.
  • Posting only promotional content: posting the content which is only promoting your business is not interesting to followers, and quite frankly annoying! Readers are not interested in your ‘salesy’ content and won’t read it and they’ll most likely unlike your page as well . Therefore, post content which is useful to the audience to build trust and credibility in your business.
  • Over posting: It’s recommended that you should not posts more than two posts per day. You should only post mentions about your offers or sales once or twice a week. If you want to keep your users engaged then pitch less often but post more quality stuff.
  • Posting the content not related to your brand: Another blunder about Facebook marketing is posting the content which is not at all related to your brand. It is not likely that your fans like everything about your brand so they will not like each and everything that you post. Therefore, to engage them effectively your posts must be professional and be within your niche.
    Not investment in time: Not investing quality time in Facebook marketing is another blunder. Setting up a Facebook page and leaving it is useless. Setting up a Facebook page is just the first step in many which includes things like advertisement, content strategy, timing, analytics, etc.

Summary:
Avoid these blunders for effective Facebook marketing, if you don’t want to lose your audience or your time.

Kristine  Lise an author who is interested in written on SEO/ Internet marketing related topics. She is currently working with SEO Rank Smart, who offers best SEO Packages to its clients you can see her work on her company site.

How To Focus Your Social Media Strategy

Blogging, content marketing, Facebook Marketing, Pinterest, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Twitter Marketing, Viral marketing

How To Focus Your Social Media Strategy

Things are getting all hyped up

With all of the recent buzz around the changing value of links and what this might have to do with social signals, a lot of people are getting lost in the shuffle. Which is more valuable they ask, a link or a social signal (a “like”, a mention, a retweet, a share, etc) and how should they go about obtaining whichever is most valuable?

Video: Focus Your Social Media Marketing

This video focuses on targeting your social media strategy at a local level. Definitely some food for thought!

Adding to the increased activity and discussion is the appearance of dozens of new social websites. Some focus on sharing and bookmarking, others on visual elements (similar to Pinterest and Instagram), and still others on text-based status sharing. Because of this it is difficult to choose which social channels to cast your lot with. How can you know which of them is right for your business? We’ve done a few posts on this topic before, if you have a moment take a look at them to learn more about circumspection and the selection of appropriate social channels for your brand.

Simplify your direction and focus your social strategy

social media strategy

The idea of working smarter, not harder comes into play when figuring out how to simplify and focus your social media strategy. You want to make things easier and more fun for everyone, yourself included! People don’t take to social media sites to be marketed to or preached at, but if you can make things interesting and entertaining enough, once you throw some ease of use in there you’ll be sure to see results in no time!

  • Link to your website – This is one way that you can make finding your website easier for your social audience. Imagine that someone comes to your Facebook page, likes what they see, and decides to “like” your page to receive future updates. After a few posts they decide that they want to see your website and get more information about your products and services…but they can’t find a URL anywhere. It is all too easy to place a link to your website in most social media profiles, and if you’re not sure how to do this, a simple web search will turn up all kinds of tutorials!
  • Seize promotional opportunities – Take advantage of promotional opportunities like Facebook’s option to promote a post. While some people claim that these services are not effective, you will not know how they will go over with your brand and it’s audience until you try. Make sure that you have plenty of options available for your audience to choose from when it comes to engaging with your brand socially!
  • Keep your membership count low – And by this I mean to only sign up for the social channels which will most benefit your brand. Not every brand is well-suited to every social channel; you can choose a few that are most likely to benefit your brand and post to them frequently and see better results than a brand that signs up for everything and never maintains a presence on any one channel.
  • Stick to original content – Whatever you do, don’t try plagiarizing something and then promoting it on social media. Try not to just republish / share things that other people have already shared. Instead use your head and work with a professional content creation team and social media management firm like rankpop.com to create unique, original content that is sure to delight your fans!
  • Don’t ignore visual channels – While they might not seem suited to your brand at first, check out Pinterest and Instagram and similar networks and see how other brands like yours are faring in such an environment. YouTube is also a great way to showcase your brand and generate some social buzz. All you need are a few videos and you’re ready to enter the game.

Our Guest blogger is Kris Dietz: I love creating something amazing then spreading the word about it!  My mission is to develop and mold SEO into an amazing outlet of sharing valuable resources.   I enjoy networking and meeting like minded individuals.

How To Create A Business Page On Facebook – Step By Step Guide

Blogging, content marketing, Facebook Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Marketing, , ,

How to Create A Facebook Business Page - Step by StepBusinesses have been increasingly turning to Facebook as a way of advertising their business and in gaining brand recognition. Facebook, with its myriad number of users, represent an excellent customer base from which a company can gain additional market exposure. Best of all, creating a business Facebook page is free for a company and can be done quickly and easily. To do so, follow the guide to set up a Facebook page detailed below.

Registering with Facebook

The first step to developing a business Facebook page involves registering a business account with Facebook. Simply log on to Facebook and create a business account to set up a business Facebook page. Choose a name for your business Facebook page that is representative of your business and create a web address that people can find easily. Add a photo for your profile and additional photos for your business Facebook page as well that are detailed as well. Once this is created you have registered your business Facebook page and are ready to start posting.

Blog Posts

People visit your Facebook page in order to get information about your company but also to read the webpage posts that you have. These posts are known as blog posts and should be representative of the information you are trying to communicate to your website readers. These blog posts can be on any number of topics but should provide readers with information that they are looking to obtain regarding to your business. Examples may be product discounts, information on your products, and any upcoming product releases. Any additional information regarding your products may be also good posts for Facebook.

Gaining an Audience

It is also important to start to gain an audience for your Facebook page. To do so, try sending a mass email to your company’s business contacts. Many of them will become friends and you will have a reoccurring audience for your Facebook page. To gain additional friends try offering incentives for those that become site friends such as promotions and discounts to your webpage. Frequent blog posts on your Facebook page will generate additional Facebook page views and gather more friends. The more effort you put into developing and updating your Facebook page the more people will like it and spend more time following it which can be good for business. Respond to comments in a regular manner and provide positive support and feedback to website viewers who post comments. Keep a good sense of humor and do not get lured in by trolls who will always respond negatively to whatever it is that you post on your Facebook page.

Conclusion

A Facebook page is an excellent tool for a business that is looking to reach new customers. Setting up a business Facebook page is easily and, best of all, it is free to do. A Facebook page is also an efficient way to reach a wide audience. Simply register for a business Facebook page, add a profile description and picture, and start posting. Attract an audience for your page by offering incentives to friends and for likes and keep up with the site to attract regular users and build up a Facebook page web presence.

Today’s post was provided by Brian S. from VirtualAssistantIsrael.com. Brian is a Rollins College graduate and has been blogging professionally for the last 2 years.

6 Ways To Build More Engagement On Facebook

Facebook Marketing, Mobile Marketing, SEO, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Viral marketing

Facebook EngagementSuccessfully marketing your businesses on Facebook isn’t just about the number of fans that you have. Now certainly, the more fans you have the better (overall) but what you also need is an engaged audience.

In other words, successful Facebook marketing is all about interaction, rather than just you publishing content and nobody responding to it.

Not only is a highly engaged audience far more likely to see you as a trusted authority and end up buying from you, but in addition Facebook’s EdgeRank formula – which determines what posts you see in your newsfeed – is also set up to reward posts that get a lot of interaction.

In this way by building engagement with your Facebook audience you’ll find more and more people actually see your status updates, leading to more marketing leverage overall.

So what can we do to actively drive engagement with our fans, and in doing so significantly increase the results we’re seeing from our marketing efforts?

Share Images

Images tend to get far more engagement than many other types of content principally because they are so eye-catching in your feed. So when you’re sharing content from your site, don’t just paste a bare old link into the box.

Instead, use Creative Commons licensing to find the best royalty free images you can and then upload these to Facebook. Add a little text and a link to your article and you’ll find far more people like and share your post, and the traffic you receive as a result will also be far higher than usual.

Ask Questions

Questions are a great way to build interaction and engagement because people love to give their opinions. A smart idea is to frequent popular forums in your niche, as well as sites like Quora, Reddit and Yahoo Answers, to find questions that keep cropping up again and again. Then find ways to turn these ideas into questions you can ask your fans on Facebook.

Create A Simple Poll

While Facebook has a simple “poll” option for status updates, we’ve seen far better results on our Facebook page by simply asking an “A or B” question by typing it into the status box.

For example if you were in the pet niche, you could ask people if they prefer cats or dogs. if you were in the sport niche you could try pitting soccer against basketball and so on. As these are “opinion-based” questions there are no right or wrong answers and it can be a fun way to encourage your fans to take part in your page.

Facebook Comments

Did you know that you can now let your blog visitors leave their comments using Facebook? If you’re driving traffic from Facebook to your site, using a WordPress comments plugin that displays your visitors comments directly on your Facebook page can be very powerful indeed.

Not only does it make commenting easier for your visitors but in addition all those extra comments showing up on Facebook can kick-start the virality of any content that you share with your fans.

Be Personable

People like businesses that have a public figure as the “leader”. Think of Steve Jobs from Apple or Richard Branson from Virgin. In other words, when you’re interacting on your Facebook page, try not to do it just as a “brand” but as an individual.

Share stories about yourself. Use your name. Show people you’re a real person and they’ll mentally build up an image of you and will feel more rapport between you.

Respond To Comments

Finally, nobody likes to leave a comment only for it to languish unloved after all their effort. So instead, try to be the most regular visitor to your Facebook fan page. Log on regularly and interact with others. Respond to their comments. Speak to them as valued individuals and they’ll be far more likely to continue interacting with you and engaging with your brand.

Our Guest Author: Richard Adams is a UK-based technology writer whose popular ebook entitled “How To Promote Your Blog” teaches dozens of ways to increase traffic to your website.