Social Media Advisors

We are Social Media Advisors, a Social Media Speaker, & Custom WordPress Site design.

Facebook For Business

Using Geolocation Services for Business

Facebook, Facebook For Business, Foursquare, Social Media Advisors

This past week I attended a Barcamp where a good friend of mine, Paul Chaney asked the question, how can Businesses capitalize on these new geolocation services like FourSquare, Gowalla, Yelp, and the newest player Facebook Places.  We had a great discussion regarding the subject.  Here is a brief video with my takeaway/idea on how to optimize on Geolocation Services.

If you are unsure how to create Facebook Ads that will target specific things like I talk about, feel free to contact us and we can assist you in building a solid marketing campaign on Facebook.

WordPress Plugins – Why the Facebook “Share” Button is Critical

Facebook, Facebook For Business, Social Media Advisors, WordPress Tutorials

Currently, it’s hard to think of a site more influential than Facebook.  Google, Twitter, and YouTube are all in the mix, to be sure, but Facebook is the 800-pound gorilla of social media.  As such, it seems more important than ever to have a presence there, both personal and professional.

One additional tool in your arsenal is one that you can place on your WordPress blog (and probably elsewhere, too, but since I’m familiar with WordPress, I’ll stick to what I know).

I’m referring to the “Share” button that you see on many WordPress posts these days.  If you aren’t using it, you’re simply cheating yourself out of some potentially valuable exposure.  Why not allow your readers to share your content with their friends?  In the old days (read: pre-social media days), business owners would die for this kind of word-of-mouth advertising!  Now it can be accomplished with a single click, along with a description (e.g. “Check out this interesting article I just found about nose hair!”).

The only equivalent that I can think of in the analog world would be for someone to call all of his/her friends to mention your post.  Once the info is shared, it appears on the user’s wall as an endorsement that your post was worth reading.

The plugin itself is extremely easy to install in mere seconds.  You can customize the location within your posts, too.  On our blog here, you can see this button above the post and to the right.  Feel free to use it liberally anytime you come here to read.  🙂  Along with the TweetMeme button, which is basically a “Share” for Twitter users, the Facebook Share feature is a must-have for bloggers.

But what about the “Like” button, Jason?  Well, I think it’s handy, too, but I appreciate the “Share” feature even more, since it provides a deeper level of detail about the post, rather than just a link.

If you have any questions about the Facebook Share button or any other WordPress plugin which you’ve heard about or seen, we would love the opportunity to help.  Ask away!

Thanks for reading!

Facebook Page of 47,000 Gets Reinstated After Facebook Shut It Down for Trademark Violation

Facebook, Facebook For Business, Social Media Advisors

It appears that the Facebook page that used the trademarked term REALTORS® in it’s vanity URL and was shut down yesterday has been reinstated.  As of tonight, the page called The Official Real Estate Referral Group has had their vanity URL changed from http://facebook.com/socialrealtors to http://www.facebook.com/RealEstateReferralGroup. I know that both Jonathan Rivera & the members are very happy to have the group back up & running.  His status update stating: “We’re Back” has been welcomed openly with over 75 comments at this time.

If you are wondering why the page was shut down, read here as we helped break the news yesterday.  I personally am very suprised about this, and wonder if this just opens a can of worms for Facebook and pages & profiles in the future.  Imagine if only 3% of the 400+ million pages on Facebook want/need to change usernames.   That is 12 Million changes that someone at facebook would have to do basically manually.  I understand their rule of not changing the usernames clearly.  They set this so that someone with a large group isn’t able to just sell it off to someone else, and also keep them from having to deal with a lot of extra work on the platforms.

I will be interested to see what this does as we move forward.  Will this become a trend at Facebook? Or is this just an exception to the rule?  What do you think?

Selling on Facebook Garners Minimal Business- Learning How To Use Facebook For Business

Facebook, Facebook For Business, Social Media Advisors

Learning how to use Facebook for business can be quite the learning curve for most businesses.  Being that there are now over 450 Million people on the network, businesses are acknowledging that they need to be using Facebook for business as part of their marketing strategy.  They are signing up but getting lost almost instantly in mafia wars, farmville, hot or not surveys & 47,823 invites to pages & events.  Those that make it past this point & actually set up a Facebook Page immediately go into typical marketing mode of selling their products or services with their group of people who like their page. This is not a good way to use Facebook for business.   In fact, this is probably one of the worst ways to use Facebook for business.

Being a former full-time extremely successful real estate agent I still have quite a strong tie into that network of business professionals, so I am always being asked to join their Facebook Pages.  Most of the time I will oblige & join, and shortly after visiting the page I notice that their Facebook for business page is consistent with the main philosophy of Real Estate Marketing.  See, when you are in real estate school, the one thing they drill into your mind is that in order to be successful, you must have a 15 second greeting to use with every person you come in contact with.  It would go something like this:

Prospect approaches you & says: “Hi I am Mark Jones” and shakes your hand.

You reply: “Hi Mark, my name is Jeremy Blanton, I am a real estate agent in Myrtle Beach, SC.”

Conversation continues for another 30 seconds or so till Mark starts to move on to talk with someone else.

You quickly blurt to Mark as placing business card in his hand: “Well Mark, if you know anyone looking to buy or sell real estate, please have them contact me.”

Real estate though is not the only industry that tries to use Facebook for business this way.  I had a client that thought the only way to build a successful page was to constantly beg people to join it, then give away a prize to a random person once in a while.  Unfortunately, it appears that his business is not in operation at this time. (I wonder why??) When he hired me, he wanted me to not only create his Facebook Page, but to also get a good number of people to join the page, and show him how to use Facebook for business properly.  But as time passed by, he took over the management of the page & went to typical bad Facebook for business spamming concepts of “Join our Facebook Page” and “Buy this now” type of posts which quickly brought the engagement to his page to a screeching halt.  This page which used to get anywhere from 10-30 comments per posting was now lucky to get 1 or 2.  Unfortunately, his bad Facebook for business practices destroyed user engagement & interaction.

3 Tips to Using Facebook for Business Properly

So how do you use Facebook for Business? I am glad you asked!  Facebook pages are most effective when you are sharing information with your fans that is things they want to know.  For instance, share fun, interesting facts about your industry or your area.  If you are in real estate, sharing photos about your local area attractions & events can be extremely successful for using Facebook for business.   Another client of mine has a page where she only share things about her area & the interaction & engagement of the fans is phenomenal. Remember, engagement is the key to using Facebook for business successfully.

Here are a few very simple tips on how to Use Facebook for business successfully:

  • Share YouTube Videos– this is one of the most successful components of using Facebook for business.  People love funny or informative videos.  I shared a video once of Google Chrome Speeds which caused those on my Facebook page to comment & like the post.  It had nothing to do with my social media training company, but it got people talking & started new communication between the business & consumer.
  • Asking Open Questions- If you ask questions that beg for answers, the people who frequent your page will feel compelled to engage.  Trust me when I say this is a super effective way to use Facebook for business because your fans take ownership of the page more then.  They also are promoting your page by commenting because it shows on their profile that they commented on something on your page.   One of my successful pages has grown in size rapidly by doing just this.  I will simply ask questions like: “So with the weather being so hot today in Myrtle Beach, what will you be doing to keep cool?” Within moments there were over 20 responses from people around the country.
  • Treat the people who like your page as friends, not a number.  This sounds pretty self explanatory, but just like the other two tips, this is very helpful with using Facebook for Business.  If the people on your Facebook page become like family to you, they will feel important, special and needed.  When you can achieve this type of engagement you have tapped into the mother-load of Facebook for Business.  Instead of needing to suggest the page to your friends & begging them to like the page, you will now have your already connected people going to their friends on their own suggesting they join your page.  Basically, you have created mini marketers for your page.  And as we all know in marketing, a personal referral from someone else is the most powerful type of marketing possible.

I know these three tips on how to use Facebook for Business don’t seem revolutionary, but I guarantee if you implement these strategies into your marketing strategy for your Facebook page you will see an increase in business from your Facebook page.

If you are wanting to learn more on how to use Facebook for Business, we have a basic introductory course coming up on June 21 at 1PM EST.  You can register for that course here: Using Facebook For Business.

Facebook 101: How to Use Facebook for Business (Upcoming Class)

Facebook For Business

A few short years ago, Facebook was primarily used as a college photo sharing site.  Now, it’s a giant social media marketing and networking platform.  Have you ever wondered what you could do to leverage your presence there and grow your business? 

On Monday, June 21th, at 1pm Eastern time (noon Central, 11am Mountain, 10am Pacific), we will be teaching a one-hour online class entitled “How to Use Facebook for Business”. This is basically a beginners guide to using Facebook effectively to promote yourself and your business.

If you have any interest in using Facebook for this purpose, you do not want to miss this one!

Facebook now has about 450 million users worldwide, and the average user spends roughly 55 minutes per day on the site.  We can help you to gain more exposure on this platform, and help you achieve tangible sales results.

By the time you finish this 1 hour course, you will know:

  • The difference between Facebook Pages & Profiles
  • The basic elements to running a successful page
  • What to post
  • Choosing the right title for your page
  • How to get fans to your page and how to get them interacting on your page.

If you have been hesitant to use Facebook for your business or think it only about Farmville, throwing sheep and Mafia Wars then this is the class for you.

We are offering this class for ONLY $25!  Here’s the link (sorry, but we’re not offering a discount code on this one – it’s already inexpensive): http://budurl.com/101fb

Hope to “see” you there!