Social Media Buzz

5 Quick Tips for Increasing your Facebook Page Fans

Want to get more fans for your Facebook Page?  Here's 5 quick ways to increase your Fan base right now!

1. Post a link or a question every day and comment yourself to get the conversation started. Keeping your page active is one of the best ways to attract new visitors and make them fans.
2. Use the Notes feature to publish larger content that appeals to your fan base and highlights your expertise.  You can create original content or reuse content you've already written from your web site, blog or other offline publications. 
3. Send out a weekly or bi-weekly update to your fans sharing some links and highlights. Be sure to include a link back to your page with an invitation to come and visit.
4. Ask your fans for help in spreading the word by referring your page to others who might enjoy reading it too!
5. Invite your Facebook Friends to become fans. But don't just send out a mass invite to all your friends. Be polite and take a moment to select only the ones that you know will really be interested in the information you'll be sharing on your page.

Linda Locke

Social Media Coach

http://facebook.com/socialmediapage

Facebook Changing Page Fans to Likes

I can't deny the fact that you like me! You like me! ~ Sally Field

 
If you have a Facebook page, listen up.  Changes are coming again -- Facebook recently announced they're tweaking the way people will connect with you (and your brand) on your Page -- replacing the Become a Fan button with a Like button instead. It's a subtle difference, but Facebook says that statistics show that people are more likely to click on Like rather than Fan so the change could increase your fan base no matter what they call it.

What do you think?

Read more here: Facebook to scrap `become a fan of' for `like'

Linda Locke
Social Media Coach

Facebook Your Brand Now

 
The power of Facebook's reach is gaining momentum and brands that understand the shifting changes will reap the benefits. Those that don't, risk becoming ignored or worse, obsolete.  Dallas Lawrence, the Chair of the Social and Digital Media Practice at Levick Strategic Communications, says:

"Facebook was the most visited site on the web for the week ending on March 13, 2010, surpassing even Google in week-long stats for the first time in history, according to Hitwise. The shift in user habits and audience targeting is palpable and it provides marketers, brand managers, issue advocates, and political campaigns today with an age old choice: Adapt and change or face irrelevance and extinction......" 

"To thrive in a rapidly changing marketplace, corporate communicators must understand that the shift now underway is just as powerful as the one that transformed Google into the modern Yellow Pages and turned a Silicon Valley start-up into a $200 billion everyday necessity."  

Read more here: Why Your Brand Needs to Be on Facebook Now

Linda Locke
Social Media Coach

Share Your Facebook Fan Page

 
Do you use a Facebook Fan Page to promote your business, cause or non-profit? If you do, please post a description and a link to it in the comments so we can see what you're doing.

If not, what's stopping you?

Linda Locke
Social Media Coach

Linda's Social Media Goodies for 3/18/10

 
Here's a quick list of some of the social media goodies I found for you this week.

Enjoy!

Linda Locke
Get our Social Media Tip of the Week

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HOW TO: Get the Most Out of Twitter #Hashtags http://ow.ly/1l7G2

Another great resource from @andymatic - WordPress Cheatsheet http://ow.ly/1lr6D

5 Ways to Use Social Media for Things You Are Already Doing http://ow.ly/1ndxo

The Art of Writing Great Twitter Headlines http://ow.ly/1noQ7

Tips for the Reluctant Facebooker - Social Media Buzz http://ow.ly/1mUUu

Getting Started with Social Media Marketing - Social Media Buzz http://ow.ly/1l9jX

5 Creative Ways To Use Your Twitter Favorites  http://ow.ly/1nPd7

Tips for the Reluctant Facebooker

Some of my friends are afraid of getting on Facebook. They either think it's a huge waste of time or dangerous or both. Nothing I can say seems to change their minds. So that's why I was so happy to see this post by Julie Devaney of Hubspot.com, writing about her mom's experience with Facebook. Julie says:  

"My Mom is in her late 50s and recently got a Facebook account. An admitted skeptic, she previously didn’t see the value or purpose of  “doing Facebook.”  She thought it was a kid thing -- something too technically complicated and too socially intrusive for moms in their late 50s.

That was until this past Christmas, when my Mom’s inbox saw more holiday greetings than her mailbox.  Many of the expected annual family letters and pictures from her childhood and college friends came in the form of emails, with links to blogs and Flickr accounts, and “Happy New Year” signatures ending with lines like, “check out my Facebook page for pictures of my son’s wedding.”

It was a bittersweet change for my Mom to have the good news of the past year living in her laptop rather than hanging on her door frame on familiar holiday stationary for all to see.  Yet, she now saw the value in having her very own Facebook account." 

Julie then goes on to share her 5 great tips for Facebook First-Timers, which takes some of the mystery out of getting started. I'm going to share it with my friends and see if I can convince them to jump into the social media waters and get their feet wet!

Linda Locke
Social Media Coach

How to Make Facebook Work for your Business

 
Social networking is hot right now, but most small business owners are getting cold results from it.

Here's an excerpt from 9 Rules of Facebook Promotion Every Small Business Should Know by Nick O'Neill of allfacebook.com that will help you heat things up:

"You’re the owner of a local small business and you are trying to figure out the best steps to get on to Facebook to drive new customers. It can be a daunting task and with little extra time in the day, how can you be expected to spend time promoting your business on Facebook? I completely understand the challenges of running a small business and after speaking with lawyers, florists, dentists, and many other small businesses, I’ve compiled the following list of strategies that should help ease the process.

1. Go Slow And Steady, Don’t Overdo It

Any form of promotion is like compound interest. It takes time to build up the residual returns but if you stick with it, the pay off can be substantial. Many people hear that Facebook is a great way to promote their business but after trying it out for a few days or even a couple weeks, they don’t see significant effects so they give up and decide to keep paying for Yellow page advertisements. Who knows how well Yellow Page ads pay off but that monthly check must be going towards something, right?

The difference between Facebook and more traditional promotional channels is that the small business owner needs to invest a little bit of their time. The extra effort can go a long way and can even provide a rewarding experience as customers begin to provide feedback and communicate directly with you. So how much time do you need to be spending? Not hours a day! While promoting via Facebook can become an addictive process, you can allocate little more than an hour a week to your promotional activities.

While it’s never bad to start off enthusiastically, you don’t want to waste all of your efforts in the first few days. Build up your fan base steadily and you’ll begin to see the benefits. " Read the other 8 Rules here ....