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Facebook is My Happy Place

July 19, 2011 Molly White No comments

I love Facebook, and everything it has to offer. I love it for personal use, and I love it for business use. I love the direction in which they’ve taken the social network and I’m completely obsessed with the marketing aspect of it.

I’m an oversharer and I click the refresh button on my newsfeed far too often. I take great delight in explaining the wonders of Facebook to the not yet converted, and I work diligently to bring non-believers into the fold.

It pains me to admit that my own father, a small business owner, who markets to plastic surgeons, is adamantly against joining himself. (I’ve made some progress in that he can now be found on LinkedIn!!)

If given the chance to extol the virtues of Facebook, I light up like a Christmas Tree and begin to speak with such enthusiasm that people probably think I’m crazy.

Reading Mashable, TechCrunch, Mari Smith, The Social Media Examiner, Inside Facebook, All Facebook and the other industry blogs is almost as enjoyable an experience as reading the Twilight Series.

A Conversion Story

It was with great joy that began a conversation with a man who emphatically protested the need for his business to be on Facebook.

He was a builder and his customer base was the well to do families in Northern Baltimore County. I asked him why he didn’t think he could find those people on Facebook.

He said Facebook was huge, and he was small. Facebook was too broad and he was a one man show with unique, high quality, high dollar skills. Facebook didn’t have the well to do customer he was seeking. His business was built on referrals and word of mouth from past customers.

With each reason he gave, I got more and more excited, and after he had explained his theory, I explained to him how he could use a Facebook business page, his contacts, and Facebook Ads to target EXACTLY the customer he was looking for:

Create a personal account using a new email address, and don’t give out the address.
Use that account to create a business page for the business.
Email your client base a link to the business page and ask them to like it. Because, he would find, his clients are on Facebook, checking in on their children and grandchildren and catching up with friends.
Once the clients have liked the page, use Facebook ads to run an ad targeting the friends of the people who like the page, that live within a 10 mile radius of your zip code.

Voila! And with that, he told me to give him a call that perhaps we could talk about getting this program going.

You see, Facebook is for EVERYONE and there’s NARY a business out there that can’t benefit from it.

Facebook, social media Facebook, Facebook Ads, fan page, marketing, personal, referral, social, social media, social media manager, viral marketing, word of mouth

Fabulous Facebook Page-Dapple Gray Designs

June 30, 2011 Molly White No comments

I love finding small businesses that are using Facebook and other social media outlets in the best possible way. When I come upon a business that gives me current, useful information, takes adavantage of the free tools available to build out their presence and engages their audience, it makes me smile. Sometimes I find myself liking a page, even if I don’t ever intend to frequent the business, just because the page is so awesome.

And then you know what happens, I end up frequenting their business because their stuff keeps coming up in my newsfeed and I’m reminded why I liked their page. Since I liked their page, I’m probably going to like their product or service. Because that’s what good social media does!

I’ve decided that it would be fun to regularly highlight the businesses that I think do a great job with their social media and explain why I love them.

First up, Dapple Gray Designs. Full disclosure, the owner is a friend of mine, but she is not a client. She engages her fans, partners with businesses like her own and with blogs whose reader base is her target customer, uses the free apps available to customize her page, rewards and interacts with her fans, and keeps people updated on the most current inventory and news about the business. The only expense for this page, is the product that she gives away. Everything else on here is free.

Dapple Gray Designs, makes and sells adorable children’s clothes at reasonable prices. The clothes are sold on Etsy, at boutiques, and through the Facebook page itself. Suzi, the owner, has worked really hard to grow her fan base and market herself, almost solely through her Facebook business page. In less than a year’s time she has accrued over 1,000 quality fans. I mention quality, because it isn’t all about the number of fans a business has, it’s about the likelihood those fans will frequent the business.

Dapple Gray Designs, partnered with blogs that catered to mothers who would likely purchase her designs and started offering giveaways through these blogs. A condition of entrance, was fanning her page.

Then once people started liking the page, and buying and winning her clothes, she encouraged people to post pictures of their children wearing the clothes. Once people did that, she would repost the pictures to ensure that all of her fans saw the cute kids in the cute clothes.

This is a great way to encourage people to interact with a page. Who doesn’t want to brag about how cute their kids are and hear other people tell them that their kids are in fact, the adorable!?

Suzi also uses her status updates to showcase new products and announce their availability.

And since people are being encouraged to actually go to her page, not just read about Dapple Gray Designs in their newsfeed, Suzi has taken full advantage of the FREE custom tab apps that are available. She’s using, Static HTML for Pages as a welcome landing page, Payvment as a shopping cart from within Facebook, MyEtsy which ports her etsy page to her Facebook page, and the Sweepstakes app to host a giveaway on her page.

On top of all of these tools, Suzi, very cleverly, hyped up a big promotion for when she hit 1,000 fans. Suzi partnered with other shops and designers of handmade goods for children and hosted joint giveaways encouraging entrants to like both the Dapple Gray page and the partner page in order to enter the contest. She used Google Forms to create entrant forms, and the notes section of the Dapple Gray Designs fan page to list the details of entry as well.

The 1,000 fans celebration contest is still running, I’ve entered to win a few things myself! Hats off to Suzi for using all of these tools to her advantage and for doing such a successful job marketing Dapple Gray Designs.

Facebook, social media blog, cross marketing, Facebook, fan page, marketing, referral, social, social media, status updates, viral marketing, word of mouth

Social Media Statistics in Video Format

June 29, 2011 Molly White No comments

This video was produced by Socialnomics, author, Eric Qualman using June 2011 information.

There are some powerful takeaways from this video including the information listed below.

If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s third largest, yet Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google, aren’t welcome in China
95% of companies using social media for recruitment, use LinkedIn.
Lady Gaga, Justin Beiber, and Britney Spears have more twitter followers than the entire populations of Sweden, Israel, Greece, Chile, North Korea, and Australia.
The Ford Explorer launch on Facebook generated more traffic than a Superbowl ad
69% of parents are friends with their children on social media
34% of bloggers post opinions about brands and products
90% of consumers trust peer recommendations, 14% trust advertisements

Facebook, social media, Twitter blog, Facebook, Facebook Ads, fan page, marketing, personal, referral, social, social media, social media manager, status updates, Twitter, viral marketing, word of mouth

30 Social Media Statistics

June 28, 2011 Molly White No comments

Here is a list of 30 Social Media Statistics from the last several months. These were orginally posted by Jeff Esposito, and then reposted to All Facebook.

5 percent of online shoppers note that social media influenced them to visit a retailer’s website (Foresee)
82 percent of 18-29 year olds utilize a form of social networking (Pew)
42 percent of American internet users over 18 actively use Wikipedia (Pew)
40% of corporate Twitter accounts engage in some kind of customer service (Burson-Marsteller)
In 2011 marketers will increase their social media usage by 75 percent (Brian Solis)
48 percent of consumers combine social media and search engines in their buying process (GroupM)
10.5 percent of CMOs say social marketing efforts are effectively integrated into their overall marketing strategy (MarketingProfs)
97 percent of the top US charities utilize Facebook in their marketing efforts (UMass Dartmouth)
Of all social networks, YouTube has the highest Net Promoter Score with 50 percent of users saying they would recommend it to a friend (MarketingProfs)
~140 Million Tweets are sent each day (Twitter)
24 percent of adults have posted a review of a product they have purchased (HubSpot)
41 percent of the companies report that there is no staff dedicated to social media (Useful Social Media)
89 percent of companies note that social media will become a useful cog in their marketing mix moving forward (Useful Social Media)
35 percent of small businesses utilize social media in their marketing mix (eMarketer)
Facebook expects to bring n $4.05 billion in ad revenues this year (eMarketer)
Facebook is the leading social network for nine out of 13 Asia-Pacific countries (Edelman)
One out of every six minutes spent online is on a social network (comScore)
73 percent of the US internet population visits Facebook each month (comScore)
62 percent of Facebook users between 35-54 years of age have liked a brand (eMarketer)
64 percent of Twitter users are female (Pew)
85 percent of LinkedIn users are Caucasian (Pew)
47 percent of journalists will use Twitter as a source for a story (Digital Journalism Study)
Less than 3 percent of micro businesses utilize Twitter (Vistaprint)
61.2 percent of Facebooking females list themselves as married less than a year, compared to 44.3 percent of males (AdAge)
The average media site integrated with Facebook has seen a 300 percent increase in referral traffic (Search Engine Land)
61 percent of Facebook users who have liked a brand note that they are more likely to purchase from that brand (AllFacebook)
96 percent of Americans use Facebook (Business Insider)
80 percent of social media marketers are using the platforms to increase brand awareness (eMarketer)
Only 8 percent of US internet users utilize Twitter despit despite having a 92 percent awareness level (Edison Research)
46 million Americans check their social media profiles daily (Edison Research)

Facebook, social media, Twitter blog, cross marketing, Facebook, Facebook Ads, fan page, insights, marketing, social, social media, social media manager, status updates, Twitter, viral marketing, word of mouth

Facebook Business Page vs. Personal Facebook Profile Pages

June 23, 2011 Molly White No comments

Yesterday, I attempted to write a blog listing all of the businesses in the Lutherville Timonium zip code that have a presence on Facebook, Foursquare or Twitter. It was a time consuming venture on it’s own, but with the added bonus of my two little girls interjecting every 5 minutes, it proved to be beyond my attention span and time limits for the day.

However, in the time I devoted to it, I came up with about 15 businesses and their listings. Of those businesses, THREE were misusing Facebook!! That’s 20%!! What were they doing wrong?

They were acting as a person on Facebook.

I can see where they made this mistake to begin with (because as a person you can actively solicit people to be your friend) and why they are continuing on this terrible path (because once you acquire all of these friends, what are the chances that every last one of them will like your new business page), but it kills me that they do so! To me, it is as big a faux pas as double dipping. There is a distinct reason that Facebook has created a separation between businesses and people. It’s very simple; receiving friend requests from businesses is more invasive than robo-dialing, direct mail, and spam combined.

That same reasoning is why there are limitations when acting as a business page on Facebook. Facebook allows businesses to comment on and interact with other businesses but unless a person has a completely public profile, a business can not comment on or interact with a personal profile on Facebook, except within the confines of their business page.

And speaking of completely public profiles, many businesses that are misusing personal pages, are misusing them to such an extent that much of the information that they would like to share with the public is kept hidden by Facebook’s privacy settings. That’s because people who don’t know the difference between a personal page and a business page, often don’t know about the control they can exert over their privacy settings (which btw, are set up mostly in favor of protecting people, in my opinion).

Aside from the reason stated above, an actual Facebook business page is far more appealing for businesses than a personal page because of the huge amount of customizations that are available. It’s true, a business can not go out and actively solicit people to like them, but you do have the ability to make your page as useful, if not more useful than your website.

You can add custom tabs to a business page that are just like pages on a web site. There are several free Facebook apps that allow you to set up a shopping cart on your Facebook page. Open Table has a free app that allows you to let people make reservations right on your page. And there are free Fan-gating apps that let you create a landing page directing people to Like your page in order to receive some fan only content/benefit.

To acquire new fans you can use Facebook advertising to solicit people to like your page, at a totally affordable price!

Oh and, as a person on Facebook, you are limited to 5,000 friends, because it’s reasonable to assume that no person has more than 5,000 actual friends. As a business, the sky’s the limit on who likes you!

Facebook, social media Facebook, Facebook Ads, fan page, marketing, personal, social, social media, social media manager

Behind the Curtains of Facebook Business Pages

June 20, 2011 Molly White No comments

The thing about social media sites is that they are all about showing the “Great and Powerful Oz”, in other words, they show the person behind the curtain. Who is it that is running or working for businesses that you like on Facebook or follow on Twitter, or whose blog you read?

Is it the business owner herself? Is it a random employee? A person in the marketing department or someone like me, a person outside of the organization who is hired to run the social media? And what’s the real difference?

If the person is doing his or her job correctly, the difference is nill. The voice of the business on social media sites should convey the same tone that has been delivered via their additional marketing efforts.

In the case of small businesses, many times, an owner simply doesn’t have the time to dedicate to the maintenance and development of social media outlets. I on the other hand, am on Facebook ALL day long. I read it from my phone when I’m not in front of my computer and I have the tab on my computer pinned in my Chrome browser.

To run a Facebook page effectively, one must not only update and communicate with their fans, but must also stay up to date an in tune with their vendors, competitors and community and what they are doing on Facebook. It’s good business sense to also go ahead and like those pages personally, as well as on behalf of the business.

For example I work for several businesses in the events and wedding industry. I am happy to say that I have been happily married for more than 7 years. I do however, follow a wide variety of wedding and event blogs, wedding vendors, bridal retailers and brands, and a handful of caterers, photographers, florists and other businesses associated with event planning as well as wedding sites and magazines. They are not only a source of information, but also of inspiration.

I also meet, email and speak with my clients regularly and have acquired a solid feel for the way they conduct themselves in their businesses. Because it is my job to act on their behalf when on Facebook, Twitter or blogging. While I may not be a traditional employee, I am in fact, part of the staff, for my clients. I even had the privilege of attending a client’s wedding this past Spring and was included in the company baseball outing just last week. Just a day’s work for this Social Media Manager

I run my own business, but I feel like I am part of each of my clients businesses as well. It’s the best of all worlds and I absolutely love what I do.

Courtesy of Business Insider

Facebook, social media blog, Facebook, fan page, marketing, social, social media, social media manager, Twitter

Want More Fans, Use Facebook Ads

June 7, 2011 Molly White No comments

I spend a lot of my time reading sites like AllFacebook, InsideFacebook, Social Media Examiner, Social Media Today, and Mari Smith. These sites post multiple items a day, every day of the week and their main focus is Facebook for Businesses. Search any one of them and you will find that they all recommend on some level or another, the use of Facebook Ads. As do I.

Ever notice them on the right hand side of Facebook? They’re little but they’re mighty powerful. Especially when you see them over and over again. Ever wonder why they seem to follow a pattern or seem perfectly suited to you?

It’s because the amount of granular information available to target your audience is Ahhhmazing!!!!

Any page with more than 1,000 fans!?! The possibilities are endless! Have competition in your business? Target their customers! Are you a small business whose customer is likely to be a fan of a Nationally recognized brand? Target that brand! And you can build your list with as many specifics as you’d like.

The icing on the cake is the ability to target friends of fans! Because if you see an ad on the right hand side of Facebook that says that your friend also likes that business, aren’t you more likely to like it too?

Targeting your audience is only half the battle. You also have to come up with an image that is 110×80 pixels big and a 135 character call to action. Not to mention that you then should create a custom landing tab on your Facebook page that is just for the ad. In the landing tab you need give people a reason to like your business. Because once you compel someone to click on your ad, you then need to make them click the like button.

Once you’ve done all that, you can select to run your campaign for a specific period of time or to just run it continuously. If you run it for a set period of time you get to select the budget for the duration of the campaign or set a daily budget. Yup, you spend what you want to spend, and Facebook even helps out by giving you a suggested price per click of the ad. In most cases it’s between 80 cents and $2. The suggested price per click means that that is the absolute most you would pay per click, not what every click will cost. The most expensive clicks occur during the highest traffic times on Facebook.

With your budget selected you’re ready to roll. Let the campaign begin and then watch what the Ad analytics tell you! You’ll be able to see the reach, clicks, impressions and success of your campaign and based upon this newly gained knowledge you can chose to tweak and change you ad at any time!

Want to try it? I’ll hold your hand through the whole process, it’s easy, I promise!

Facebook, social media Facebook, Facebook Ads, fan page, insights, marketing, social, social media

Ode to my iPhone

May 24, 2011 Molly White No comments

I’m more than in love with my iPhone, I’m fully addicted to it and couldn’t live without it. Why am I writing about it here? Because without it, I couldn’t do what I do, how I do it!

Here are my top 10 apps:

Facebook – Facebook, Inc.

Calendar

Twitter – Twitter, Inc.

foursquare – foursquare

Springpad – Spring Partners

Camera+ – tap tap tap

Instagram – Burbn, Inc.

Dropbox – Dropbox

Google Search – Google (docs)

The Facebook app lets me act as all of the pages that I admin, and not only post updates, but also post photos as those pages. This is huge for me!

Email is pretty self explanatory, I use it more than I use the phone, and have to remind myself that checking and responding to email while driving is not safe!!

Lucky for me, I’ve got lots of appointments these days, plus the schedules of my 2 girls to juggle, not to mention my social calendar (insert sarcasm here). Hence, the usefulness of the calendar app.

The Twitter app is my favorite of all the Twitter apps, I like it better than Hootsuite or Tweetdeck or any other Twitter app. And the bonus is that it it’s free. I can manage my own Twitter account, plus all of my clients accounts too, and get notified whenever someone mentions me or a client on Twitter. It’s great!

Foursquare, oh how I love to alert the general public to my whereabouts and exciting life (again with the sarcasm) But honestly, I lurve me some foursquare! I yearn to steal mayorships from my neighborhood foursquare nemesis (this is the first she’s hearing about this). I’m talking about you @RealtorMarney! Marney’s a real estate agent extraordinaire (she runs all her own social media and rocks at it BTW) and that woman is the mayor of my life here in Lutherville! And thanks to Foursquare, I’ve gotten free loot at Aveda, discounts at H&M, and discovered a delicious little lunch spot in a Towson Office building, Crush Cafe. It really is a nifty tool that can be used to discover new places and save money while doing it.

Springpad is my note taking, moleskine replacement, task master, recipe storer, go to for anything not handled by Google (docs) and dropbox. I can take meeting notes here, clip links, store recipes, wine labels, photos of articles, you name it, springpad can do it. And then I can tweet them, share them on facebook, and access them offline if need be. Springpad is magical.

And then there’s camera+, an app that makes the built in camera app look super lame. It takes awesome photos and let’s me edit them, in app, all before storing them to my photo album. I can also share photos to my personal facebook and twitter account right from the app. Thanks to this app, I no longer own a point and shoot camera. This and my DSLR are all I need for vacation, special events, and the day to day photos I like to take.

Combine Camera+ and Instagram and my love for sharing photos is taken to a whole other level! Not to mention that as much as I enjoy sharing photos, I enjoying view other people’s photos even more. Instagram is the perfect app to consume photo content on the go!

Dropbox and Google (docs) let’s me view and edit almost all of my files on the fly. I store everything between these two sites/apps and can set up shop on anyone’s computer for the most part. But used on the iphone, I can access anything, anytime. No computer, no problem!

BONUS 11th app: Google Voice – Google
Were it not for Google Voice, I’d have a much higher phone bill and no way to discern personal from professional incoming phone calls. I can call people from my computer, home phone or cell phone and it always appears to be coming from my business number, 410-775-6187. I have visual voicemail, at no extra charge. And can send texts from my phone or computer, for free. It’s easy to use and indispensable.

So at the end of the day, each of these apps impacts how I work on a daily basis. I don’t know how I did what I do before that glorious day in February when I chased down my UPS driver to retrieve my iphone. The phone I woke up at 3 in the morning to order and tracked it’s progress as it traveled from China. All of my anticipation and excitement have proved more than warranted. This phone let’s me do the best job I can for my clients.

Facebook, mobile, social location, Twitter Facebook, foursquare, iphone, mobile, Twitter

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