Tag Archive for social media manager

More New Facebook Insights

November 21, 2011 Molly White No comments
facebook insights main page

 

 

Facebook has altered their insights page once again and now show page owners even more information about who their fans are and how they engage with the page.

Once you click on the insights tab you now have: Likes, Reach, Talking About This and Check-ins.  The check-ins tab and talking about this tab only work when 30 people have talked about your business or checked in to your business in the last 30 days.

First up the general insights page which looks like this

 

These general insights let you see how many fans you have and how many friends those fans have, it also shows you how many people are talking about your page and what your reach is based on that.

The arrows show you how these numbers have changed since last week.

One thing to note is the purple dots, the bigger the dot, the more posting that took place over that period of time.  Consequently, the bigger the dot, generally speaking, the higher the blue line.  More posts mean more eyeballs, most of the time.  Of course, part of evaluating your analytics is finding the right amount of posting for your page.

Under this graph is a list of all of your posts with some information about their reach, virality, and the conversations they encouraged.

The part that’s new here is the virality number and this is the one that can help you refine your posting strategy. Interesting to note here, that just because a post has a large reach, does not mean that it is more likely to gain traction and get people talking.

 

The Likes and Reach tabs have not changed since they were rolled out a couple months ago.

What has changed are the last two tabs: People Talking About This and Check-Ins.

Page owners could always see this data about EVERYONE who liked their page, but what about the people who are doing the engaging and talking and sharing with and about the page?

And what about the people a page reaches but aren’t fans of the page? Now you can see who those people are too! What kind of potential customers and fans are out there? To whom could you target some Facebook ads in order to encourage them to like your page? Now you know!

And when those stories about your page are created by liking your content or page, commenting on your posts, sharing your content, and mentioning your page in a post of their own, what kind of response is the most popular and to what does it correspond in your content stream?

For example, I can see in my data set that people mentioned my page 3 times on November 2nd, which was a highpoint on the graph.  If I go back to the general insights page, I can see that on November 2nd I post 3 times, 2 of which were requests to vote for me for the Mobbies.  Those posts were then reshared by fans requesting that their friends vote for me too.  So now I know (as if I didn’t already) that my fans are awesome and respond well when I ask for help!

 

Finally, the Check-In’s data page. This will allow you to see demographic info about those that have checked into your business as well as info on how and when they checked in.

This is great for brick and mortar businesses.  You can now see which days are most popular to check-in and create marketing campaigns based on that timeline.

Overall, these insights have improved upon what was already a much improved product.

Take a look at yours and let me know what you learn about your fans that you didn’t know before.

 

 

 

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How to Navigate the *NEW* Facebook

September 22, 2011 Molly White 2 comments

 

I have heard complaint after complaint from friends in my newsfeed about the *New* Facebook. People don’t know how to work it or navigate through it. My sister lamented that the page of her employer, the page whose posts she most frequently shared, had disappeared from her newsfeed. And a long lost high school classmate with an infant daughter, posted for the first time in forever, with a simple plea for help.

I, on the other hand, think this new Facebook is beautiful and I was elated to see the changes coming soon: Timeline, deep music and tv integration, and the ability to share content without “liking” it!

And so I’m going to do my best to give my friends a walk through of the features currently available to us and to explain to everyone how to set it up to make it easy peasy lemon squeezy!  Hopefully you’ll love Facebook again after this!

First up, the left side of the page, there’s some new stuff over here and there’s a lot you can do to play with the order in which these items are listed.

 

I’ve got my important pages listed, as well as my new lists.  There are smart lists, which Facebook has created, and then there are lists that I made.  I made the *Friends* list, Facebook generated the rest.  See the little numbers in blue to the right of the list and page names?  Those indicate that the list or page has an update.

Updates can include, new posts, as well as comments and likes on posts on the list or page. I’ll show you how to control this further down.

On a side note, Facebook has recently diminished the amount of email you receive from them, choosing only to notify you via email of things they deem important.  For me this is great, I’m on Facebook all day so I prefer not getting email, but for many of my friends, this makes it difficult to interact and respond in a timely fashion.  To change this, go the Notifications section of your profile and tell Facebook what you want to be emailed about.

Back to the right column, you control what appears here and in what order it appears.  Simply hover your mouse to the left of the little icon and a blue pencil will appear:

Once you click on the pencil, you’ll see two options:

Rearrange lets you reorder the lists and pages in the column and the remove from favorites will remove the list from the top of this column.  Consequently, the pencil for the the groups, lists, pages, and apps sections further down the left side, will reveal an add to favorites button.

If you click on a list, the newsfeed for that list appears, as does a photo collage of those on the list, as well as suggestions of people for you to add to the list.  You can also add people to the list by typing the person’s name in the box below the collage or by clicking on the manage list button above the collage.

The manage list button will reveal the following choices:

Here you can control the updates for which you will be notified, merge one list with another, change this list name, delete it and control who is or is not on the list.

If you chose to add or remove friends from here, this box pops up:

You have several choices here, and can select people to whom you subscribe (in short, subscribing is a one way friendship, you see the persons PUBLIC updates, they see nothing from you), pages that you follow or your friends.  It’s quite simple once you start creating them.

For me, I’ve got my high school friends, my college friends, my family, my close friends, my friends, the subscriptions, friends and pages I have for work, and then the pages I follow for personal reasons.  It is SOOOO nice to be able to split everyone up.  AND if I’m on a list page and chose to post a status update, the default is to only share to that list.  It’s so nice to drill down and be able to check in on each group, or read work content on the quick!

And then we have the TICKER! I love the ticker, it indulges my short attention span and shares with me more info than I EVER saw on my newsfeed.  I even figured out who some of the people are that have unfriended me because they showed up on my ticker via some of my current Facebook friends interactions!

The ticker is the minutia of Facebook, and your newsfeed is now the important stuff.  And have you noticed how great the photos are in there now!

 

 

On your main newsfeed, you’ve got your ticker flowing away, and then the important stuff from all of your Facebook friends, pages, and subscriptions.  Click on that little arrow at the top right of each update and you’ve got a slew of options.

Do the same thing on a list and you can remove them from that list, as seen below.

As for you and your updates, to the left of the post button is the button that delegates to whom your update is shared.  There are tons of options from which to chose and it can change as often as you post.

 

While all of these changes seem big and scary and hard to navigate, in the end they actually make Facebook that much more personal and give you that much more control over what you’re sharing.

I set up my lists the other day, based mostly on what Facebook had already created for me and it took me about an hour to get it all how I wanted it.  I’m tweaking them as I use them too.  They even have a restricted list that lets you prevent people from seeing anything but the posts you make public.  This is handy for those friend requests you receive that you don’t want to decline because you don’t want to offend the person but whom you really don’t want to share all aspects of your life.  It’s also handy if you are using Facebook for work and personal use.  You can keep the two separate and enjoy both!

I hope this has been helpful for you, and if you have more questions please ask away!  I’m sure I’ve left something out!

 

 

 

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13 Mind-Bending Social Media Marketing Statistics

September 1, 2011 Molly White No comments

13 Mind-Bending Social Media Marketing Statistics

reprinted from Hubspot

1. 20 percent of searches on Google each day have NEVER been searched for before. (Source)

2. There are more than 3.5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, etc.) shared each week on Facebook. (Source)

3. 43 percent of all online consumers are social media fans or followers (Source)

4. 53 percent of people on Twitter recommend companies or their products in their tweets. (Source)

5. The average American internet user watches 30 minutes of video online per day. (Source)

6. 35 hours of video footage is uploaded to YouTube every minute. (Source)

7. 56 percent of LinkedIn’s 100 million users are outside of the United States. (Source)

8. Every day, 2,300 new Wikipedia articles are created, adding to its 17 million articles, with contributions from 91,000 active contributors. (Source)

9. 1.4 million new blog posts are created every day. (Source)

10. 200 million Facebook users access the service from a mobile device. (Source)

11. There are more than 5 billion photos on Flickr. (Source)

12. 45 million people view SlideShare presentations each month. (Source)

13. $3.08 billion will be spent to advertise on social networking sites in 2011, a 55 percent increase over 2010. (Source)

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Facebook for Business 101

August 20, 2011 Molly White No comments

 

Molly White Marketing Facebook Business Page

I’m teaching a class on Facebook for Business today so I thought it might be nice to turn my slides and presentation into a blog post to turn this blog post into my class.

Included in this post will be my slides and a basic outline of the class,This post will be what I use to teach my class but what you’ll miss is my witty repartee and any knowledge nuggets attained by said repartee and any ensuing questions from what I hope to be, my very active class members!

This is an intro, so let’s start with the Facebook Basics:

  1. Log on to your personal Facebook account
  2. Type in http://www.Facebook.com/PAGES
  3. Click on the “Create Page” button

 

Now comes the fun part!  Chose the type of business your page will represent

 

For the sake of this class, I’m choosing to set up a Local Business or Place

 

 

Fill in the information completely, and check off the box of terms and agreements. Then click on the get started button.

 

Voila! You’ve got a Facebook Business Page!! Facebook has provided you a list of things to do now that you’ve got a business page.

 

 

IGNORE THEM ALL for now!!!  Before you go sharing the page, importing contacts and posting status updates, you need to fill in the blanks as completely as possible, which means you have to go behind the scenes!

Click on those tiny little words at the top of your page, just under the name of your page:edit info And thus the Content Management System or CMS of Facebook Business Pages is revealed.

 

 

Just look at all of the information you can fill out to your heart’s content!  And please, by all means, fill it ALL out!  This is the stuff that counts for SEO!!!

  • Give detailed and specific information wherever possible.
  • The boxes are different based upon the page that you have chosen to set up
  • There will always be an About section.  You will have less than 140 characters to explain your business
  • Use some of those characters to type in your businesses ENTIRE URL
  • Use keywords in the description section, providing your URL once again
  • fill out email and web address again

Now let’s look at Your Settings:

 

Your Settings determines how you post on the page and if you receive notifications via email.  As long as the top box is checked, you will always act as the page when on the page.  If you uncheck it than you can post on the page as yourself.  This can be handy if you’d like to help drive some conversation on a post.

If the second box is checked, that means you will get an email every time someone comments on a post or posts on your page.  This is incredibly helpful for page management.  If someone reaches out to your business via Facebook, a speedy response is appreciated and will help encourage more use of your business page.

 

Next on the left side of the page is Manage Permissions.

 

Manage Permissions is where you determine where non-fans land when they go to your page, what fans are allowed to post on your wall, and what shows on the page.  Here you can also keep the page unpublished while you work on creating it.  And set up a list of words to block on the page.  You can chose to prevent people from talking about your competition this way.

 

After Manage Permissions comes Profile Photo.  It’s rather self explanatory, upload a photo that represents your business.  What you should know is that your picture is allotted 180 x 540 pixels of space so you should get creative and use that space to the best of your abilities!  Keeping in mind that from the 180 x 540 pixel image, Facebook will pull a little 50 x 50 avatar of your business for use in the newsfeed.

Moving down the left side we come to the Featured setting

 

Facebook Business Pages are all about making a connection with people.  And what better way  to make a connection than to show them who’s behind the page! This is how you do it!  Don’t be shy, show yourself!

We’re going to quickly glance over Resources and Manage Admins. Both are fairly straightforward.

You can add and delete admins in the Manage Admins section.  The caveat is that you can only add people with whom you are Facebook Friends. If you’d like to not establish a friendship with someone whom you’d like to make an admin of your page, than they simply have to like the page and you can select them from the list of people who like your business.

Resources is one stop shopping for ways to promote your page.  You can:

  • upload a CSV file of up to 5,000 contacts
  • link your Facebook page to your twitter account
  • Advertise on Facebook
  • obtain code to install social plugin’s on your website
  • send an update to fans – this shows up in their Facebook inbox
  • And read some tips and tricks that Facebook has written

Now onto the meat of the back end of Facebook Pages and what makes them like a mini website!  Facebook Apps

 

Certain Facebook Apps come preloaded, they’re the tabs on the left hand column of your Facebook Business Page and include Photos, Notes, Events, Links and Video.  These auto-populate with their appropriate page updates.

If you’d like to get a little fancier you can add Discussions, which is another Facebook created app.

But the fun pages are the ones you create yourself or personalize in some way to really show off what your business is about.

To install any of these apps, scroll the down the page until you see the add to my page button under their profile picture, select the page on which you’d like the app installed, and it will appear on your page ready for you to take action!

My favorites are:

Static HTML:iframe Tabs – I use this app the most of all because it is like a blank canvas! It’s already programmed to fan-gate or like-gate the page so you don’t need to know FBML.

Fan-gating and like-gating, means that fans see one image while non fans see another. Uses for Fan-Gating include, contest, coupons, and other incentives.  ”Like our page and get XXX” Like our page to enter to win XXX”.

You don’t have to fan-gate with this app, but it’s nice to know that you can.  To use this app you need to have some knowledge of basic html.  The two most common ones to know are

  • how to make an image appear <img src”http://www.yourimagelinkhere.com”>
  • how to make a link work <a href=”http://www.yourlinkhere.com”>Words You want to appear in blue with an underline</a>
  • to make an image link simply combine this to form this :<a href=”http://yourlinkhere.com><img src=”http://www.yourimagelinkhere.com></a>
  • when all else fails Google it!

There is a caveat to all of this: You must host your own image! Two great FREE services for this are Photobucket and Dropbox. Now image hosting seems complicated but it’s not.

With Dropbox, you simply install dropbox on your computer, store your image in the Public file in dropbox and select to copy the public URL, then just paste that sucker into your code.

With Photobucket, you upload your image to Photobucket and select to copy the public URL, then just paste that sucker into your code!

OK back to other great apps for your page, along the same lines as Static HTML: iframe tabs is HyperArts TabPress app. Same concept, same free awesomeness!

For anyone who is looking to sell a product or service with a fixed price, I am head over heels in love with Payvment. It’s robust, free, and easy to use.  All you need is a paypal account and the time to upload images, descriptions, and shopping details.  You can even offer discounts to fans and Payvment will calculate them for you.

I’ll be honest, with these three apps you can do anything that any other app is offering.

I use Google Forms or JotForm to create contest entry forms, I add my MailChimp email widget to these apps and I create basic graphics using a free program called Inkscape.

***The most important thing to remember when designing these pages is that you only have 520 pixels of width to work with.***

Once these apps are installed on your page and you’ve customized them, you need to do 3 things.

  1. On the Apps management page select edit settings and type in the name you would like to appear on the left side of your page.

2.  Go into the Manage Permissions section and select your newly named page as the default landing tab so all the new fans see your handy work and are able to take advantage of your fan-gated offer!

3.  Select  in the upper right corner and then click on edit under the list of apps that appears under your profile picture.  Move your newly created app as close to the top of the list as you can.  Wall, Info and Photos can not be moved.

Ok that’s it, your page is now set up and you can go back to that first getting started page and do all of those things that Facebook suggests.  You’re off and running!

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Facebook is My Happy Place

July 19, 2011 Molly White No comments
facebook heart


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:

  1. Create a personal account using a new email address, and don’t give out the address.
  2. Use that account to create a business page for the business.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.

 

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Google+ Invites

July 11, 2011 Molly White 6 comments
google+

I finally scored an invitation to Google+ late last week. I’ve checked it out, made some circles, read updates and reports; and read every major tech/social media person’s reviews, including Ben Parr at Mashable, MG Seigler at TechCrunch, and of course, Robert Scoble’s review. I’ve watched people dole out invites and had them suddenly cut off.  And I’ve seen my twitter stream, and now google+ stream filled with commentary on the system.

 

My first reaction to the site was that it’s just like Facebook, but doesn’t have the user base.

 

Now, several days in, I’ve been given the ability to invite people into the inner sanctum of Google+.  I posted a notice on my personal Facebook profile, my business page, and my twitter account, about an hour ago.  There haven’t been any takers on my twitter account or business page, but I’ve had 4 people that are close friends or family members, request an invite.

 

First was my sister, but she has no idea what it is.

Then sure enough 3 additional people, whom I wouldn’t consider to be super into technology or social media, posted under the update or sent me a message requesting an invite.

 

Two things strike me here, 1) the irony of using Facebook to recruit people over to Google+ and 2) word has gotten out on the street about Google+ (aside, apparently, from my sister).

Currently, my review remains the same: seems just like Facebook, only on Google.  I do however, think that Facebook could take some hints from the ease with which you can create and add people to your circles.  Hint, Hint Facebook!

This is more traction than Buzz and Wave had to my recollection.  The true test will be in how these people use Google+.  Will they just play with it or will they adopt into the system and really use it?  Have you gotten your invitation yet? If not, comment here with your gmail adress and I’ll send one your way!  What do you think about Google+?

 

 

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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

 

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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)Staff Members Dedicated to Social Media
  • 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)
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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!

 

 

 

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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

 

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