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Optimizing Your Business Facebook Page for Maximum Hits and Return Visits – A SPN Exclusive Article

By Michelle Crossley in Featured

With a user base of more than 750 million, Facebook is a viable social media marketing platform which cannot be ignored. Every business has potential customers on Facebook. So, to increase your brand presence, you need to optimize your business Facebook page and generate traffic for more business. To implement your Facebook business strategy effectively, you need to follow a few regulations.

Using Targeted Keywords to Optimize Your Facebook Page

Optimizing your page for keywords is the first step to raise your brand visibility. Use keywords which are sure to draw in customers who may not know the brand name but need your product. In other words, keywords need to be essentially product based. Keep the company name as a keyword too so that those who search the brand name can get to your page easily.

Making Use of Vanity URLs

Vanity URLs on Facebook are the representation of the company name and brand. Build your URL using your brand name as a recognizing factor and for ease in visitors typing it in the browser.

Professional and Well-Thought Out Profile with Relevant Details

A well made profile introduces prospective customers to your brand, the kind of products you are selling and lets them know how they can benefit from it. Having a proper profile gives a professional look to your business and sends out the message that you care about your customers. Include a formal picture too, which represents your company or your product. However, be careful not to reveal details, which may compromise security.

Baiting visitors With On-Page Discussions

Start discussion topics on your page which will get visitors and members involved. Once people start “Liking” your page, you will immediately start getting more visitors to your Facebook page. Allow people to leave a business signature so as to get more exposure.

Creating an Interesting Page

Make your page stand out by customizing it to meet the business requirements of your visitors. Use plenty of images that make your page fun and leave an impression on visitors.

Contest and Events

Create events and contests, which require member participation and keep the page alive. Active pages get more traffic and your brand name gets more recognition.

Attracting Visitors With Freebies and Special Offers

Sales, special offers and deals, as well as freebies are always popular. Let your visitors know that you are trying to give them the best possible deal.

Preference to Video Over Texts

Multimedia integration is very good in capturing visitors’ attention. Remember – videos are more effective than plain text any day.

Using Facebook Tabs to Your Advantage

Facebook tabs can be customized to make them unique and represent your business. Use tabs to make your page stand out.

Using the Facebook Sidebar

The Facebook side bar is the best place to feature testimonials, newsletters and other trivia regarding your company. You can also provide links on the sidebar that direct visitors to the main website.

Poll Section

Visitors to the site will want to air their views and opinions. Provide a poll section where they are free to express themselves.

Once your Facebook page is started, remember to post regularly in order to get public interest going. Social media has a deep impact on marketing and you need to utilize it to the maximum level. Active pages get more visitors and help in spreading the brand name. Use the page to build your brand and watch your business soar.

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Article by Michelle Crossley. Unique, custom vector logo design to build your brand for print and web or ONE solution for all your web, marketing and design needs, we have it all. Our strong design and marketing background paired with website development skills offers a unique pairing that gives your projects a unique edge. So relax and focus on what you do best – and we will too! Visit studio 1c

Social Networks and Privacy: Learning From Facebook’s Mistakes

By William Galkin in Featured

Observers of Internet trends often pronounce that privacy is a fiction and that it is futile to try to reclaim it. Whether that perspective is correct or not does not matter when faced with a Complaint issued by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The Facebook Complaint and Consent Order recently issued by the FTC provides valuable lessons for how to stay out of the FTC’s crosshairs. Internet attorneys, businesses, consultants and advisors should study what the FTC views as deceptive in order to make necessary adjustments to business plans and operations.

In the U.S., there is no federal law that requires a website to have a privacy policy. However, California requires any website that collects personally identifiable information from California residents to have a privacy policy. Therefore, in practice, based upon the California law, most websites would be required to have a privacy policy. As far as the FTC is concerned (which operates on the federal level), there is no absolute requirement to have a privacy policy, but if a website does have a privacy policy, failure to comply with the policy will be considered a deceptive practice in violation of the FTC Act. As will be explored below, the FTC is not shy at splitting hairs, in search of deceptive practice claims.

Below is a discussion of some of the more significant and relevant claims of deceptive practices alleged by the FTC Complaint. It should be noted that in the FTC Consent, Facebook denied all allegations.

1. Facebook privacy pages offered options to restrict profile information to “Only Friend” or “Friends of Friends”. However, even when such options were selected, Facebook often still provided profile information to an application that a Friend was using on their Facebook page. Such information included a user’s birthday, hometown, activities, interests, status updates, marital status, education (e.g., schools attended), place of employment, photos, and videos. Even though Facebook allowed users to restrict this access through other pages, Facebook nevertheless represented, according to the FTC, either expressly or by implication, that access could be limited to “Friends” or “Friends of Friends” on the Profile Privacy Page, and did not indicate that further actions would be required to restrict access to applications of friends.

LESSON: As seen by the above claim, a disconnect between the Privacy Policy and the technical personnel implementing strategies can result in a claim by the FTC for deceptive practices. Furthermore, statements in a Privacy Policy must be vetted to verify that they do not claim, or appear to claim, a higher level of privacy than is actually provided.

2. In November, 2009, Facebook changed its privacy policy to designate certain user information as “publicly available” which change applied retroactively to information provided by users prior to the change. For instance, many users selected privacy settings to (i) restrict profile information from applications used by a Friend, (ii) restrict their Friends List, and (iii) restrict access to profile pictures and pages from users using the “search” function . To implement the privacy changes, Facebook required each user to click through a multi-page notice, known as the “Privacy Wizard.” According to the FTC, the Privacy Wizard did not disclose adequately that users no longer could restrict access to the newly-designated publicly available information via their profile privacy settings or that their existing choices to restrict access to such information via these settings would be overridden.

The FTC alleged that the Privacy Wizard, either explicitly or by implication, indicated that users would have “more control” over their privacy settings, above the prior settings. Which the FTC claimed was not the case. Facebook did not adequately explain that the new changes overrode prior settings as to name, profile picture, gender, friend list, pages, or networks. The FTC claimed that Facebook’s failure to adequately disclose these facts, in light of the representations made, constituted a deceptive act or practice.

LESSON: Changes made retroactively to prior privacy settings without informed consent, amounts to an unfair act or practice. The FTC requires that (i) material changes to a Privacy Policy be conspicuously disclosed, (ii) users affirmatively opt-in to material changes that affect personally identifiable information previously collected, and (iii) material changes to Privacy Policies be explained clearly and truthfully. As a note, the simplest way to obtain affirmative consent is the next time a user comes to the website, he or she is directed to an explanatory process and given the option to consent to the new changes.

3. The FTC Complaint states numerous examples of statements from Facebook that even though non-identifiable information is shared with advertisers so that they can provide advertisements targeted to the particular user, personally-identifying information is never provided to an advertiser without prior consent of the user. However, the FTC noted that if ads were clicked, then Facebook would provide to the advertiser a unique ID that Facebook assigns to each user. Apparently, advertisers could use the ID to identify the person. Then they could match criteria that they had selected for serving ads to that person. (e.g., if the ad targeted 23-year-old men who were “Interested In” men and “liked” a prescription drug, the advertiser could ascribe these traits to a specific user), plus the date, time and ad visited. Over time additional traits could be identified.

LESSON: This Claim is the easiest to understand and comply with. Personally identifiable information can only be disclosed as set forth in a Privacy Policy or in a manner otherwise consented to by the user.

BOTTOM LINE: Privacy Policies must be carefully drafted, and be clear and accurate. Management and technical personnel should review and confirm the contents of the Privacy Policy. Privacy Policies should be regularly reviewed to verify that procedural or technical changes are reflected in the Privacy Policy. Material changes to a Privacy Policy that affect previously collected personal user information require affirmative consent from the users. As a result of the FTC Consent, Facebook is now subject to detailed scrutiny and reporting for the next 20 years. It’s important to keep up with changing Internet laws.

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William Galkin, Esq. is an Internet lawyer who has dedicated his legal practice to representing Internet, website, e-commerce, computer technology and new media businesses in the U.S. and around the world. To learn more about agreements needed by websites go to http://www.galkinlaw.com/services.

Four Social Media Marketing Myths

By Julie Ann Ross in Featured

Social media marketing has many myths and untruths surrounding it, usually spread by people who have no knowledge whatsoever of social media marketing and how it works. These are some of the most common myths that abound, and some possible responses to use when faced with them.

The Company’s Customers Do Not Use Social Media

This is a common myth, and one that continues to astonish a lot of social media marketing professionals. Some companies do not use social media at all, yet they profess to have the knowledge of their customers’ social media habits. The best way to find out if customers are on a social network is to join it and upload the customer email list. If no one is truly on there, the company can avoid it and never use it again. But if at least 20% of the list is on the network, the company should use that network and engage in social media marketing.

People Might Say Bad Things About The Company

People are saying bad things about the company already. The only difference is that by not being on social media, the company cannot know how big the problem is. Social media marketing professionals can recite case study after case study about companies that were caught completely unaware about a problem on social media for weeks or months, until the mainstream media called to ask about it. The only way to see if people are saying bad things on social media is to be on social media.

Social Media Is Not Mainstream

There are 170 million Facebook users in the United States – nearly half the population. Very few things have that level of participation, except television, radio, and newspapers (and newspapers are dwindling). By ignoring a social media marketing opportunity like Facebook because of the mistaken belief that it is not mainstream, companies are ignoring a large part of their target market.

Of the 81 million Gen Yers in this country, 96% of them are on a social network of some kind. In fact, many of them do what they can to avoid mainstream advertising, by recording TV shows and skipping the commercials. However, they can be reached via social media marketing methods, like Facebook ads. Furthermore, social media marketing professionals can also specifically target their ads to Facebook users, based on their age, sex, relationship or job status, and even geography. Companies can reach women in their 50s who live in Florida, or single men who are between 18 and 24, living in a large city. Rarely, can mainstream media achieve such targeted results.

Social Media Results Cannot Be Measured

Actually, the advantage social media marketing has over mainstream marketing is that it can be easily measured with different social media monitoring tools. Not only can these analytical tools measure where something is being said about a company, it can measure the sentiment of the message, to see if it is positive, neutral, or negative.

Website analytics can even determine how many people arrive at a website, what steps they followed to get there, what pages they visited while they were at the website, and even if they made a purchase. This means that not only can social media marketing pros monitor the traffic to a particular website, they can determine what online mediums are having an impact on sales. Mainstream advertising cannot do that.

Internet marketing is not a new field – it is more than 20 years old – but there are still plenty of myths that surround it. And until these myths are disproved and social media marketing joins traditional marketing as an accepted and effective marketing channel, social media marketing pros will continue to fight this battle on a daily basis.

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Article by Julie Ann Ross. With 20 years in marketing, advertising and 10 years in internet marketing, Rostin Ventures has refined video seo practices for distribution in social media. http://www.rostinventures.com offers video seo, social media marketing and online reputation management services that are affordable and drive search engine ranking through Social Media Optimization, Online Reputation Management, Social Marketing and web 2.0 communities and resources.

Are You Ready For Facebook Frictionless Sharing? – A SPN Exclusive Article

By Donna Anderson in Featured

If you’re still evaluating the merits of putting a Facebook Share button on your site, it’s time to get off the fence. And make sure you come down on the right side. Oh, and while you’re at it, you might as well just start tearing the whole fence down.

Right this minute there are more than 5 billion people who are using mobile devices. There are 2 billion, at any one time, communicating on the Internet. And Facebook alone has a membership of more than 750 million users. No man is an island, and no blog can survive without connections.

Sometime within the next few days Facebook is going to introduce Frictionless Sharing. Maybe it’s already happened in your neck of the woods. If not, fear not. It’s on the way. But the big question isn’t when. The big question is, will you be ready?

Frictionless sharing is going to be powerful. When a visitor comes to your blog or website, if they’ve enabled access, Facebook will automatically post your content on that user’s wall. No more clicking the Like button. No more copying and pasting links. He visits your site and it shows up on his wall.

Sound a little far-fetched? Only if you haven’t been paying attention. Start reading some of the tech blogs. Sound a little scary? Like maybe Big Brother is watching over your shoulder? Maybe so. But in a good way. If you use it to your advantage. Don’t think people will go for it? Think again.

6 Essential Social Media Marketing Tips

By Brent McCoy in Featured

When you go about marketing your online business through social media, there are a few basic guidelines you should aim to follow. These can be applied to forming connections in social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter, as well as in social bookmarking services like Digg, StumbleUpon or Reddit – although, perhaps to a slightly lesser extent.

Being a success through social media is all about leveraging connections, and giving in to the fact that no website is an island. If you are completely self-absorbed and only socialize with others for your own benefit, then you will have a hard time building a loyal following. These next few tips will help get you moving in the right direction, so you can grow your network much faster by using social media.

1. Get To Know The Culture: Before you get too trigger-happy and start sending friend requests or following people all over the place, get comfortable with how people interact in your chosen network. Find out what people respond to and get a sense of the language and etiquette people use when communicating with each other. Generally people will sense a spammer from a mile away, and most often it’s because spammers don’t interact in the same way as normal people do (or most times, not at all). If you want to avoid looking like a spammer, then learn to follow this communication etiquette.

2. Don’t Grow Your Network Too Fast: Another thing that could make you look rather bad is attempting to grow your friend or follower count too quickly. Having 10 followers when you follow about 500 will make people think twice about what you’re on the site for, and they probably won’t want to know you. If you grow your friend count at a more natural rate then it’ll look a lot better, and you’ll get many more people interested in connecting with you in the long run. Also, another key to being successful with social media is having a good quality following – not just quantity. Having 50 friends that you’ve taken the time to become closely acquainted with (and turn into loyal followers) is better than a few hundred that only serve to clog up your list.

3. Show Interest In Others: One way you can grow your network really quickly is to simply show that you’re interested in what others are doing – not by sending out a stock email, but by reading a person’s profile, visiting their website and sending them a personalized message to show that you care about their ambitions. This will get the majority of people you send requests to accepting them, or people you follow to follow you back – hence, avoiding too much of a hit-and-miss approach for growing your network.

4. Respond To Comments: If someone writes on your wall, or mentions you in a tweet, take the time to write back to them. This reassures people that there is an actual person sitting behind your account, and helps grow the trust that followers have in you. Obviously it can become a little difficult to keep up with everyone once your network gets really big, but in the initial stages you should try to do what you can to make each of your followers feel extra special.

5. Share Content From Other People: Re-tweeting or sharing content that other people post can do a lot to increase the trust and interest that your followers have in you. First, it indicates you are on the site to participate as a normal person would, and are not just there to send people to your own web links. Any relevant content you share adds value to those you share it with, and most of the time they will love you for it as much as if you had created the content yourself. Secondly, it hints to your followers that if any of them created a quality piece of content, then there’s a chance that you might take the time to share that as well.

6. Learn From Others: If you are still unsure about what you should be doing to succeed in social media, then one of the best things you can do is take a look at those who are already successful to see how they do it. Visit the people in your niche who have loads of friends or followers and watch how they interact with their network. Get to know the various techniques they use and you’re likely to find a way you can use them to grow your own following as well.

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Article by Brent McCoy. Millionaire Studio is an online entrepreneurship blog that features articles on online business, blogging, marketing and social media: http://millionairestudio.com/

Nine Steps to Social Networking Success

By Wayne English in Featured

Social Networking has taken the world of business by storm. Properly used, it can establish you as an expert in your field, keep you in-touch with customers, sell your products, and market your business or organization. It is an around-the-clock marketing machine that never sleeps.

In our seminars, we are asked how to get started using it. While that is a simple question, it requires detailed understanding of the company, knowledge of business goals, and much more information as well. So, to provide people with meaningful assistance we developed these steps. Be advised that they do not provide answers, but lead you to asking the right questions.

Why? Pertinent questions that apply to your business and situation only are invaluable. And those questions, my friend, are far more valuable to you than their answers. There are people, books, consultants, aplenty to give you answers, but if you don’t answer the right questions, where are you? By developing the high quality questions that apply to your business, you will create a social networking campaign that is customized to your specific needs. To be successful, that is essential because your customers, their needs, your employees, your very business is unique. This is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor.

So, treat these steps as guidelines. Reorder them, combine them, delete any that you care to, but please read them all. Number nine you will find particularly interesting as it combines the online world and the offline world. Social networking has been around for hundreds of years. Don’t think that it only takes place from your keyboard. Nothing could be further from the truth.

5 Amazing Tips For Successful Facebook Ads

By Wolf Krammell in Featured

Facebook ads are one of the most popular and inexpensive ways to promote a small business online. According to research from BIA/Kelsey LCM, 48 percent of SMBs (small and medium businesses) are using Facebook for advertising or promoting their business. Forty percent said they have a Facebook page just for their business.

1. Know Your Goals and Plan Around Them

The first step is understanding what you want accomplish. Some goals could include looking to build awareness of your company or brand, and driving traffic to your web site. Promoting a specific event or generating sales are other common goals.

To build awareness and grow your fan base (getting people to “Like” your page), there are standard marketplace ads. The ads point to your Facebook Page and allow users to “like” your page, using the Like link right in the ad. You also could try a “Page Like” sponsored story, where the ad shows friends who have liked your Page.

You can even target people who are friends with people who already “like” your Page, which creates a social context, that makes people much more likely to remember the ad’s content.

When you want to promote a particular post from your page, such as a special offer or important news, you can also use “Page Post” sponsored stories to convert your post into a News Feed item.

Sponsored Stories is one of Facebook’s newest marketing tools which promotes word-of-mouth recommendations about your business that are happening in the News Feed. You can sponsor stories about people checking in to your business or “liking” your Page.

Measure success by social media metrics. Click-through rate (CTR) is an important metric to track, but since the average CTR for Facebook ads is only about 0.05%, which is half the industry standard of 0.1%, set goals instead to increase comments, Likes, impressions and active users. Facebook has hundreds of reports you can use to analyze results – make use of them for maximum results.

2. Targeting with Your Ads

When placing your Facebook ad, the form makes it very easy to select the demographic profile of your target audience. It has the added feature of targeting very specific audiences. Here, less is more.

Better results are achieved by having less very targeted people, rather than having large numbers of people who are not interested. Gaining smaller but very specific target audiences, even at the risk of reducing the size of your audience, can be more effective.

Let’s say you want to promote an event at your business. It would be more effective to target people who are already fans of your page, who may be more likely to respond to a a local offer. Besides targeting people by location, you may want to also use names of popular local
businesses, colleges and clubs in the ad manager to find the people that don’t put their city and zip code in their profiles.

3. Choose Text and Images That Grab Attention

When designing your ad, you have up to 135 characters, but some of the most effective ads don’t use the whole character limit. Use small and concise ads that speaks directly to the audience you will reach. Special offers or unique features that differentiate you from the
competition, are also effective. Facebook suggests using your company name in the ad title or somewhere in the body of the ad. A simple line can be the biggest draw. It can be in the form of asking a question or making a bold or odd statement. Remember to include something that encourages users to click on your ad and explains to the user exactly what you expect them to do when they reach your landing
page.

An image that will draw a person’s attention to your ad is recommended. Logos in this case, may not be the best way to go. Since the photos are small, use something unusual or a face shot of people. Smiling women tend to generate a high click rate. Experts recommend trying natural photos with colors that contrast with the blue color scheme of Facebook, such as red, yellow and orange.

4. Use and Measure Multiple Ads

Create multiple versions of your ad and test them to see which ad gets the best response. Once an ad has been created, you have the option to “Create a Similar Ad”, via the Facebook interface, and put in a new picture or text.

Experts recommend creating four different ads for the same campaign. Run each ad for a day or two and then check your ad statistics on Facebook to see which did best. You can then create a new ad that is similar to your ad that performed the best, with a few minor changes to see if it improves the ad’s performance. Since these ads rotate constantly, keep changing the ads so that your specific target audience doesn’t get disinterested.

Also, take top-performing ads and create new ad groups with related ad copy and pictures. This will lower your costs because your ad group has a higher CTR (Click Through Rate).

Facebook has hundreds of reports available, and it is wise to make use of them.

5. Be Ready To Get the Most Out of Your Traffic

Keep your Facebook Wall fresh and updated. Stale content, like the last Wall update was weeks or months ago, will make people lose interest. Give them a reward for visiting so they keep coming back.

Most people don’t click through to your Facebook page; they click ‘like’ right in the ad. Have fresh status updates or special offers or events available that follow up on the content in your ads, and get people to keep coming back.

The click you get is not the end result, it’s the beginning of presenting your campaign to your audience. When someone likes your page, you now have their consent to talk and update them over and over. Boundless opportunities can result by keeping them interested with
fresh content, special offers, coupons and events, on an ongoing basis.

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Pump Up Your Website is a leader in the field of search, social media and email marketing. We’re also very good at web design, Internet development and ecommerce. We use tools like WordPress Blogs, Facebook and Twitter to make your business successful. Visit us at
http://pumpupyourwebsite.com or follow us at http://twitter.com/#!/pumpup . Receive a Free eBook – “Online Marketing Insider Secrets Revealed”.

How to Miss the Boat and Get Nothing Out of LinkedIn as a Social Media Platform

By Debralee in Featured

Guest Post by Karl Walinskas

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LinkedIn is a rapidly growing social media platform that caters more directly to business people than do Facebook or Twitter; particularly, business-to-business (B2B) opportunities. You probably know that already. Most of those folks are looking to succeed with LinkedIn marketing and generate new leads, business, or career opportunities. What you may not know is how profoundly you can fail on LinkedIn as a super-busy entrepreneur or small business owner. It’s easy! Just follow these 10 easy steps.

1. Don’t fill in your Profile Summary section
This is critical to failure on LinkedIn. Many people want to come up in People searches, but not a maverick like you. Leave that Summary section blank since it is the primary area that the LinkedIn search, and Google for that matter, index to learn about your value. Who needs it? Anonymity rules!

2. Limit how many people can see you and contact you
People can be downright annoying, so keep your settings such that you’ll minimize contact with them. Go to your privacy controls on the Settings tab and select the most minimalizing restrictions, like turning off your activity broadcasts (you’re not doing them anyway!), making sure only you can see your activity and networks, and ensuring that you snoop other profiles incognito. Victory is yours.

3. Put your current job only
Reality says that no one is concerned about your past work history anyway, so only post your current job. Remember the KISS principle, so keep it simple and short and avoid using redundant phrases that these SEO types call ‘keywords’. By posting only one job, you won’t have to worry about having to mess around with the boring writing of keywords in your former positions either.

4. Don’t post a photo
Photos are for supermodels. As a programmer, consultant or other business pro your work speaks for itself and your face ain’t your money-maker, so screw the personal comfort level that humans since date of birth seem to feel when they see a real person’s face behind the computer lingo. This is business, not warm and fuzzy socialization!

5. Avoid References
These are faked and everybody knows it, so why bother. Who cares if LinkedIn references actually hyperlink back to the referrer for easy verification of who’s doing the talking? If I ask other business schmos for references, they’ll just want something back from me, and who has the time?

6. Be Picky About Connections
Hold your connections close to your vest and only have that handful of network contacts that you currently do business with, that way you can call on any of them with a request and not feel guilty about it. What good can a large number of contacts do for you anyway, they’ll just bug you for their little pet projects you have no interest in whatsoever. It’s not as if LinkedIn works like Google and those contacts are like backlinks that increase your search relevance to get on page 1 when your keywords are—Ouch! No keywords written into our profiles in an easy to understand manner.

7. Don’t show your work
LinkedIn offers Applications for you to post more stuff about you, supposedly to distinguish you from other professionals. The “theory” is that when people get to your profile, you stand apart by already demonstrating what you do well via slide presentations, case studies, video (ah-hem!) and the like. Balderdash! Just something else to maintain. Why put something up that only 10 or 20 people might read or look at.

8. Groups are for wussies
Subject matter interest groups abound on LinkedIn, from job search groups to industry verticals. Who has the time to listen to a few “experts” spout off about one topic or another and post links to their blogs to generate conversations. Besides, why should I share my valuable knowledge about my industry for FREE? I’m not crazy! I get paid to offer expert commentary. Damn straight!

9. Once and done it
The beauty of a LinkedIn profile or any website is that once you get it ‘live’, you are done with it forever. The more you change it the more you can mess up your search engine rankings, right? That is the perfect slogan for LinkedIn failure. Don’t you wish you thought of it? Changing stuff around takes a lot of time to boot. Post the darn thing and be done with it.

10. SPAM your contact list with mail
If you’ve got a few contacts, you can make it even fewer by making frequent request or pitches to buy your product or service or go to your website. Contacts will drop you faster than if you tried to delete them, because they’ll do it in mass, so send out a few overly smarmy emails every week and your LinkedIn failure will be complete.

The reality is, you’re not trying to fail on LinkedIn. You want to succeed as well and generate more Linkedin business leads and use LinkedIn as a bona fide marketing took for your site, but maybe you just don’t know how. If you’re like a lot of small business owners, however, and can look yourself in the mirror and see any of the Top 10 LinkedIn Failure Methods listed above in your talk or actions, perhaps it’s time to question assumptions and change your approach. It’s opposite day and this ain’t Seinfeld, so take a look at what NOT to do, and do something else and then notice your LinkedIn statistics rise and your phone start to ringing.

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If you actually want to SUCCEED on LinkedIn, check out LinkedIn Profile Optimization help by Smart Company Growth, a company owned and operated by Karl Walinskas to provide unique lead generation tools to white collar professionals. He’s authored Getting Connected Through Exceptional Leadership and many, many articles published in print and online.

“U” Turn Your Business Social Media Efforts

By John Casey in Featured

Let Uniqueness, Users and Usefulness PR Your Online Campaigns

“Let’s hire an intern or recent college grad to do our social media!”

For small and medium sized businesses this seems like a smart and cost-effective idea, mainly because many believe that social media is a necessary evil that the younger crowd “gets.” But, this plan goes in the wrong direction since social media is rapidly becoming the number one PR tool for businesses, and as such, requires a smart and effective PR strategy that focuses on the uniqueness, users and usefulness of the company.

The Case of “Love Simple”

Let’s take a look at the story of a small film whose own use of the three “U’s” translates successfully to a small/mid-sized business. “Love Simple,” a small, low budget film appeared at several festivals, received a nice review in the industry trade Variety, and then after rejections by film distributors to pick-up the film, it was about to run out of gas, until a social media campaign stepped in!

Unique

How You Can Make A List Using Facebook

By Cathy Quel in Featured

Nearly every one of you have heard the saying, “the money is in the list”. That is very true today and will be for the foreseeable future. Having a great subscriber list is a fantastic way to let people know as soon as you have updated your website or your blog and as you you have new products or services which they may very well be interested in. Maybe you have a new product and need to get the word out fast. Facebook is a good means to do that. If using Facebook is a great method of getting your message out and building your subscriber list is the ideal way to make money, how can you combine the two? How can you use Facebook to create a great subscriber list?

The conventional way that a business person gets people to subscribe is by placing a sign up form on their website. This usually is a fantastic way to get subscribers, but there’s a different way that’s even better. This is a strategy for anyone who wish to use Facebook in conjunction with building your list.

First, Create your Facebook Page

Of course, this is the first thing that you need to do. If you do not have a Facebook page yet, you should head over to Facebook pages to start creating your page. In case you are unsure what you want your page to look like, browse different business Facebook pages to generate some ideas.

This way you will see precisely how the page is structured as well as what you would like to include on it. Don’t forget to include links to your website from this page.

When people visit your Facebook page, you would like to have them sign up to be a subscriber. It’s alright to request that they ‘like’ your page, however it is much more effective to have them sign up. Having them sign up gives you their email address. So, how should you get people to register when they are on your Facebook page?

Create a Facebook Subscriber List

It is possible to build a subscriber list that is only associated with your Facebook page. This way, when you send something out to your subscriber list, you are also able to put the notification on your Facebook page. Then, those people who have ‘liked’ your page will receive the notice in their feeds. If they happen to be interested by your articles, that will bring them back to your Facebook page.

You can also send visitors to your website from your Facebook page by giving a free report or free ebook. It is possible to put the notification on your page and then direct people to your website to subscribe on your subscriber form to then get your free report.

This method is absolutely better than just having people ‘like’ your page because they’re registering on your subscriber form so you then have their email address.

However, sometimes it is a bit more difficult to get others to leave your Facebook page and then actually sign up for your free report on your website. The easiest way could be for you to combine the two approaches. Use your traffic campaigns to get people to your Facebook page and after that occasionally put an invitation on your page to tell people about your freebie if they head over to your website and register. Again, you need to test to see what will give you the results you want as well as what will work for your business.

So, how will you use Facebook to build your list? Offer your visitors both opportunities. Offer your visitors who like to hear what is happening with your business the opportunity to ‘like’ your page and after that use their feeds for updates and also offer your visitors the opportunity to go to your website to sign up as a subscriber and receive a free ebook or report. Just test what is best for your target market.

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If you want to learn more about using Facebook for your business, download my free Social Media Guide here: http://workonlinesuccess.com/Free-Reports/Socialmarketing.html

Get more information on my website http://workonlinesuccess.com

© Copyright 2012 All rights reserved. Jayde Online, Inc.

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