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Looking To Get More Out of Facebook – Venture Outside of Your Network

June 17, 2010 in Facebook, Marketing, internet marketing, social media by gtaylor | 1 comment

How can Facebook work for you?  The answer is simple: engage in social networking.

Facebook is a great way to communicate with all of your current friends and old classmates you haven’t seen in years, as well as a savvy method for interacting with your customers. There are drawbacks, however; when it comes to social networking, people tend to network with those they already know, as opposed to making an effort to “grow” their network.

Facebook pages and groups grow by the thousands each day.  Members “Like” a page or join a group based on common interests.  Now, with Facebook’s newest feature, the ability to ‘Like’ a comment eases the process of meeting new people and networking with them.

Here are some tips on how to venture out of your network and get more out of Facebook:

Join a group

Groups are a simple way to find people with common interests.  Groups are different than a page, because there are group moderators that approve and decline members.  Make use of the feature that allows users to “Like” a comment in order to to let other group members know that you are active and interested in what they have to say.  You may get a few friend invites and/or more connections on your own Facebook page.

Connect with a business or product and engage

You may already “Like” some pages for a company or product that you are interested in, but in order to make use of your connection, you have to engage in the conversation.  If your company has a page, you already know the number of connections you have doesn’t mean anything if people aren’t talking.  Create a wall post and interact with people who respond.  “Like” a comment, and you never know, you may have a new friend request waiting to be approved.

Share your thoughts on photos and videos

You may not be able to comment on a photo in which you’ve been tagged if the person who posted it isn’t one of your friends. However, you are able to share that picture with your friends.  People like to know that what they have posted is getting some attention, and commenting on the pictures your friends post is a perfect way to do so.

Facebook use is increasing daily.  In order to get the most out of it, you have to come out of your social media shell.  Venturing outside of your network may be a bit intimidating at first, but it will be worth it in the end.

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How Much Would You Pay for a Facebook “Connection” – and What Does it Really Cost?

April 6, 2010 in Business, Communications, Facebook, Marketing, fan page, internet marketing, social media, twitter by gtaylor | No comments

When a business creates a page on Facebook, the more “connections” (formerly called fans) you have, the more your social media efforts are looked at as being successful. A large number of connections means you’ve found your target audience and your message was effectively communicated to them. While interacting with them, you were able to gain some insight as to what changes and improvements you need to implement in order to make your customers feel appreciated and increase sales.  To address this need, there’s now a company selling Facebook “connections ”. How much are your connections worth?

The company, uSocial.net targets “connections” based on your basic demographic preferences.  They’ll bring people to your page so that you won’t have to spend time doing it yourself.

The concept sounds good, but there are potential pitfalls.

Social media is supposed to be social.  The communication between people in your network is the engine that drives the interaction of your network.  Being able to have that one-on-one dialogue at the beginning stage of your page is critical because you really get to know your customers.

A large part of being involved in creating your network is learning how your connections communicate with one another. Learning their lingo allows you to talk with them — not to them.

But what happens when your connections begin to disconnect?

Pages lose “connections” all the time for various reasons.  If you’ve never spent the time trying to get recruit connections, then you’re not going to know how to replace the ones lost.

Ultimately, what are the consequences of paying for connections?  What if the turnover rate proves you wasted your money because you could never establish a real connection with your customers?

A service like this works for companies who are more interested in quantity than quality.

Whether you’re trying to increase your following on Twitter, connections on Facebook or subscribers on YouTube, you want to know who is in your network, what they talk about, and what their “social reputation” is.

Including the purchase of a few thousand “connections” in your social media marketing plan may be an easy way to spread your message, but that page will have to be managed after the initial launch.

If you only saw your connections as demographics in the beginning, how will you value and interact with them once they are brought to your page?

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Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your eBlasts

March 26, 2010 in B2B, Business, Communications, Design, Marketing, New Business, email, emarketing, internet marketing, prospecting by gtaylor | 1 comment

People still question the effectiveness of eBlasts even though they subscribe to receive coupons, blog and news updates via email. An eBlast may not be working for you because the design and content are simply missing the mark.

On a daily basis, my inbox is flooded with newsletters, webinar invites, LinkedIn invitations to connect and, of course, eBlasts. Some of the eBlasts look like they were thrown together in ten minutes or less, and nine times out of ten, they are deleted.

If you’re looking to get more out of your eBlasts, here are a few tips:

Don’t promote – provide value

The biggest mistake most companies make when sending an eBlast is too much promotion.  You should be more focused on providing information your target audience will find interesting, and hopefully, learn something from.  Open the door for questions and offer advice.  You can get a good idea of what people want to know from tweets and discussions on LinkedIn. Providing your recipients with value will keep them looking forward to receiving your eBlasts, and they’ll be more likely to share the information with others.

Include social media

In addition to having your social media profile links in your eBlast, include some notable tweets or discussion excerpts to show what you and others are saying about the topic at hand.

Link to other RELEVANT sources

Although you are sending the eBlast, it doesn’t have to be all about you. See “Don’t promote, provide value” above.  In case you haven’t realized it yet, you aren’t the only source of information. Post a link, and quick summary of some articles you’ve recently read.  It doesn’t hurt or cost any extra money.  Just make sure the links you are posting are relevant to the topic of the eBlast.

Frequency matters

I recently ran an eBlast campaign for a client that had a weekly internet radio show.  The eBlast went out the last Friday of the month.  The eBlast included all the episodes for the month, sound bites from highest rated shows and best comments from the audience chat room.  The eBlast acted as a monthly recap and informed the recipients of what was to come next month. Eighty percent of the emails were opened each month, and the traffic to the client’s website dramatically increased. If the eBlast would have been sent weekly, the audience response would have been completely different.

Hire help

Doctors aren’t marketing executives and marketing execs aren’t doctors.  Hiring a marketing agency to help create an eBlast campaign will get you the results you are looking for.  Determining how to get through the clutter and come up with a creative design and layout for your eBlast isn’t easy, so why not ask for an experts help?

Yes, social media is a great marketing tool to reach large and targeted audiences, but it isn’t the only option.  You still have to get your message to those prospects or customers who work at a company that blocks social media sites and eBlasts are a great way to do just that.

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Will Social Media Eventually Overpower Email?

March 4, 2010 in Business, Communications, Facebook, Technology, email, emarketing, iPhone, internet marketing, social media by gtaylor | 2 comments

After coming back to the office after a lunch meeting, a tweet mentioning @SmileyHanchulak stated how the meeting went. Not only did I see that, but the 600+ followers the company has saw it too.  Even though business cards were exchanged, social media was the medium used to display their satisfaction and gratitude.

When email became the preferred method of communication, the US Postal Service cringed and the term ’snail mail’ was born.  Now, with social media quickly becoming the preferred method of communication, will the use of email eventually decrease?

Many may disagree, but social media increases the use of email.

Think about the contests on Twitter, Facebook and blogs.  Most of them require either an email address or want you to send them an email with a certain subject to register. Twitter allows you to send direct messages but they have the same 140 character limit as a regular tweet. Facebook direct messages allow unlimited typing, but who wants to login their Facebook account every time to read a long message?

Having the ability to receive email in the palm of your hand is why smartphones like the iPod, BlackBerry, and Android exist. Sure people love the apps, but the instant communication is what people really want.

Email is viewed as a formal way of communicating. Although your company has a Twitter account, the chance that you are going to send a proposal to a major corporation in 50 direct messages is slim.

Social media is similar to “water cooler” conversation.  The short, instant messages on social media are short, and have the potential to be “overheard” by someone else. and if anything needs to be discussed later email addresses will be exchanged.

Twitter may send 50 million tweets a day, but how many outgoing emails does Google, Yahoo or MSN process on a daily basis?

Social media is great for instant two-way communication, and sites like Twitter allows you to reach out and follow whoever you want.  Email is great for personal two-way communication and the only people able to contact you are those who you have shared your email address with.

Will social overpower email?  My sources say no, but social media will definitely reshape the way email is used.

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Will Social Media Exist Forever?

March 3, 2010 in Communications, Facebook, Marketing, Technology, blogging, emarketing, internet marketing, social media, twitter by gtaylor | No comments

In 1875, when Alexander Graham Bell introduced the telephone, people probably weren’t convinced that this new invention would even work.  Now, telephones may have evolved into pocket-size devices that do more things than Inspector Gadget could shake his hat at, but the initial concept is the same, two-way communication.

When polling if Twitter was going to be around forever, 45% of the respondents felt it would be around another two or three years, 23% felt either it will be around for another year, or outlast Facebook, and only 10% of poll respondents felt it will be around forever. With the multiple social media networks available to use, and as countless networks are being developed as I type, will social media be a means of communication forever?

Two-way communication fuels social media.  Twitter and Facebook have completely changed how consumers receive information.  We want real-time updates and the social media networks of today provide just that.

Individuals and businesses have included social media use in their daily routines, and some companies have made their Facebook page their main website or use social media as a part of their customer service department.

One key factor of social media’s immortality is the unlimitied opportunity for constant innovation since brand loyalty doesn’t exist.

Millions of MySpace users switched to Facebook due to increasing popularity and the itch to try something new.  Music artists held onto using MySpace as long they could but their fan base had moved onto something new. In less than two years, MySpace had been dethroned by Facebook as the top social media network in the U.S. and had to lay off 30% of their workforce.

Will social media last forever? It’s possible.

The only threat to social media’s existence is the FCC.  As of right now, the only guidelines on social media are the terms and conditions of each network. Realistically, social media is in an extensive beta phase.  What happens next is still up in the air.

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