How to Schedule Posts on Facebook

source: office.com

This, also from the blog archives of AWeber, provides instruction for how to schedule your posts to Facebook. Finally!

I know many of you have been using 3rd party apps for this, like TweetDeck or HootSuite, and they still work great. Now Facebook has added scheduling and targeting to Page's functionality.

Read the full blog post at AWeber for a quick, visual walk-through of how to do this so you can work smarter, not harder. :-)

Ciao for now,
Paula

Guide to the New Facebook Pages Timeline

If you haven't already previewed or updated your Business Page to the new timeline, you'll have until March 30 to customize and preview it.

I've put together a quick Guide for finding your way around the areas of the new Timeline.

Get the Guide on my site: Get the New Facebook Timeline Guide 

P.S. Take the quick poll above. Are you using Google+?

Facebook Pages Getting a Facelift

If you have a personal Facebook, you've already seen the new timeline. Facebook pages will get a similar update by March 30, 2012.

These changes will impact how you interact and maintain your page. I'll help you sift through the information and tell you how to customize your Page using the new layout in an upcoming post.

One thing you can always be certain of using Facebook - there will be changes! One day you'll log in to do what you always do and find things have moved around. It's a given in this social environment.

We'll learn together how to use these changes to our advantage!

The Scoop on New Facebook Changes

Here's the scoop on the newest changes that Facebook has rolled out this week. It's not over yet...there is much more to come!

Prepare Yourselves: Facebook To Be Profoundly Changed

Using Facebook to Drive Fans to Your Web site

image copyright Social Media Examiner

Sharing a link with you this week to Social Media Examiner. It's a good resource for all things in the social media realm including Facebook and Twitter. 

In a recent post, Ben Pickering shares 5 Tips for Driving Facebook Fans to Your Website.

Check it out - it's a short read and will give you some ideas for connecting these 2 areas of your Web presence.

Ciao for now, Paula

Are You Using Facebook Advertising?

If you are a web-only merchant or a brick and mortar store and have a Facebook business page, why not consider giving Facebook advertising a try.

Since Facebook knows a lot about its users from data shared on profiles and pages, you have a great opportunity to target only those that might have a specific interest in what you sell. Now where else are you going to get advertising that focused? You can set your budget and choose very specific demographics so you can get the most for your dollars.

Consider these facts about Facebook:

• People are hanging out and spending an inordinate amount of time on the social network; users spend on average more than 6 hours on the social network, nearly 5 times the amount spent on Google.
• Users share information about themselves, share photos, comment on posts, make updates, and like products/posts.
• Users aren't looking for anything specific, you have the ability to to spark their interest in something they didn't know they wanted.
• Advertisers have the opportunity to invite customers to a private Facebook-only sale or promotion - there's no better way to track your advertising ROI.
• Facebook is also a way to grow your network for hiring, networking, etc. by using the app BranchOut

These facts make it a must for any retailer's marketing strategy making the social Web a crucial part of e-commerce.

Don't want to advertise? There are other Facebook marketing tools you might consider to engage friends and Web visitors.

Like Button
By now you've probably seen what many Web sites are using to get visitors to interact. They've implemented a Facebook plugin that allows your Web site visitors to click a "Like" button and spread the word to their friends right from your site. Put it anywhere on your site. In less than 1 year, 2.5 million Web sites have integrated a Facebook Like plug-in.

Comments Box
If you have products, put a Like button or Comments Box on each product page so users can quickly provide reviews and endorse the product. Clicks and Comments are broadcast to the clicker's Facebook friends.

Places
Another Facebook marketing tool is Places. A mobile user can broadcast their location by "checking in" to your place of business, thereby letting their friends know their location, similar to FourSquare.

Dig into Facebook today and see how it can help your business grow!
Ciao for now, Paula

Facebook fact source: Nielsen, May issue of Internet Retailer Magazine

TweetDeck: Manage Your Social Web Presence

TweetDeck is a great tool to manage your social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) all in one place. This service allows you to set up your account (it's free!) so each account's activity shows in your dashboard. It's a great way to stay on top of your social presence across all platforms and allows you the ease to post to multiple accounts at once. There is even a scheduling option so you can push out messages at a later date.You can download a desktop version (this is what I use) or they also have apps for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and Android.

My creativity comes in bursts at times. The scheduling tool allows me to put several thoughts together at once, but to schedule them to 'drip' out to my customers in a more digestable way. You could also use this tool for scheduling updates while you're on vacation. You can do a week all at once and schedule it to post daily. What a great organizational tool!

Ideas for social media updates
Scheduling updates is a great way to get in the habit of creating content regularly. You know more about your business than anyone else. Here's some quick idea-generating thoughts for you to develop into content for your customers/visitors.

• Share some of your knowledge. It might be familiar and seemingly unimportant to you, but it could be just what they want to know.
• Think of things you find valuable and see if you can share this with them in a creative way that helps them 'do life' better.
• Life is busy. Can you make it easier?
• What can you do to deliver more than is expected? 
• Don't be afraid to share personal tidbits about yourself. After all, business is really about relationships. We buy from people not businesses.

Did you notice I never gave you any ideas about promoting sales or special offers? While this can be a valuable space to share your next sale or coupon, these social areas are more about building relationships instead of selling.

Think about this - if you always have a sale or special offer, you condition your customers to NEVER buy anything at retail price! Essentially, you dilute your retail price and people feel no sense of urgency to buy something until it goes on sale or until they can get it cheaper at a later date. Therefore, the appeal of a "sale" or "coupon" has little meaning if it's come to be expected.

How are you using social media? Have you done something with success you can share? Please tell me by leaving a comment below...it may just spark a good idea for someone else!

Keeping it real for local small businesses,
Paula

3 Reasons To Use Social Media for Your Small Business

Social Media is to small business what the Web was when it was new. It took a long while for small businesses to realize the importance of having a Web site. Heck, some of you still aren't there!

But make no mistake. Social Media is here to stay and is greatly influencing the way we do things in business and in our personal lives. And the rapidity with which it's being adopted is staggering. The Web evolved slowly, but Social Media is happening at a much greater speed. It's transforming the Web; it's part of the landscape. You will not have the luxury to "wait and see". The time to implement is NOW.

E-commerce has gone social too. Gone are the days of private, online shopping. Nearly 1/2 of all Americans are members of at least one social network. 59% of consumers rated personal advice from friends as the most influential source of information for their purchase decisions.

Consider these statistics about Social Media:

• Nearly 72% of the Web audience in the U.S. is on Facebook. 44% of those using Facebook "share" things with their friends.
  
• 33.3% of the U.S. is using Twitter and of that 33.3%, 75% of the Tweets come from third-party applications such as a Mobile device. So we're socializing on the go! (Interestingly, the most activity happening on Twitter is on Thursdays and Fridays between the hour of 10PM and 11PM.)
  
• YouTube views exceed 2 billion per day! That's nearly double the prime-time audience of all 3 major U.S. broadcast networks combined. "The most-watched YouTube videos of 2010 reflect the people, places and events that captured our attention and imagination throughout the year," said Mia Quagliarello, YouTube Community Manager.

 Source: DigitalBuzzDaily, SocialMediaToday, MediaPost

 The top 3 reasons to use social media in your small business:

1. Your competitor's surely are!
2. Your customers are already engaging in some form of it
3. You're leaving money on the table if you don't implement some way of communicating with your customers via a social network

But how do I use it for my small business? Listen to your customers so you know where they are spending their 'social' time. Here are some ideas of how you might engage them. 

Use it:

• to develop relationships. People buy from people, not businesses.
• to announce specials, coupons, sales, or savings opportunities.
• as a means to respond to customer service questions or problems.
• to share things that can educate your customer about your products or services.
• to give something away free that they need to redeem at your place of business.
• to perform research about what your customers want or expect from your business.
• to promote events, meetings or shows.

There really is no wrong or right way. Think outside the box and try something today! 

Let me know the results by coming back here and leaving a comment. Your succes may just inspire an idea for someone else!

Thanks for taking time out of your day to read this. Until next time.

Ciao for now, Paula

Tagging Your Facebook Status Updates

OK - I really had no idea you could do this! But if you're using Facebook for your business, this can be a very helpful way to optimize your business' status updates by tagging them.

It's similar to mentioning someone on Twitter - you use the @ symbol + the person's name you want to tag and Facebook adds a link in the update to that person. Depending on the person's privacy settings, your update will be posted to their Wall and they will be notified that they've been tagged.

This can have some awesome viral effects! For local businesses. You can tag another local business and help spread the word about a sale, a "welcome to the neighborhood" message to a new business or simply a mention.

Say you have a community-wide sale like our recent Crazy Days and you write an update about it on your Facebook page. You can take this one step further by mentioning or 'tagging' the other businesses that are involved to promote shopping locally for this sale. it will get posted to everyone's Wall and hopefully shared by their followers....you get the idea? One post shared all over the place in a matter of minutes!

Try it the next time you post an update to your Facebook business page.

Here's the link to John Jantsch's full article about this with detailed instructions for exactly how to do this and how it can help your business.

Until next time, ciao for now.
Paula

How Businesses Are Using Facebook

Get a free webinar download from Hubspot! Provide your email and you can download and listen at your convenience to find data on how businesses are leveraging Facebook and case studies covering ways to use Facebook for marketing.

Find the link to the webinar and other free resources on my site: http://PaulaBonelli.com/resources/free-stuff/
or go directly to HubSpot now: How Businesses are using Facebook

Ad Networks for Facebook and Twitter

If you are already using some sort of PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising in your marketing mix, here are 2 more options to try.

Facebook already has an ad business model in place similar to Google's. You can target based on demographics or psychographics and bid based on CPC (Cost-Per-Click) or CPM (Cost-Per-Impression). Facebook's ad revenue is estimated to reach $1 billion dollars this year. In January, their user base surpassed 4 million! Read more on my site.

Rumor has it that Twitter also is ready to launch some sort of ad business model, possibly as soon as March 2010. Read more here.

As always, if you have a question [doesn't matter what it is :)], you can post me a comment below.
Ciao, Paula