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Social Media Marketing Etiquette

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Taylor Donohoo in blog 4 Comments

Talking on the phone with a passenger in the car is annoying and inconsiderate. Men should walk street-side of the sidewalk so women can safely side walk. Secondhand smoke kills, too. The common thread here is etiquette. Everyday etiquette evolves, which is why new recommendations for social graces are continually introduced. While it is common knowledge that it is impolite to chomp gum during a business meeting, some people new and old to social media remain clueless on proper conduct in the social media sphere.

Chris Brogan, a successful business man and author, outlined a number of do’s and don’ts with regards to social media that I found beneficial for the whole lot of us. Now, mind your manners.

Keep Conversation Classy

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Promotion Tips

Be Careful With Content

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For the record, social media etiquette always has exceptions. When it comes to social media marketing, there are no absolutes, and some people might disagree about what is considerate. I’m curious to learn what you believe to be polite social media behaviors.

Facebook Business Pages Q&A

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Marilyn Buckner in blog 1 Comment

After a previous post I wrote concerning Facebook business pages, I was approached by a writer for Amex Open Forum and asked further questions about ways to maintain these types of pages. The article turned out great, so I thought I would share just a few more additional insights that may help improve your efforts.

1. What’s the biggest piece of advice you have for a small business looking to create or amp up their Facebook fan page?

The very first thing is to clearly define your objectives in having your business on Facebook in the first place.

Second, don’t settle for a plain vanilla look. Make your branding clear and unmistakable, and customize it as much as possible.

Third, remember that content is the most important factor of all, and is what draws readers in. Make sure the individual that will be running your page really does know how, what, and how often to post to grow your “likes,” and achieve those objectives. If it’s an option for you, working with a social media marketing company can save time and money in the long run, and get better and faster results. Also remember that achieving those objectives is not likely to happen overnight, but do visit your page often to monitor the posts and the progress being made.

2. What’s the biggest mistake businesses tend to make on their Facebook page?

It’s easy for a small business new to Facebook to think of it as just another way to “get their message out,” or as an advertising vehicle, rather than as a way to creatively engage and interact with their customers and clients.

3. How can businesses improve interaction with customers using their Facebook fan pages?

When writing content, think, “does this content provide enough value?” or “is it interesting enough to draw my target audience here to read it?” Here are a few specific ideas:

Provide interesting information that relates in some way to your business.
Share humor that relates to your business.
Be creative with fun specials and promotions offered exclusively to your Facebook fans. Post fun ways to give them discounts at your online store or your brick-and-mortar store. They’ll love being “in the know” and will share it with their friends.
Occasionally give away hot prizes through fun and simple contests designed to generate “likes.”
Display cool pictures of your products, services, or anything else related to your business that others would find interesting or helpful.

The idea is to give; to provide value to fans that visit the page, not try to sell them a product or service. That’s what your website is for. Facebook is strictly social media, and should be geared toward engagement with your fan base. When providing fun or interesting information, ask questions about it that will draw readers into a conversation.
Respond to every comment and keep the conversation going. This will make it show up again and again on the Facebook page of every respondent, as well as many of their friends, giving your business more exposure. This practice can also help you identify and quickly resolve any negative comments that show up.
Have an active blog page on your website, and post links to your blog articles on your Facebook page. Make it even easier for fans to find them by having a Facebook blog page displaying snippets of, and links to all the blog posts from your website included in your Facebook business pages, too. This provides a way to share more in-depth information than you can in a short post.
“Like” other businesses that are complementary to yours, and comment on their posts. If they “like” you back, your posts will show up in their news feed, and may help bring you new business.

4. What can businesses do to improve the “look” of a Facebook fan page?

Brand it, brand it, and brand it. No plain vanilla, here. Check out Skittles, Coca Cola, Disney, Cabela’s, Harley Davidson, Porsche, and other top brands with significant numbers of Facebook fans for ideas. Those numbers did not get there by accident.

For additional tips, you can check out my previous post that outlines some excellent insights about creating and maintaining an effective Facebook business page.

The Latest Social Media Marketing Challenge

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Thomas Watkins in blog 5 Comments

In 2012, your social media marketing strategy is going to be more important than ever before. The responsiveness of consumers to traditional advertising continues to dwindle, and consumers continue to rely on their friends for information on the best products and services. In such an environment, social media easily becomes one of the most powerful marketing tools available to businesses.

Change Is Coming: Google+ and Personalized Searches

No matter what you were doing or how well you were doing it, you’ll need to make some changes to your social media strategy in 2012. In 2011, you were probably focusing on Twitter and Facebook. In 2012, you must pay just as much attention to Google+. The fact is that Google+ has the potential to be a real game-changer for both social media marketing and search engine optimization. This is because Google+ affects personalized search results.

Search results have already reached a high degree of individual personalization. Two next door neighbors with Google accounts or who use Chrome will get different results from a Google search because of their past search history. Likewise, two users of Yahoo! mail will get personalized results from their Yahoo! search. There is also evidence of correlation between Facebook ‘likes’ and search results. And until recently, Twitter was open to Google’s search crawlers.

Google+ adds another dimension to Internet searches, however. The search history of your friends on Google+ will now affect your own search results. If you and your friend are both looking for a new HDTV, you’ll each see products the other looked at appear at the top of your search results (assuming you were both logged in to Google+ while searching). The potential SEO power of this Google+ feature has sent Yahoo! running to Facebook to establish a similar partnership, and it looks like Bing may join them. Therefore, 2012 will likely be defined by a trend to encourage your customers to market for you through their social media. By year’s end, it may make a lot of difference in how visible your company is online.

What this Means for Marketing: Reacting to the Change

If your business has not already established a solid presence in social media, you will need to this year. Having a Facebook page is a must because it is currently the most popular website in the world. Using Twitter is essential because it is among the most popular sources of consumer reviews. Getting on Google+ will be essential if you want to show up in the search results of your customer’s friends. Encouraging your customers to chat about you in each of these mediums will be crucial to your future marketing efforts.

Traditional marketing will probably continue to decrease in effectiveness. Speaking personally, I tend to expect the opposite of whatever a commercial says. When I see a TV ad or a billboard, my first thought is, “that’s a product to be suspicious of.” I believe that good products speak for themselves. If it’s not heavily marketed but I still see people buying it, that tells me:

That the company spent more money on building quality products than on advertising
That it is selling because it works and not because customers are being “mind-controlled”

If other people are anything like me, they will wait to buy your product until a few of their friends mention it in social media. Then, they will look online for more information before finally visiting your website or your store. This makes it crucial to boost the positive chatter about your business among your customers.

A Best Practice: Being All that Your Business Can Be

The U.S. Army provides a great example of marketing. Their commercials were among the few I really liked as a teenager. Their constant calls to “be all that you can be” synced well with my personal values and, for a brief moment, I actually considered enlisting. I echo that sentiment to you. Your business can be all that it can be when you focus on building products and offering services that will get people talking positively and excitedly about you.

There is much talk in the business world today about “best practices,” as corporations try to regain some of the trust and customer loyalty they have lost over the last few decades. To me, the best weapon in a company’s arsenal is to change their marketing from an aggressive customer-as-adversary approach (which is honestly how I perceive many advertisements) to a customer-as-champion approach where I can’t wait to tell every friend and acquaintance how good a product is.

Having spent this blog post (and my last two as well, for that matter) encouraging a social approach to marketing, I ask: What are you doing now to make your customers advertise for you?

Expert Social Media Tips: Facebook Business Pages

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Marilyn Buckner in blog 1 Comment

I recently had an interview with Mandy Alfrey of The Buzz, who is a Social Media Architect, coach, and frequent speaker/trainer at the Utah Business Experts. During the National Association of Realtors conference at which she was a speaker, she was kind enough to grant me a phone interview to share some of her vast reservoir of social media expertise.

We all know that business Facebook pages are growing fast in importance, but how they are set up and handled is even more important. Here are a few choice concepts Mandy has shared that can magnify the effectiveness of your social media marketing strategy:

Target your Page and your Posts

With everything you post, ask yourself, “What is the end result I am seeking – what do I want to accomplish?
In addition to that, ask, “Who am I targeting?” What you post needs to be relevant to your audience if you want to build trust and keep them.
Be clear about what you want your audience to get from each post. Ask yourself, “What’s in it for the audience?” You’ve got to provide something of value if you want to grow readership. To accomplish this, you may have to take out what you want and post what the audience wants.
Always have a branded Facebook business page that shows or illustrates your core message; 60-62% of visitors will stay on and “like” it if it’s that way.
Make sure your landing page is set up so new visitors are always sent there first. This will increase your number of “likes.”
Have an underlying theme behind all you do in your Facebook posts.
- Have this be consistent with your branding and the overall message and tone you want to convey.
- If your Facebook business page is for a floral business, for example, be sure to display a floral banner or background of some sort, appealing photos of your work, and posts about holidays, specials, gift ideas, and things related to the floral business and your customers.
- Be consistent and unmistakable in your message.
Always be your true, authentic self. If you try to be something you are not, the reader is likely to pick up on it, and you will lose credibility.
Go for engagement with your audience to get traction going.
People are often drawn to personal Facebook profiles of people they see on business pages. Let them see a little about you there. When doing personal posts, remember that what you put on your personal Facebook pages is a reflection of you and never goes away.

Business to Business

Businesses can only “like” other businesses.
Anytime you mention other businesses, make sure you tag them so they (and their followers) will see it in their news feed, too.
- You will have to “like” the business before you can tag them.
- Once they’ve been liked, you tag them by putting an @ symbol immediately before the business name – which should bring it up in a list where you can just click on it.
- This will also increase the business exposure of your company.
- If your posts are relevant to the other business, they are more likely to “like” you back, increasing your exposure.
If you “like” major groups and businesses that relate to what you do be sure to post and tag comments about them. Your posts will show up on that business or group’s page, and that can potentially lead to more business for you.

The list goes on, but what Facebook business page tips would you add to this list?

Our PR Director, Pat Parkinson, also offers some excellent Facebook advice. In this post, he explains how to more than quadruple your “likes.”

Is Facebook in decline?

Posted on June 23, 2011 by Mary Houghton in blog 7 Comments

Facebook has been swimming in hot water these last two weeks thanks to Inside Facebook reporting a decline of over seven million Facebook users in the United States, England, and Canada for May 2011. Facebook fired back with research from other companies that noted an increase, but not before the damage was done. Now, everyone is wondering the same things. Is Facebook fatigue starting to kick in? If so, how much energy should I put toward Facebook advertising?

The answers are in the numbers . More than half of American Internet users are on Facebook. Even if Facebook fatigue is happening, it simply cannot happen overnight. This means that regardless of what people say—Facebook is going to be around for a long time.

As a business person determining how you should spend your marketing time, it is crucial for you to put aside your concerns and realize that Facebook, the largest social media site, is still growing.

How to Use Facebook

There are lots of detractors who say that branding and promoting on Facebook does not work, but that’s because these businesses do not know how to create engaging content. An All Facebook report released two days ago shows that, on average, fan pages are only seen by 3 to 7.5 percent. Simply put, most businesses do not engage their fans. What does it matter if you create a page, get millions of fans, and then never interact with them? Unfortunately, this is the position most businesses find themselves in.

To benefit from your Facebook page you must continually create engaging content. Give visitors posts to read, videos to like, and photos to browse. Even better, come up with contests and events that people can compete in and interact with. The more likes and comments you receive, the more visible your page will become.

Now is the perfect time to jump in and build an interactive, engaging space on Facebook for current and potential customers. Just remember that on Facebook it’s all about constant quality.

The Tweet Heard ‘Round the World

Posted on May 2, 2011 by Pat Parkinson in blog 9 Comments

The first tweet was vague.

“Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).”

There were soon several helicopters and gunfire in the quaint Pakistani town and a 33-year-old computer programmer in the neighborhood continued tweeting.

“The few people online at this time of the night are saying one of the copters was not Pakistani,” read one tweet from the man.

According to the Associated Press, the U.S. military had stormed a compound in the neighborhood as the man tweeted about rumors swirling through his town. Some believed that a training exercise had gone bad. Others said the army was searching door to door.

It appeared at one point that an aircraft was shot down, the man tweeted.

However, Sohaib Athar didn’t realize the significance of his tweets until the White House announced that President Barack Obama would hold an unexpected news conference Sunday night.

“I think the helicopter crash in Abbottabad, Pakistan and the President Obama breaking news address are connected,” Athar tweeted.

Confirmation came from Athar about 35 tweets later: “Osama Bin Laden killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan … There goes the neighborhood.”

While a tremendous victory for the U.S. military, the death of the world’s most wanted terrorist was also an important time for social media.

Before Obama announced that U.S. troops had shot and killed bin Laden, the death of the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks was already old news on websites like Facebook and Twitter. More than 100,000 people had reportedly “liked” the “Osama Bin Laden is DEAD” Facebook page before the president took the podium.

Thousands of people followed Athar’s tweets as he became one of the first people to describe the operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the Associated Press reported.

But Athar wasn’t the only person in the Twitterverse Sunday night who spread word of bin Laden’s death.

According to TechCrunch, early on the most credible tweet came from Keith Urbahn, chief of staff for former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: “I’m told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn.”

A few minutes later, a CBS news producer tweeted: “House Intelligence committee aide confirms that Osama Bin Laden is dead. U.S. has the body.”

But as news of bin Laden’s death broke on Twitter, with it came thousands of tweets and Facebook posts that were not credible. Many people claimed they had shared a picture of bin Laden’s bloody face before the photograph was determined to be fake.

Regardless, social media was critical for delivering a better understanding of one of the biggest news events of the 21^st century. Though his report lacked confirmation, many online credited Urbahn with first breaking the story.

And nowhere is the powerful influence of Twitter more apparent than in the words of Athar, the self-described “guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it.”

Athar had about 750 followers before he started tweeting about helicopters and explosions rocking his quiet neighborhood. Nearly 70,000 people followed Athar on Twitter today.

After tweeting about the Osama bin Laden raid in Pakistan, Sohaib Athar went from about 750 to nearly 70,000 followers on Twitter.

I won’t forget where I was when a radio host reported through static that the World Trade Center was attacked in 2001. Traditional media outlets were not well situated or fast enough to first report news of bin Laden’s death, but with journalism changing so quickly, many will not forget where they first heard that the terror kingpin had been shot: Twitter.

Where did you first hear the news of Osama bin Laden’s death?