How to encourage clicks through call to action

 

How to encourage clicks through call to action

To encourage higher click-through rates from Facebook and other social media

to your website and blog, being specific about what you want your customers to

do using a clear call to action is often a good bet, e.g. Click here for more

information [your link]. Sometimes that little push can make all the difference

between a successful status and one that sinks without a trace.

Note: In relation to the above, it is worth pointing out that August 2014,

Facebook amended its News Feed algorithm to crack down on so-called click-

bait article-sharing. These are typically articles with vague and over-promising

headlines like You will never believe who puked on the red carpet last night.

CLICK to see our exclusive pic! that do not make it plainly clear what the post

will entail.

 Facebook wants you to share valuable content that people will read

and share with their friends, so if it spots that your fans are clicking on these

types of links and returning straight to Facebook (because the content is poor)

and not sharing, similar posts will receive less visibility in the future.

Conversely, high quality links that get shared many times over will benefit from

higher reach.

Guarantee views with Get All Notifications and See First strategy

One tactic that can be used to all-but guarantee that fans see all of your Page 

content is to train them to select the Get Notifications and See First options,

found in a drop-down menu when hovering their cursor over the Liked and

“Following” button underneath your Page cover photo. With this selected,

every time you post a new status update, the fans in question will be informed

with a notification under the blue globe icon in the status bar of their Facebook

account, and your new content will appear at the top of that users’ News Feed

respectively. 

These requests are best communicated through a status update with

a screen grab of the menu, to demonstrate the exact action that you wish them to

take. Whether or not you are comfortable with asking at the risk of appearing

pushy is up to you, and you should judge it based on the strength of the

relationship you have with your audience. If you do decide to do it, I would not 

force it upon fans very often, particularly as they are unlikely to be right on your

Page when they see your instructions appear, and even more unlikely to click

through and carry it out.

Optimize blog images to make an impact on Facebook

In September 2013, Facebook introduced a significant increase to the size that

thumbnail images from linked articles appear in the News Feed. When you post

a status update including a link, Facebook will automatically pull an image from

the article, and as long as it is of sufficient size, that image will display at full

width on your Page and in News Feeds, with the blog title and blurb below it. In

exact terms, for a linked article image to display at full width on Facebook, the

width of the image needs to be 1.91 times its height. Facebook recommends an

image that is at least 1200 × 630 pixels, which, truthfully, isn realistic for most

bloggers. Instead, aim to produce blog posts that include at least one image that

is 600 × 315 pixels (even if it an image that is uploaded large, but shrunk to fit

your blog formatting style), as this is the minimum size that Facebook requires

for any linked article image to display at full width in any position on all

devices - desktop, mobile, or tablet. If your linked article chosen image is

below 600 × 315 pixels, Facebook will automatically shrink it much smaller.

Note: When you paste a link into the status box and the automatically-generated

preview appears, two small arrows appear on top of the thumbnail image

allowing you to select the most appealing photo from the article. If none of the

available thumbnail images takes your fancy, click the Upload Image link and

choose one that is saved on the hard drive of your computer.

 You can edit the

text in the headline and description fields that are generated, too, if you wish to

make them more effective. On the rare occasion that you paste a link to share

and no preview image appears at all, you may have to debug the page -

essentially forcing Facebook to refresh its cache of your site.

 Simply visit the

Facebook Debugger tool at https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug, paste in the URL

of the Page with the problem image, and click Debug.Wipe your status box

clean and try pasting the link again; the problem should now be fixed.

Note: Somewhat related to the previous tip regarding the popularity of images

and quotes in particular, why not try the following: Pick out a blog post most

quotable, shareable snippet and turn that into an image either as a quote on its

own or coupled with an appealing photo. Then, link back to the blog post from

the text box in a status update and monitor how well the post is received.

Alternate between YouTube-linked and Facebook-uploaded video

The emergence of video content on Facebook has changed the landscape of the

social network, and it only going to get bigger. In many cases, it pays to upload

engaging video content directly to the site, rather than, for example, sharing a

YouTube link. 

This is because native Facebook video is given a more favorable

ride in terms of reach (but keep an eye on your analytics to see how things go. 

If

the video is ever green in nature (i.e. it will still as relevant in the future as it is

now) why post the video twice - once by uploading directly to Facebook, and at

a later date via a shared YouTube link?

Strategies to maximize the impact of videos uploaded to Facebook

Videos uploaded to Facebook play automatically – and are muted

with no audio - within the News Feed. With that in mind, consider

how you will hook your fans into watching your clip (and turn the

sound on) from the very first frame – catching someone’s eye with

movement in the first 2-3 seconds is one way to do this, or if a person

is seen talking in front of camera, fans who are interested will click to

hear what’s being said.

Organize videos into playlists via the Video tab on your page (to

encourage increased watch time), and choose one video to Feature.

The Featured video will appear in prime position below the About

section in the sidebar of your Page - a great opportunity for an

introductory video to your business, or to highlight a current

promotion. 

Tag people who feature in your videos, add descriptive labels, and

select the best thumbnail available in the menu that appears after the

file has been uploaded (or upload your own custom image). 

And do not 

forget to grab the video embed code to include in a blog post on your

website to encourage more exposure and interaction  choose

between embedding the whole status update, or just the video player

itself for a cleaner look.

The video content you choose to post should reflect the same types of stuff

referred to in the “Explained: The Best Type of Content to Post on Social

Media” chapter of this book.

Use hashtags to encourage engagement and conversation

In June 2013, Facebook joined sites like Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+. 

Create Facebook Offers

If at least 50 people have liked your Page, you can create an offer on your

Facebook Page. When a fan claims an offer, they will receive an email that they

can show at your business' physical location or a code to enter online so that they

can get the discount. Offers are not available free to run (there is a minimum spend of

around $5 - $10), but they are useful in promoting special deals, rewarding loyal

fans, and encouraging them to spread the word about your business to their

friends. To create an offer from your Page, click Offer, Event + and click Offer

from the top of the status update box. Fill out the details to make your offer

shine, including Headline, Image, redemption link, start date, and expiration

date. Preview your offer in the top left and make any changes, then click Post

Offer.

Some pointers to help run a successful offer include:

Make offer discounts substantial (at least 20% off a product or service, or the

opportunity to get something else free when purchasing is recommended for the

best results), and ensure that it is exclusive to Facebook fans.

Keep your offer and its terms and conditions simple, and give people a

reasonable amount of time in which to claim it (this also allows them time to

spread the word about your great deal to their friends.

Use simple and direct language in your headline to reduce any confusion, and

showcase the value of the deal your fans will get, rather than just using a slogan.

Use a clear and engaging image to represent your offer, but not your profile

photo, as that will often be displayed next to the promotion around the site.

Pin the offer to the top of your Page for added visibility, and train your staff so

that they are prepared for when a customer wants to redeem their offer.

Marketing Strategy You will Like and Share

 Marketing Strategy You will Like and

Share

Facebook is the most visited social network in the world, with well over one

billion users on desktop and mobile. As the king of social networks, your target

audience is almost guaranteed to be there. Use these tips to build, brand and

market your business on Facebook, as well as amass a following of highly

engaged customers.

Facebook Business Page Setup Strategy

Before you dive in and start posting on Facebook, it pays to take some time to

lay solid foundations to help get your brand presence set up properly, and in a

position to impress fans when they find you. Let get started on the road to

making your little corner of Facebook a destination that people will visit

regularly.

Create a Facebook Page, not a personal profile

When you sign up to Facebook, you are assigned a Personal Timeline by default.

Personal Timelines, sometimes referred to as profiles, are designed for

individual, non-commercial use. For your business to take advantage of

everything Facebook marketing has to offer, you must create a separate

Facebook Page. Facebook Pages look similar to personal Timelines, but provide

unique tools for brands like analytics, custom tabs to host business-related

information, and advertising tools. Pages do not require separate Facebook

accounts and do not have separate login information from Timelines. You can

create a Facebook Page in one of three ways: by searching create A Page' in the

search bar at the top of the site, by clicking the create A Page' button at the top

of any existing Facebook Page, or by visiting https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.

Note: If you are currently using a personal Timeline for business purposes, there

is a possibility that Facebook will find and shut your account down. 

notice. To give you a chance to correct this error, Facebook provides a tool that

will convert your personal Timeline to a business Page, available at

https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php?migrate. When you convert your personal

account to a Facebook Page, your current profile picture will be transferred and

all the profiles friends will be switched to fans who like your Page. In

addition, your account username will become the username for your Page, and

the name associated with your personal account will become your Page name

(you may be able to change this if you wish - I explain how in the next tip). No

other content, including your wall posts, photos, videos, etc. will be carried over

to your new Page, so be sure to download an archive of this data (via your

profile settings) if you want to preserve it.

If you are currently utilizing your personal profile for a mix of things - for its

originally intended purpose (i.e. to interact with friends and family) but also (and

wrongly) for commercial use - the best thing to do to avoid getting into trouble is

to halt all business activity on your personal Timeline, create a separate business

Page, then encourage your audience to de-friend your personal account and head

over to like your new Page where they can stay up to date. While building a

Facebook Page is essential for businesses on Facebook, there are also several

ways to utilize an individual Timeline - in a non-commercial way - to engage

with customers and clients on a more personal level. For now, we are going to

concentrate on Pages, but look out for Timeline-based tips in the Using Your

Personal Facebook Profile to Boost Business section at the end of this chapter.

Keep your Facebook Page name short; get it right the first time!

If at all possible, try to keep your Facebook Page name short, as this will help if

you go on to create Facebook ads, where the headline space in the advert (often

the name of your Page) is limited to just 25 characters. You can only change the

name of a Facebook Page manually if it has fewer than 200 likes, so make sure

you are happy with yours early on. If you are not happy with your Page name

and it qualifies to be changed, go to the about tab located underneath your

Page cover photo. Click edit next to the Name section and save. Changing

your Page name does not affect its username or Page web address (explained

below).

Get a custom Facebook web address for your Facebook Page

Set up a vanity URL for your Facebook Page (available when you gain 25 likes)

ideally named after your brand, e.g. www.facebook.com/yourcompanyname.

This will make it much easier for you to tell people how to find your Facebook

Page. Think about it carefully, as you will only be able to change this URL once

in future (via the about tab), otherwise you will have to delete your Page and

start over - not good if you've built a big fan base! To reach the 25-fan threshold

quickly, invite your e-mail contacts and current Facebook friends - a community

of people who already care about you and your brand - to visit and like your

Page, via the promote drop-down menu at the top of your Facebook Page.

Fill in business info accurately and in detail

Fill in as much of your business' details as possible in the About section of your

Facebook Page, including address, contact details, product information, website

(add multiple URLs by separating them with commas in the website box), and

links to other social profiles. Putting the effort into populating these sections

makes your Page helpful to customers who can see all of your essential

information in one place, and the keyword-rich blurb is also good for search

engine optimization (SEO), as the text in your About section is indexed by

Google. Restaurant owner and selected Restaurant/Cafe as your Page's category?

Make sure you include the types of foods you serve, and also upload your menu

as a PDF for customers to browse, or if you're in the U.S. or Canada, you can

also add a menu through SinglePlatform.

Note: Depending on how your Page is categorized, sometimes the first-viewed

bit of the About section displays differently on the Facebook mobile app than it

does to desktop viewers. For some mobile users, it will show your Short

Description, others your Mission, and others still, a portion of your full

Company Description. With this in mind, it may be wise to amend all of these

sections to begin with your website URL so that you can guarantee that is always

the first thing that mobile users see.

Verify your Page and get an official check mark on your cover photo

If your business has a real world address, Facebook allows you to verify your

Page to adorn its cover photo with an official grey check mark - similar to the

blue one given to celebrities and other public figures. To verify your Page, visit

your Page Settings and choose Verify Page under the General menu. You’ll need

to confirm your business-representative status via a telephone call to a publicly

listed number for your business, or otherwise upload an official document. 

business phone or utility bill, business license, business tax file, etc. Verified

Pages appear higher in search results and show people at a glance that you are

the official brand Page for your company on Facebook, so it’s well worth doing.

Create an awesome cover photo and add a call-to-action button

Facebook Page cover photos are viewable by anyone on Facebook, so use the

space to effectively communicate your brand or message in one simple, high

quality, image. The ideal size is 851 × 315 pixels - any smaller and Facebook

will automatically stretch the image, making it appear blurry. Ideas for cover

photos include one powerful image that communicates who you are and what

you do, a collage of your products, highlighting an ongoing offer, or featuring a

photo or testimonial submitted by one of your own fans - the latter will really

Wow your customer and hopefully they'll spread the word to their friends.

Keep users engaged by periodically updating your cover photo and profile pic -

once per month is a good target to aim for, but a seasonal change is popular

amongst brands, too.

Add a call to action, offers and links in the cover design and description

In December 2014, Facebook announced the roll out of solid, clickable call-to-

action buttons that can be added to cover photos, including,

Contact Us, Use App. Designed as a way to bring your business’ most

important objective to the forefront of your Facebook presence, call-to-action

buttons can be linked to any destination on or off Facebook. Dollar Shave Club

used a Sign Up call-to-action cover photo button and saw a 2.5x higher

conversion rate over three weeks compared to other comparable efforts.

When you upload a cover photo, click on it and you will be able to edit it to add

a text description. Here, type a short, relevant blurb, then add in a call to action

and related links to your website, a product, an offer, a Page tab, or feature a

discount code as a reward for clicking. Many Facebook Page visitors click on

cover photos for a closer look, so use the description as a way to anchor the

photo and encourage them to take action. The description will also appear when

someone hovers their mouse cursor over the cover image - just another reason to

make the most of it. To encourage more clicks on your cover photo, you can try

experimenting with a button as part of your cover design with its own call to

action, e.g. Get 10% off your next purchase with us - Click Here! Alternatively. 

Important to Notice

Facebook most recently amended its rules about cover photos in July

2013. They read: “Covers can't be deceptive, misleading or infringe on anyone

else's copyright. You may not encourage people to upload your cover to their

personal timelines.” Facebook has been known to remove the cover photos of

Pages who don't follow along, so stick to them in order to avoid any nasty

surprises. Once upon a time, Facebook also told Page owners that their cover

photo could not feature text that covered more than 20% of its entire area. This

restriction no longer applies, which means that you can include contact details

and pricing and purchasing information about a product in your cover image to

whatever extent you like. While this is mostly good news for marketers, I would

still advise caution. Too much text can make a cover photo look spammy and

unprofessional, so I would recommend at least some restraint, as the instant

visual impact of a great cover photo cannot be understated.

Upload a Facebook profile photo recognizable at a small size

While the cover photo dominates your Facebook Page, arguably, it's the profile

photo you choose that can have the most influence overall, as it is seen all over

the site: in the News Feed of followers, in posts on your Page's timeline, in all

comment replies, and of course, overlaying your cover photo. The recommended

upload size for a profile photo is 180 x 180 pixels, but it is displayed at 160 x

160 on your main profile, and as small as 43 x 43 pixels next to comments.

Ideally, the image you choose should be recognizable (or at least distinct) at this

smallest size. The best thing to do is to create a large square image - something

like 640 × 640 pixels (or as big as you want, really). When uploaded, it will

automatically be scaled down to 160 × 160, look nice and crisp, and anyone who

clicks on your profile photo for a closer look will see the large image in all its

glory. 

The top 10 ways to make the most of Twitter

 

 The top 10 ways to make the most of Twitter:

1. Create a valuable news service

If you want people to follow you, create a useful feed to follow. That may be

announcements or news and links about your industry or field and can help

position you as an expert. It might be original tips you write yourself. A daily tip

on your area of expertise can be a powerful way to build a following. But just

keeping an eye on tweets in your area of interest, and retweeting them is in itself

useful and a low-maintenance way to keep your tweets regular.

2. Include relevant links

Tweets are most useful when they include a relevant link to something useful or

interesting. This may be a blog post, a news item, a press release, a YouTube

video almost anything. And to make sure you don’t take up too much valuable

space in your allocated 140 characters, use a free URL shortening service. 

because you can use it with multiple Twitter

accounts, and it comes with plenty of analytics that can give you an insight into

how many people are clicking on your links.

You can also add the “shorten with bit.ly” toolbar to your browser: simply click

on Tools, then drag the Shorten with bit.ly link to your browser’s toolbar. Go to a

web page you want to share on Twitter, click the Shorten with bit.ly button that

now appears on your toolbar and tweet it with your message to whichever

Twitter account(s) you want.

Once you start including links in your tweets, they become more useful to your

followers, and your Twitter feed becomes full of information that your

community will value.

3. Tweet your blog

The best way to generate web traffic based on relevant, contextual links is to

tweet your blog. You can set up an account with www.twitterfeed.com to link

any blog to a Twitter account. Whenever you publish a new post, it will

automatically tweet to your account with a link back to your blog post.

Remember to include your own tweets as well as simply dumping links to your

blog to maintain engagement with your audience and increase your followers.

You might consider asking a question relevant to a blog post that has recently

tweeted.

4. Link to pictures, audio and video

You can enhance your content by including links to the three other Internet

content types: images, video and audio. Use http://twitpic.com,

http://tweetphoto.com or http://yfrog.com to upload a picture with your tweet.

Use www.twitvid.com or www.twiddeo.com to upload video. Tweet audio with

http://audioboo.fm, such as quick client testimonials, short interviews at trade

shows, or simply to speak directly to your customers.

5. Use Twitter as a search engine

Twitter can be a valuable source of market intelligence when used as a “listening

tool” to find out what people are saying about you or your business sector.

Twitter has a powerful, integrated search function in the sidebar on your page.

You can also go to http://search.twitter.com. Both of these display the latest

“trending topics.” Most importantly, you can use it to find and follow people

whose tweets include your keywords—search terms that are relevant to the

community you’re trying to reach.

6. Special offers and freebies

You can encourage followers by offering something for free to new followers—

such as an e-book. Explain the offer in your biography or graphical sidebar, as

well as on your website and anywhere else you want to attract people who are

not yet on Twitter. You can set up an automatic welcome DM to new followers at

www.tweetlater.com and include a link to the download. I’m not a fan of

automatic DMs, even when you’re giving something away—but not everyone

objects. Another way to organize a giveaway is to use http://twiveaway.com to

run a contest. Ask people to retweet a specific message over a given time period,

and then pull, say, six names out of a hat to receive a free gift, all managed for

you by Twiveaway. Another approach is to tweet regular time-limited discount

codes—something that South African T-shirt store Spring Leap (@Springleap)

have used successfully. For people who are interested in their products, it pays to

follow them on Twitter since they’ll have access to discounts. They also engage

their community with competitions.

7. Organize a tweet-up

Twitterers don’t just sit in front of their computer screens all day—they like to

get together at real-life meet-ups, or “tweet-ups.” If you have a loyal following

of people who are united by a common interest, consider organizing a get-

together. It doesn’t have to be a big event—a few drinks in a bar after work

would do. You could provide free drinks by sponsoring the event yourself or

even finding an external sponsor to put a tab behind the bar. And it’s very easy to

organize through Twitter using http://twtvite.com. If your business serves a local

community, you might consider organizing and sponsoring a local tweet-up.

Twestival (http://twestival.com) has raised half a million dollars for charity

primarily through local tweet-ups throughout the world. The focus doesn’t have

to be purely social: You could also arrange a guest speaker or speak yourself on

the topic of interest to your community. You might even consider charging for

events that provide significant value to your followers.

“Twitterers like to get together at real-life meet-ups, or ‘tweet-

ups’”

8. Conduct market research

Social media enables you to stay close to your community, and this is useful for

ad hoc market research. Ask your community what they think about a new

product, service, or website. Create an online survey using

www.surveymonkey.com and promote it via Twitter, do a poll with

http://twtpoll.com, or simply ask a question with a tweet. When Rude Health

Cereals owner Camilla Barnard (@rudehealth) wants some feedback on a new

idea for a porridge flavor, she simply asks. And because it’s not a focus group

where people feel worried to speak up, she gets direct and honest feedback.

9. Ask for help

People are very willing to help out on Twitter. I offer advice where I can, but I

also ask for it. Sometimes I ask for geek help such as “Do you know of a

WordPress plugin that does X?” But because publishers and authors are also part

of my community of interest, I also follow a lot of writers. A couple of months

ago I tweeted “I want to go away for a week to focus on writing. Any

suggestions?” I had several suggestions within the hour, including from a writer

friend called Katharine (@kreeve), who I only know from Twitter: “@jonreed—

suggest Alf Rescos in Dartmouth—top flat—excellent breakfasts and coffee; big

table, mini kitchen, overlooking sea and Dart.” And that is exactly where I am

writing from—somewhere I would never have discovered without Twitter!

10. Improve customer service

Use the real-time web to respond to customers and even to take orders. Small,

independent Houston-based coffee shop CoffeeGroundz (@CoffeeGroundz) is

credited with taking the first “to-go” order on Twitter, from one of their regular

customers, Sean Stoner (@maslowbeer). Because general manager J.R. Cohen is

an avid tweeter, he quickly replied and this started a trend: “to-go” orders, table

reservations and event bookings are now regularly taken from all their followers

via Direct Message (DM). Together with free wi-fi, this has made the coffee

shop a firm favorite of the local Twitterati, as well as gaining the business wider

publicity.

Build your followers

Now that you’re on Twitter with a nice branded profile, tweeting appropriately

and engagingly and following key people in your community, it’s time to build

your followers. Why do you want to do this? Because building followers on

Twitter is like building up your email list. Once you have a sizable list, you can

announce your latest product, service, or event—as long as it is genuinely of

interest to your followers and you’re not doing a hard sell. Like an email list,

you don’t want people on there who are not interested in what you’re offering.

You don’t want to randomly broadcast a wasted marketing message—you want

to engage your fan base of followers who are actually interested in what you do.

“building followers on Twitter is like building up your email

list”

The big secret is simply: Follow more people. About half will follow you back.

OK, there is a bit more to it, and a few caveats. Here is my Five-Point Exploding

Twitter Technique, for significantly increasing your followers while maintaining

. 

1. Only follow people who are in your community of interest

Follow people who are likely to be interested in you and follow you back. Where

do you find them? One way is to do a keyword search for people who are

tweeting about your topic, or look at who is tweeting from a conference within

your industry by following the hashtag. A more efficient way is to find people

like yourself, who are tweeting in your subject area—and follow their followers.

Their followers are also likely to be interested in your tweets, if they’re already

following someone who is your “competition” in the Twitterverse. To find these

people, look at some of the Twitter directories that sort people according to

industry or topic, such as www.wefollow.com or www.twellow.com.

2. Stay within the Twitter follow limit

There is a limit—you can’t just follow everyone. Twitter will stop you from

following any new people once you hit the limit. However, that limit increases

the more followers you have. Anyone can follow 2,000 people. After that, you

can follow 10 percent more people than are following you. So, if you have 5,000

followers, you can follow 5,500 people.

3. Unfollow people who don’t follow you back

Does that seem harsh? Not really. If people don’t follow you back, they’re

clearly not that interested in what you have to say. Just like you don’t want

random, uninterested, disengaged people clogging up your email list, you don’t

want uninterested people taking up valuable space in your allowance of people

you can follow. In this way you can free up space for new people to follow. You

can find those people who you follow but who don’t follow you by using

http://friendorfollow.com.

4. Create content that people actually want to read

Finding followers is easy. Keeping them is harder. In the same way people can

stop subscribing to your email newsletters, they can stop following you on

Twitter. If you stay focused on engaging your followers with useful, interesting,

regular content, you will not only keep your followers but also attract new ones.

There’s no real substitute for creating a useful news service.

5. Create community by using hashtags (#), retweets (RT) and replies (@)

By using Twitter in a social way, rather than treating it as a one-way broadcast

medium, you increase the interest and value in your tweets, which will make you

more interesting to follow. Hashtags are keywords that start with the # symbol

and become hotlinks to a timeline of everyone tweeting with that hashtag in their

tweets. They are popular at conferences, where delegates frequently tweet. 

What about Twitter?

 

What about Twitter?

If you’re familiar with Facebook, Twitter is basically just the status update part

of Facebook. It’s a short update (or “tweet”) that tells the world what you’re up

to, or indeed any message, as often as you like, in 140 characters or less. Twitter

is described as a “microblogging” site, which suggests it is a content tool, made

up of very short blog posts. While true, the way in which Twitter is now used is

much more social, which makes me think of it as more of a social network and

therefore an outreach tool. The truth lies somewhere in between.

“Twitter is basically just the status update part of Facebook”

Why does Twitter work for business?

The value of Twitter is in its ability to reach a vast yet niche audience of people

who are interested in what you have to say. You can build a following as an

authentic, trusted voice in your field. Its real-time “breaking news” aspect, plus

its widespread use on mobile devices makes it a medium for providing valuable

information for your community of interest where and when they want it. You

can let people know what is going on right now, tweet breaking news, plus more

commercial messages such as time-limited discounts and special offers.

Twitter becomes more or less useful depending on who you follow. For example,

I follow a number of other social media enthusiasts on Twitter. At any one time,

they are attending international conferences and live-tweeting from them,

discussing latest trends and developments in the field and sharing links. It helps

me keep current. If you can provide similarly useful information to your

community, you will build a loyal following.

“Twitter becomes more or less useful depending on who you

follow”

Twitter’s usefulness is similar to building an email list and it is an opt-in list

since people have sought you out and chosen to follow you for the valuable,

interesting content you provide. This may sometimes include news of your latest

products, special offers, and relevant links to your blog or website.

Get up to speed with Twitter

In this chapter we’ll look at the essential steps you need to take to use Twitter

effectively for your business.

1. Create your Twitter account.

2. Familiarize yourself with Twitter.

3. Get tweeting!

4. Build your followers.

Create your Twitter account

You can start to get a feel for Twitter at http://twitter.com without even creating

an account. You can see what the current “trending topics” are (i.e., what people

are tweeting about most often) and do a search yourself. But the best way to

learn about the possibilities is to sign up and start tweeting.

1. Register an account at http://twitter.com/signup. You can change your

“Full name,” password and email later if you want—but think carefully

about the username you choose since this will appear in the URL (e.g.,

http://twitter.com/jonreed). It’s a bit like registering a web address. You

can also change this later, but you’re unlikely to want to once you build up

a following. You can create a personal account, a business account, or

both.

2. Upload a profile picture. The most essential graphical element is your

profile picture. You must have one of these. If you stick with the default

Twitter bird icon, you will not be taken seriously on Twitter, and it will be

hard to attract followers. There is evidence to suggest that people like to

see a person rather than a company logo, but it’s really up to you.

3. Add a biography. You can also include a short (160 character)

description, or biography. You might choose to make this a personal

biography, or a description of your business. You can also keep changing

this if you want, perhaps to focus on a particular project, product, service,or offer.

4. Include your web address. This appears prominently on your profile.

page. Think carefully about where you want to link to, and again you can

change this whenever you want. You will probably want to link to the

home page of your business site, but you may also want to link to your

blog or to a special offer or a newly launched product or service. Many

people will click this link to see who is behind the Twitter profile, so use it

wisely.

5. Do NOT protect your updates. There is an option for you to pre-approve

your followers, by selecting “protect my updates.” Don’t do this unless you

want to be invisible on Twitter.

6. Customize your background. It is fairly easy to customize your color

scheme: Just go to Settings, Design, and Change design colors

(http://twitter.com/settings/design). You should choose colors that match

your branding. But you can also click on Change background image from

this screen and include a customized, branded background. There are

advantages to doing this, including the opportunity to add a graphical

sidebar that contains more information about your business. There is

further information on how to do this at

www.getuptospeed.biz/twitterback. But don’t worry if you don’t have a

customized background, at least to start with a lot of people will never

see your Twitter page anyway since they’ll follow your tweets on their

own timeline, or via a smartphone or desktop application such as

www.tweetdeck.com.

Familiarize yourself with Twitter

Finding your way around

Now, get to know the different elements of your Twitter page. This is the Profile

page for this book’s Twitter account, which is what you’ll see if you go to

http://twitter.com/getuptospeed.

Get Tweeting

You can tweet in the “traditional” way, to post updates about whatever you’re

doing this minute. But there is so much more you can do with Twitter, including

tweeting your business blog, using the “real-time web” aspect of it to tweet latest

news and time-limited discount codes, and—especially—to create a useful news

feed for your community of interest. This will make them want to follow you,

build an opted-in mailing list for you, and draw them on to your website. As

with any form of social media, it’s the usefulness of your content that will attract

followers.

What about LinkedIn?

 

What about LinkedIn?

LinkedIn has been around since 2003 and was initially little more than a place to

keep an online version of your résumé and make business connections a bit

like handing out business cards in cyberspace. It has since evolved into a more

social tool, with integration with Twitter updates, applications that enable you to

increase functionality such as pulling in a blog, and the ability to create events

and groups. Many of the core functions you would expect in a generic social

network like Facebook, but tailored for business. It’s worth a look even if you

just set up a profile then ignore it since it’s another place for people to find you.

But you may be surprised by its marketing potential, particularly for business-to-

business (B2B) marketing.

Why LinkedIn works for business

LinkedIn works for business in several ways.

Building business connections

Whether it’s getting back in touch with old colleagues or meeting new contacts,

LinkedIn is like a big business networking party where everyone is handing out

business cards, and saying “You must meet my colleague X” or “I’m looking for

a graphic designer, can you recommend someone?” Use it to tell people what

you do, but also for introductions and recruitment.

“LinkedIn is like a big business networking party where

everyone is handing out business cards”

Unlike Twitter or Facebook, you can only send contact request invitations to

people you know, have some business connection with, whose email address you

know, or who you have been introduced to via a mutual contact.

LinkedIn shows you your number of contacts but unlike Facebook also

calculates a number of potential contacts in your wider network of friends of

friends. This is very powerful, as it is a database of professionals who are likely

to be within your broad areas of interest, who you are not directly connected to,

but to whom you could get an introduction via people you do know. This is like

real-life business networking, except that you can see which people your

business contacts know in front of you on your screen and decide who you think

might be useful for you to know, without any conversation taking place over

cocktails and canapés (OK, that might be a downside!).

Positioning yourself as an expert

One of the things people do on LinkedIn is ask questions of their extended

business community. If you have an area of expertise you can share, you can use

it to position yourself as an expert.

How to promoting your business

Like Facebook, you can join groups in your area of interest and post relevant

messages to them. You can also create ads, though I find this less effective—and

far more expensive. You can create groups to engage your community of interest

and build up a following. Although you should avoid anything too spammy,

marketing messages are much less frowned upon on LinkedIn. It’s a business

networkpromoting your business on it is fine. Just keep it relevant to the

people you’re talking to.

Bear in mind at all times that your audience on LinkedIn may be subtly different

from your audience on Facebook or Twitter. With all social networks, keep your

status updates and postings relevant to your community of interest and the

network you’re communicating on.

Get up to speed with LinkedIn

In this section, we will look at the steps you need to take to get up to speed with

LinkedIn.

1. Create your profile.

2. Install applications.

3. Set up a LinkedIn Group.

4. Create an event.

5. Offer your expertise on LinkedIn Answers.

Create a profile

Think of your LinkedIn profile as selling copy. On Facebook you might talk

about your hobbies or family in your personal profile. For LinkedIn, imagine

you are updating your résumé or writing down your elevator pitch. Focus on

your career history, education, achievements, and what you can offer your

contacts through your business. Add links to your websites so that people can

find more information and use plenty of keywords relevant to your industry to

boost your search results.

Build your network by importing your email contacts and searching for your

business contacts. Look at your contacts’ connections too for anyone you know.

LinkedIn will also suggest people to connect to, based on your network, and is

remarkably good at finding people for you I’m still often surprised at how

often LinkedIn correctly guesses “people you may know.” It has a better hit rate. 

than Facebook, in my experience. But this is partly due to the restrictions built

into the system. You are discouraged from connecting with just anyone.

“LinkedIn will also suggest people to connect to”

One part of your profile is “Recommendations”—short testimonials written by

contacts with whom you have done business. These are equivalent to references

you may include with your résumé, and don’t be afraid to ask for them. There’s

even a form to make it easy for you. Go to the Profile Menu, choose

Recommendations, and then click the Request Recommendations tab. Or go

direct to:

 www.linkedin.com/recRequests?cor=&trk=recppl_recsforme.

 

There’s a standard message, which you can customize, and you can choose

which position you want a recommendation for. This can also be a useful way to

add testimonials to your website since you can and should ask if you can

quote from their recommendation on your website too.

Install applications

LinkedIn now also has a range of apps to enhance your profile and increase your

functionality. Although nothing like on the scale of Facebook (about a dozen so

far, including Events and Tweets), they are more business-focused. Find these in

the Application Directory via the More... drop-down menu. You will also see

apps you have already installed in this menu.

Import your Twitter feed and blog (there is more information on this in the quick

win section), and experiment with other apps that seem relevant to your

business.

• Polls is a market research tool that allows you to collect data from your

connections for free, or target selected groups of people on LinkedIn based

on industry, demographic, job title, etc., for a pay-per-response fee.

• Reading List by Amazon allows you to share what you’re reading with

other LinkedIn members by linking to books on Amazon.com.

• SlideShare or Google Presentation—if you regularly run courses, give

seminars, or speak at conferences to people in your industry, consider

uploading a sample presentation using one of these.

• Company Buzz tracks what’s being said about your company on Twitter,

blogs, and elsewhere.

• Box.net Files allows file sharing with colleagues and specific contacts on

LinkedIn.

• My Travel, powered by TripIt, alerts your network to where you’ll be

travelling. Useful for letting your contacts know when you’ll be in the same

city as them or if you travel frequently to meet clients, to conferences, or to

run seminars.

• Huddle Workspaces allows for private collaboration on projects with

colleagues. Documents and spreadsheets can be co-edited with changes

tracked.

• SAP Community Bio is for those certified in SAP business software and

displays their credentials on their profiles.

• WordPress and Blog Link—if you have a blog, pull your latest postings on

to your profile with WordPress (for WordPress blogs), or Blog Link. 

powered by TypePad but works with any blog and will pull in posts from

multiple blogs.

• Events displays events that you and your contacts plan to attend. You can

also use it to create your own events, which we shall look at later in this

chapter.

• Tweets is one of the most useful apps, as it syncs with your Twitter

account(s) and is a useful way to aggregate your updates and lessen the

workload. Here’s how:

Linking in with Twitter

Since 2009 LinkedIn has enabled you to link your Twitter account to your

LinkedIn status update. Install the Tweets app and configure the settings. You

can choose Tweets from the More... drop-down menu, but that will only allow

you to adjust settings for the Twitter account that is linked to your updates.

What about Facebook?

What about Facebook?

Facebook originally started as a college network in the U.S. You had to have an

American university email address to join. Since opening its doors to everyone

in 2006, the demographic has rapidly aged and, in common with many social

networks, the fastest-growing age group is people over the age of 35. Don’t

dismiss it as being for kids. Facebook has become one of the most widely used

online marketing tools for business.

Why Facebook works for business

Alongside the usual personal profiles you would expect, Facebook offers a wide

variety of tools such as pages, groups, events, applications, and ads. Because it

has such a large user base, you will almost certainly find a community of interest

on Facebook, however niche your area. You can reach very specific, targeted

users for little cost with “social ads.” But the best thing is it’s completely free to

create a page or group specifically for your business or product, and your target

market will find it. A Facebook page is the single most important thing you can

do on Facebook and one of the easiest. There are more than 160 million pages,

groups and events on Facebook, and the average user is connected to 60 of them.

Your customers are on Facebook—so you need to be.

“your customers are on Facebook. 

In this section, we will look at the steps you need to take to get up to speed with

Facebook.

1. Create your profile.

2. Create a page or group to build a community around your business.

3. Create an event to promote your business.

4. Set up a social ad to target your niche.

Optionally, you might also want to sell products using Facebook Marketplace

(http://apps.facebook.com/marketplace).

Create your profile

If you are not yet on Facebook, the first step is to create a profile. That’s the easy

part: just sign up for an account and enter some information about yourself. You

may not use your own personal profile to promote your business unless you are

the brand or very tied to the business, such as a consultant or musician, but you

will need to have one in order to create groups, pages, or events. Events can also

be created by pages and groups.

1. If you don’t have a personal profile, go to www.facebook.com and create

one now.

2. Enter as much or as little personal information as you want in the fields

provided on the Info tab, but you should always include your business

website in the weblinks field. You can include multiple web addresses if

you want—though too many may confuse people.

3. Be sure to add a profile picture so people know it’s you.

4. The most important place to enter some information about yourself is in

the small box beneath your profile image. This is likely to be the first thing

that people read. You can enter 250 characters here, and it should be your

“elevator pitch”—a short, succinct articulation of what you do and the

benefit you offer. Think of it as the online equivalent of introducing

yourself to someone at a real-life business networking event as you hand

them your business card. There is an “Information” box beneath this. Click

on the pencil icon (top-right) to edit which of the information from your

Info tab appears here. At a minimum you should include your web address

so that anyone intrigued enough by your elevator pitch can click straight

through to your business website. If you don’t yet have a website or blog,

you can enter the Web address for another social network that you’re on, or

for your Twitter page.

5. Spend a bit of time getting your profile right before you start adding

friends, but don’t spend too much time on this beyond the basics—we will

quickly be moving on to pages, groups, and events.

6. Do a search for your topic area and join a few groups and become a fan of

(or “Like”) a few pages. This will help familiarize yourself with the

possibilities, and give you some places where you can post messages and

make more connections (though don’t just spam groups with your

marketing message!)

You can make your profile as visible or invisible as you like to whoever you

choose using the privacy settings. If you are using your personal profile to

develop new contacts and get business, you will probably want most people to

be able to see it. But even if you choose a high level of privacy, you can still

connect with as many people as you want on Facebook via a more public page.

Create a page or group

Groups and pages offer you a way of creating a fully opted-in mailing list: your

members and fans have sought you out and chosen to join your group or become

a fan of your page, making this the ultimate in permission-based marketing. You

can have as many members or fans as you like, where profiles are limited to

5,000 friends. And, like profiles, pages and groups allow status updates, which

show up in the news feeds of your fans or members. There are also differences

between them, which are worth considering when planning your strategy.

Page or group?

Whether you choose a page or a group to promote your business—or both—be

careful about your choice of name. In most cases this is likely to be your

business name. But you could also go for a topic-based name. Either way, it

helps to consider the name of your group or page as carefully as you would a

domain name since people will search for you by keywords on Facebook.

Create a group

1. Go to http://www.facebook.com/groups/create.php.

2. Enter a name and description for your group and choose the most

appropriate category from the drop-down menu. All these things will help

people find your group, so think carefully about your group name and,

where possible, include the search terms you expect people to use.

3. Include the other details requested, especially website, and click Create

Group.

4. Continue customizing your group as you wish.

Create a page

1. Go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php or scroll to the bottom

of any Facebook page and click the “Create a Page for My Business” link.

2. Choose whichever radio button applies to you: “Local business,” “Brand,

product or organization” or “Artist, band or public figure.” There are

additional subcategories to choose from in a drop-down menu that will

appear.

3. Give your page a name, click the “Create official Page” button, and

continue customizing.

4. Unlike groups, you can install most of the same applications. 

Simplest win: Create your own Facebook application

The more adventurous way to benefit from Facebook applications is to create your own. You will need

some programming skills, or hire a developer, to create a bespoke application with lots of functionality

that people can add to their own profiles. However, there is a simpler way to do it yourself.

There are several applications on Facebook that enable you to create a box on your profile or page that

contains whatever HTML you want. These applications include

• My HTML.

• HTML Profile Box. This can only be used on your profile.

• Static FBML (http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=4949752878). FBML stands for

“Facebook Markup Language”—but normal HTML works just fine too. This can be used on pages,

and is my favorite because you can add as many boxes as you want to your page using this one

application. You can also create a bespoke tab on your page.

If you or someone you know knows some basic HTML, that’s great. But the main thing I would suggest

is using your own customized HTML box for an email newsletter sign-up form and you can do that

without any coding knowledge. If you set up your email marketing in Chapter 

5, you should have a

piece of code supplied by your email newsletter service provider. Simply paste the code into one of the

Facebook HTML apps. If you don’t yet have your email marketing set up but have a blog, you could

include links to subscribe to your blog by RSS or email instead.

The other app to consider is 

Application Builder (http://apps.facebook.com/applicationbuilder). This

allows you to create one of 13 different types of apps, such as gifts, quizzes, polls, and a fan page

application that can be used to promote your page.

Five ways to win with Facebook pages

1. Claim your username. Once you have 25 fans, you claim your own. 

“vanity URL” instead of meaningless numbers. The Facebook page for this

book is www.facebook.com/getuptospeed, for example. Claim yours at

www.facebook.com/username.

2. Import your blog. The Notes app is the easiest way to do this and keeps

your page fresh.

3. Integrate with Twitter. You can import your Twitter status to your

Facebook page status selectively using the Selective Tweet Status app. You

can also export your page status to Twitter using the Facebook Page to

Twitter app at www.facebook.com/twitter.

4. Create a landing tab. Use the Static FBML app to create a bespoke tab

for your page. Then edit your wall settings on your “edit page” screen to

select the tab you want non-fans to land on. By doing this you can decide

what people see before they become a fan and tempt them in with

compelling content.

5. Promote your page. Now that you’ve created a page let people know

about it: blog about it, tweet about it and include it in your email signature.

A great way to encourage people to “like” your page direct from your blog

or website is with a “Like” button. Find this, and other “social plugins” at

http://developers.facebook.com/plugins.

Create an event

Events are useful for product launches, conferences, seminars, etc., especially

when you have many potential attendees as fans of your page or members of

your group.

Events can be created by:

1. Individuals/profiles http://www.facebook.com/events/create.php.

2. Groups click on the Create group event link below your logo/image.

3. Pages click on the Edit Page link underneath your logo/image, then on

the Edit link underneath Events.