How to Avoiding LinkedIn Pitfalls

 

How to Avoiding LinkedIn Pitfalls 

 Of all the major social networks, it seems to me that LinkedIn has been 

the freest from privacy controversies, culture clashes, scammers, and para-

sites. There are a couple of reasons for this: 

• LinkedIn is clearly and consciously a business platform, so your net-

work is likely to be better defi ned, tighter, and more self-policing than 

on the general social sites, where business is just part (and a very small 

part) of the conversation. 

• Requests for connections, though looser now than they once were, 

still expect requestors to know their invitees personally and to specify 

whether they know them as a colleague, business partner, fellow mem-

ber of a LinkedIn group, or friend—and LinkedIn requires you to name 

the company or group specifi cally. Invitees are cautioned by LinkedIn 

not to connect to people they don ’ t know. 

 Still, although LinkedIn is a less wild place than the mainstream social 

networks, there are potential pitfalls. Here are fi ve lovely ways you can 

screw up on LinkedIn: 

 1. Using LinkedIn to cold-call on business prospects . This is a huge 

turn-off. When LinkedIn goes to the length it does to discourage con-

necting to strangers, a cold-call invite demonstrates that the person is 

selfi sh, socially clueless, and just plain doesn ’ t follow directions. I 

never invite anyone to my network whom I have not either met in per-

son, know through another friend, or have engaged in some back-and-

forth communication by phone or e-mail. 

 2. Oversharing of non-business info . It ’ s doubtful anyone on Twitter or 

Facebook really cares if you just ate a tuna sandwich. It ’ s 100 percent 

guaranteed no one cares about it on LinkedIn. 

 

3. Oversharing of business or proprietary info . Especially pronounced 

on LinkedIn is the risk of sharing proprietary information, tipping off 

competitors about your plans or whereabouts, being caught in a lie, 

leaking a sensitive press release, saying something disparaging about 

clients, vendors, conferences, job applicants, etc. Imagine tweeting that 

you fl ew into Pittsburgh to pitch yourself as a new vendor to a sporting 

goods company. It wouldn ’ t take Dick ’ s Sporting Goods current. 

vendors much to fi gure out that their account is in play—a fact that the 

client company has every right and reason to keep secret until a deci-

sion is made. On LinkedIn as on any social network, you need to be 

honest and straightforward. But you need also to recognize that 

Linked In posts become public in a fl ash. Think twice about that post. I 

can ’ t tell you how many times I was on the verge of making a post 

when I took a moment and realized that it could have some negative 

repercussions or broadcast the wrong image or message. It is better to 

be safe than sorry. 

 4. Being a connection whore . LinkedIn has tried to slow individual net-

work growth to keep connections strong and meaningful, discouraging 

users from asking for or accepting connections from users they don ’ t 

personally know. But the unsanctioned group of mega-connectors 

known as LinkedIn LIONs pretty much go their own way. Unlike Face-

book, Twitter, and other platforms, LinkedIn stops at “500+” when dis-

playing your number of connections to the general public. Nonetheless, 

connection whores still make a point of bragging “over 10,500 connec-

tions” and so on, on their profi les. Big deal. Such pronouncements 

betray that you ’ re after quantity, not quality. Especially on LinkedIn, 

I ’ m a huge believer that a smaller, well-focused network, where the 

members tend to share similar job descriptions or industry, is the best 

network to build. If you can ’ t make a clear elevator pitch about the type 

of folks most commonly found in your network, your network is too 

big for its own good. 

 

5. Neglecting your profi le . LinkedIn is a pretty basic platform. The 

Q&A features, groups, status posts, and add-on applications like 

TripIt are nice touches, but they ’ re window dressing to the main rai-

son d ’ etre of the site: the professional profi le. Your profi le is your 

resume and business card, and it ’ s not just for hiring managers and 

recruiters. It serves industry media, prospective customers, job appli-

cants to your fi rm—everybody in your professional world. If your 

profi le is a bare-bones recital of a few of your jobs, it hasn ’ t been 

updated in three years, and you ’ ve got just a paltry few connections, 

it conveys the wrong message about you. Rather than describing the 

active, well-regarded, and well-connected professional you, it ’ s a sad 

ghost town that makes you seem rather isolated, behind the times, and 

bad in the follow-through department. Better not to do LinkedIn at all 

than to do it lethargically.

YOU MAY KNOW OTHER BUSINESS NETWORKS 

 LinkedIn is the biggest business network by far, but there are a number 

of other worthwhile sites to look into, some of them with a niche focus on 

entrepreneurship:

• Biznik : Online community of entrepreneurs and small businesses. 

• cmypitch.com : A UK-focused business Web site for entrepreneurs to 

exchange RFPs, quotes, and advice. 

• Cofoundr : A global network of entrepreneurs, programmers, designers, 

investors, and others involved with start-ups. 

• eFactor : At just under a million members, bills itself as the world ’ s larg-

est network of entrepreneurs and investors. 

• Ecademy : A business and knowledge-sharing network with the motto 

“Community, Conversations, Commerce.” 

• Entrepreneur Connect : The online community sponsored by Entrepre-

neur.com . 

• Fast Pitch : Business network oriented somewhat toward smaller busi-

nesses with an emphasis on sales, marketing, and lead generation. 

• Focus : Oriented toward Q and A, to help marketing, IT, and other pro-

fessionals make business decisions. 

• PartnerUp : Small-business network with an emphasis on online forums. 

• Plaxo : An in-the-cloud business address book tool that can sync with 

your Outlook contacts. 

• Ryze : Business networking community and classifi ed ad network with 

500,000 members from 200 countries. 

• Spoke : Uses spiders to build its database of 60 million businesspeople—

one of whom could be you. 

• StartupNation : Social network focused on start-up businesses, funding, 

and marketing. 

• Xing : Global business networking and job search site with 9 million 

members. 

• Zoominfo : Like Spoke, Zoominfo ’ s profi les are initially built by spider-

ing the Web for articles about people.

STRATEGIES OF LINKEDIN AND OTHER BUSINESS NETWORKS

 

STRATEGIES OF LINKEDIN AND OTHER BUSINESS NETWORKS 

 The freewheeling and highly personal nature of Facebook, MySpace, 

and other social networks is an alien landscape for businesses. Your orga-

nization can fi t in and thrive there, but it will take a lot of reconnaissance 

and slow acclimatization. 

 LinkedIn, by contrast, is a natural for you. It is the easiest place for any 

business to begin exploring the social-media landscape because it ’ s designed 

specifi cally as a business-networking tool. And when I say business, I mean 

it in its very broadest sense; anything you do for a living will have its coun-

terpart communities, colleagues, and vendors present on LinkedIn. 

 There are currently 65 million LinkedIn members, hailing from more 

than 200,000 companies, and the rate of adoption is growing at a blistering 

speed. Some of the growth may be coming from the troubled economy and 

job market. Pointing to month-over-month upticks of more than 20 per-

cent, TechCrunch ’ s Erick Schonfeld notes, “When times are tough, net-

working is a survival skill.” 5

 But whether in a good economic climate or bad, the business network-

ing resources on LinkedIn are a powerful help for anyone ’ s career and 

daily productivity. How? 

 You ’ ll notice I didn ’ t say anything about customers. By and large, 

LinkedIn is not a place to go in search of customers—unless, of course, 

you are a business-to-business company, a consultant, or professional ser-

vice. In that case, LinkedIn can be an enormously fertile ground for you.

who, as an early stage angel investor, has his hands in Facebook, Digg, 

Ning, Technorati, Six Apart, Funny or Die, and literally scores of other 

Web businesses. With a BS in symbolic studies from Stanford and a mas-

ters in philosophy from Oxford, Hoffman combines big-picture thinking 

with deep technical know-how. 

 Hoffman, who has invested across the entire spectrum of social media, 

believes that people are likely to maintain two or three relatively distinct 

social-networking personas—and it is the business persona that LinkedIn 

so squarely targets. The clarity and discipline of LinkedIn as a haven for 

business networking is what makes it such an effective place. 

 The two value-added services from which LinkedIn draws its revenues 

are employment advertising placed by companies and recruiters and 

upgraded account fees. LinkedIn ’ s other revenue source is from ads it dis-

plays on the site. 

 “Reid has a belief that every person is his or her own brand,” said Matt 

Cohler, a former LinkedIn exec now at Benchmark Capital. “He means 

that in a good way, not a cheesy way. He believes that we are all our own 

organizations in the world today, and that the things that power and drive 

goodness in the world are relationships and trust.” 6

 “I actually think every individual is now an entrepreneur, whether they 

recognize it or not,” Hoffman told Charlie Rose in 2009. “Average job 

length is two to four years. That makes you a small business . . . You are 

the entrepreneur of your own small business. How do you get to your next 

gig? How do you do your career progression? All these things now fall on 

the individual shoulders. And so, they ’ re essentially an entrepreneur.” 7

 Some 25 percent or so of LinkedIn users are hiring managers or recruiters, 

but LinkedIn is about much more than jobs. LinkedIn also supports person-

to-person networking, a very useful Q&A functionality, and professional 

groups. Not to mention, many business-to-business advertisers are promot-

ing free webinars and other sometimes interesting and relevant things. 

 So you ’ re ready to start using LinkedIn. Here are some tips to make the 

experience successful for you and your business: 

Nine Steps for Making the Most of LinkedIn 

 1. Connect to key people in your real-life professional network —your 

most important colleagues with whom you have a special connection. 

Key vendors or clients. Past colleagues who have moved on to other 

employers, the people you ’ re always glad to run into at conferences.

2. Stay focused . We all have varied interests and a broad range of people 

in our lives. Think of your Facebook network: Aunt Millie, an ex-high 

school sweetheart, some pals from work, college buddies, your 

boss (gulp!). Soon there ’ s nothing you can post on your wall that feels 

comfortable, authentic, and relevant for everybody in your network. 

Don ’ t let that happen to your LinkedIn network. One beauty of Linked In 

is that as a professional networking tool, it ’ s inherently focused, as well 

as more discreet in tone. However, it ’ s easy to get off base in the con-

nections you seek out or the unsolicited ones that you accept. I work 

hard to connect with people I know, and know pretty well, in my indus-

try and who likely share my business interests, goals, conference-going 

schedule, etc. I ignore most connection requests from people I haven ’ t 

met, or who seem only trying to sell me something, or who just seem to 

be obsessive “people collectors.” At the end of the day, I like to have an 

elevator pitch about my network. I can say it is comprised not exclu-

sively but mostly of B2C e-commerce and marketing executives. They 

are a great group for me to ask questions about search-engine optimiza-

tion or who is going to attend the Internet Retailer Web Design show. 

It ’ s probably not a good network from which to recruit investment 

bankers or to get legal advice, but it suits my purposes. And the compo-

sition of your network isn ’ t just for your benefi t, but also to those select 

few you share it with. “Shared connections” is a great indicator of the 

overlap between people in the same industry or job, and it makes their 

connections richer and more useful because you ’ re introducing your 

connections to others like them. 

 

3. Complete your profi le . This isn ’ t number one on the list, because I 

want you to be a little familiar with the platform, and seeing whose 

profi les are most appealing, before you fi nish yours. What you choose 

to include in your LinkedIn profi le, and what tone you adopt, is impor-

tant. This is not a resume, per se. It is a professional biography, a busi-

ness card, selling points, and a subtle window into who you are as a 

person.

 

4. Post your status . LinkedIn lets you check whether you want your sta-

tus post to also go out as a tweet in your Twitter feed. That ’ s a handy, 

laborsaving touch, and it ’ s easily turned off if your LinkedIn post is 

going to be inappropriate for your Twitter feed or vice versa. Letting 

your connections know what you ’ re working on, sharing a new devel-

opment in your industry, or voicing your opinions on a topic of mutual 

interest is a great way to anchor each other in your professional worlds

and keep each other up-to-date. The status bar is also where I publish 

links to any blog post or article I ’ ve written. Without doing that, my 

blog would surely wither into obscurity, but by doing it, I give it a 

chance of getting some attention. 

 5. Ask and answer questions . LinkedIn questions are superpowerful. 

Answering questions well—and being selected as a “best answer” by 

the person who asked the question—is a nice little badge of courage on 

your profi le. 

 

6. Provide and ask for recommendations—but sparingly . A few well-

chosen recommendations from past bosses, employees who reported to 

you, and clients or vendors who worked with you convey a more tan-

gible sense of who you are and how good you are. It feels a bit narcis-

sistic to ask for recommendations, but it ’ s something you have to 

do—you ’ ll never get any unless you ask. 

 7. Join groups . LinkedIn groups are a mixed bag, and the LinkedIn plat-

form does not bestow a ton of useful functionality on groups. But nev-

ertheless, if you can fi nd relevant groups and start posting in discussions, 

you may fi nd that you make connections that are useful and learn some 

useful things. Discussions you elect to “watch” are e-mailed to your 

in-box, which can be zero activity for many groups and can be terribly 

annoying in that rare overactive group that just takes off virally (“What 

is your favorite motivational quote?” was a discussion I was ready to 

slit my wrists over after a few dozen alerts). 

 8. Use Amazon Reading List . This is a handy feature that lets others see 

what books you are reading and what you think of them. If you do a lot 

of business reading—management, marketing, self-help, technical, 

how-to, etc.—share it. It ’ s often a kickoff to some interesting interac-

tions, and at the very least it signals something about what makes you 

tick intellectually and professionally. 

 9. Use TripIt . Another handy and easy to use application, TripIt lets 

you log your business travel schedule. If you travel much, it ’ s of 

interest to your connections (it may cue them to connect with you at 

a shared conference or meeting). LinkedIn also reminds you of who 

among your connections lives in the city you ’ re visiting. That ’ s help-

ful, and it gets to one of the most powerful aspects of social net-

working: these connections are stronger and more satisfying when 

the digital connections are reinforced by occasional face-to-face 

meetings.

Best 12 Tips for Successful Corporate Twittering

 

Best 12 Tips for Successful Corporate Twittering 

 

1. Reserve a good, relevant username. With only 15 characters or fewer to 

play with, and with, oh, about 106 million users earlier to the party, your 

most urgent task is to come up with a short, memorable, recognizable, 

intuitive Twitter handle: as close to @YourBusiness as you can get. 

 2. Display a human face for your business . I generally think the handle 

of your business Twitter account should be the name of your company, 

although others prefer names like @Jill_atCompany to humanize the 

account and to allow several people to tweet for a single company, an 

ideal approach for large fi rms. I like the example of @Rubbermaid, 

“currently tweeted by Jim Deitzel”—this approach is an ideal way to 

have your cake and eat it, too. You get the recognizable handle. You get 

the face behind the logo—the personality of the specifi c human being 

doing the tweeting. And if the staff member should, at some point, move 

on to a different role or a different company, the account can be “cur-

rently tweeted” by some new person, without disruption to the brand. 

 

3. Establish your specialty . When I said you need an elevator pitch, I 

meant you need an area of focus, a specialty and a perspective that ’ s eas-

ily expressed in just a few words. Your focus should be on benefi ts, not 

products. Sizzle, not steak. Your Twitter feed—indeed, all your social-

media efforts—should ride the coattails of a bigger, more passionate 

lifestyle and social mission represented by the market you serve. Imag-

ine you ’ re writing little items for a fascinating lifestyle magazine in your 

niche. @organic_valley, a Wisconsin cooperative of 1,300 organic fam-

ily farms, is not just hawking the products made by its farmers—it ’ s 

sounding off on a wide range of topics related to world hunger, nutrition, 

deforestation, the impact of pesticides, bioengineering, and more. 

 4. Post frequently . Twitter is voracious. It demands at least daily post-

ings to amount to anything. Keep it brief, don ’ t overthink it, but feed 

it. Get into the habit. If you establish a schedule of seven posts a week 

for Facebook, say, plan to come up with 15 or 20 posts a week for 

Twitter. If you ’ ve done a good job of establishing your specialty above, 

you can simply set up news alerts to be informed of new developments. 

5. Use hot-button keywords in your industry . Heavy Twitter users troll 

through Twitter search results or set up alerts to follow topics of interest 

to them and the Tweeps who post about them. Keywords could be the 

name of high-profi le people or celebrities, news events, companies, just 

the name of your market or industry, etc. Whether it ’ s surfi ng, fat-free, 

Google Analytics, knitting, Scottish—whatever your niche, people on 

Twitter are searching for it daily and will follow you if you ’ re a regular 

poster on it. 

 6. Use popular hash tags, and promote your own . A hash tag is a sin-

gle, concatenated string prefaced with the # sign used to make it easier 

to fi nd all tweets on a given topic or event. On the day of the Indy 500 

auto race, the Twitterers at Indianapolis Motor Speedway pushed to 

get #indy500 to the top of the trending topics. Whether your topic or 

event is global in scope, or a niche business conference, giving it an 

easy-to-remember hash tag is key to helping your audience to stay in 

the loop. 

 

7. Follow! It ’ s not enough just to post and hope for the best. You ’ ve got 

to actively build a network on Twitter, and the best way to have people 

notice what you ’ re doing is to take notice of them. Search for members 

posting on your topics of interest and follow them. Look at their own 

followers and select relevant folks to follow. Keep a focused network 

that aligns with your “elevator pitch” or area of specialty. When you 

follow people on Twitter, they ’ ll generally follow you back. 

 

8. Recognize your followers . When people follow you, take a moment to 

check them out. Some will be blank-slate newbies or evident spam art-

ists, whom you can ignore. But when real people with an interesting 

stream of tweets follow you, follow them back. Send them a friendly 

direct-message thanking them for the follow and looking forward to 

getting to know one another. Maybe nothing will come of it—Twitter 

is the least reciprocal of the social-media platforms—but it ’ s good 

form, and you never know what will come of these connections. For 

instance, Paul Kalemkiarian, owner of the Wine of the Month Club, 

reached out to one of his Twitter followers who ran a comparison Web 

site and they established a business relationship—and she ended up 

sending him $100,000 of holiday season business. 

 9. Promote . Give the Twitter icon prominent real estate on your Web 

site. Display the current feed widget on your home page. Pitch the 

Twitter feed in your e-mail newsletter, and maybe even your catalog or 

other print media.

10. Retweet . Be listening for references to your brand, and when people 

say something nice about you, retweet it. And also send a DM to thank 

them. Retweeting the good word is an easy, effective, daily discipline 

you should get into—it ’ s a great way to spread any good buzz enjoyed 

by your brand, and it ’ s unique to Twitter. 

 

11. Ask for retweets . This can be a little crass, but if handled tongue in 

cheek or for a good cause, it can really spread the word. Example: Rid-

ing a wave of popularity for its Shape-Up fi tness shoes, the Skechers 

shoe brand asked its followers “Retweet if you love your Shape-Ups!” 

This simple effort resulted in scores of positive, authentic, brand-

building tweets, just for the asking. 

 12. Attend or host a Tweetup . One of the coolest elements of the surge in 

online social networking is that it hasn ’ t turned us all into lonely, iso-

lated mouse potatoes. Twitter fans have popularized the Tweetup, an 

in-person get-together of related Twitter users. For the most outgoing 

and connected among us, online social media is just a tool and a facili-

tator for the kind of personal and business networking that even your 

grandmother would recognize. Today there are more opportunities than 

ever to identify like-minded people in your vicinity—or those attend-

ing the same event as you—who are interested not just in exchanging 

Tweets, but in getting together in person, for drinks, a meal, a meeting, 

a hike or bike ride, a street protest, performance art, you name it. When 

the social connection deepens through in-person meeting, you ’ re really 

taking the fullest advantage of social media ’ s rich potential.

Twitter Strategies for Business

 

Twitter Strategies for Business 

 With more than 100 million members, and a structure designed perfectly 

for the rapid spread of information, Twitter is playing a leading role

perhaps the leading role in the global transmission of news stories and 

cultural trends. Twitter has notched year after year of furious growth: 752 

percent in 2008, 1,385 percent in 2009, 1,105 percent in early 2010. 

 Quite simply, Twitter is the fastest-growing communications medium 

in the history of the world. Your business should be part of the 

conversation. 

Defi ne Your Twitter Niche 

 Every Twitter account needs an “elevator pitch.” If you can ’ t concisely 

describe what it is and who it ’ s for, don ’ t bother. And then stick to the 

program. “I ’ m eating a bagel” isn ’ t worthwhile content for anything but a 

very lame personal account.

For the e-commerce companies we work with, Facebook friends and 

Twitter followers are a subset—maybe 10 percent—of their house 

e-mail list. Presumably those fans are the really diehard enthusiasts, the 

evangelists. It ’ s worthwhile to invest staff time on Twitter and other 

social-media platforms to: 

 1. Remind the evangelists about your offers, 

 2. Give them a platform to rave publicly about your stuff, and 

 3. Communicate with them, in a Web 2.0-style “customer-service/PR/

shareholder relations” effort. 

Twitter Makes an Excellent Listening Post 

 Call it “microblogging” if you will, but Twitter is a lot more than a 

blog platform. It is, first and foremost, a communications platform. 

It ’ s basically a public, internetworked e-mail system and SMS net-

work. If you are using Twitter simply as a podium to publish blurbs 

linking to your company blog posts and press releases, you ’ re missing 

the point. 

 Yes, you can and should use Twitter to publish short insights and news. 

And it ’ s fi ne to link outside of Twitter if the item you ’ re mentioning is 

longer than 140 characters. 

 But what you ’ re missing, if you focus exclusively on getting your own 

word out, is the other side of the conversation. Just as in the real world, the 

online social-media world stops 

listening to narcissistic, self-infatuated 

speakers, the sort of people who pause in their monologue only long 

enough to say, “Enough about me—what do you think about me?” 

 Engaging in back-and-forth dialogue and spreading the word about what 

others are saying are both critically important parts of the Twitter ethos. 

Plus, it shows you to be generous of spirit, open-minded to what others are 

talking about, and well connected. 

 Yet research in The Global Social Media Check-Up , 2010, by the con-

sulting and research fi rm Burson-Marsteller, indicates that too many com-

panies are doing much more talking than listening. It found: 

• 82 percent of corporate Twitter accounts are tweeting company news. 

• Only 38 percent are actually responding to people ’ s tweets. 

• Only 32 percent are retweeting the posts of others.

IS IT A BLOG, OR IS IT E-MAIL MADE PUBLIC? 

 Spend any time at all in Twitterville (to borrow the homey term  and you ’ ll see three fairly distinct ways to compose a post: 

• Microblog posts—observations conveyed in their entirety in 140 or 

fewer characters. 

• Links to external pages, be they videos, longer-form blog posts or news 

items, or what have you. 

• Direct messages—Containing the format @username, these posts are 

person-to-person messages visible not just by the recipient but by all the 

followers of the sender ’ s Twitterstream.

Customer Service, One Tweet at a Time 

 It ’ s that last piece that is the weirdest: huge companies embracing micro 

one-on-one direct messaging, in public, and I can ’ t help but think it is the 

novelty of the medium. They have dived into Twitter messaging with a few 

dozen customers; meanwhile, their outsourced phone centers may still 

give horrendous customer service to the masses. 

 But obviously some companies (Zappos, for instance) embrace the Twit-

ter platform as just one part of a thoroughly good customer-service 

approach, whatever the channel. 

 I laugh off a lot of corporate Twittering, but sometimes I reconsider: 

Take Rubbermaid at http://twitter.com/Rubbermaid . They have an active 

community on Twitter and Facebook built around “organization”—food 

storage, closet organizing, etc. 

professional organizers, etc. To me it sounds deadly boring. But if you 

check it out, there are real enthusiasts out there, and Rubbermaid seems to 

be building a sincere and healthy connection with them—600-some on 

Facebook and 6,000-some on Twitter. 

 That “reach” is a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the TV and magazine 

media buys they do, but I ’ ll bet Rubbermaid is doing a lot to boost the rele-

vance of their brand and also learn fi rst-hand about their best customers. 

 Interestingly, Rubbermaid also operates an award-winning blog, whose 

positioning statement is “Adventures in Organization.” Okay, it ’ s not the 

sort of material to set your pulse racing and palms sweating. But it ’ s a 

charmingly tongue-in-cheek yet clear mission statement that drives: 

 

1. The company ’ s choice of material and messaging, and 

 2. The customer ’ s understanding of what the brand stands for.

13 STRATEGIES OF FACEBOOK TIPS FOR BUSINESS

 

 13 STRATEGIES OF FACEBOOK TIPS FOR BUSINESS 

 1. Establish the company page—and the real people behind it . The 

creator and administrators of a fan page are somewhat behind-the-

scenes initially, but when they start responding to questions and reply-

ing to wall posts, their identities come to the fore. This can be a great 

opportunity for companies with well-known or visionary founders 

associated with their brands. And it ’ s also a good thing to humanize 

the company by putting your social-media guru out there, front and 

center. But you may want to establish new Facebook accounts for the 

people managing your fan page, separate from their existing personal 

accounts.

 

2. Post regularly . Establish a publishing plan and stick to it—perhaps 

you ’ ll post seven times a week, with one special promotion per week 

and the rest informative, newsy, or entertaining posts. You ’ ll need to 

be fl exible to post about relevant events at your company or in your 

market as they occur, but it ’ s a good idea to sketch a rough plan. For 

instance, if you ’ re an online pet supply store, picture a weekly sched-

ule like this: pet-related news, new product, weekly special, how-to 

article, cute pet video, event promotion, and more pet-related news. 

You can let your company ’ s promotional e-mail schedule drive some 

of your publishing plan. You can search Google News to come up with 

interesting pet-related items if you ’ re at a loss for material.

3. Invite your friends . Individuals can suggest their company page to 

your friends. There are some cool JavaScript hacks out there that make 

it easier to invite all your friends in one fell swoop. But be careful. 

Nobody wants to be spammed, least of all by their friends, family, or 

peripheral colleagues. So do two things: First, make sure the site is an 

active, interesting place you ’ re proud of, and second, invite only those 

friends you know well and feel comfortable suggesting the page for 

their benefi t, not yours. 

 4. Promote your Facebook page to existing customers . You need to 

kick-start your fan base, and the best way is to tell your core customers 

about it. Add the Facebook logo to your Web site ’ s navigation. 

Announce the fan page in an e-mail to your customers—maybe offer 

a discount to everyone who “likes” you. 

 5. Set up a custom URL . When you have at least 25 fans, you can reserve 

a good, recognizable URL, like http://www.Facebook.com/your

company . You can establish the new URL by visiting http://www

.Facebook.com/username/ . 

 6. Add a Facebook status widget to your home page and a Facebook 

logo link to your navigation . These elements show your Web site 

visitors what ’ s going on at your fan page and encourage them to join 

in—and it also makes it more fun for active participants when they see 

themselves on your site. I recommend making explicit calls to action: 

“Join Us on Facebook!” and “Follow Us on Twitter!” 

 

7. Add Facebook share and/or Facebook connect features to your 

site, and also display the “AddThis” widget on your pages . A little 

bit of JavaScript added strategically to your Web site ’ s page templates 

can add Facebook ’ s “like,” “share,” and other features to your Web 

site, making it easy for Facebook users to promote your content or 

products to their friends. The “add this” widget does the same thing, 

but also for Digg, Twitter, MySpace, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, and 

other social-media sites. When you launch a cool product or publish a 

noteworthy post, make it easy for your audience to share it with their 

friends. It ’ s a fairly subtle way to show you ’ re hip to social media and 

put the “network effect” to work. You ’ ll attract more fans to your Web 

site and to your company Facebook page. 

 8. Use Facebook ’ s richness to your advantage . Unlike Twitter, Face-

book welcomes photos, videos, events, and limited HTML (or FBML, 

its unique Facebook Markup Language). Your Facebook page can be a 

rich and entertaining place. 

content types—such as photos from a recent company picnic. Create 

contest entry forms or e-mail signups so your fans don ’ t have to leave 

the comfort of Facebook in order to connect with your company. See 

what people like and what they respond to. 

 

9. Staff for customer service . Increasingly, fans of your brand will turn to 

Facebook—not your 1-800 number or your customer-support e-mail 

address—when they have questions they need answered. On the Face-

book page of Bogner USA apparel, customers may ask about the avail-

ability of a new cosmetic bag or how to get a zipper repaired on a beloved 

ski parka. Bogner staffs its Facebook team so that such questions are 

picked up immediately and quickly and competently answered. 

 10. Advertise for new fans using Facebook . I was a skeptic about adver-

tising on social media (and still am, when it comes to Twitter), but 

Facebook is getting it right. While I wouldn ’ t recommend Facebook 

ads as revenue-generators, they ’ ve proven great for attracting new fans 

to your page, and also—in a $500 women ’ s cycling wardrobe giveaway 

contest we ran for Terry Precision Bicycling—in generating e-mail 

signups. I estimate you can acquire new fans or contest signups for 

$0.50 to $1 apiece. Assuming you ’ re cultivating a valuable relationship 

with them, and knowing that each fan has the potential to spread the 

word to their friends on Facebook, that ’ s a very attractive number. 

 11. Ask questions . Some of your posts should pose a question to your 

audience. Asking your fans what they think, or asking for their own 

stories or experiences, is an easy and effective way to encourage more 

engagement.

 

12. Have a contest or host an event or meetup . It ’ s so satisfying when 

your Facebook program helps you deepen the relationship with some 

members of your audience, from the passive (lurking and reading), to 

the casual (liking, commenting, and posting), to the active (participat-

ing in an event, entering a contest, or buying something from you). 

Whether you are driving some of your fans to a local retail event, or 

promoting something relevant to your market, like Green Up Day or 

Ride Your Bike to Work Day, brainstorm some in-person events you 

can throw your weight behind. 

 

13. Be active in the community . This is where the identity of your admin-

istrator and the identity of your company intertwine. A company can ’ t 

“friend” people on Facebook—only a person can. As your administra-

tors get to know your fans, it is natural and very good for the contin-

ued growth and popularity of your fan page for them to be actively. 

WHAT ABOUT WORLD WIDE WEB OF FRIENDS

WHAT ABOUT WORLD WIDE WEB OF FRIENDS 

 As ever in popular culture, social-media trends and tastes are set by the 

young. Over the past several years, social-media platforms were adopted 

fi rst by high school and college-age kids, and their appeal then spread to 

their elders and also to ever-younger kids. 

 Gen-Xers and older generations tend to value the selectivity of today ’ s 

online networking tools, the ability to manage a social network consisting 

of friends, family, colleagues, and known contacts—and keeping the 

strangers, spammers, and scammers outside the walls. 

 But a whole new paradigm for online socializing has arisen, an open 

social Web where strangers interact freely and sometimes quite intimately. 

It ’ s not just younger generations who now use the Web to meet strangers, 

on dating sites, and in multiplayer online games like Second Life, Mafi a 

Wars, World of Warcraft, and others. 

 The notion of meeting random strangers has been taken to new highs (or 

lows?) with online text and video chat tools. The leading one, the aptly 

named ChatRoulette, pairs users with randomly selected chat partners 

worldwide, face-to-face on Webcams. Andrey Ternovskiy, a 17-year-old 

high schooler in Moscow, coded ChatRoulette in two days and nights and 

came up with the name for his creation after watching the roulette scenes 

in The Deer Hunter . 

 “Nothing can really prepare you for the latest online phenomenon, Chat-

Roulette,” wrote Nick Biltin in the New York Times , which “drops you into 

an unnerving world where you are connected through Webcams to a ran-

dom, fathomless succession of strangers from across the globe.” 7

 And that 

random succession can include naked guys dancing in Denmark, a guy in 

a leopard suit, Chinese schoolgirls, skinheads, Spiderman, Darth Vader—

and the real Paris Hilton. 

 ChatRoulette hardly has the market to itself. Similar tools include Ome-

gle, RandomDorm, Shuffl ePeople, TinyChat Next, 6 Rounds, Anybody 

Out There, and Camstumble. 

 Random video chat with strangers may be merely a fad, or it may signal 

a lasting shift in how open-ended our approach to others online will be. 

How does this trend apply to businesses participating in social media? My 

guess is that especially those companies targeting a younger audience, or 

edgier market, may need to embrace the odd thrill of these new and ran-

dom social tools. After all, the appeal of socializing online is not necessar-

ily in replicating all the characteristics of your offl ine social life. Companies 

wanting to generate real buzz in social media may have to take some risks. 

GOING MOBILE—AND BRIDGING THE ONLINE-OFFLINE

 Mark Mosiniak of Best Buy points out that today, while smartphone 

visits to their Web sites make up only about 3 percent of all visits, these 

mobile customers are 25 percent likelier to convert to buyers. “You have to 

engage in mobile. It doesn ’ t really matter where you start—with apps, 

with a mobile Web site. It ’ s just really important to engage with the mobile 

channel. Anyone who doesn ’ t start now in mobile is going to fi nd things 

very diffi cult in the next three years.” 8

 Speaking of the role your own employees can now play in social media on 

your behalf, Mosiniak urges, “Unleash the power of your people.” Best Buy’s 

Home Twelp Force, tweeting and responding to people’s electronics-related 

posts, involves literally hundreds of Best Buy employees with tens of thou-

sands of followers. Because of Twitter’s “light weight,” Mosiniak says 

Twelpforce is especially appealing to consumers using smartphones. 

 Mobile is more than a technology platform—it is, of course, a commu-

nications platform. And new developments for data input (2-D bar code 

scanning, video, and still photography) and interchange (bumping) mobile 

devices are inherently social. And the social platforms are all jumping into 

the mobile market. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, MySpace, and 

others all have well-evolved mobile apps and mobile Web sites. 

 The smartphone is the nexus of our more social, tech-augmented future. 

A portable device that is connected 24/7 to the Web, its scanning and video 

capture acting as your digital “eyes” and zapping the physical world—be 

it bar codes, facial recognition, or video search—and translating that into 

data. The data then can receive an instant overlay of GPS, Web-based, and 

social information connected to everything around you, everything your 

phone sees or bumps or approaches. 

 Mosiniak of Best Buy sees this as the number one trend of our technology 

future. Speaking of his company ’ s use of 2-D barcodes and SMS messaging, he 

says, “On the tag it says ‘text this product number’ to SPECIFY a number and 

when they do that on any phone, they ’ ll get customer reviews for that product.” 

 “You have to be transparent. Taking all that online information and mak-

ing it available in the offl ine world is a very big trend.” 

MOBILE PLUS SOCIAL 

 Earlier we talked about Foursquare, the mobile app you can use to fi nd 

and review nearby businesses and see what your social network thinks. 

them. Chad Capellman of Genuine Interactive describes how a local busi-

ness owner—in this case a doctor ’ s offi ce—can gain advantage by har-

nessing these new technologies: 

 “Services like Foursquare are still in their infancy. However, maintain-

ing a presence on these new social platforms can provide a powerful, if 

subtle, marketing message: You ’ re the type of doctor who ‘gets it,’ who is 

open to new approaches and who will be among the fi rst to know about 

new treatments and new technologies. It ’ s hard to think of a better message 

to convey about your practice.” 9

 Foursquare has generated lots of buzz and has really given us the clear-

est look at what a future of socially enabled, local business search engines 

will look like. More and more, our phones—and their socially informed, 

geograph ically specifi c applications—will be the fi lter through which we 

view our world. 

PROTOTYPING THE REAL WORLD—IN THE VIRTUAL WORLD 

 In 2009, Linden Lab, creator of the online game Second Life, launched 

its Linden Prize to recognize an “innovative in-world project that improves 

the way people work, learn, and communicate in their daily lives outside 

of the virtual world. This annual award is intended to align with Linden 

Lab ’ s company mission, which is to connect all people to an online world 

that advances the human condition.” 

 Chosen from among 130 nominations and 10 fi nalists worldwide, the 

winner was San Jose-based “The Tech Virtual” museum. The winner was 

awarded $10,000—and we are talking good, old-fashioned greenbacks 

here, not Linden dollars! 

 Tech Virtual has real-world impacts for modeling and prototyping 

ambitious projects in the physical world. It went live in late 2007 with 

a mission to bring faster, more collaborative exhibit development to 

museums worldwide using an online platform. Typically, says Tech 

Virtual, museum professionals in the fi eld develop content alone or in 

small isolated teams. With immersive 3-D modeling environments, 

museum planners worldwide can collaborate on exhibit design and 

prototyping. 

 The technology also makes it possible for individual museumgoers to 

contribute to museum displays in what Tech Virtual calls “participatory 

exhibit design.” 

 Kicking off the project on International Museums Day on May 18, 

2009, Tech Virtual ran a 45-day program of online screen-share trainings 

for more than 100 museum and educational professionals. 

How to control social media damage

 How to control social media damage 

Damage Control

Throughout this  blog

I’ve focused on the positive impact your social media

program can have on your fans and on the company’s image. We’ve explored

best practices and sought to learn from some of the most inspiring examples and

case studies across different industries.

But when talking about social media operations, we can’t neglect disaster

preparedness. It’s one of the unpleasant but vital responsibilities of a social

media team: you must anticipate the worst and know how to respond to it to

defuse a situation and prevent it from worsening.

Quite simply, your team must respond quickly to any developments in your

online community and in social media at large. And when you identify the

earliest beginnings of a scandal or public relations disaster, you must quickly

escalate it to more senior folks in the company—with recommendations for how

to resolve it.

To get you in the right frame of mind, here are a few examples of brand-

bludgeoning social media screw-ups—some of which were nipped in the bud,

some of which were mishandled and went viral.

KitchenAid Disses Obama’s Dead Grandma: When Barack Obama, in

the opening debate of the 2012 election, remarked that his grandmother

never lived to see him elected, a snarky tweet from the mixer manufacturer

KitchenAid joked, “Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! She died

3 days b4 he became president!” The tasteless and partisan tweet set up a

firestorm of angry retweets and coverage from Mashable, CNN, USA

Today, and others. The offensive tweet was actually from a KitchenAid

social media rep accidentally tweeting under the corporate account rather

than a personal one. Although KitchenAid promptly deleted the tweet and

tried to explain it away, the reputational damage was done. Senior brand

manager Cynthia Soledad was forced to take the reins in the middle of the

night, apologizing for the mistake and reaching out to journalists to tell

KitchenAid’s side of the story.

No one here knows how to f#*!ing drive”: In a similar story in 2011, an

update appeared on the Chrysler Twitter account that inflamed both

consumers and Chrysler alike. The tweet read, “I find it ironic that Detroit

is known as #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to f#*!ing drive.”

Chrysler responded quickly by deleting the tweet, posting an apology and

explaining that its account had been compromised. What had happened was

that an employee of New Media Strategies, Chrysler’s social agency,

inadvertently tweeted under the @ChryslerAutos account instead of his

personal account. The employee was fired, and Chrysler did not renew its

contract with New Media Strategies.

Red Cross #gettngslizzerd: The American Red Cross posted this

embarrassing message to its Twitter account: “Ryan found two more 4

bottle packs of Dogfish Head’s Midas touch beer…. when we drink we do it

right #gettngslizzerd.” Soon it was being retweeted, and within an hour the

Red Cross social media director had gotten wind of it. She promptly deleted

the errant post and defused the incident by sending this humorous 

Tweet:

“We’ve deleted the rogue tweet but rest assured the Red Cross is sober and

we’ve confiscated the keys.” The speedy and good-natured response saved

the day.

#McDStories: McDonald’s attempt at promoting the fast food chain via a

promoted hashtag campaign on Twitter backfired when users coopted the

tag to post 140-character tweets sharing horror stories and blasting the food.

Forbes covered the story with the headline “When a Hashtag Becomes a

Bashtag.” Rick Wion, McDonald’s social 

media director, admitted: “Within

an hour, we saw that it wasn’t going as planned. It was negative enough that

we set about a change of course.

Dub the Dew: Mountain Dew built a website and turned to crowd-source

voting to name its new green-apple soda. Problem was, tech-savvy users of

the online bulletin board 4chan.org took control and pushed to the top such

offensive and brand-damaging suggestions as “Diabeetus” and “Hitler did

nothing wrong.” Mountain Dew was forced to take down the site and

scuttle the entire promotion.

United Breaks Guitars: In 2008, professional musician Dave Carroll sat in

a United Airlines jet on the tarmac preparing to leave Chicago O’Hare,

when he and fellow passengers noticed baggage handlers roughly throwing

luggage—including Carroll’s $3,500 Taylor guitar. When he landed, Carroll

found his guitar had been destroyed. He spent the next year fighting

fruitlessly to get United to pay for his guitar. Then he gave up and resorted

to YouTube, uploading a series of funny music videos entitled “United

Breaks Guitars.” The videos went viral, reaching over 16 million views, and

even resulted in a book and speaking tour for Carroll. United finally

apologized and donated $3,000 to a charity of Carroll’s choice. But by then,

much damage to the airline’s public image (and probably its business) had

already been done.

Corporate social media disaster tales run the spectrum, but I see just a handful of

root causes:

1. Operational sloppiness: Lack of quality control, preparedness, oversight,

systematic processes, or structure. The ease and speed of publishing to

social media is both a blessing and a curse. Adopting strong editorial

systems and CRM processes and controls will minimize the likelihood of

all-too-public mistakes.

2. Failure to move at Internet speed: The social media environment is fast-

moving and consumer controlled. Globally, social delivers trillions of

impressions and intercommunications every second; in 2012, for example,

the NFL Superbowl alone inspired over 10,000 tweets a second. Inaction

can turn a relatively unremarkable complaint into a viral fiasco. Monitor

your brand constantly. React speedily to any trending crisis. Never assume

“it will just go away.” Be ready to apologize and provide honest

explanations or remedies. Be humble, personal, authentic, and don’t be

afraid to be funny if the situation warrants it.

3. Tone deafness: The landscape of social media is emotional. Fan pages of

cherished brands, large or small, can feel like a lovefest. But some brands

and industries are polarizing, as in the McDonald’s example above.

Sometimes they’re downright hated—think Wall Street investment banks,

oil companies, cable companies, cell phone carriers. Whether planning a

major campaign or executing daily wall-management, hope for the best but

prepare for the worst. Not everyone loves you. Haters are gonna hate. Be

attuned to public sentiment and to the cultural vibe of each social media

platform. Be a good listener—be open to hearing problems and issues from

your consumers and resolving them publicly. Don’t be passive. Help shape

the tone of the conversation playing out in your fan communities. Prepare

and post “house rules” as a tab on your Facebook page, and delete posts

that are profane, hateful, abusive, or otherwise violate your rules.

Completely sanitizing the conversation in social media would be unwise

(and impossible). But it’s your right and responsibility to keep your

company’s social media communities on topic and brand supportive.

The bottom line: bad things can happen to good brands out there. Be alert, be

prepared, take responsibility, respond quickly. Don’t hesitate to show your

humanity or lighten a tense situation with a little humor.

Your Social Media Command Center

You’ve planned, budgeted, and staffed your social media operation. You’ve

invested in and mastered powerful social media software. You know what you

need now.

A social media command center, or SMCC.

Of course!

The digital marketing geek’s version of a “man cave,” the social media

command center, was hatched in June 2010 by PepsiCo in its Chicago

headquarters, for its Gatorade brand. Dubbed the “Gatorade Mission Control

Center,” it consisted of a centrally located, glass-walled room, glowing with the

light of six huge flat-screen monitors displaying social media visualizations from

Radian6 and IBM software. From there, command center staffers monitored

brand mentions and trending responses to Gatorade commercials and content

uploaded to YouTube and USTREAM.

The goal of the project, says Gatorade senior marketing director Carla Hassan, is

to “take the largest sports brand in the world and turn it into [the] largest

participatory brand in the world.”

Gatorade’s intense focus translates into blazing-fast responsiveness. When it

aired its “Gatorade has evolved” commercials, which featured music by rap artist. 

Important to notice:

This written by the owner blogger So read carefully you will get understandable profits. 

Remarketing with Facebook Exchange

 

Remarketing with Facebook Exc

hange

Another important new arrow in Facebook’s advertising quiver is its 2012

launch of Facebook Exchange, or FBX, as it’s been nicknamed. Its two big

elements for marketers are 

(1) remarketing ads and (2) real-time bidding.

Remarketing, also known as retargeting, is already a much-used advertising

practice on the web, where site owners install scripts to cookie their visitors and

later display banner ads to them on third-party ad networks throughout the

Internet. The goal is to reel in past website visitors for repeat purchases or to

recover abandoned shopping carts.

With cookie-driven Facebook Exchange ads, you can target your website

abandoners later, on Facebook, with sidebar ads. (Sponsored Stories are not

available in this program.)

Picture a visitor to your website who browsed a few products, performed a

couple of searches, added an item to her shopping cart, but left your website

without checking out. These visitors are identified by cookies, which are used

later by third-party websites (news and entertainment sites, blogs, you name it)

to trigger relevant display ads.

How pertinent are these banners to your marketing efforts? Depending on the

information harvested by your website, your remarketing banner ads can display

the exact items that a particular consumer searched, viewed, or abandoned in the

cart. Personalized ads like these have been shown to produce a 20%-plus lift in

sales conversion over traditional ads.

Google’s Display Network, for instance, reaches 83% of Internet users

worldwide. Remarketing ads are shown only to qualified prospects (identified by

cookies as people who already “raised their hands” by visiting your website).

Note Facebook Exchange remarketing ads bring Facebook closer than ever to

identifying the customer “purchase intent” that all marketers covet. Direct-

response marketers are reporting good results from these new ad units.

Even when consumers don’t click the ads, the impressions can inspire purchases

later. A/B tests, with holdout groups consisting of users who are shown public

service announcements rather than ads, have demonstrated purchase

incrementality of 15–20%. These influenced purchases are called “view-

through” (as opposed to click-through) conversions.

Facebook is now able to use remarketing cookies to trigger ads. “For example,”

explains Facebook, “a travel site may be interested in reaching a person who

searched for a flight but did not complete the purchase. With Facebook

Exchange, this travel website can show that person a related ad on Facebook.”

8

FBX ads are facilitated by demand-side platforms, or DSPs, which are ad-

management networks that harvest the cookie data, then use it to execute online

media buys and manage bids for their clients. The initial DSP partners are

AdRoll, AppNexus, Criteo, DataXu, MediaMath, Nanigans, Optimal, Rocket

Fuel, TellApart, The Trade Desk, Triggit, Turn, Xaxis, and [x+1]. Cookies

dropped by these DSPs contain data on audience segmentation, product

information, and so on, in order to drive more precisely targeted ad buys.

These ad buys are executed on Facebook, using a real-time bidding platform (or

RTB, in the acronym-happy world of Facebook).

As with any remarketing ad buy, the available impressions are directly

proportional to your “cookie pool”—how many unique visitors came to your

website and triggered the cookie-dropping code for Facebook Exchange.

Recommended ad budgets can run from $25,000 to $50,000 per one million

unique users.

Another appeal of the FBX ads is real-time bid management. Because the cookie

tracking code is universal, many merchants will be vying for the same “cookied”

audience. Say Jane visited the websites of Banana Republic, Chevy, and the

Miami Heat. Whether the Heat just won the NBA Finals, or whether Chevy is

having a Labor Day sale, might determine which advertiser will bid the most to

reach Jane at the moment she logs into Facebook.

Facebook Exchange shows promise for direct-response merchants hoping to

achieve positive ROAS. Early advertisers included Orbitz and Nordstrom, and

the initial results look attractive

9—although, since they were reported by the

DSP partners, we might take them with a grain of salt. Early results included:

4x click-through rate compared with traditional Facebook campaigns

10–20x return on investment

300% better return on a cost-per-lead basis

One-fifth the cost per order acquisition (CPA)

18–30% conversion rate lift, compared with a holdout group who did not

see FBX ads

Google AdWords has long enjoyed the advantage of being closer than any other

ad platform to the purchase intent of customers—as indicated by the specific

items for which they’re searching. But with Exchange, Facebook moves much

closer to purchase intent than ever before. That’s a direction that seems

promising indeed for early Facebook Exchange advertisers.

Custom Audiences

If you like the idea of FBX remarketing (which means paying Facebook to target

your own website visitors when they’re on Facebook), you’ll love the new

Facebook Custom Audiences. With Custom Audiences, you actually upload

your own in-house customer database to Facebook, and then use that audience

as a target for Facebook ad campaigns.

With Custom Audiences, unique identifiers from your customer lists are used to

match your customers to their Facebook accounts in order to advertise to those

customers through Facebook. These unique IDs may be e-mail addresses, phone

numbers, or (if you’re a Facebook app developer who has access to them)

Facebook user IDs.

Ad partners see early promise as Facebook brings FBX retargeting system out of beta,”

September 13, 2012, Inside Facebook, http://www.insidefacebook.com/2012/09/13/ad-partners-see-early-

promise-as-facebook-brings-fbx-retargeting-system-out-of-beta/.

First question: why the heck would any business want to trust Facebook with its

customer database?

Second question: why would you pay Facebook for the privilege to advertise to

your own customers—people you already have mailing list and e-mail

permission to contact directly?

I’m not a hundred percent sure you do want to go down this path. It’s a brand-

new opportunity you’ll need to subject to due diligence. It seems fraught with

potential risks, but as I’ll explain, Facebook has taken pains to mitigate privacy

risks and ensure security.

Here are some arguments in favor of Custom Audiences:

Facebook “anonymizes” the data you upload and assures you it cannot and

will not steal your proprietary customer database or sell it to your rivals.

You may reap significant business benefits by finding and engaging more of

your customers on Facebook and turning them into fans of your brand page.

Your online community will grow faster. Your network reach to friends of

fans will grow exponentially.

By strategically building different Custom Audiences on Facebook, you can

add yet another channel to your multichannel campaigns: reaching groups

with offers and messages that are segmented, consistent, and synchronized

with other marketing channels.

Before you resort to Custom Audiences to grow your Facebook fan base, be sure

you use your promotional access to your house list in order to e-mail or send

direct mail exhorting your customers and prospects to “like” your Facebook

page.

But after you’ve covered those promotional bases, consider testing Custom

Audiences.

As Facebook puts it, “Audiences let marketers find their offline audiences

among Facebook users. Using email addresses, phone numbers or Facebook user

IDs to make the match, you can now find the exact people you want to talk to, in

custom audiences that are defined by what you already know. 

How to Advertising on Twitter and Other

 

How to Advertising on Twitter and Other

Networks

 Making the Platforms Work Together

While Facebook offers the dominant market share and greatest variety of ad

units, the other social platforms have rolled out compelling opportunities you

can’t afford to ignore. If you leverage multiple platforms for their unique

strengths, you can build a comprehensive social media marketing plan that

reaches the widest possible audience, with the fullest spectrum of media types.

You’ll echo and reinforce your message across multiple social networks, and by

dropping remarketing cookies, you’ll extend your reach 360 degrees.

Here’s a snapshot of how the other platforms can round out your Facebook ad

presence and work in concert:

Twitter: If you’re a publisher, blogger, or thought leader, use promoted

tweets, trends, or accounts to help build a “subscriber base.” If you’re a

retailer, amplify your news, campaigns, and offers from other channels with

a timely and efficient promoted newsfeed.

YouTube: With pre-roll ads and featured videos, bring to life the sights and

sounds of active, visual products and services. As a bonus, amass a

remarketing cookie pool of qualified leads, to be shown banner ads across

the Google Display Network.

Google+: The Google+ ad play is not advertising on the social network, but

bringing social proof into your Google AdWords paid search and online

advertising program. It can be powerful.

LinkedIn: Even B2C businesses live in a B2B world much of the time. Ad

targeting on LinkedIn can help you zero in on the vendors, business. 

partners, PR audiences, and other professionals who will be part of your

company’s social media success.

Smaller niche players: In addition to those larger platforms, your paid

media strategy could extend to some of the smaller niche players like Yelp,

StumbleUpon, and TripAdvisor.

Foursquare: If you’re a bricks-and-mortar retailer, Foursquare will be an

important element of your coordinated social media promotional strategy.

The other social networks can drive awareness and engagement, but only

Foursquare can regularly deliver a community of friends into a local

business. Foursquare doesn’t currently offer paid ads, but if you’re a retailer

with a physical presence, don’t overlook the free promotions I covered. 

Let’s look at each of these options in turn to see how they might best fit your

advertising needs.

Twitter

Twitter has been slower and more measured than most big social networks in

rolling out advertising options. In fact, it was third parties who first sprang up

with unauthorized paid-Tweet programs. Eventually, though, Twitter stepped up

with three offerings:

Promoted Tweets

Promoted Trends

Promoted Accounts

Lately, Twitter has announced a flurry of user-interest-targeting enhancements to

these ad units—and slashed the minimum cost per click (CPC) from $0.50 to a

mere penny. It is clear that Twitter intends to be a player in the social media ad

market. I think the site is worthy of consideration to augment your Facebook

media buy.

Promoted Accounts, Tweets, and Trends

With Promoted Accounts, you pay to have your account featured on the left

column or within relevant search results. The extra exposure helps you attract

new followers. Promoted Accounts appear on the left-hand column under the

headline “Who to Follow”—and you may find yourself in pretty good company.

A recent promoted account for Smart Mom (8,000 followers) appeared above. 

Bill Gates (six million followers) and His Holiness the Dalai Lama (four million

followers).

Promoted Accounts are identified by an orange arrow badge and link to the

account profile. They also feature social signals, which will display if the

Promoted Account is followed by any @usernames that you already follow.

The added exposure of Promoted Tweets also helps attract followers. Assuming

you choose your content shrewdly, you can also generate plenty of retweets. But

try not to come right out and ask for it by saying something like “RT if you love

your kids!”

Promoted Trends bring attention to a trending hashtag, the account that

sponsored it, and all the accounts tweeting about it.

Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts are sold auction style on a cost per

engagement (CPE) model. In other words, you pay only when users click,

retweet, comment upon, or favorite your tweet. Promoted Trends, on the other

hand, are the “Boardwalk” and “Park Place” of Twitter real estate, costing

advertisers upward of $100,000 a day.

A fourth option of passing interest to businesses is Enhanced Profile Pages.

While these richer, more professional-looking pages are a nice touch for brand

image, they’re not available to the public and are doled out by Twitter to its big

advertisers. If that’s you, great! Otherwise, you can make do by customizing

your Twitter background and color scheme (see

http://support.twitter.com/articles/15357).

Advertisers using any of the three Twitter promotions types have access to

analytics dashboards that show the key campaign metrics impressions,

retweets, clicks, replies, and follows in real time.

 Twitter advertisers can drill into the demographic makeup and

interests of their audience by using the Followers dashboard. Courtesy of

Twitter.

You can also see how you gained followers over time and drill into your

audience composition by geography, gender, and engagement rate (i.e., what

percentage of your followers have retweeted you). (Speaking of interests, as I’ll

discuss below, Twitter has now released interest-targeting for its ads, which is an

exciting development.)

Twitter promotions tend to engage a smaller audience than similar promotions on

Facebook, in part because the promotion presentations are fairly subtle—

although they are identified as “sponsored” and they sit at the top of the tweet

stream, they don’t otherwise stand out as dramatically different from other. 

What about Facebook Premium Ads

 What about Facebook Premium Ads

For managed accounts working with a rep or through the Ads API, Premium

placements are a way to “go big” with home-page and logout placements. These

units have been employed by movie studios, automakers, and other advertisers

wanting to reach a mass audience. Generally, they cost around $10 per thousand

impressions, and require a minimum spend of $10,000 a month.

Premium placements include home-page placement in the right-hand column

(for nonfans), or within the home page and mobile newsfeeds (for fans), as well

as large banner ads displayed after logout. Premium ads are now social, so

interactions with them appear as “stories” in the newsfeeds of friends of fans.

Therefore, Facebook calculates that for every 500,000 fans, marketers. 

Other than the logout banner, Premium ads don’t physically differ much from

Marketplace ads, Promoted Posts, or Sponsored Stories. They do feature a bigger

image, as well as a prominent “social context” element (“Jane Doe and 14 others

liked this”). These details, plus the greater reach afforded by home-page

placement, set them apart.

According to Facebook, the combination of Premium placement and the new

format and social reach yields maximum impact:

1. New Premium ads and Sponsored Stories on the right-hand side are 40%

more engaging and 80% more likely to be remembered than previous

Facebook ad offerings

2. Premium ads show a 16% increase in fan rate

3. Campaigns that leverage social reach can drive ROI of 3x or greater

Going Mobile

Over 450 million people a month access Facebook from a mobile device, and the

rate of mobile use is outpacing desktop use by a factor of two to one. Facebook

reaches 80% of the total mobile audience, and the Facebook app is the third most

popular of all mobile apps.

Despite all that, Facebook has been criticized (and has publicly criticized itself)

for being late to the mobile game—especially from an ad-serving perspective. In

2012, it claimed less than 3% of mobile ad spending, distantly trailing Google,

Pandora, Twitter, and others.

However, Facebook has hastened to answer its critics and get up to speed on

mobile advertising options. Sponsored Stories and Marketplace ads are now

fully distributed on the mobile-optimized website and Facebook mobile app.

Facebook has also announced it is testing a mobile ad network, allowing

advertisers to place ads on the mobile applications of third parties.

The New Stuff

You’ll constantly hear rumors about beta tests and limited releases of new

Facebook advertising options: new mobile ad units, newsfeed ads targeting

nonfans, paid ads from other websites that are shareable on Facebook via

integration with the Open Graph API—the list goes on. As I mentioned earlier,

to stay up to date you’ll need to do all of the following:

1. Frequently visit the leading blogs

2. Book a regular call with your Facebook ad rep

3. Set up a Google Alert for “Facebook ad

Do Facebook Ads Really Work?

So how do you make sense of this flurry of new ad units? Do Facebook users

love them or hate them—ignore them or respond to them?

Facebook itself reports that a variety of third-party studies of over 60 ad

campaigns on Facebook have found that 70% achieved a return of 3x or better

on ad spend. Of those, 49% achieved a return of 5x or better.

Not everyone is confident that Facebook advertising is effective. On the very eve

of Facebook’s public offering, automaker General Motors pulled its Facebook

advertising—a hefty $10 million a year media buy. “We currently do not plan to

continue with [Facebook] advertising,” said GM at the time. Forbes magazine

reported that even after meeting with Facebook to air their concerns, GM execs

“remained unconvinced that advertising on the site made sense.”

Since then, GM has dipped a toe back in—and Facebook has done much to

improve the landscape for advertisers. Yet it’s a far different landscape from the

ones you’re familiar with from using paid search on Google AdWords, or doing

banner advertising campaigns. Facebook and other social networks suffer as

advertising venues because (1) users are on the site primarily for entertainment

and interaction with friends, not for commercial transactions, and (2) even when

they’re willing to consider brands and their products, they don’t want to leave

Facebook to shop.

However, things are changing remarkably fast. Consumer acceptance of ads in

social media is growing. Social networks are delivering powerful and innovative

new advertising options that should be very exciting to any marketer.

Social media platforms are unsurpassed in the wealth of personal and

demographic information they maintain for each member. But as much as they

know about their users (including gender, age, education, interests, alma mater,

industry or employer, and so on), social networks have little insight into when a

consumer is most leaning toward buying from a business. Search engines, by

contrast, know exactly what your customers are looking for when they’re

searching for it.

Facebook has moved closer to the end of the purchase funnel by offering

Facebook Exchange remarketing ads. Facebook is eager to demonstrate that its

demographic infoplus exciting other integrations with outside applications and

cookies from sites like yours will capture just as much “user intent” to buy

from customers as any search query can capture.

More important, by building ads into the organic fabric of “stories” on the site,

and by enabling targeting options from outside its walls, Facebook offers

advertisers something new and valuable: the ability to identify customers in a

noncommercial setting and engage with them in fun and creative ways. That

allows businesses to cultivate a deeper relationship with them in the long term—

and be in the front of their minds when that Facebooker is ready to buy.

Summary:

I’ve been spending online ad dollars ever since GoTo launched for pennies a

click in the late 1990s  I have seen great ad

platforms delivering high ROI

I and I’ve seen many ludicrous ways to pour

perfectly good money down the drain.

Create Facebook ads

 

Create Facebook ads

CPC or CPM

Whether you choose to pay CPC (cost per click) or CPM (cost per thousand

impressions, or views), the cost of Facebook Marketplace ads and Sponsored

Stories is set by your maximum bid and the competition for the same (or

overlapping) audiences. Generally, you can buy clicks for $0.50–1.50 each, with

the average around $0.80. But the cost can vary greatly depending on how

lucrative the market is and how voracious the advertisers are. Seasonality plays a

role, too: both CPC and CPM prices climb during the holiday season.

CPC bidding generally seems to drive more tangible responses for the dollar

(likes, clicks, downloads, and so on). CPM generally drives more overall

impressions. So, factor your goals into your bidding strategy—and as mentioned

below, for key campaigns you should A/B test the two different bid methods, to

see for yourself which one performs best.

Create Facebook Ads 

That Work

Whatever the ad format, here are seven tactics to ensure that your Facebook ads

get results:

1. Never run a Facebook ad campaign without A/B testing. Facebook

offers strong, intuitive, ad-testing capabilities. Try several different ads. 

headlines, images, offers, and calls to action. You will be stunned by the

performance variations between versions. Even veteran marketers are often

surprised by which version wins.

2. Take advantage of audience targeting. Test identical ads on different

target audiences. For instance, try targeting your brand’s fans versus

friends of fans versus friends of rival brands (with your fans excluded).

Brand loyalists and variously qualified prospects will all demonstrate

different cost-per-action. And employ highly personalized ads for specific

audiences: try geo-targeted regions, gender splits, or zeroing in on a

hypertargeted audience like students at a particular college or employees of

a particular business. Facebook’s signature strength is the wealth of data it

collects on its fans’ demographics, likes, and interests. Use it to your benefit

as a marketer.

3. Test identical ads and audiences using the two different bidding

methods. Facebook advertisers can opt to pay CPC or CPM. In my

experience, CPM ads offer the best performance when the campaign goal is

“likes,” leads, or RSVPs. But I have heard anecdotal evidence to the

contrary, supporting CPM as a more efficient choice for some advertisers.

CPM may be the better model if you care more about brand exposure

(impressions) than response (clicks). You won’t know until you test.

4. Make the most of your image. That 100 × 72 pixels canvas is your Sistine

Chapel ceiling. Grab attention with emotional, high-contrast, high-

saturation images. Faces work well. It’s been shown that smiling, attractive

women appeal to users of both genders. Test your logo (especially if it is

widely recognized). And try using text as an image, especially with a strong

call to action.

5. Issue a strong call to action. A very effective Facebook ad campaign tactic

is to dangle the prospect of money-saving coupons, free samples, prize

giveaways, or other goodies in exchange for the “like.” Coffee-mate

encourages Facebookers to “ ’Like’ us to save $1 now,” while Nespresso

offers a chance to win a coffee machine. HubSpot offers a free e-book,

while Audible.com pitches two free audiobooks. Some advertisers push

emotional buttons to elicit a “like”: “Click ’like’ if you love your kids!”

exhorts CafeMom.com. “Click ’like’ if you love to ski,” reads an ad for a

ski resort. Ken Burke, founder and chairman of the MarketLive e-

commerce platform, calls this the “’Click Like If’ Formula”—and it works.

6. Change it up. Facebook audiences get bored easily. Change your ad

images every week or even every few days for important campaigns.

Refresh the headlines and ad copy, too.

7. Smaller can be better. Often, low reach results in higher engagement rate

—because Facebook users who see your ad everywhere start to tune it out.

Those who see it only occasionally during a Facebook session may be more

responsive, not knowing when or if they will see it again. If your daily ad

budgets are lower, your targeting more precise, and you use CPC bidding,

you may achieve better results for less money.

Note Facebook’s signature strength is the wealth of data it collects on its fans’

demographics, likes, and interests. Use it to your advantage as a marketer.

Between the powerful targeting options, frictionless social actions, and huge

network reach, Facebook advertising can work for marketers of any size, in any

industry. In Facebook ad campaigns I’ve run, we have consistently been able to

turn 70% or more of clicks into “likes.” Similarly high percentages opt into

becoming e-mail subscribers—and thereby become qualified leads costing

around $0.50–1.00 apiece. Enough of these leads become paying customers to

make the Facebook platform a credible rival to other online ad platforms—and

on Facebook, that formula can scale massively.

While the platform has yet to challenge Google, Yahoo, or Bing search ads on a

strict direct-response ROI basis, Facebook ads are a compelling option every

online marketer should be testing and optimizing.

Local Businesses: Facebook Offers

Facebook Offers is a feature initially available to “a small number of local

businesses” but now in wide release. At first available free to select accounts,

Facebook Offers are now a paid promotion, costing a minimum of $5 per offer.

Facebook Offers also require an additional promotional commitment through

Sponsored Stories.

With Facebook Offers, eligible bricks-and-mortar shops can create a 90-

character headline, like “Buy one pair of socks, get another pair free,” then enter

other criteria to support special deals to be shared in the newsfeeds of their

followers.

The offer details and link will appear below a friend’s profile picture, with a

headline like “Angie White and 5 others claimed an offer at Macy’s.”

To see if you’re eligible, log into your Facebook admin account. 

brand page. If you are eligible to make an offer, the sharing tool at the top of

your page’s timeline will show “Offer, Event +” in addition to other post types

like Status, Photo/Video, etc.

To claim the offer, all your fans need to do is click “Get Offer” from the story

anywhere they see it on Facebook. As an added bonus, the action is shared with

their friends. Facebook will send your fan an email, which the fan will either

print or display on his mobile phone when he visits your business to redeem the

discount.

Here’s how to post your offer:

1. Type a 90-character headline describing your offer and making a strong call

to action.

2. Upload a photo that will stand out in thumbnail size.

3. Choose how many offers you will honor—either a set maximum number, or

“unlimited.”

4. Set an expiration date for your offer.

5. Add terms and conditions.

6. Click Preview to see what your offer will look like, then click Post.

You’ll also be prompted to create a Sponsored Story ad to support your offer.

When you have finished the set-up process and launched your ad, you’ll see a

running tally of how many times your offer has been “claimed.”

Note “Claiming” an offer on Facebook provides the user access to a coupon

code and creates a story in the news feed. But it doesn’t mean the user has

actually bought anything yet. You’ll get lots of claims, but perhaps only half will

visit your website, and fewer still will complete a purchase.

Facebook Sponsored Search Results

Search Results is another piece of Facebook real estate that recently went up for

sale. Now, you can pay to promote any Facebook page, app, or other entity,

within the “type-ahead” results on Facebook search.

But if you’re picturing keyword-targeted ads modeled on Google AdWords,

think again.

Instead of paying to appear in response to particular search queries, with

Facebook Sponsored Results you’re paying for more visibility and control. 

the type-ahead results as they would normally be generated. Plus, you can bid

for any Facebook entity—including those of your competitors. My own

explorations on the site revealed some clever strategies:

Searched for “Obama” and a Sponsored Result for Mitt Romney appeared

Searched for “Nike” and a Sponsored Result of EA’s John Madden NFL

Football game app was displayed

Searched for “Fidelity” and Scottrade appeared

According to Facebook, “Your ad will appear when the targeted entity appears in

the search results.” The ad appears under a “Sponsored” banner. You can write

up to 70 characters of ad copy, and you can also customize your landing

destination somewhat, such as specifying a particular tab on your page.

Sponsored Results ads can employ all the audience targeting and bid

management available to Facebook Marketplace and Sponsored Stories ads.

Pricing is CPC or CPM.

How do you create a Sponsored Results ad?

Currently, you cannot create Sponsored Results ads in the Ads Manager

interface. You must use either Power Editor or the Ads API. Using the API data

feed, you pass an ad type field of 31 to identify an ad as a Sponsored Result.

Here are the steps for using Power Editor:

1. Create your campaign and your ad

2. Select the Facebook entity you want to promote. It can be an app, page,

place, group, event, or other

3. Select “Facebook Ads”

4. Select “Sponsored Result” as the story type

5. Enter a message of up to 70 characters

6. Add your audience targeting and pricing strategy

7. Upload and activate your ad. 

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