Posts Tagged social media
Set a Custom URL/Username for Your Facebook Page
Posted by Analisa in Social Media / Inbound Marketing on August 11th, 2010
This video tutorial explains, step-by-step, how to choose and secure your Facebook Page's custom URL. Choose wisely, because one you set your username, it cannot be changed. The video's script is included below.
A note on Capital Letters
An important note, that is not included in the video, is that your username can include capital letters. If you have a company name like "We Help You Move" with multiple words, you might want to capitalize each separate word in your username to make it easier to read (like "WeHelpYouMove" instead of "wehelpyoumove").
*NOTE: You must have at least 25 fans to set a username (custom URL) for your Page!
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Branded Social Networks: Does the name matter?
Posted by Analisa in Social Media / Inbound Marketing on August 3rd, 2010
Some people will tell you that "content is king" when it comes to social media. Post/blog/share good information that your audience wants to hear, and you will develop a following. But what about the medium for your sharing? Which network will you choose? How much does a platform contribute to or hinder your success?
If you are trying to find the perfect social site for your business, organization, or personal interest, do you choose the best platform for your purposes, or the popular one with the most familiar name?
Names Matter
Perhaps there is something in a name after all. 500 million people feel comfortable with Facebook, perhaps that is why so many brands have decided to focus on building their presence on that particular network. It's not a perfect platform by any means, especially for marketing, since FB tries to protect users from spam and un-paid advertising. Even the paid advertising is kept to a minimum. There is no way for Page admins to message their fans, or post to their profiles. The complaints and "known bugs" on Facebook seem to be endless! There must be a better network for building online communities, but this one if by far the most popular. Read the rest of this entry »
To Build a Facebook Page, You Need a Profile
Posted by Analisa in Social Media / Inbound Marketing, Static FBML & FBML on July 30th, 2010
“Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.”
- Mark Zuckerberg, Co-founder, CEO & President of Facebook (via Gigaom)
People often ask me why they can't have a Facebook Page for their business without having a personal Profile first. I usually try to explain that Facebook has made this mandatory (with one exception, see below) to encourage people to be as transparent as possible. I think Mark Zuckerberg's quote above expresses this sentiment even more accurately. Facebook (or at least their CEO) believes that everyone should "be themselves" on Facebook, and not hide behind a brand or logo. Facebook also probably wants as many people to be on Facebook as possible (for advertising revenue of course).
Facebook explains the difference between a Page and a Profile here.
"Profiles represent individuals and must be held under an individual name, while Pages allow an organization, business, celebrity, or band to maintain a professional presence on Facebook...In addition, Pages are managed by admins who have personal Facebook profiles. Pages are not separate Facebook accounts and do not have separate login information from your profile. They are merely different entities on our site, similar to how Groups and Events function. Once you have set up a Page within your profile, you may add other admins to help you manage this Page. People who choose to connect to your Page won't be able to see that you are the Page admin or have any access to your personal account."
News Feed Optimization and Effective Facebook Posting
Posted by Analisa in Social Media / Inbound Marketing on July 14th, 2010
You may or may not have heard of NFO. It's similar to SEO, but specific to Facebook. "News Feed Optimization" refers to the strategy for posting content on your Facebook Page, with the goal of having it show up frequently in your fans' news feeds. While similar to the principles behind Google's search engine, Facebook's news feed takes into account several different factors based on your fans, their friends, their interests and more. Or in their words, "affinity, edge, and decay."
These three factors are part of "EdgeRank" the algorithm revealed by Facebook at their developers conference f8, in April 2010. Digital marketer Chris Sietsema blogs here about these three important pieces that together will determine the visibility of your content on Facebook.
via Teach To Fish Digital
FBML Examples from the HyperArts Fan Page
Posted by Analisa in Social Media / Inbound Marketing, Static FBML & FBML on July 12th, 2010
We asked our fans to share links to their favorite FBML examples, and here are a few that we liked and wanted to share. I am going to highlight the "best practices" of Fan page development (BP) that are demonstrated by each example, and also my suggestions for improvements (TRY THIS).
See You There Invitations
(shared by Judene McCalla)
- Best Practice: This simple landing page tab welcomes users to the business page and describes the company and its services/products.
- TRY THIS: Your landing page should explain what your purpose is here on Facebook, and encourage people to become a fan by offering some information or community service or even a product of value. Tell us, what is this Facebook Page all about? What value are you offering to your fans?
- BP: A second tab serves as a mailing list sign-up, a great way to add subscribers to your email newsletter list.
- TRY THIS: Keep it simple and combine these two tabs into one. You can add your mailing list email-form to the welcome tab and make it easy for new visitors to get all of the information in one place.
How Social Media Changed Our Business
Posted by Analisa in Social Media / Inbound Marketing on July 6th, 2010
We have been thinking a lot about "social media strategy development" lately, and it feels like a short moment of reflection is in order...
2009 was all about preaching the values of social media. We attended a lot of social "meetups" to meet peers in the industry and learn how people were using social networks in new and interesting ways. We pitched grand social engagement strategies to potential clients.
What did we learn? Convincing people that the social web was the new frontier was not difficult. We had examples, case studies and passion for the cause. But once we had the converts, how could we help them learn to help themselves? I often felt like the proverbial fishing teacher...I wanted to teach my clients to fish on their own, to see them take control of their own online communities and blog with fervor! But at the end of the day, after hearing all of the typical excuses ("we don't have the time" or "we don't know what to say") I was reluctantly handing out the fish.
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FBML Tutorial Videos
Posted by Analisa in Social Media / Inbound Marketing, Static FBML & FBML, Web Coding on May 21st, 2010
We have been asked lots of questions about FBML and developing custom tabs for Facebook Pages. Often they are the same basic questions and we are happy to answer them...But sometimes telling you how to do things is not nearly as effective as showing you!
Here are some videos that show you set-by-step instructions for optimizing your Facebook page and custom FBML tabs with video, music, photos and more:
How to add FBML to your Facebook Page
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Facebook Contest: Free Consulting and a Special Offer!
Posted by Analisa in Social Media / Inbound Marketing on April 22nd, 2010
Hello Friends and Fans (and now, Those Who "Like"),
We are having another Facebook contest, and would like to invite you to enter to win 30 minutes of Facebook consulting time with Analisa, our Social Media manager. With all of Facebook's new changes, the Open Graph and the buzz around custom FBML pages, you probably have some questions. Your free half-hour phone call can cover any topics you choose that are relevant to Facebook, for example:
Read the rest of this entry »
Migrating Facebook Fans to a New Fan Page
Posted by Analisa in Social Media / Inbound Marketing on April 6th, 2010
For various reasons, an administrator sometimes needs to change the name of a fan page; perhaps the company's or a product's name has changed and the current name is no longer accurate. Because Facebook does not allow admins to make changes to the name or category of their current page, an admin will have to abandon the old page and create a new page.
Yes, this means starting over from scratch. But what about your fans? How will they know that they need to "fan" a new page, and how will you convince them to do so? Here are several tips for making the migration of fans easy for everyone:
- Create your new page first. Do not delete your old page.
- Every couple days, post a status update that alerts current fans to your new page and provides the URL.
Static FBML Code Templates for Sale!
How Facebook Notes Have Changed & Why You Should Use Them
Posted by Analisa in Social Media / Inbound Marketing on August 11th, 2010
You may have noticed that Facebook is allowing Page admins to preview to upcoming changes to Page layouts, coming into effect on August 23rd (read Facebook's announcement here). Don't worry, only Page admins can see these changes. If you have already been designing FBML tabs for the new 520 pixel width, you should be fine. But what about the standard Facebook tabs that come with every page as default applications (Notes, Photos, Discussion, Reviews)? You should take a look at the new layout for these stock tabs and see how you can best utilize them in your page marketing strategy.
Take a closer look at the Notes Tab...
This blog post will focus specifically on Notes, a blogging feature built in to all Facebook Pages and Profiles. Today I noticed the new Notes layout on Pages:
The HyperArts blog is currently being imported via the Notes function (see tutorial for this below). You can see that now the Notes tab is a central column, nested between Facebook ads on the right and the HyperArts profile photo and page info on the left. The layout has changed a bit, giving readers a preview of each note, a link to read more, and any comments left on each note. Read the rest of this entry »
application, blog, blogging, changes, comments, Facebook, feed, format, HyperArts, import, notes, rss, social media, viral
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