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Starting Facebook With Zero Fans: SEO Tactics, Tips & Helpful Advice - No. 229

Some businesses continue to resist the urge (or need) to start a company Facebook Page.

Why?

• Fear of communicating with their clients or customers?
• Putting off having to create and implement a social media strategy.
• Lack of time (always an excuse).
• Pre-determining that their customers aren't really on Facebook so there's no reason for their business to be on Facebook either.

Sigh.

What would you do if you had to create a Facebook page today with no strategy and no Fans?

Let's pretend and let's get started.

Here are some tips to begin building your audience from scratch:

• Figure you who is your audience. Customers? Prospects?
• What is important to them?
• How do you currently talk to them?

It also always helps to view other business' Facebook page in your niche. If you are a plumber in Cleveland, you can certainly get some ideas from a plumber in Birmingham.

Talk to your current customers. Ask them what they'd like to see on your Facebook Page that would keep them interesting.

Unfortunately, most businesses make their Facebook Page all about them. They tell you how fantastic they are; how long they've been in business and all the fabulous features of hiring their firm (or buying their products).

Needless-to-say, this is a horrible Facebook strategy.

Instead of it being about the company, it needs to be about the customer. Things they might find important include:

• How you can help them.
• Coupons, sales, etc.
• Entertaining posts
• Interesting posts and information about what's going on in the community.
• A contest.
• Pictures (not of your products).
• Videos (not of your products).
• Free stuff (people love anything that's free).

Think of things that will help your customers engage with you.

Need more help? Drop us a comment here!

8 Ways to Attract Customers by Building a Facebook Presence

With more and more people getting their news and information online, traditional forms of advertising are no longer effective for small businesses. The explosive growth of the internet and mobile devices makes them an essential source for connecting to customers and new prospects.

The New Way to Advertise

The explosion of the internet has changed the way people read and therefore the ways in which marketers advertise. People no longer use the Yellow Pages to find phone numbers. They don’t read the newspaper every day. They rely on Facebook for their information. Facebook is the leader in social media- with approximately 1 billion active users. The average user is on at least 20 minutes a day.

James Martell of the affiliate marketing podcast Coffee Talk said that many years ago he
advertised in the newspaper and could only do it 3 days a week because that’s how often it went out. He also spent $350-$400 per ad. Facebook is free.

“I used to cringe because I knew in 2 days that paper is in the trash- gone.”

Grabbing Their Attention

The customers are there but it’s up to you to build a Facebook presence to get their attention. How do you use Facebook to attract customers?

1. You need to create a business page and then build up your likes so people can search you based on keyword and location.
2. 78% of consumers trust the recommendations of their peers above all else, so you need to get users to recommend your business on your Facebook page.
3. Facebook users pay attention to how active your page is. If their friends have liked your page, and if there are positive reviews on your page, then other users will make it a point to try you out.
4. In the past, customers communicated to you by phone call and expected that they wouldn’t hear back from you immediately. Now customers expect answers to their questions in real time. When other people see that you do respond to questions on your page in real time on a regular basis, then they will be more apt to trust your business. It doesn’t mean you have to respond in minutes, but it’s good to respond within the hour.
5. There are 425 million mobile Facebook users on the iPhone and Android systems. There are Facebook apps that you the business owner can use to tie yourself directly into your users. You can respond on your own mobile phone with the Facebook Pages App that notifies you when there are updates on your page. Do you think you don’t have time? Try an online time tracker and you will see how much time you actually spend on marketing. You may find you save time using facebook.
6. When you create your business page you need to give your customers as much information as possible. They can always go your website but people prefer not to have to leave Facebook. Give them the same information on your business page.

Stephanie Lichtenstein, founder and president of Micro Media Marketing shared an example of a successful social media marketing strategy on James Martell’s Coffee Talk podcast.

Lime Fresh Mexican Restaurant was originally a small Mexican restaurant in Miami Beach. They became so successful that they added one restaurant at a time and were eventually bought out by Applebee’s. Now they are expanding all over the place. What things did they do well with their Facebook business page strategy?

• They put their menu on a custom tab. Customers like being able to check out the menu right from Facebook.
• There have tabs for photos, likes, and twitter comments.
• They tied in their blog.

“The more time you invest in it, the more you will get back out of it,” said Lichtenstein.

8. Take advantage of the new feature ‘Page Post Targeting Enhanced.’ It allows you to post comments at a specific time. You can set up public posts or separate post by audience demographics such as: specific language, location, age, gender, even likes. It is still a new feature but it will eventually be open to everyone.

Lichtenstein gave an example of someone posting “I am going to a conference in NY,” and then sharing it only with people in NY going to the conference. It also works for businesses that may sell clothing to different audiences- Men, Women, and Children. They can share the right messages with the right people.

Make it Happen

These are only 8 of the many ways you can use Facebook to market to your customers and attract new customers at the same time. Small business owners all over the world are reaping the benefits of a good business page. It only takes a little effort but the results can be huge.

If you feel you need help, Lichtenstein offers training at $125 an hour and will work with as many people as you want in a group at that price. Her company also has a $1000 package that will get your entire social media strategy set up- including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus. She can be reached at steph@micromediamarketing.com

About the Author:

Jennifer Koebele, MS Ed. knew writing was her passion from a very young age. She now loves watching her 3 children discover their own passions. She lives in Charlotte, NC where she enjoys researching pop culture and following her favorite professional sports: football and basketball.  She learns about time management techniques for her busy life on http://www.goaboutbusiness.com.

Why Delay SEO & Social Media?: SEO Tactics, Tips & Helpful Advice - No. 205

We're always surprised when a business decides to delay starting search engine optimization or diving into social media.

It's not about rankings, fans or followers.

SEO and social media is about traffic and sales.

Do you want more customers? More clients? More leads and more sales?

Sorry, but your brochure website (the one you never update), it's going to get it done.

The Facebook page your next door neighbor's son did for you isn't going to attract a flood of engaging customers.

You're going to have to write awesome content and publish it on your website.

You're going to have to create a blog and start writing. Every day.

You're going to have to get going with social media and start engaging with your customers and clients. Have a "conversation" with them.

There are no excuses.

These are the types of things that will help increase your sales.

What barriers to sucess are standing in your way today?

Local SEO: Why Some Businesses Are Missing Out

Many local businesses make the mistake of not doing search engine optimization (SEO) and some simple social media tasks that would earn them a higher placement in search engines and bring in more customers.

Even on the social media side, many local businesses continue to be absent. Or, they’re tardy to the party and are just now trying to figure out Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.

Here's what's missing:

• They don’t have a blog.
• They don’t write articles.
• They don't share news about their company or information about their services online.
• They give up too easily. 

Why does this happen?

There seems to be three primary reasons why businesses don’t take advantage of SEO or social media.

Reason #1 is time.

Boy, that’s a killer. Business owners will often say that they don’t have the time for “Internet stuff.” If you don’t have time because your sales are up and you’re getting a big bombardment of new clients, that’s a good thing. But when it comes to SEO and social media, you’re eventually going to need to catch up with your competition.

One way to solve the time problem is to hire somebody to do it for you. Hire an intern to help you with social media and SEO. Hire a freelancer to write your blog. Hire an SEO firm or a social media consultant. Or carve out some time in your own schedule. Once you get the ball rolling, maintaining your social media accounts isn’t something that’s going to take up ten hours of your day.  

Reason #2 that businesses are absent from social media and search is fear.

The younger generation is going crazy with social media, while the older generation is still catching up because they don’t entirely understand it. Because they don’t really understand it, they’re afraid. Businesses might be afraid to put something out there because they’re worried that somebody’s going to steal from them, attack them or say something bad about them. But guess what? Whether you know it or not, people are already talking about you.

Go to Twitter and Facebook and conduct searches for your business name, products and services. Like it or not, people are already talking about you, whether you are participating in the conversation or not. Hopefully, they’re saying good things.

Yes, it’s overwhelming to start working on SEO, writing a blog and building a presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest all at once. But it’s important to start doing something.

Reason #3 that businesses don’t do social media and SEO is they’re afraid that it’s too expensive.

Think of it like this: search engine optimization and social media should be part of your overall marketing plan. When you take a look at your marketing plan now, how much are you spending each month? How much are you budgeting for the whole year? How are you spending your marketing budget? Are you still paying for radio, TV and newspaper ads? That’s old school. It's time to try something more engaging.

Social media is great because it allows you engage with existing and potential customers. Have you really tried to engage with your customers on Facebook, or solve your customers’ problems on Twitter? You’re not engaging with them with a two-by-two-inch broadcast ad in the newspaper that’s all about selling. People will tune it out, if they ever even see it.  It’s the same thing with radio and TV. For businesses, social media is not a sales thing. That’s hard for some businesses to grasp, but if you try to use social media to sell, your efforts won’t go anywhere.

What you want to have is a discussion. You want to ask your customers a question. For example, you can ask, “Hey, who’s going to this upcoming event?” This will tell you a lot about your customers and help you start a conversation with them. If you write a blog or you participate in an online discussion, you are also engaging your audience. If you start engaging, you will build an interested audience, and new customers will come. Yes, it may take a little time. But you need to start the process.

Are you ready to get started and join in on the conversation?

Close Friends - When Facebook's Friends Feature Isn't Enough: SEO Tactics, Tips & Helpful Advice - No. 196

Everyone in your Facebook account is a "Friend." Now, however, Facebook wants you to decide who are your "Close Friends."

Facebook's new List feature, allows you to group Close Friends, Acquaintances and Restricted Friends (Uh, yeah, I sort of liked this when it was called Google+ with Google Circles).

Close Friends, according to Facebook, are your best friends, who will appear more often in your News Feeds.

Acquaintances are still Friends, but they will show up less often in News Feeds.

Those who are Restricted are also still Friends, but they can only see what you've made public.

Once you have created your Close Friends list, you can then update your status specifically to your best pals.

Do you think you will utilize this feature?

Leveraging Your Content Possibilities

If you're writing an article or creating a video for your website, social media, etc., make sure you take full advantage of the content therein and leverage it.

Many times we see a business create a cool video, post it on their website and wait for a flood of traffic. It doesn't work. People who don't find your website will never see your video or buy from you.

However, if you're going to produce that cool video, make sure you're publishing it in all the right places and then use it for other content opportunities.

For example, let's say your company created a video. Then:

• Publish it on YouTube (on your on video channel, that you optimize).
• Pull the YouTube feed into your blog and, perhaps, your website.
• Pull the YouTube feed into your company's Facebook page (your company has one, right?).
• Tweet about the video multiple times on multiple dates and not just one time (and not every five minutes either).
• Post the video on Linkedin and, as it applies, in Linkedin groups.
• Post the video in your Google Places listing and other online mapping services.
• Write a press release (and leverage it as well).

And we're just getting started here!

The video could be transcribed and re-written into an article. It might even be the beginning of an excellent (and long overdue) white paper. You might even break up the transcribed document and create several blog posts.

You could also do the reverse:

• An article can be divided into several blog posts.
• You could do a video or a webinar based on the article.
• You could create a podcast based on the article, and so on.

We could go on, but this example of one video has resulted in several additional opportunities for content and distribution.

Get it? Cool! Now let's get to work!

Stick To Your Marketing Plan: SEO Tactics, Tips & Helpful Advice - No. 182

It seems like something new in social media is released each week and Google announces changes in the way its search engine results will be displayed.

While it is always tempting to run and buy the shiny new toy, you must stick to your marketing plan. If you don't, you'll quickly find your business going in 20 different directions with 20 different messages. Chaos.

Stick to your plan.That's why it's called a plan.

If Google announces an algorithm change, don't panic. Review the information and review your website to make sure you're in compliance.

If Google changes its search results and decides to start including Google+ posts, don't immediately feel the need to rush and open a Google+ account and fill it with your marketing spam. It won't work and, believe me, it won't attract any newbies to your Google+ base.

Currently, there's a mad rush to Pinterest. If you follow the sheep, where are you going to find the time to join the herd? Are you leaving Twitter or Facebook behind to start working in Pinterest? Why?

And, seriously, is letting everyone know you're the Mayor of Taco Tico because you've checked in via Foursquare bringing you any new business?

Stay the course. You have a plan. Make it better. Fix what's broken. Don't buy into all the "this-is-what's-new-on-the-Internet-this-week" hype.

Time For More Social Media?

Do you have more time for more social media?

Google hopes so!

Early reviews of Google+ are good, however:

• Will Facebook users try Google+?
• How many Facebook users will abandon ship and move to Google+?
• Is there enough time to utilize Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Foursquare and others?

Stay tuned...

Facebook For Local Businesses

Excellent blog this morning from Jaci Russo on "Creating Facebook Pages For Local Businesses."

Unfortunately, every business thinks they want a Facebook Page, but they don't know why or they don't have a strategy on what to post and share.

Then, their Facebook page dies a sad death and they play the blame game, yada, yada, yada.

Seven SEO Success Tips for 2011

Purple Trout, LLC, a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) consulting firm located in Cincinnati, Ohio, is offering an online webinar to help businesses get a head start on 2011.

“Seven SEO Success Tips For 2011” is set for Wednesday, January 19 from 10 a.m. - 11 a.m. Admission is free, but space is limited.

In this webinar, attendees will learn the landscape for SEO in 2011, including changes in search engines, video, online maps, link building and more.

“Search engine optimization has changed so much in 2010 that some techniques used earlier last year are no longer valid,” says Steve Phillips, president at Purple Trout, LLC. “This webinar will help get your website on the right track for 2011 by creating a simple, yet useful strategy that will earn results for your website and business."

New techniques presented in the webinar include local search engine optimization and how video should become an important part of your SEO and social media efforts. How to earn relevant inbound links to your website and strategies for using Google Places and other online listing websites will also be part of the webinar discussion

This webinar will be presented in a simple, easy-to-understand, non-geek format (with no sales pitch). Webinar registration is required.

For more information, contact Purple Trout, LLC at (866) 837-7095 or visit www.purpletrout.com.