Category: Facebook

Top 7 Reasons Why Your Company Needs Social Media

Posted on February 19, 2014 by - Facebook, guest post, Services, Social Media

pam perry social media expert

An avalanche of new opportunities is available on the Internet in the form of social media sites. These sites serve as a strategic public relations and marketing tool to build your brand and target key audiences for your business.

Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter enable individuals, groups and companies to easily publish, share and interact on the web. By joining a social site, you can discover topics that people are talking about and what they think about your business and how to improve accordingly.

Here is a list of popular sites to give you a quick overview of how each serves its purpose:

Facebook: Facebook is considered the heavyweight of social networking. From uploading photos, to making status updates, which allows users to inform their friends of their whereabouts and actions, is the epitome of social media.  It’s a great way to keep in touch with friends and family as well as marketing tool. In addition, you can create a fan page for your company or start or join a group related to your company.

  • Forty-five percent of Facebook’s 45.3 million active users in the US are 26 years old or older. Nearly a quarter of all Facebook users are over 35 today. Facebook is growing in every age and gender demographic. The fastest growing segment is women over 55, up 175.3% as of February 2009.

 

Twitter: Twitter is considered a more basic format of Facebook. The users known as “followers” are allowed to send brief messages, only limited to 140 characters known as “tweets.” Followers can search by name and follow your daily tweets. There is no limit on how often you can tweet, but make sure the information is related to the company that followers would find interesting and useful.

  • For example: Your company can use Twitter to inform followers of the latest company news or upcoming events. This is a hassle-free way of disseminating information in a mass message.

 

LinkedIn: Unlike all the other major social networking sites, LinkedIn is dedicated to helping people connect for business rather than social purposes. It’s useful to search for consultants and contractors and identify people in companies that you hope to do business with in the future. It’s also become a major source for posting professional job openings.

  • For example: LinkedIn can be used as a socializing platform for you to interact with other like-minded people, especially those in the same industry. It can be used to establish consistent and deeper relationships for future benefits such as colleague recommendations.

 

YouTube: This site pertains to videos only. Although you may think it has nothing to do with your company, businesses have discovered it’s a great way to provide information to prospects. You can make a video of the products you sell, describe your services or even video testimonials and easily upload them to YouTube.

  • For example: By using YouTube, your company can embed a watermark so users watching the video know which company and website the video is from. This is another way of building your company’s brand.

 

Top 7 Reasons Why Your Company Needs Social Media

  • It’s free, fast and flexible.

 

  • Establish yourself as an expert in a field, while staying on top of your field and your competitors.

 

  • Target potential and current audiences without resorting to spam. Since the users make the decision to connect with your company, marketing messages will be anticipated not disregarded.

 

  • Engage with user-friendly options such as photos, videos, blogs, and status updates. Traditional media is passive while, social media is interactive.

 

  • Market and build your brand while engaging audiences.

 

  • Enhance credibility by controlling and communicating directly with the key audiences.

 

  • Learn directly from audiences on social media sites such as Facebook. These platforms let the company learn directly what customers are saying about its service and products.

For more information contact, Pam Perry, Social Media Strategist at 248.851-3993 or 248.690-6810.

Time (line) is Almost Up

Posted on March 13, 2012 by - Facebook, Social Media

Many people are dreading the timeline feature on Facebook, but most marketers are looking forward to its roll out. There isn’t much longer to wait, timelines will be activated for all Facebook brand pages on March 30, 2012. So ready or not, it’s coming to your page. How will this affect your company’s page and how will this be different from the current brand pages? Be ready for the timeline activation so that it will truly represent your brand. In fact, Facebook is giving you the opportunity to play with your timeline and view it before you publish it live.

I believe that the Facebook Timeline may be a social media marketers dream. The timeline feature allows brands to highlight important moments in the company history. Pictures will also be much more prominent on the pages. Since Facebook has more pictures uploaded to its site than any other website, this is a great way to feature images with the brand.

Here are some tips and tricks so that your brand page is ready for March 30th:

  • Choose your cover photo and logo – Gone are the long images that you could use for a profile image. With timeline you can really brand yourself and show off at the same time. However, there are some rules with the cover photo:
    • The cover photo is large and will stretch across the page. It’s best to size your cover photo to 851 px by 315 px.  Anything smaller will be stretched.
    • It’s best to use your logo as the profile image. The size for the profile picture is 125 x 125 pixels.
    • Facebook wants the cover photo to be visual and does not want you to include the following
      • Calls to action, for example “Get it Now” or “Tell Your Friends”
      • You can’t ask users to Like or Share your page
      • No contact information, including your website, phone number, email or twitter handle, all of this information can be included on your “About” page
      • Prices or purchasing information such as “40% off” or “Download it on thiswebsite.com”
      • You can not encourage other users to download your cover photo
      • Photo cannot infringe on copyrights, it is best to use an image that represents your company and a photo that is owned by your organization
  • Wall is Home – When Timeline is activated on your page, the default landing page will be your wall. This is why your cover photo is important, this will be the first thing your fans see. 
    • Fans posts are no longer prominent. If you have one of those fans that constantly posting on your wall and pushing your brand posts down, this is perfect. Now all posts by others are featured in one box on the right hand side.
    • Keep important information at the top of your page by pinning it to the top of your page. The post will stay at the top of the page for seven days or until you remove it. You can also re-pin the post to the top after seven days. To pin the post, go all the way to the right of the post where is says “Edit or Remove” and select “Pin to Top.”
    • Highlighting a post, the start located next to “Edit or Remove” is best for pictures. The highlighted post will spread across the entire page and appear more prominently that other posts.
  • Tabs are gone – All of your Apps that you have featured on the left side of your page will now be located under your cover photo.
    • Only four applications can be featured at a time and one of those will be your photos. So really there are only three apps that you can choose to be shown at all times. Choose the apps/pages that you most want your fans to visit.
    • There is a more button that will feature all of your applications and there is the ability to rearrange the apps.
    • Events, notes and number of likes are some of the apps that can be featured. Decide if you use these features most often or if you use other applications. For example, feature events if you host a lot of events.
    • All of your apps from your current page will be in your app toolbar.
  • Mark your timeline– This may be one of the best features of the new roll out.
    • Under status update, select “Milestone” and type in the date, notes and a picture or video.
    • Mark all of the important dates in your brands history, from launch/opening to new developments and any other milestones you would like to be featured.
    • Milestone events will be located on the timeline on the right side of the page. The milestone will appear when someone clicks on the year of that event. Now your fans will be able to see the history of your brand.

There are many more features for the new Facebook timeline, but this should be a great way to get you prepared before your page is automatically switched over.

Links to check out:

5 Reasons Your Business Should be on Facebook

Posted on December 1, 2011 by - Facebook, Social Media

Facebook has provided a number of tools to make it a powerful resource not just for individuals, but for businesses and brands as well.  It’s no secret that Facebook will help spread your brand and propel your business into the forefront. Facebook has over 350 million active users. More than 35 million users update their status each day, with more than 55 million status updates each day. More than 2.5 billion pictures are uploaded to Facebook each month. These are five reasons why your business may need a Facebook page:

  1. Establish yourself as an expert, while staying on top of your field and your competitors.
  2. Target potential and current audiences without resorting to spam. Since the users make the decision to connect with your company, marketing messages will be anticipated, not disregarded.
  3. Engage with user-friendly options such as photos, videos, blogs, and status updates. Traditional media is passive, while social media is interactive.
  4. Enhance credibility by controlling and communicating directly with the key audiences and building the company’s brand.
  5. Learn directly from audiences on social media sites such as Facebook. These platforms let the company learn directly what customers are saying about its service and products.