Posts Tagged how businesses use facebook
Reasons a Strong Business Presence on Facebook Matters
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Networking on December 5, 2012
There’s a bit of rift between long-time successful companies and relative startups. Businesses that have been turning a profit and molding their brand image for years are up in the air about whether or not a Facebook presence—or social media in general—is required to achieve success. Newer businesses, however, without the luxury of tenure, insist that it’s a must.
So, which is it? Can you get by without a Facebook presence, or do you really need one in today’s marketplace? Well, that particular question can be argued until the cows finally come home, but as you’ll read below, logic points directly toward having a presence.
5 Reasons to Keep a Solid Foothold in Facebook
1: The Stats are Overwhelming
Over a third of the American population alone uses Facebook. All told, the site has over one billion users, which is going to push a lot closer to 1.5+ once India and other parts of Asia come into the fold. Over half of all Facebook users visit the platform regularly. Trust is growing amongst Facebook fans toward businesses. The stats can go on and on, including the fact that advertising on Facebook cost very little compared to other mediums, and the potential for higher ROI is enormous.
2: A Business-Friendly Atmosphere
Facebook has not only created an extremely business-friendly atmosphere, but one that doesn’t intrude on a user’s experience (unlike MySpace and other networks). With updates like Custom Audiences, Timeline, new advances in their ads via Sponsored Stories, and other measures Facebook has taken to rake in the advertising dollars, the network is currently in the midst of its own boom right now, and no one sees a dropping off point yet.
3: Ways of the World
The world today is trending Internet. There’s no other way to put it. Although Facebook only has a billion users, there are over 5 billion people across the planet who have access to the Internet. As we evolve further in terms of technology, Facebook’s numbers will exponentially increase, as well as Internet activity in general via people handling their shopping online. Any business would be missing out not to ride this train.
4: Adding Credibility
What do you think a tech-savvy customer thinks of your business when they find out you don’t have a Facebook page? (And that’s even assuming they can find you at all without one.) The odds are great that they don’t see you as credible. You’re not a part of the culture they’re a part of, so why would they trust you? Having a Facebook presence works wonders for your credibility.
5: Infinite Traffic Potential
From your business Facebook page, you can interlink an entire web network, including blogs, a main business site, Twitter, LinkedIn, and an infinite number of other sites, profiles and pages. You can reach out beyond your network and work with other businesses to share traffic. You can drive an enormous amount of traffic with a Facebook page (to and from), and there is literally no ceiling on how much you can attract.
Reasons like “free” and “easy” were left off the list, but you can include them as strong factors that may help you make up your mind. The fact of the matter is that your business might not need a Facebook page. But it’s also true that your odds of success increase with one.
Author’s bio:
Eric Taylor works as a freelance writer and business developer for Qwaya, a Facebook ad manager tool. Qwaya provides extensive information, tools and up-to-date news about social media marketing trends and strategies, most specifically on Facebook. The company’s goal is to build and develop a very sophisticated tool with powerful features that are user-friendly and affordable specially for social media marketers world wide.
Making the Best Use of Edge Rank
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing on December 14, 2011
A while back we wrote an article on making an impact on Facebook through your business Facebook page. We wrote:
While Facebook updates may seem like a way to alert fans to events and news – showing up like messages in users’ in-boxes – a very small percentage of updates are actually visible to fans, because of an algorithm called EdgeRank.
EdgeRank gives every post a quality score – measuring the number of comments, likes, and shares per post against the number of fans a page has. Businesses who want to be seen need to build up their EdgeRank, by making their posts interaction friendly – which means businesses need to spend more time building community with their fans.
If you can succeed at building your EdgeRank, your business has a higher chance of increasing your brand recognition and therefore, your revenue. If you’re like most businesses, this means that EdgeRank should probably play a larger role in your marketing efforts.
As a Seattle Social Media Marketing company, Rorymartin.com focuses on helping our customers build their EdgeRank. Our clients are better equipped to educate their target audience and build brand awareness. Our clients are able to win and retain customers with engaging and impactful websites and web marketing.
So how is EdgeRank calculated, and what do you need to do to improve yours?
Every post (status updates, polls, photos, etc) is an “object” and objects all have edges – therefore each of your posts has “edge”. Every single EdgeRank score depends on individual Facebook users’ post consumption. The EdgeRank Algorithm was designed to show individual users more of what they “like” to see in their news feed. The higher the EdgeRank of your particular post, the more likely it will appear across your users’ feeds.
The algorithm looks like this:
So what does this algorithm mean?
Social Media Affinity is the relationship between your business and your target audience, based on frequency of contact, logins, likes, post responses, shares etc. If a user has interacted with your business Facebook page in the past, the user has an affinity for your brand. The only way you can build affinity is to create engaging post content that will entice your target audience to come to your page to interact.
Weight is based on how many clicks a post receives against each major Facebook metric (clicks per like, clicks per comment, clicks per impression). For example, just getting a bunch of users to click “like” won’t cut it – unless you have millions of them each day. What you really need are comments, since comments have 4 times the weight of “likes”. How do you create comments? Comment generation is done in much the same way as building affinity – create engaging content.
Time Decay is KEY. Think back to your Facebook timeline. How many times does that page change in an hour? In a minute? In 10 seconds? EdgeRank changes the time-decay factor based on how frequently users log into Facebook – so if your users are used to checking Facebook several times a day, your post may disappear more quickly based on this time decay-factor. EdgeRank Checker explains,
“With the new hybrid news feed comes more objects in the feed, as Top Stories happen at a faster rate than previously. Facebook most likely increased the speed at which objects time decay. It seems that this has created a more “honed in” EdgeRank effect. Meaning, EdgeRank is creating Top Stories for users who are more likely to engage and dropping less engaging objects into Recent Stories.”
How do you overcome time-decay? Post when your target audience is ready to engage. This means doing a little research on your target audience. Know when they’re online and what they’re talking about.
Other tips: Treat each “like” as a potential brand ambassador and make it worth their while to be on your page. Offer exclusive fans-only content. Use calls to action – for example “Like this status if you agree!”
Well this all sounds pretty difficult, doesn’t it? That’s where Rorymartin.com comes in. We’re focused helping our customers create and execute their social media campaigns. We offer a comprehensive set of services from website design and web development to search engine optimization and search engine marketing and social media marketing. From entrepreneurs to established businesses, we do the work so you don’t have to – making social media simple.
Why Should I Customize my Facebook Business Page?
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing, Web Design and Development on October 10, 2011
With the popularity of Facebook fan pages and the releases of new timelines, it’s becoming increasingly important for businesses to implement a customized Facebook page for your business. Since the new Facebook Timeline feature shows your posts to your fans and your fans friends, in a ticker at the top right-hand side of the page. Your posts now reach a much wider audience – and you need to stand out from the crowd.
Offering interesting updates with a well-designed Facebook Page is often the deciding factor in whether or not your fans will choose to interact or share your page with their friends. Building interaction with your fans is an important factor – you need to have relevant information that isn’t always self-promotional. However, we like to stress the importance of having a well designed Facebook page, that offers incentives for prospective fans to click “like”.
Do you "like" the RoryMartin.com reveal tab?
Consider this: The first thing users see is your business’s wall – and while that may have relevant information, it may lack the branding your company needs to make an impact. We’re finding that businesses are increasingly aware of the visual impact their Facebook page has, and trends point to the increased use of “splash pages” or reveal tabs for facebook pages. It’s the equivalent of having an active ad built directly into your page that’s clickable. You can set these Facebook reveal tabs to be clickabe so that users can click to like, which would reveal discounts, for example.
When it comes to the internet, looks are everything. The design is as important as the implementation. Having a well-designed landing tab will help you stand out from the crowd. Keep it simple, and neat. Don’t go overboard with apps. Be consistent with your branding, and display different pages for fans and non-fans. You can even engage your current fans to take another action via links or reveal tabs. RoryMartin.com builds these welcome tabs and customizes facebook pages for a variety of clients.
And while you’re customizing your Facebook fanpage, it’s a good idea to consider implementing a custom URL. If you have 25 or more fans, implementing a custom URL on your facebook page will increase your search engine rankings and will be easier to promote. Consider your custom URL another step towards branding your business.
Here are a few simple ideas for implementing customizations on your Facebook Page
- Display the services or products you offer
- Be sure to include a specific call to action, along with a link so your fans can actively participate
- Host a contest
- Make sure to post about your blog, and share your blog posts with fans
- Let people know who you are and what you’re about
- If you do any charity work or special events, make sure to share those
- Give fans a reason to like your page by using reveal tabs, or by letting users know what to look forward to
- For your fans, let them know how they can contribute
- Share your twitter posts
Now, more than ever, it’s increasingly important to make sure your social network business profiles are integrated into your marketing and branding. If you’re not sure how to implement social media into your marketing strategy, come see us at www.rorymartin.com.
Make the Most of Linkedin for Your Business
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Networking on July 28, 2011
As a web design and web development, search engine optimization, search engine marketing and social media marketing firm, we like to keep on top of the trends – and exploring trends on LinkedIn is no exception. We stumbled across this article that boasts 10 LinkedIn Tips for Professionals, that says:
Despite the hype over Twitter and Facebook, Linkedin offers the greatest opportunity for professionals to make connections that lead to business.
We agreed with Ian Brody’s article, especially the following tips
1. Don’t make your profile look like your resumé. Brody says that the number one temptation when setting up a LinkedIn profile is to fill in all those prior job slots, but that’s ineffective where LinkedIn is concerned. The business connections that you’re looking for are going to want to see solution-oriented details. Add the business name and title, leave out things like, “managed four people who perform business-related tasks.” Explain where you went above and beyond the basic job task, improved something, saved money, or where you were excelled and were just plain awesome.
2. Find Connections – Know your Strategy. LinkedIn is social, and there are a lot of professional networks on LinkedIn, where you can flex your knowledge and show off your skills – for example, you might find us in the LikeSocialMedia.com group. Of course, like any social network, it’s best to get a feel for the pulse of the community. Listen, watch and learn; find out what other pros in your industry are doing and saying and be cautious at first about sharing dissent. Like anywhere (or any social network) first impressions are lasting impressions. And Ian Brody notes, “Create a connection strategy to build valuable discussion.”
3. Ian Brody suggests updating your status to remind people what you do, and what you’re currently working on. If you connect with a lot of people, staying current with status messages can do anything from help you connect with someone who’s looking for YOUR expertise to keeping you up to date on news in your field, to helping you and your brand grow in ways that your clientele are looking for.
What do you think readers? Have anything to add to Brody’s tips for LinkedIn?
If you’re curious about how to use LinkedIn for your business, contact RoryMartin.com to find a strategy that fits your social networking needs, as well as the social tools that simplify your social media integration. We offer a comprehensive set of services from website design and web development to search engine optimization and search engine marketing and social media marketing. If you need creative ideas, easy implementation, and a limited investment into your social media campaign, RoryMartin.com has experts available to assess your needs, provide excellent customer service and innovative marketing tactics before you’ve even signed a contract.
The State of LinkedIn
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing, Social Networking on July 12, 2011
Have you ever wondered how LinkedIn actually affects your business? Ever asked yourself why LinkedIn is important to your company’s potential? At RoryMartin.com, we’ve been researching ways for businesses to use LinkedIn to build a better social media strategy.
Having your business profile out there on the web WILL help increase your organic search results, so if you’re not optimizing sites like LinkedIn, you’re not fully optimizing your search engine potential. LinkedIn also helps your business look more complete, and is an established tool for reputation management – especially through customer testimonials.
LinkedIn is also a powerful tool to analyze your company and its connections through your employee network. An article on Mashable notes that, “…it will automatically calculate your company’s median age, top schools, and other companies that they are well-connected to.” This can be effective for recruiting job candidates, and networking in your industry. Through LinkedIn you have the ability to post polls, and receive answers, letting your business know what your clients are interested in, and keeping you up to date on industry standards.
If you’re curious about how to use LinkedIn for your business, contact RoryMartin.com to find a strategy that fits your social networking needs, as well as the social tools that simplify your social media integration. We offer a comprehensive set of services from website design and web development to search engine optimization and search engine marketing and social media marketing. If you need creative ideas, easy implementation, and a limited investment into your social media campaign, RoryMartin.com has experts available to assess your needs, provide excellent customer service and innovative marketing tactics before you’ve even signed a contract.
Make an Impact on Facebook
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing, Social Networking on June 15, 2011
One of our focuses at Rorymartin.com is helping customers create and execute their social media campaigns. An effective social media campaign should be married with your marketing campaign, and should use a wide variety of social media tools – including Facebook. Facebook is one of the most useful social media marketing tools out today; yet many businesses don’t quite know how to implement Facebook into their social media strategy. One key point to Facebook as a social media tool for business is building interactions.
Initially, Facebook didn’t offer pages, and so businesses created profiles as a way to reach out to users, especially since messaging users has continued to remain a feature reserved for profiles. Yet, one of the most common mistakes businesses make on Facebook is creating a profile instead of a Facebook fan page. What these businesses may not know, is that profiles have not been as visible and don’t necessarily get the visits that pages do. While Facebook updates may seem like a way to alert fans to events and news – showing up like messages in users’ inboxes – a very small percentage of updates are actually visible to fans, because of an algorithm called EdgeRank.
EdgeRank gives every post a quality score – measuring the number of comments, likes, and shares per post against the number of fans a page has. Businesses who want to be seen need to build up their EdgeRank, by making their posts interaction friendly – which means businesses need to spend more time building community with their fans. Fans don’t interact with self-promotion nearly as much as they interact with conversation. Your page needs to have a conversational, community feel – a give and take that makes your brand appealing to your fans and their friends. To really optimize your Facebook experience, mix up the types of posts to include blogs, videos and engaging questions.
Building the interactions your Facebook page is just one part of a good social media strategy. Seattle Social Media Marketing company, Rorymartin.com focuses on helping our customers build their EdgeRank. This helps our clients educate their markets and build brand awareness while winning and retaining customers with engaging and impactful websites and web marketing. We offer a comprehensive set of services from website design and web development to search engine optimization and search engine marketing and social media marketing.
Five Leading Contributors to Facebook Fan Value
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing on April 25, 2011
As growing audiences migrate to social networks like Facebook, a brand’s ability to connect and influence these customers must shift from traditional marketing strategies.
Facebook offers a great platform for developing stronger relationships with your customers. Facebook fans represent a significant opportunity to drive revenue enhancement, brand, and loyalty without incurring the considerable cost-per-person of conventional marketing.
The five leading contributors to Facebook fan value are:
- Product Spending
- Brand Loyalty
- Propensity to Recommend
- Brand Affinity
- Earned Media Value
How you interact with your Facebook fans is more important than the number of non-engaged fans your page has. So the question is how to manage this platform to build loyalty and generate sales? Fans are an extremely valuable segment of the Internet audience and should be addressed with specific strategies to nurture their ongoing participation and influence. RoryMartin.com offers comprehensive Social Media Marketing services to help your company tap into the power of social media.
Facebook Strategies Allow for a Discernible ROI That is Not Allowed by Most Other Approaches.
- More than 10 million users become fans of pages each day.
- On average fans spend an additional $71 on products for which they are fans compared to those who are not fans.
- Fans are 28% more likely than non-fans to continue using the brand.
- Fans are also 41% more likely to recommend a fanned product to their friends.
RoryMartin.com helps clients educate their markets and build brand awareness while winning and retaining customers with engaging and impactful websites and web marketing. As a Seattle Web Design company that specializes in Seattle Search Engine Optimization and Seattle Social Media Marketing, RoryMartin.com can help you build a Social Media Strategy that reflects your unique brand and meets your business goals.
A Look at the Current State of B2B Social Media Marketing
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing on November 11, 2010
B2B marketers are increasingly using social media to connect with their customers, but oftentimes they are not using those tools effectively. One report found that only 32% of B2B companies engage with their customers on a daily basis via social media. Another discovered that 46% of B2B marketers thought social media was irrelevant. And another found that 60% of B2B firms have no staff dedicated to social media and just 10% of B2B firms use outside agencies or consultants. While the vast majority (86%) of B2B companies use social media for marketing, it’s clear there’s considerable room for improvement.
Increased online investment is one sign of change. Forrester Research is betting that interactive spending will double from 2009 to 2014 to total $54 million. While it’s not clear how much of that money will go into social media, the report was bullish on the new tools provided they’re used correctly. “Social marketing is great for building more intimate relationships with your clients and prospects,” wrote Forrester’s Michael Greene. “But many marketers are diving into social marketing without a coherent social marketing strategy.”
As a Seattle Web Design company that specializes in Seattle Search Engine Optimization and Seattle Social Media Marketing, RoryMartin.com can help you build a Social Media Strategy that reflects your unique brand and meets your business goals.
B2B Social Media Marketing – Proven Strategies
Posted by Rory Martin in Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing on November 4, 2010
Original article featured on Mashable.
Digital marketing is gaining traction in a number of industries, and business-to-business (B2B) marketers are in on that trend, too. Increased spending on online marketing is driving companies to try new and innovative means of getting the word out about their products and services — one area that’s getting a lot of buzz with B2B marketers is social media.
As a Seattle Web Design company that specializes in Seattle Search Engine Optimization and Seattle Social Media Marketing, we wanted to share some of the following case studies which lend insight into how B2B marketers can use social media to generate leads, improve SEO, become knowledge sources, and strengthen marketing campaigns.
Generate Leads
There are two types of marketing departments — those that are cost centers and those that bring in leads and sales. Generally, the better positioned marketing department is the one that can prove it’s bringing in money, not spending it without results. When adding social media into the mix, marketing departments must be able to prove success, and oftentimes lead generation and ROI are two measurements that upper management wants to see.
Regus, a global provider of workplace solutions, recently experimented with using social media for lead generation. While the brand has a strong presence throughout the world, there was a lack of awareness in the NYC area about the convenient services and business solutions that the company has to offer.
They integrated campaign that combined social media, online video, an online sweepstakes and in-person events. The team focused on creating communities for NYC professionals, which resulted in a @RegusNYC Twitter feed and a Facebook Page. Along with these social accounts, the “Win an Office” sweepstakes was a great source of leads, as well. Lastly, the team put together New York-specific commercials, which were uploaded to YouTube. The one embedded above, for example, currently has more than 33,000 views.
Overall, this highly integrated campaign was a success unlike any other Regus had seen. The campaign increased leads to Regus’ Manhattan locations by 30%, directly resulting in a 114% increase in revenue compared to the same time period in the previous year. Furthermore, there was a 33% percent conversion rate on leads generated through the New York landing page, compared to a 12% conversion rate on 2008. The success of the campaign also prompted Regus to have Affect implement similar campaigns in five additional markets in Q1 of 2010.
Improve SEO
During the past year, Delivra, an e-mail marketing service provider, has invested in B2B social media marketing, including presences on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and a corporate blog, dubbed eMailChatr. Since implementing and maintaining these properties, the company has seen a 70% increase in inbound leads, as compared to the prior year, and its SEO rankings for major keywords have jumped over 20 pages in one year.
In this case, a blog full of useful and targeted content, enhanced by syndication across various social sites and subsequent interactions with its community, led to Delivra increasing SEO and growing a reputation for trusted e-mail marketing advice.
Carissa Newton, Delivra’s director of marketing, recommends that B2B marketers “Be realistic about your goals with social media and blogging — while these outlets can and will drive leads, there are other intangible benefits as well, like the SEO and brand awareness that make a tremendous difference.” She also stresses, “Make sure that whatever you do, it is not with the sole intention to push information out … [T]ake the time to respond and have meaningful conversations. That will increase your following tenfold. It’s just like e-mail marketing: Don’t be a blaster. Be a resource.”
Be a Knowledge Source
A global, mid-size market research and consulting firm, uses social media to increase its reach within the market research community, demonstrate thought leadership, and increase the likelihood of being found via the Internet .
“In the past nine months alone we have seen huge successes through the combination of blogging, Twitter, Facebook, online press releases, downloadable reports/case studies and Linkedin,” he explained. “The efforts have resulted in huge increases to traffic on our website (142%) and blog (308%) resulting in over 1,400 leads coming in to our sales team.”
Consistency in providing a source of useful resources has been key for the company. “Consistently creating relevant content to your blog, Twitter followers, [and] Facebook fans will help to grow your following,” he says, “but this takes time and commitment. Don’t go it alone. Build a team of regular contributors to contribute on a consistent basis.”
RoryMartin.com helps clients educate their markets and build brand awareness while winning and retaining customers with engaging and impactful websites and web marketing. We offer a comprehensive set of services from website design and web development to search engine optimization and search engine marketing and social media marketing.
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