Social Media Marketing Services | Grow To Win Marketing

Category: Social Media Marketing

  • 8 Ways to Use Pinterest to Grow your Brand

    8 Ways to Use Pinterest to Grow your Brand

    In today’s net-savvy world, there are so many online marketing opportunities you can do online –  the list seems endless. It is important to know the ones out there that make your job easier so you get more done with less effort.

    One of the most widely-used platforms growing in popularity today is Pinterest, a free social and cataloging system that allows you to upload, save, sort and manage images and videos. Registration is free and now you can begin to declutter your hard drive and bookmark bar by pinning things to your Pinterest account.

    The images and videos that you save on Pinterest are known as ‘pins’, and they are stored through collections called ‘pinboards’. The fact that it is possible for businesses to create boards for promotion of their various products online opens up a whole new set of possibilities. However, if you want to make the best out of what Pinterest has to offer, you have to go about it in the right manner and here

    We take a look at ten ways to use Pinterest to grow your brand.

    1.      Set up a Business Account

    This might seem like the most obvious thing to do, but yet there are people who missed out by not setting up a business account on Pinterest. Although not essential, but if you are going to sell products through Pinterest, then, like a Facebook business page, you need to set up a Pinterest business page as well. This will lend credibility to your profile, and give it a professional appearance.

    Please do not confuse this with a personal Pinterest account, which is an account that requires a first and last name. A business account does not require a first and last name, and therefore you can register your organization name.

    2.      Appropriate Social Media Tools

    There are a whole suite of social media tools which have been created by developers, which will enable you to use Pinterest more effectively. Here are a few of the better known ones:

    • Pin Groupie: A great search tool to find Pinterest Boards by keyword to help you better curate content for your own boards.
    • Pinterest Browser Button: Add the Pinterest browser button so you can easily pin from your browser.
    • IFTTT: Allows you to automatically pin when a new blog post hits your favorite blog or when a new product is released from your favorite company.
    • Buffer: Allows you to schedule pins and provides online Pinterest campaign management tools
    • Buyable Pins: A Pinterest program that lets you sell your products directly on the Pinterest platform

    3.      Constantly Monitoring Pinterest Analytics

    Pinterest has a dedicated analytics section, which gives you regular updates on your stats. With this capability, you will be able to monitor traffic on your page and who is viewing what pins. You will get to know impressions, repins, clicks, and all-time stats. Pinterest analytics can also tell you about the people who visit your page and boards. You can find out their gender, their location, their language, and what other interests your followers may have.

    4.      Your Website should be “Pinnable”.

    One of the most efficient ways of publicizing your business is to get people to start pinning from your website. To do this, you need your website to be extremely visual and have plenty of pictures for people to pin along with articles that interest them. There is a vast collection of images available online, and you can make use of these images on your blog, but make sure that you mention the source in your photographs. Here are a few sources, for starters:

    A word of caution though – ensure that you check the copyright of these images, especially for those that you see on Flickr.

    5.      Identifying your Audience

    Here, you need to do some extensive research. If you want to enhance your engagement, you need to be well-acquainted with your target audience. This is solely dependent on the nature of your website, and what people are likely to be looking at when they visit it. Once you are able to be aware of the interests of your audience, and what people like to pin and on the type of boards they prefer, then you have hit the jackpot! You want to know interests, age, gender, location, income, married, with children, likes pets, and anything else that can give you insight on your audience.

    6.      Pinning Contests

    Another motivational technique is to run a contest, which is best done through the Pinterest platform. It is a good way of getting likes and followers for your website, especially if you are new to Pinterest. You will find a number of apps which will enable you to do this.  Woobox and Votigo are two of the most popular ones. Before launching your contest, check with Pinterest Terms of Service, so that you are able to run your contest in accordance with the rules of Pinterest.

    7.      Engagement is the Key

    For people to continue to be interested in your website, you need to constantly engage them. This means that you have to spend time on your page, just liking, commenting and pinning, and generally interacting with visitors to your website. A good rule of thumb to this approach is to never allow your response to be delayed more than 24 hours. This way, you will be able to keep your finger on the pulse of your brand and keep your followers abreast of your latest updates.

    8.      The Power of Infographics

    Infographics is an acquired art, and varies as diversely as the websites and blogs where they are created. An infographic will help to increase the engagement level on your Pinterest page and board – people will share the heck out of a good infographic. Two useful infographic tools are visual.ly and infogr.am.

    Pinterest Tips Conclusion

    With just these eight tips, you will be well on your way to growing your business on Pinterest. The Pinterest tips I mentioned in this article are just the tip of the iceberg. As you get going, you notice that there is a whole lot more to Pinterest. As you experiment, you will find what works and what doesn’t. It is always better to do something than to do nothing at all.

  • Easy Ways To Bootstrap Your Business On Social Media

    Easy Ways To Bootstrap Your Business On Social Media

    When your business is just starting out, both capital and cash flow may be limited, and you need to grow your business by using elbow grease, also known as “bootstrapping” your business. It means you have to do a lot of manual tasks to get customers into your sales funnel.

    Most people have a smart phone similar to an Iphone or Samsung Galaxy.  So when you are at a red light, watching a movie, or just resting, these are some great tasks you can do from your phone or desktop computer.  I typically do these types of things when I am not at my desk, simply because when I am at my desk I am doing paperwork or other more complicated tasks.

    Add Friends on Facebook

    You get up to 5,000 friends on Facebook. Facebook just tweaked their algorithm so that posts by friends have more of a priority in peoples’ newsfeeds than a page post.  And adding friends is free.  Before doing this, ask yourself who your target audience is for your business.  Are there certain types of people you like that will like what you post?  Are there people that would be interested in content that relates to your business you could add as a friend? Remember, this is your friends page so they will see your restaurant check ins, your family photos, and your rants. So people you add will be your friends, as well as possible buyers. It is a fine line and you have to balance it out how you want to go about it. But if you don’t have 5,000 friends, you are missing out on a natural backbone of your business – your family and friends. The more you have, the more help you will get.

    One way to find friends is to check and see if there are any groups out there that cover topics you are interested in or relate to your product. So if you sell space food, you could check out the Space X group or the NASA group on Facebook. If you graduated from college or a high school, you could see if there is a business group out there for your school.  Then look at the members list and add as many of those people as possible if you think they will be good friends and it is appropriate.

    A word of caution is this. Facebook has ways to check to make sure you aren’t adding too many people too fast.  One way around this is by adding people you have a lot of mutual friends with already.  So you can add friends using mutual friends. I always try to add people with at least 3 mutual friends as me.  If Facebook gives you a warning that you are adding too many people, take a break for a day or two, then start again.

    Follow People on Twitter

    You can follow up to 2,000 people at a time on Twitter initially.  Typically I have found that if you follow someone, they will follow you back 20-30% of the time.  But you want to have people follow you who will help your business or will relate to the content you are putting out. How do you do this? Go to other peoples’ pages who are similar to yours or who have crossover appeal to what you are doing. Follow other companies’ followers. You can also find public lists out there and follow all those people if it relates to you. Keep following people until you hit 2,000.  Then after a while, if someone hasn’t interacted with you or followed you, then you can unfollow them since they didn’t reciprocate the relationship, which will give you more followers freed up to add other people who might follow you back.

    Add People on LinkedIn

    LinkedIn gives you 3,000 invites before you max out invites (asking people to connect with you on LinkedIn). There are all sorts of ways to add people on LinkedIn. You can search by groups, companies, management position, location, and many more. Add as many of these people you can who are 2nd connections. Join groups to make all the group members 2nd connections. If you know them, add them for sure. Check out the connections of people you know, maybe you will recognize somebody? Add them.

    Recap of First Few Steps

    Ok so by now you have added 5,000 Facebook friends. You have followed 2,000 people on Twitter. And you have invited 3,000 people to LinkedIn.  Based on who adds you back on Twitter and LinkedIn, you probably have about 7,000 total people in your network.  That is a great start for your business, and it was all free.

    Publish Content

    On your social media sites, you need to put out content that your friends will like (by friends, we mean Facebook friends, LinkedIn connections, and Twitter followers).  Each site has a feel of its own. But you need to learn what those are and start putting out articles, updates, images, and videos that your people will like.  Remember, LinkedIn is professional – so no politics, personal family photos, or religion or anything that wouldn’t happen in a professional business setting. Twitter is short and sweet – so you can put out sound bites and short snippets that will get peoples’ attention. Facebook – anything goes as long as it doesn’t completely alienate your friends.  Don’t upload pictures that are disturbing. But people expect to see personal photos, controversial topics, and things like this on Facebook. In fact, your stuff will get more visibility on Facebook if you can get a good debate going.  That is sometimes good, sometimes bad. You have to make the call for your business.  You need to put out content and share things that your people will like or are interested in.

    Create a Blog and Write Articles

    You can make a blog for free at Blogger.com, WordPress.org, Medium.com, Tumblr.com, and several others. These are not recommended for the long term (a full-fledged website is recommended for long term), but are free and can get you set up so you can start putting out articles.  This is essential.  Sure you don’t have time. But you need to at least write something to stay current with the times for your industry, minimum once a month. But if you can do more, like several times a week, or even daily, that would be huge for your business. But as a busy business owner, it probably isn’t going to happen if you are bootstrapping.  So publish content relevant to your industry when you get time. Become an expert in your field.  There is so much information out there, people need trusted sources that they have verified they know what they are talking about.  Do they believe you, or some guy they never met and can’t verify? I would believe you if I knew you from Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. After all, you would be in my social circle of trust.

    This will get people coming back to your blog.  It will create a good search presence for you on the web.  You can then link to your social sites and your business website.  It will give you good SEO support via backlinks and relevancy, and it will keep your articles “in house” as opposed to sending them to someone else’s blog.  You can send people to other blogs and news sites, in fact you have to. But you want to try and get people coming to your blog by writing content as much as possible.

    It is About Relationships

    On all your social media sites, the entertainment ratio vs business posts should be like 7-1.  Don’t put out too much about your business.  Just enough to let people know what you do.  But for the most part, try to actually get to know the people on your friends lists.  Make sure you give a darn about what they are up to by “liking” and “retweeting” and “commenting” on their stuff.  Try to say Happy Birthday to people on their birthdays.  Invest in your friends.  They are going to be your base of support for anything you do in life. So make it a top priority.

    Ensure People Know What You Do

    I have a lot of friends I don’t even know what they do for work or their business. So you have to at least let them know what you do.  Occasionally say something about your business, but don’t be sales-y.  Just let them know what you do.  That way if they like you or trust you, they will reach out when the time is right.  If you out right need help with something, ask.  Say you need a supplier who does packaging. Ask your friends.  If you need someone to share a promotion, ask your friends. If you need funding, ask.  Just don’t do it daily or too much.  Only if you really need help and are in a bind. Your friends will be able to tell if you are sincere.

    Take Advantage of Direct Messages

    You can direct message people and tweet people directly on Twitter. You can tag people on Facebook, and can message them privately. You can send people messages on LinkedIn if they are a connection. Try to reach out to a few people a day, get to know them. Find out what they need help with. Try to help them. They will try to help you too. This kind of goes in hand with relationship building mentioned above, but this is a more direct way.  Don’t just blast content to the four winds all the time, reach out to people.  You can even invite them to lunch if you think there is something bigger to discuss, like hiring them as a subcontractor, them hiring you, or setting them up as a distributor, or a partnership etc.

    Build a Facebook Page

    Once you have maxed out your followers and friends you can boot strap, create a Facebook business page. This is a great indirect way of letting your friends know what you do, because all of them will see your invite.  You can invite all 5,000 of your friends to your business page, you can post that business page on Twitter and LinkedIn for people to follow. You can mention it on your blog.  Start putting out content on your Facebook Page.  It won’t get the interaction your friends page will, but it will still help and is a great foundation for the next step of expanding your business’s social media presence.

    There is always more to do. But if you do these steps, you will be a social media super hero and your business is going to get sales, customers, and reach.  And all of this is free.  It just takes time. So you have to balance all this with actually growing your business systems and executing tasks.

    If you start generating revenue, there are more effective steps to help grow your business. We can address that in another article or directly.  Tweet me or ask me on Facebook or LinkedIn.

  • 9 Reasons to Tag Other Facebook Pages

    9 Reasons to Tag Other Facebook Pages

    Many companies and people are burdened with Social Media tasks. There is Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, Reddit, Tsu, Ello, and countless others. Where do you begin? How do you handle all the tasks? Well, you must prioritize. And Facebook is usually where people and companies get their feet wet with social media.

    Having said this, there are many factors when posting on Facebook to help your posts be good enough to have the effect you are looking for. Those factors can be increased by using different techniques. In this post, I will discuss the benefits of tagging Facebook pages and why you should do it.

    (To tag a post, type in the @ symbol following by the name of the page, and a page under that title can be selected. Your post will now have a “clickable” tag to that companies’ Facebook page).

    Adds Value for your Readers

    People like it when you make things easy for them. If you show them where the company Facebook page is, it then gives you bonus points with the reader. They like you more, you made their life easier.

    Makes Your Post Stand Out

    The news feed is a cluttered place. People are tired of seeing the same old stuff. So if your post has a tag in it, it naturally tells the news feed scroller that there is something different about your post. It stands out. They think, “hey, this company may have something less spammy to show me because they took the time to tag”. Then you get more interest in your post.

    Companies May Share your Post to their Own Wall

    Companies monitor their pages frequently. When you tag another Facebook page, a company or organization will see your post on their wall. It is the same part of the page where their followers can write to them publicly. For you Twitter users out there, it has the same effect of tagging someone on Twitter (minus the notification). We have seen companies reshare posts countless times when they have been tagged on Facebook – especially if the post you tagged them in sheds a favorable light on their company (a product review, for example).

    Tells Followers of the Page you have Relevant Content

    Many times people who are interested in a company will scroll the company’s page wall for posts. If you tagged that company, your post will be there. People will comment on it, like it, share it, and may even follow your page. It is a great way to reach people who like similar content that your page posts.

    Huge SEO Value – Pagerank for your Facebook Page

    When you tag a hugely popular page – say a Amazon or Walmart as examples – you are telling Google and other search engines that your page and post are relevant and related to that company. So even though the link in your post to the article on your website is  a “no-follow” link (meaning it does not pass Pagerank), the post on the company’s wall will pass Pagerank to your Facebook page. All Facebook links on Facebook pass Pagerank because all Facebook domain links posted in Facebook are “dofollow”. If you aren’t an SEO person and none of this makes sense to you, just know this. Tagging makes your Facebook page look way better in the eyes of Google than no tagging. And it will help your Facebook page climb in Google for the relevant topics you post and for your company brand. Just type in “Amazon” and notice that their Facebook page is on the first page. This would not have happened if Facebook didn’t allow the link juice to be passed on the Facebook domain to Amazon’s Facebook page.

    More SEO Value – Your Facebook Post Will Rank

    Because you tag a powerful page on Facebook, your niche post will have clout in Google’s algorithm.  It will not be a huge amount, but we have had our Facebook posts rank better when we tag pages. This SEO benefit is based on keywords and relevancy of your actual “Facebook post” and not so much Pagerank to your Facebook page. So if your post mentions Amazon’s new product campaign with niche words in it like names of products and very specific topics, if you tag Amazon, your post may likely come up in Google when people type in those keywords in your Facebook post. If you do not tag, however, your post will never be found anywhere. This has happened to us several times.

    Engagement Increased on Facebook – More Visibility

    Most people think backwards when it comes to mentioning and tagging other pages on their post. They think, “I will lose this person because they will follow another page and will leave my post”. While that may be true, Facebook sees it as a “click” on your post. This tells Facebook that your post had value and will then show the post to more people. It is generally understood that more shares, comments, and likes increases your Facebook post presence. But what is not known by many, is that clicks also count in Facebook’s algorithm. It is hard to tell clicks because only the savvy people with analytics know this. So if you make your post easier to engage by tagging, you will get your post higher in Facebook’s algorithm.

    Trending Topic Bonus

    If you tag a page that is a trending topic, you will only amplify the engagement of your post. So if say the Olympics are going on, and a person like Michael Phelps just got a gold medal on swimming. If you just write about Michael Phelps without tagging, you will definitely do well. But if you write about Michael Phelps and tag the actual Michael Phelps Facebook page, people will click on it all day long and the effects of your posts will be exponential. They want to know who this guy is that everyone is talking about.  So this is an added bonus that will help amplify your content.

    As an add on point for this, if you are a page that has followers, and you tag another page that has followers, naturally Facebook would want to show your post to people that like both pages. I am not saying this is a rule, but it makes sense. It helps Facebook relate the content. Also, if someone comments on the post, their friends who like both pages are more likely to see it.

    Spread the Love

    In SEO land we call it link love – where you link to someone and they link to you back. But in social media land, I guess we can call it tag love. The point is when you tag a company, you are sending them free promotion. It will spread good will to that company. It is important to do this, especially if you want clients or want to develop a relationship with that organization. So when you pick up the phone to call them after they share your post, they will immediately be receptive because you tagged them and they decided to share it. You are in their good graces.

    Parting Thought

    Tagging a post with a relevant tag to a Facebook page or two can mean the difference between a mediocre post to a great post. It could launch your post into mega-viral status – at least increase your chances of doing so. It could also help your SEO and relationships with those pages. So even though it takes longer to do, it is worth doing.

  • Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook Profitability

    Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook Profitability

    Dear Mr. Mark Zuckerberg,

    First of all, we at Grow To Win Marketing, love Facebook.  It is the only place where we can go to communicate with our friends, coworkers, classmates, and acquaintances all at once.  It is also allows us to target our exact audience.  The targeting gets better and better every day.  While it may appear somewhat complicated and complex to use, those who understand how to use it are getting great results and return on investment.  Facebook is always improving, which is one of the main reasons I took the time to write this letter.  I think Facebook is open to suggestions and is always trying to innovate, so hopefully some of these suggestions are adopted. It will make our lives  a little easier and hopefully make Facebook even more profitable than it already is.  So without further ado, here are the suggestions:

    Allow Us to Save Post-Campaign Optimized Audiences

    Companies who are involved in Facebook marketing know that Facebook optimizes ad spend over time. The longer the campaign goes, the more efficient the spend becomes.  Facebook should allow us to clone and save that optimized audience.  Whatever Facebook is doing behind the scenes, whether it is showing the ad to middle-aged men in the evenings that like a certain page or whatever the metric is that the optimized campaign ends up with, we should have the ability to “save” that setting and give it a name.  This way, next time we launch a similar campaign, we can see if that optimized audience and campaign will be cheaper than if we started from scratch all over again.  Yes, we can extend the existing campaign, but sometimes you want to be able to change images and words without losing all of that optimization.  Businesses lose some efficiency restarting campaigns that should have been optimized from the beginning.

    Give Us a More Organized Way to Post in Addition to Chronologically (Timeline)

    Facebook should give us another format that is category-based with which to post updates.  It shouldn’t always be in a status/timeline format.  The current timeline format gives us the “post it and lose it” syndrome where some users may not like posting quality content because it won’t stay easily searchable forever like a blog post will.  It will get buried to the bottom of the newsfeed never to be seen again.  This is problematic because it encourages people to write blogs instead or post on Tumblr as to retain the quality content and make it easy to find.  Facebook should set up a tab on the profile that lets us organize our posts with labels and categories.  We should have the option to organize our posts in a blog-type format that enables better engagement and interaction.  Another idea is a forum-type format where people can engage each other based on a topic in a forum section instead of posting on a profile and losing the post the next day.  There has to be another way, other than chronologically, to allow us to organize and find our content.

    Dump Power Editor Now

    Get all functionality of Power Editor and have it go into the regular ad platform.  Power editor is brutal to work with and not very easy on the eyes.  I would say improve Power Editor, but why?  Just get rid of it and put all the functionality into the standard ad platform.  Too easy.

    Give us a Calculator on the Ad Platform

    Just like Quicken has a calculator that automatically pops up when calculating financials in their software, Facebook should do the same.  This will be more profitable for Facebook as I am often finding myself going to Google to use their calculator in order to calculate ad spend changes.  The way Facebook can fix this is when we click on a dollar input field, then we type a number, followed by an arithmetic symbol (+ -* /), an automatic calculator pops up and we would then do math within the ad platform itself.  This will keep us on the task of spending money with Facebook and will add great value to the platform.

    Give Us The Option to Set Campaign Budgets

    The new Facebook ad set capability that began this year has been very helpful.  Currently, the ad spends are done at the ad set level and not at the campaign level.  It would be helpful if we could set campaign budgets in lieu of ad set budgets (give us the option).

    Give Us the Option to Auto Optimize Campaigns

    With the advent of the Facebook ad set, the campaigns are no longer auto-optimized by CPC or CPM.  I am asking Facebook to give us an auto-optimize option for campaigns.  Everything would go the exact same initially – ad sets would get equal status.  As a certain percent of the ad set money is spent, the campaign makes a minor adjustment to favor one ad set over the other.  Then each day the campaign goes on, eventually only one or two ad sets will be in play and the others will be on hold.  This will save Facebook from having to flood the system with nonperforming ad sets, and will give more value to advertisers, thus increasing ROI.

    Let Us Choose By County in the Ad Platform

    At present, we can only choose by city and zip code at the local level.  Some counties have about 20 cities in it, making it difficult and time consuming to set up the ad.  It would be nice if we could choose by county.  A lot of businesses and political candidates operate at the county level.  It would be a lot easier to target by that size of a location.

    Provide More Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Help

    Facebook should give users help within the Google Search algorithm.  Currently, all of the content on Facebook is “no follow” (meaning they don’t pass any link juice to our web pages).  However, Facebook should give page owners the ability to “do follow” at a minimum our website link once we reach a certain amount of likes on our page.  This way Facebook can ensure the page is a quality page and also encourage the page owner to be active in order to get his/her likes up to a certain required number.  Additionally, if a post is quality and is going viral, Facebook should have the post become a “do follow” post.  This would encourage page owners to post relevant, quality content for users.  Currently, people are posting content elsewhere (blogs, for example), in order to get the “do follow” status of their links.  It is hurting Facebook because people have a need that Facebook isn’t providing.  Facebook would get a lot more content if this small change was implemented.  Right now, a lot of SEO-friendly posters are posting on Google Plus, because Google Plus provides some SEO value.  If Facebook competed with Google on the SEO-side, it would get more traffic from both Bing and Google and would take a larger market share of the content.

    Give us a 5-10% Facebook Cash Back Credit Card

    Facebook ad spends are done on credit card.  Facebook should give businesses the ability to have a Facebook credit card that gives us 5-10% cash back when spending money on Facebook.  Ad budgets are usually huge and credit card companies would line up to partner with Facebook on this.  The financial industry is a great industry for profitability.  Additionally, studies have shown that people spend more when they know they are getting good rewards on their spend.  Facebook stands to gain a lot of money finding a good credit card company with which to partner.  I suggest Chase or Capital One – they have the best and fastest rewards programs out there sending EFT or checks right away.  I will note that Amazon has a credit card with Chase, and people can spend their reward dollars right in the Amazon portal.

    Let Us Have Labels

    Give us color-coded labels that we can apply to anything on Facebook to help us organize better.  This idea came from Gmail and Microsoft Outlook, but my idea is actually better than those platforms.  For example, we should be able to color code all of our family members with a certain color (let’s say yellow).  If there are posts from our family members, the yellow square would show up next to their post.  We can click on that yellow square and that takes us to seeing only our family members’ posts.  When looking at our friends list, we should be able to drag and drop this yellow label on all of our family members seamlessly.  We would then pull up all albums or photos that include our family members we have identified.  When looking at comments on posts from our family members, there would be a yellow square next to their name.  When family members send us a PM, there would be a yellow square next to their message.  When family members invite us to events, those events would be color-coded with a yellow square on our events calendar.  This applies for business associates, close friends, acquaintances, or anyone else we feel like categorizing.  We would also be able to post to that category much like we can post to lists currently.  This would make our Facebook so much more organized and useful.

    Give us the Auto-Hash Tag Option

    Google+ posts an auto hash tag whenever you post content.  Facebook should let us enable that option on pages and profiles.  This will help Facebook organize the newsfeed better, it will help us get the main take away of a post from the very beginning, and will help us get more followers and traffic organically (as people will find us when they search that particular hash tag).

    Let us Bookmark Posts

    It is really hard to find a post after a few days go by.  You can’t remember which friend’s wall it was on, whether it was on a page, or whether it was in a group.  It is gone.  Facebook should have a button on each post that lets users bookmark the post.  It could easily bookmark in our browser or within an organic Facebook bookmark system.  This would help users retain quality content on Facebook.  Pinterest is a good example of why this is important.  Let us “pin” posts somewhere on our profile either privately or to our friends.

    Provide More Post Formatting Options

    At a minimum, allow users to bold, italicize, and underline content.  Text colors would be an added bonus, but I can see how this might conflict with some of the ads out there.  Give us more formatting options within our post.  You already allow us to have emoticons and such.  This would give more variety to the posts and would help break up the monotony.

    Give Pages an Easy Auto-Post Feature

    Set it up so that pages can auto-post on a predetermined schedule.  Therefore, in our admin panel we would select every weekday at 7 am and 3 pm.  So when we post, we can either post now or just hit “autopost”.  The autopost will automatically fill the post to hit at the time slot we determined.  This would save the hassle of having to click ten times to set up a scheduled post.

    Give Page Owners Analytics by Post

    At this time we have page analytics available to us.  But it would be nice to have demographic and interest information about people that are engaging on a particular post.  This would help us target an ad spend to promote that particular post.  It would provide more value to the advertiser, more value to the customer, and more value to Facebook overall.

    Help Us With Irrelevant Post Creep Prevention

    We have had posts go viral on Facebook.  One of them was an April Fools post that went on for something like 10 days in a row.  So long after April Fools was over, I was still getting comments.  Except some people thought my post was real because it was hitting their newsfeed long after April 1st.  This has happened several other times with other posts that were no longer relevant.  My suggestion is for Facebook to either establish an algorithm for posts that have gone on for more than 24 hours to have a higher scrutiny of being relevant, or for Facebook to give the user the ability to “turn off” a post if they no longer wish it to hit people’s newsfeeds. People would be able to leave the privacy status alone, but turn off newsfeed publication.  Something needs to be done about posts that are clearly no longer relevant.

    Give Us a Resume Function

    At this time, LinkedIn, Monster, and other job sites are where people go to find and be found for hiring.  But Facebook could capitalize on this market as well.  If Facebook added a resume feature to the about section of the Facebook profile and incorporated a resume-type search function to the Facebook search,  this would increase value for users.  Further, it would quickly take market share away from LinkedIn.  People will be able to search their friends list for jobs instead of reaching out to people they don’t know.  This will provide even more value to connecting with someone on Facebook.  Facebook could help fight unemployment and joblessness.  It would be a beautiful thing.

    Incorporate Facebook Alerts

    A lot of times our friends post about topics we want to know about, but we may miss the post.  We need the functionality to set up Facebook alerts much like Google Alerts.  For instance, if a user is a lawyer he may add “lawyer” as a keyword.  Facebook would send him an email, text, or notification anytime one of his friends posts about lawyers.  This would help people get more business from their friends and will help them connect in a more targeted manner.  If people love garage sales, they can get an alert for “garage sales”.  If someone likes baseball cards, they can set an alert for “baseball cards”.  If they are into politics, they can set an alert for their favorite issue or politician.  If they like a movie or book, same thing.  It is for whatever people care about and helps them stay on top of things better.

    Allow Us to Find the “Friends of Friends” Feature More Easily

    Friends of Friends posting selection used to be very readily available.  But now it is almost impossible to find on mobile and you have to make like three steps to get it to show up on desktop.  Friends of Friends is very useful because it is almost like making a post public, but not quite.  It gives the maximum exposure without surrendering your content to the public domain.  Friends of friends is really helpful and Facebook should bring that back.

    Give us a More Robust Search – A Facebook Search Portal?

    Facebook graph search is a great tool.  It does something that the others don’t do.  But it has its limits.  We can’t search posts.  What if Facebook had a page labeled http://search.facebook.com (for example) and it was one screen just like Google’s?  Except in the Facebook search, it incorporated all of Facebook’s posts and data.  Keep the page very simple.  Call it Facebook Search. It would directly compete with Google.  Let us have an advanced search option and make it more robust helping us find posts, comments, and keywords.  Let us check off certain things we want to find within our newsfeed, on our friends’ newsfeeds, and in the public domain.  Facebook currently only lets you search people and specific things about people. It is a great people search.  But very little content can be searched.  Facebook search needs more options – especially considering all of the data Facebook has at its disposal.

    In Summary

    Facebook is great. I am convinced it is helping the world connect at a cheaper and faster pace than ever before.  Advertisers are finding their niches easier, customers are seeing more relevant ads, and friends are keep up-to-date on the people they care about.  This experiment, Mr. Zuckerberg, is a huge success.  My ideas are just another way to improve an already awesome product.  The better we can make it, the faster people’s lives will improve.  People will be able to reach anyone they want for a fraction of the cost.  Competitors like Google, Amazon, Twitter, and LinkedIn will have to innovate even more to keep up with Facebook.

    Thank you and respectfully,

    Spence Rogers

    Grow To Win Marketing

    Tampa, FL

    Update – 10:34 am July, 3rd 2014

    This article was mentioned in several news publications.  Here are some of the links:

    Reuters

    Yahoo Finance

    Street Insider

    Digital Journal

    Global News Wire

    Morningstar

  • 3 Facebook News Feed Changes You Need to Know

    3 Facebook News Feed Changes You Need to Know

    by Spence Rogers

    Usually when there are Facebook News Feed changes, people get up in arms. Sometimes page owners get upset because their posts are not being seen by as many people as before and users get upset because pages they like are not showing up. But with these changes, I think most people will be happy and it will be a better Facebook News Feed overall.

    Before going into the changes, it is important to talk about why these changes occur.  Facebook’s main job is to provide value to the user, otherwise users will leave for another platform (Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, etc.).  Facebook makes these changes based on data that users submit to Facebook stating they like or don’t like something.  So if a horrible post shows up in a newsfeed and 90% of the feedback is negative – Facebook starts looking for trends – ways to improve so people find more value.  Then after some studies and some beta testing, they announce changes platform wide.

    So with that in mind, these are the changes that occurred last week and how page managers should change their posting habits.

    Don’t Ask for Likes, Shares, and Comments

    Facebook has mentioned this before and has tried to address this before.  Pages that post content and then say “LIKE, SHARE, COMMENT!” or “Like if you agree” and other variations are problematic for Facebook because these stories end up being 15% less relevant than other stories that are displayed as prominently but are not asking for fans like, share, or comment.  Most marketers like me probably don’t like this change because we are so used to the “call for action” – asking our customers to take the next step of what we are trying to accomplish.  However, I agree with Facebook that this is spammy and it is better to just have great content that people want to share on their own.

    Don’t Steal Viral Images and Videos

    Yep.  We all know who these guys are.  They take an image that is already going viral from a different page and upload it to their own page so that their page gets the credit (publicity, likes, and engagement) instead of the original page.  This is actually really smart to do if you don’t have the money or the time to create your own content.  But Facebook is cracking down and it is probably for the better.  As a side note, one way to prevent your images from being stolen is to put your logo on them or your Facebook page name.  That way if they do get stolen, you can at least get the publicity.  One way to prevent your videos from being stolen is to upload them to a Youtube channel instead of directly to Facebook and include your logo on the video.  Nonetheless, Facebook’s facial recognition and image recognition software is probably going to contribute to this new change and help Facebook prevent the reposting of original content.  This only motivates people to come up with even more original content which will again clean up the news feed a little more.

    Don’t Post Spammy Links With Fake Titles

    This is a “no brainer”.  Most people don’t do this anyway as it hurts your brand.  But there are still some bad apples who have done this.  They make a title that says “This is the most Amazing Secret to Making Money Today” and then when you click on it the page is nothing but advertisements and doesn’t say anything about how to make money.  Well, Facebook has said “no more” and early tests have shown a 5% increase in link clicking Facebook-wide, which is great news for legitimate page owners.  This is a really good change and I am sure most are very glad to have this implemented.

    You can read the official announcement about these changes here.

  • Rick Scott Twitter Vs. Charlie Crist Twitter

    Rick Scott Twitter Vs. Charlie Crist Twitter

    by Spence Rogers

    I thought it would be fun to write a “Rick Scott Twitter vs. Charlie Crist Twitter” article.  If the Florida governor’s election were held today strictly using Twitter, who would be the victor?  Social media is very important and is an indicator of how many votes you can get and how many volunteers you can mobilize.  Twitter is very news and politics related and is less social than Facebook.  When people are on Twitter, they expect to see news and politics as a main part of the feed.

    So who is the winner?  Let us analyze how many followers they have, how many tweets they tweeted, how many times they retweeted a follower, who has the most retweeted tweet, who has the most Spanish tweets, who asked the most questions, who has the most favorited tweet, who had the most replied to tweet, and who has a header image (which allows a chance to brand your message).  We analyzed Rick Scott’s Twitter and Charlie Crist’s Twitter posts from April 3rd – April 10th at 6 pm ET.  Below is a summary of our findings:

    Rick Scott Twitter vs Charlie Crist Twitter

    Rick Scott Wins On Sheer Volume

    Overall, with 45,900 Twitter followers and 21 posts in the last 7 days he overwhelms Charlie Crist.  Rick Scott has almost 3 times the Twitter followers than his rival. At about $1.50 apiece (the average price of a Twitter follower), Charlie Crist would have to spend  almost $49,000 to catch up to Rick Scott.  This is no small amount of money.

    Charlie Crist Wins on Engagement

    Even though Charlie Crist has posted less and has way fewer followers, it seems that his followers are more energized.  His most viral post had 99 retweets whereas Rick Scott’s only had 19 retweets.  Charlie Crist also asks a lot more questions and retweets his followers which encourages them to engage.  This has helped Charlie Crist to have more favorited and replied to tweets.  Rick Scott does do a good job posting images and does do better than Charlie Crist in that department.  Rick Scott also posted 2 tweets in Spanish, which picked up a little more engagement.

    Rick Scott Wins

    Even though engagement and tweet strategy is very critical, and it does appear Charlie Crist has more in that department, there is nothing that can be done to surpass a Rick Scott’s following that is thrice the size of Charlie Crist.  All Rick Scott has to do is retweet a little more of his followers, especially the amplifiers (people with their own following), Rick Scott should update his header photo (which seems to be missing), and Rick Scott should ask more questions to encourage engagement.  If Rick Scott attacked Charlie Crist a little more on there, he might energize his base a little as well (which is what Charlie Crist did to get 99 retweets).  But Charlie Crist needs to buy Twitter followers.  And in a race where every dollar matters, that is easier said than done, especially if there is a Facebook deficit as well.

  • Facebook Business Page Dos and Don’ts

    Facebook Business Page Dos and Don’ts

    by Spence Rogers

    Having a Facebook business page is very important, but if you fail to do it properly, you could do more harm than good for your business. By following these dos and don’ts, you can ensure your business thrives on Facebook and creates a growing and engaged following. Here are the Facebook Business Page Dos and Don’ts to remember:

    Facebook Business Page Dos

    Do Create a Facebook Business Page

    First of all, do create a Facebook page for your business. You want to get your name out there, and you need a Facebook page to do that. Remember, 1.2 billion people are on Facebook, 800 million log on every week, and that is a lot of potential customers.

    Pay Attention to your Insights

    Facebook Insights provides you with the ability to see who is logging on, who is leaving and what posts people like. Pay attention to it.

    Optimize your Photos

    Image optimization is important because it draws people in. Optimize your photos to get noticed.  Facebook has different size requirements for photos and you should maximize your exposure by making your photos as large as possible within the limits.

    Personalize your Posts

    Let your followers know you are a real person.  Host Q&As.  Mention your name and your opinion.  Thank people and engage with them.  You need to talk to the fans of your page and be engaging. That will make them feel more important, and that will give you more repeat business.

    Claim your Vanity URL

    Once you hit 25 likes, you can have a Facebook vanity URL. Use it because Facebook.com/CompanyName is better than Facebook.com/profile.php?id=183831

    Post with Strategy in Mind

    Don’t just post without thinking. Have a strategy so that you can take advantage of holiday sales for customers, big events and more. You want to be engaged and dynamic, but plan ahead to make the most of it.

    Give your Followers Perks to Drive Traffic

    With your Facebook business page, do take advantage of providing your customers with deals and offers that send them to your website.

    Run Facebook Ads

    Big brands are doing it.  It is an easy way to get exposure to your exact target audience.  You should take advantage of Facebook ads for your Facebook business page. Facebook ads are cheap ($1 a day) and you can create ads that are fine tuned to only go to a certain sector of people. Facebook ads have a much more affordable cost per click or cost per million impressions than traditional banner advertisements.

    Write about Current Relevant Content

    Stay relevant with your posts, so do put up topical updates that deal with real world events at that time.  You can check trending issues on Google trends, Twitter trending, and even Facebook trending.

    Ask Questions

    Ask questions to get discussions started on your Facebook business page because, as has been said over and over, engagement is key on the page.

    Keep the Trolls

    Look at trolls as a blessing.  They help your engagement.  Do keep the trolls on there if you can, unless of course they get out of hand.  Usually a troll will then cause others to respond to him/her.  This then drives up your post engagement score in Facebook’s news feed algorithm.  They think they are hurting you, but really they are helping you.

    Do vary your Post Types

    Post photos, texts, questions, videos, and articles to vary your engagement.  Different people like different things.

    Do Post Often

    People would think that posting often hurts a brand.  However, the way Facebook’s algorithm is set up, it is better to post multiple times throughout the day because not everyone sees all your posts.  Posting hourly is ideal if you can manage it.  Also post on weekends, when content is lacking.  You will find that your overall engagement will be higher the more you post.

    Facebook Business Page Don’ts

    Don’t Auto Post

    Don’t run a bot that auto-posts random content from some website.  This often causes people to feel like a person is not there, and they will not engage with your post.  If you have to use a bot to streamline, make it clear you are a participant on the page by reply to a few comments in a timely manner.

    Don’t Post Off Topic

    It is important to target your audience.  So if you are a sports team, don’t post about shopping.  Or if you are a political page, don’t post about sports.  However, some topics are universal and can be posted by most pages – birthdays, events, weather, etc.  So you have to ask yourself if the person reading this will think it is relevant.

    Don’t Spam

    People are turned off by sales pitches and spammy posts.  If you have to sell something, do it on your website.  That is where people expect to be sold to.  So drive people to your website with GREAT content (an article, a video, or something similar).  People only want great content on Facebook.  So ask yourself if it is spammy before you post.  Spamming will drive down your engagement and hurt your view rate in the Facebook algorithm.

    Don’t Forget to Respond

    When a customer sends you a message or writes on your wall asking a question, don’t ignore them. Even if it is negative, respond to them and resolve the situation.

    Don’t Delete or Ban Users

    If people are trolling your website, don’t attack them or ban them.  Try to resolve the situation privately by sending them a message or by responding to them publicly.  Ask them to email you so you can resolve it.  This says to other people that you care and aren’t afraid of criticism.  If you ban the user or delete comments, it will create a negative effect.  Google the “Barbara Streisand effect”.  It is a phrase were when you delete or try to erase something people are passionate about, they just scream it louder and louder on other websites, forums, and reviews.  Sometimes people need to be banned (constant cursing, posting inappropriate content, etc), but only after all other steps have been exhausted.

    Don’t Post Multiple Posts at the same Time

    Don’t Post multiple items at once.  Many people only go on Facebook once and then share about 3-10 different articles.  Unfortunately, this hurts your engagement in Facebook’s algorithm.  If you only get on once a day or twice a day, it is better to share posts using Facebook’s schedule option.  Try to space your posts out about an hour apart.

    Don’t Post on the Hour

    When scheduling your posts, most people post on the hour.  This is because it is easier for people to schedule it on the hour (3 pm, 4 pm etc).  Instead, post at 3:15 or 3:45.  This will help you beat the competition by not having to compete with everyone else.

    Don’t Buy Likes Outside of Facebook’s Ad Software

    Facebook can tell when people are scheming and not using their ad software.  Most of the like schemes out there produce fake followers and low-quality followers.  If Facebook finds out that this is happening, they can shut down your page because it is against Facebook’s terms and conditions.  Instead, use Facebook’s organic/internal advertising platform.  Likes are cheap enough if you do it right.

  • Top 5 Reasons Your Company Should Get on Facebook Right Now

    Top 5 Reasons Your Company Should Get on Facebook Right Now

    by Spence Rogers

    Facebook is hugely popular these days.  These are the top 5 reasons why your company should get on Facebook right now.

    1.  Number 1 Social Website:  It is the number one social networking site on the internet.  There are over 1.26 billion Facebook users.  There are over 40 million Facebook fan pages.  According to Statistic Brain, Facebook was number one for usage where 56% of social media users use Facebook.  Next in line was Linked In that came in at 14%.

    2.  Number 2 Visited Website:  It is the 2nd most visited website on the internet.  According to Alexa.com, Facebook is only just below Google for website visits.  This is no small number.

    3.  The Big Guys are Doing It:  Look at any brand.  Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Orea, Wal-Mart, Amazon.com, McDonald’s, Subway and many more all have over 20 million Facebook followers.  If they are doing it, chances are it is a good thing and they are seeing good return on investment.

    4.  People Spend A LOT of Time on Facebook:  People spend on average 15 hours a month on Facebook.  Some users check Facebook as much as 10 times a day via their mobile phone.

    5.  People More Likely to Buy if Referred on Social Media:  According to Hubspot, 71% of people are more likely to buy a product or brand when they see it referred by or liked by a friend on Social Media.  This is a staggering number that is forcing more and more brands to invest time and money into Social Media.  And since Facebook is number 1 by a longshot, this means companies should be putting the bulk of their dollars into Facebook.