Posts Tagged ‘facebook fan page promotion’

HGTV Uses TV to Promote Social Media

Monday, February 1st, 2010

At this point, I think most of our regular readers know my feelings about traditional advertising: TV, Radio, Print Ads – They are just too expensive and you don’t see much return-on-investment. Consumers simply tune them out. With that said, if traditional advertising is part of your marketing mix (in some cases it is still relevant, but those cases are dwindling), I’m a big advocate of promoting your online efforts through your traditional ads. I was watching some HGTV (my girlfriend and I are big fans) this weekend when I noticed the stellar job they do of incorporating their social media into their own TV spots.

On at least two instances, an entire 15 second TV spot for HGTV centered around their social media. Many of the HGTV personalities have their own Twitter and Facebook profiles. HGTV came up with brilliant campaign to incorporate the activity on their hosts’ profiles into their TV ads. Basically the ads go something like this, “Brittany from Georgia wrote the following comment on Sabrina Soto’s Facebook wall, Sabrina, your design-sense is one of a kind and I’ve incorporated many of your ideas into my own home. Thank you!” The TV ad then ends with the following, “Sabrina Sota responded by thanking Brittany and asking her to submit some pictures of her newly updated home. Remember that you can follow HGTV and our hosts on Facebook and Twitter.” I may not have the exact language correct, but you get the gist.

HGTV is not only promoting their social media, but they are promoting their fans as well. It’s adds to the connection. Can you imagine how you’d feel if HGTV mentioned your Facebook comment on their TV commercial? I’ll bet you’d tell a bunch of your friends, both online and offline. In turn, that may increase fans and followers of HGTV social media sites, as well as, possibly increase viewers of their TV programs.

This is just another example of how traditional advertising can compliment your social media marketing. Again, if you have limited spend, you may want to dismiss traditional ads altogether, but if you’re someone who is running some radio spots or print ads, you should definitely find ways to drive listeners/readers to your social media sites.

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How Facebook Tagging Can Help Your Small Business

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

Do you have a Facebook fan page for your small business? If not, as I said in a previous post, you definitely should consider creating one (if your target customers use Facebook). For those of you who do have a Facebook fan page for your small business, Facebook tagging is a great way to build relationships with other businesses and customers, as well as, getting your fan page in front of more potential fans.

Facebook launched their tagging effort a few months ago, after they realized just how powerful Twitter was becoming. The very nature of Twitter is to tag followers in your tweets through their Username if you want to communicate with them or recommend them to others. Facebook decided it would be a good idea to implement similar functionality. The benefits of Facebook Tagging to business owners isn’t really talked about much. That’s what this post is for. First we’ll learn how to tag others in your Wall Posts and then we’ll discuss why you should be doing it on your small business Facebook fan page.

When creating wall posts for your fan page you can tag your friends and pages that you are a fan of. The first step to this is to become a fan of other local or relevant businesses. If you’re a restaurant in Doylestown, PA, then perhaps you should be a fan of the local jewelry store and clothing store. This connects you with your peers, but it’s also the first step in getting in front of more local customers. Each of those businesses have fans of their business and through tagging, you can get your fan page in front of their fans.

One big requirement for your posts to appear on the walls of your friends and pages is the settings on those walls. As you know, you can either set your wall to allow only your (the owner’s) wall posts OR you can set it to allow your friends and fans to post to your wall as well. In order for your tags to appear on someone’s wall, the owner of that page must allow for OTHERS’ posts to appear. If you tag someone and your post doesn’t appear on their wall, more than likely their settings specify that only they are allowed to post wall comments to their wall.

The act of tagging is actually very simple. When you’re writing a wall post on your small business fan page simply type the “@” symbol in the text field and then begin to type your friend’s name (or the name of a page you’re a fan of). As you can see from the image above, Facebook pretty much takes care of the rest. Once your friend’s name appears in the drop-down, simply click it to make it fully appear in your post. Then finalize the content of your post and click submit.

You can tell that you’ve successfully tagged someone when their name shows up in blue on your wall post.

The next step is to navigate to their page to see if your post appeared on their wall. It’s easier than ever now to navigate to their page because all you have to do is click their name (in blue) on the wall post you just created and that will automatically link you to their page. That’s one of the reasons why other people like when you tag them in your wall posts. Not only will your post show up on their wall, but you’ve recommended them to your fans and your fans can easily find them by clicking on their name in your wall post. It’s always about mutual benefits – that’s a key to building great relationships. As you can see from the image below, my wall post has now shown up on The Rise To The Top fan page.

Some of the main benefits to utilizing Facebook’s tagging feature are:

  • You can build relationships with other business leaders by recommending them on your wall
  • Your fan page gets in front of new prospects/fans
  • You’re seen as active in the Facebook community
  • Your fans appreciate you opening them up to other great fan pages

If you have a Facebook fan page for your small business, start tagging.

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Why it’s Important to Have a Custom Facebook Fan Page URL

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

Do you have a Facebook Fan Page setup for your small business? If not, then get one up ASAP. For those of you who are already on Facebook, you know just how powerful a tool it is for your small business. Today’s post is intended to help you understand the importance of having a custom URL setup for your Facebook fan page.

Does your Fan page have an ugly URL string like the one below?

Did you know that your Facebook fan page URL doesn’t have to look like the one above? You have the ability to customize it. If you have 25 fans or more, Facebook allows you to create a custom URL for your small business fan page. Simply go here, and click “Set a username for your Pages”. Be sure to double-check the Username that you select as you cannot change it. It should be something that’s short, but also something associated with your business. I simply chose my business name, as you can see below.

There are a few reasons why you should create a custom URL for your Facebook fan page.

  • It looks cleaner than a string of code
  • It’s better for search engine purposes
  • It’s easier to promote – Check out my post on promoting social media in your print ads for more information
  • It’s easier for people to remember if you’re giving your URL out during a face-to-face conversation
  • It’s another branding element for your Facebook fan page

It’s really easy to setup your custom Facebook fan page URL, so take a few minutes and do it now. Then let everyone on Twitter know you did it (just another way to let people know you have a fan page that they can be a part of).

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What Social Tool Are You Considering Using for Your Small Business?

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

There are hundreds of social tools out there for business owners to take advantage of. With that said, in order to be effective, you must choose tools that fit your business needs. The first step to figuring out what tools to leverage versus what tools to stay away from is conducting market research. Figure out what tools your customers are using and make sure your business has a presence on those tools. If your customers are using FourSquare and Yelp, then you should be using those tools as well.

What online social tool are you considering signing up for and why? How do you think this tool will help your business? Leave your responses in the comment section. Hopefully we can get a good list of social tools. Perhaps you’ll even find a few new tools that you’ve never heard of.

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Catalyst Marketers is on Facebook. Are You?

Friday, January 1st, 2010

In 2001 Facebook started as a tool soley for college students. At that time I just happened to be a freshman at Bentley College in Waltham, MA. Everyone was on Facebook. We used it as a way to connect with other students. Now, almost a decade later, Facebook is open to everyone, including business owners.

Facebook fan pages are a great way to connect with customers and have a meaningful dialogue them. Facebook fan pages allow businesses to show their true brand identity, while learning about their customers interests, needs, and wants. Facebook fan pages also allow customers to obtain relevant information from their favorite businesses. Fan pages give customers a way to communicate directly to business owners and employees. Catalyst Marketers is on Facebook. Are you?

We use the Catalyst Marketers Fan page as a place where business owners and social media experts can converge to exchange ideas around using social tools to grow their business. At the time of this post, we have 34 fans and counting. We have 48 favorite pages that we frequent. Many of our fans are small business owners and social media/e-marketing experts. Together we discuss all things business, with a focus on using social tools to reach more customers, build relationships with those folks, and ultimately drive sales.

There are a number of great resources on our Facebook wall, which is always evolving – from awesome blog posts to instructional videos. Our fans join in the conversation regularly, which makes for a very social conversation. It’s not just a one-way street where Catalyst Marketers promotes their services every 15 minutes. We do share our blog articles and even talk about our services when they are relevant, but we also share countless articles and videos from many people, even some that could be considered competitors. We simply want our fans to have access to the best possible information, even if that information doesn’t come from us.

Find Catalyst Marketers on Facebook and become a fan to join in the social media conversation. You can also click the “Become a fan” button on the Facebook widget on the right sidebar of this blog. We look forward to exchanging ideas with you.

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Do You Want to be on My JetBlue Facebook Team?

Thursday, December 31st, 2009

So you want to know the answer to the age old social media question? You know the one —-> How do I get people to become my fan on Facebook? Look no further than a great promotion that JetBlue is running, All-You-Can-Jet Facebook Fan Sweepstakes.

JetBlue is offering fans of their Facebook page a chance to win round-trip airfare, plus a vacation OR free flights for a year. The only criteria are that you become (or are currently) a fan of their Facebook page and that you click the JetBlue Sweeps tab to enter your information.

There’s also a team component. Once you enter, you can build a team of four individuals who will all receive a great vacation package if their team is selected at the end of the promotion.

Now, you might be saying, I cannot afford to fly someone around the world free for a year, but I’ll bet you can afford the $2,000 or so to send 4 friends on a great vacation. I mean, it’s an Advertising write-off anyway, right?

I’d even be willing to bet that you can think of a much better prize, which costs you a lot less. It’s all about getting creative. You can even get a designer/programmer to build you a Facebook application like the one JetBlue built for a small investment. JetBlue is already up 50,000 plus fans – almost double from when the promotion started.

If you’re thinking, “well, JetBlue had 60,000 fans on Facebook to begin with and even more Twitter followers. I don’t have that many people in my network to roll a promotion out to”. That’s OK. It’s all relative. Use JetBlue as an example, but then bring the promotion into your own set of realities. Offer your 30 Facebook fans or 100 Twitter followers a great promotion that provides them something of value in exchange for some sort of action by them.

I have to say this is a really great promotion by JetBlue. They could have stopped at allowing individuals to become fans in order to win a chance at free airfare or a trip. Instead, they did that, and on top of it, they added a viral component to it – Sign up a team. This allows those who become fans of JetBlue on Facebook, to get their friends involved. This opens the door to even more new fans for JetBlue.

I hope that JetBlue will take the contest to the next level after the current promotion ends. A few great add-on promotions that I can think of to help new fans stay connected with the brand are:

  • Use the database of teams collected during this promotion and create a new team-oriented promotion (think March Madness)
  • Have the team who wins record their trip for an additional bonus to them, and then use that footage for news ads/promotions
  • Have a runner-up competition for the top 10 individuals who appear on the most teams. Allow them to take part in a new promotion that generates buzz for the JetBlue brand.
  • Run a promotion to new/existing fans where one fan is selected to accompany the individual who wins the free flights for the year. Each time the original winner flies somewhere new, another fan is selected to fly with him/her.

What do you think of JetBlue’s promotion? What ideas do you have around using a similar promotion for your small business?

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