You can turn this off!
Visit your Account Settings by clicking on the gear image to the right of your name and photo at the top of the page. Click on the Notification Settings on the left. “How You Get Notifications” should be the first group of settings that you see:

Click the “View” link to the right of “On Facebook” to expand the settings options.

By default, the “Play a sound” option is checked. Uncheck the box and click ”Save Changes.” You’ll then be free of a little extra noise pollution; at least until the next sound alert rolls out.

Facebook takes time, effort, patience and trial and error.
Your audience is on Facebook, but they aren’t there to do business with you.
Your job is to bridge the gap between why they’re on Facebook and why you want to connect with them.

Social Media Marketing and Small Business is a match made in heaven. You just need to understand how to make it work for you.

You aren’t on Facebook to sell yourself. What you need to figure out is why you’re on Facebook.

Everytime you create content you want to do at least one of these three things: Educate, Entertain, Empower. Aka E-Cubing.

Find out who is doing it right and model your own practices on them.

On Facebook you cannot be everything to everyone.
What does your audience think about the most?
You need to listen to what your audience is talking about on Facebook.
There’s one stat you can look at on a weekly basis to know what’s working for you.

Content Image Strategy
Images neeed to be at the top of your list when it comes to Facebook marketing. These can go viral, but not to millions of people. They can go viral with your ideal audience (the audience that will actually spend money with you).

60% of your fans will actually see your posts on Facebook. Images grab our attention.
Post a snapshot of your blog post with your Facebook post to grab attention and increase engagement. This also helps in pulling them away from Facebook into your blog.

Empowering images are really working on Facebook. Your edge rank increases when more people engage. Facebook then increases your visibility in the newsfeed.

Contests, Giveaways and Promotions
Contests are great, but are often viewed as a pain in the butt.
Give away something your audience will care about, but not necessarily everyone else.
Turn your contest into images.

99% of the time, include an image. It doesn’t have to be professional photography. People eat up fun, behind-the-scenesey stuff.

Viral Images Best Practices
Mix fun with educational with empowerment messages.
Be consistent. You need to post daily, if only once. Spend time engaging people interacting with people on your page. Posting from one to five times a day is the sweet spot, depending on how many fans you have. More than five posts will cause fans to unlike your page.

Why post things unrelated to your business?
You’re building your engagement score and putting yourself top of mind with your audience when they’re ready to utilize what your business has to offer.

You’re building a community around you, but you have to tell them what to do when you’re ready for them to take action.

Click Like if you agree posts are all about building a community.
Building a fanbase helps your bottom line when it comes to Facebook advertising.

When you listen to what happens on Facebook when you post things, you’ll get great market research. If you post questions all the time and no one is responding, you don’t have the right fans OR you don’t know quite what to talk about yet. Patience is key.

Going pro on Facebook means branding your FB page. This shows that you’re the game, you’re there for your FB community and you know what you’re doing.

Never risk FB taking your page down by ignoring FB’s restrictions and guidelines. No contact information, no calls to action, no Like or Share language, no promotions or advertisements of any kind.

What you can do is show special features of your product in your cover photo. Show lifestyle or behind the scenes. Change your images often to keep things interesting.
If your business is related to your location, show images of it! Show a picture of your team or your fans. Promote your events!

Timeline Cover Strategy
What are you doing? Community building? List building? Awareness, retention, etc.
Turn it into a campaign to get yourself and your audience more involved.

Custom Apps
Don’t let the default photos be on the tabs! Name all of your custom apps and brand them with images.
Collect leads! Put callsto action in your custom app tab images.
You won’t get traffic on your custom app if you just put it there, it isn’t the Field of Dreams.
Create some curiosity in your tab images (timelineimagetool.com)

Know what’s already working
Look at your FB Insights to learn how much engagement your posts are getting, how often they’re being shared, etc.
All posts are linked from you Insights: click to see them.
Find the posts with the most engagement and do more of that.
Check your Reach (under Insights) for External Referrers to learn how traffic is coming to your Facebook page.

Giving customers personal advice on your FB page is going to go a lot farther than commenting on a blog. Become socially devoted! Fans will find your website when the time is right.

Facebook Ads
You can get an edge on your competition and you can go viral with your ideal audience.
Smart content will increase your engagement.
Attract your ideal audience first, then use FB ads to grow your lead list. Engage your existing fan base.
Marketing only to your community is cheaper than marketing to all of Facebook.

Promoted Posts and Page Post Ads are going to get you the most bang for your buck.

You need at least 400 fans to access Promoted Posts.
Promoted Posts show in the newsfeed. People don’t see newsfeed ads as ads, they see them as engagement.
When you promote ads/posts to your existing fanbase, your conversions will skyrocket.

Page Post Ads are more social. Similar to a Promoted Post, but it’s turning a post into an ad and target specific fans, but also include the Share Like Comment links inside the ad.
Post a video and then turn it into a Page Post Ad. The play button inside an ad is a great way to get more engagement.
You can target your competitor’s Facebook audience.
You want a 0.04% click thru rate at the very least.

Even if you don’t promote your video post, your clicks will skyrocket if you include video in your ad.

Final thoughts
Test your own audience. Tuesdays and Fridays are generally popular, but Amy finds that Thursdays are her best performing days.

Amy Porterfield is the co-author of Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies and a Social Media Strategist. She creates educational programs for small businesses and entrepreneurs to help them get more traffic, leads and sales with social media marketing.

Amy’s been in the marketing arena for over 12 years and spent over 6 years working along side Peak Performance Coach, Anthony Robbins, where she managed his content marketing team and major online marketing campaigns. Amy’s most recent online program, FBinfluence, teaches businesses and entrepreneurs how to grow a lucrative fan base, increase engagement and turn fans into buyers. Learn more atwww.AmyPorterfield.com.

#1 Challenges in Business:
New customers
Repeat business from past customers

Solutions:
Engagement
Social Visibility

Word of mouth is the most powerful form of advertising.
Social media amplifies our voice via word of mouth.

We trust comments and reviews (even from strangers) not marketing.
We have to forget about what marketing is to do marketing today.
We have to forget about putting spin on phrases. Now it’s about conversation, building relationships and engaging with your customers.

Your customers’ friends are your next best prospects.
We run in social circles with people that are similar to us in many facets from interests to income. These leads are relevant your business.
The networking effect is not new, leveraging this network online (and regularly) is what’s new.
You have to make time to do marketing and it has to be part of your regular activities.

Engagement marketing cycle
There are only three steps, but you have to do all three or the cycle will break.
– Provide a Wow Experience
This is in your hands. You get to choose what it is that you will do towow your customers in small or large ways. It only has to be memorable.
Hope is not a strategy. It’s not new to ask people to sign up for an email list or Like us on Facebook. But people are more picky than they used to be. You need to entice them to join or Like. Don’t trick them with a giveaway like an iPad.
Content is what drives people to stay in touch with you. They want to feel part of a community or feel like they can learn something from you.
– Entice to stay in touch
They won’t join unless you ask.
They won’t ask if you have an email list or a Facebook page. Train your staff to ask!
Create a raport and earn your customer’s relationship.
– Engage People
Have discussions, send promotions
Run/create fun, interesting, informative events (open house, wine tasting, class, etc.)
Listen to your customers (via polls/surveys, Facebook posts). People want to share their opinions with you.
It’s human nature to not want to rock the boat, unless you have an extremely awful experience. So ask your customers about their specific experiences to get more helpful feedback.
Try a simple 3 question survey: how was your experience, what could we have done better, what would you like to see us do in the future.
So often in marketing we want to talk about how amazing we are, but we need to listen to our customers.

Sharing and oversharing is a wonderful thing. Share your expertise, advice, testimonials. This will entice people to engage, come back, trust you and like you. Trust leads to the overall credibility of your brand.

Engagement = Participation
You want people to participate in conversations, you don’t want to just talk at them all the time.
Offer a time to be actively answering questions on Facebook/Twitter
Be real with your customers

Engagement = Listening
Don’t guess! Your audience will tell you what they think if you allow them to. Polls, surveys, questions on Facebook and Twititer

Social Visibility
All of this done on the social web leads to social visibility. Social Media amplifies our voice.
Getting people to talk and spread word online, not just over the fence in the back yard.
Not only do we need to be talking online, but we need to get our customers online talking about us, too.
If you focus on building a relationship with 10 people, they’re going to help you build that relationship outward.

Engagement happens in small doses and happens over time.
Be authentic. Know people and know your audience on each platform you frequent.
It doesn’t have to take a lot of time. Choose one or two channels to stay connected, syndicate content between channels.
Remember and go back to what it means to be a human being: you want to connect and make friends with people so they’ll want to buy from you.
It’s not marking; its relationship building.

If you leave out anything in the cycle, it’s not going to work efficiently and effectively.

Three things to do today
– WOW: think of one thing that you can do to rise above the ordinary in your business
– Connect: think of one way to entice people to stay in touch
– Engage: think of one idea for a social post or email that might drive engagement

If you can employ the right social tools for your business, once you pick the right channels and understand how they work, you can utilize these principals across anychannel.

Once the tools change you’ll still have the skills, strategy and tactics that you developed for social engagement.

Resources:
socialquickstarter.com
constantcontact-socialplaybook.com
constantcontact.com/social-campaigns

Corissa St. Laurent knows relationship marketing. She has owned and operated two different small businesses: one in Los Angeles, CA providing spa and wellness services in home and corporate environments and the other in Manchester, NH providing marketing and brand consulting to other businesses and nonprofits.

Through both, she has created powerful new media marketing campaigns, event promotions, and PR for herself and her clients. In June 2009, she joined Constant Contact as the Director of Regional Development for New England and dedicates her time to teaching people how to build lasting relationships through email, social media, and event marketing.

Personal recommedations are one of the best and highest converting sales offers out there.

Product Involvement – Customers who are really happy with a product and want to share it with all of their friends.
Self Involvement – The higher the tweet count on an article, the less likely it is to be shared more since this demonstrates following the herd.
Other Involvement

Blogging is one of the best ways to spark word of mouth. Sparks incentive to get others involved.

When you create good qualty content, you’re giving people ammunition to share among their networks.

Three principles of blogging (right):
– Forget social media, it’s a big waste of time. Focus on email lists.
You want email subscribers. 91% of people check their email daily. 57% of people check their Facebook daily.
Send an email to 16000 people and got 4200 clicks
Social media post brings in 300 clicks
– Write content that converts.
List posts offer a number of tips for a certain subject. People bookmark these to read later. They never go back.
People think that usersdon’t read articles on the web. That’s not true. Peope don’t read bad articles on the web. If you write a good post, they will stick around and read it.
– People think they need to spend all this time to create as many interesting things as possible.
You can just post once or twice a month and that’s enough if you know how to promote the content the right way.

Place your email subscription forms on your blog in the correct places. Have multiple forms on every page. If you believe in your business, you’re doing your customers a disservice by not being a little bit salesy. If they can’t find what they want on your site, they move onto one of your competitors.

Key places to place forms on your blog.
On the home page of your blog (i.e. Halpern Header)
At the top of your sidebar. You don’t need those social media badges or awards, etc.
On your About page.
Put your opt-in forms where the eyes are.

About Page
People want to know what you can do for them before you talk about yourself at all. They want to know about “me” before they think about you.

What type of content converts?
CSS (Connects, Solves, Spreads)
Content that Connects – Check out your audience and look for trends, then write content that speaks to them. Start with a targeted audience and back out into general practice information for the rest of your audience.
Content that Solves – Attacks one problem. Only one problem. Give them one thing to do, tell them how to do it. If it works for them, they will come back. They will also email you and thank you for that content.
Content that Spreads – Most fun to write. If you know what you’re doing, you can make content go viral. Conotroversey is almost guaranteed to go viral. Conflict is key.
“Content isn’t king, design is king.”

Customer Avatars
You want to know everything about your customers, what they like, who they are…
Write up a biograpy of these customers

Industry standard open rate is 20%. Derek has an open rate of 50%. People want to hear from Derek because he’s solving specific problems.

Promoting your articles
You need to get comfortable emailing people you don’t know.
“When there’s a gap between what people know and what they want to know, they deperately seek to close that gap.”
Create an information gap and get people to ask you for the information. Leverage the information gap.
“Did I just get Derek Halperned?”
You want to email people that are in the audience you want to reach. You want to email people who will send potential customers to your business.
Invade specific industries. Who exactly do you want to email?

Drafting technique
Like race cars, find people that have a history of covering what you want to cover and then email those people.
You can’t convince a new journalist to cover something new, but if you can get someone that has covered a competitor you have a better chance of getting them to cover you.

Derek Halpern burst onto the marketing scene in 2011, and built the wildly popular marketing blog Social Triggers.

Known for his no-nonsense approach to getting traffic, gaining leads, and making sales, Derek has been told that he gives “insanely practical advice” that almost anyone can implement.

Derek is also known for managing all of the marketing efforts for the world-class Thesis Theme Framework. Prior to that, he was “behind the scenes” of several popular blogs, one of which attracted more than 1,000,000 views in a single day.

There are some rules and pitfalls to consider when developing an app. There’s also a difference between building an app and building an app that builds your business.

Start Small.
Don’t think global first. You have to master one place before you can master them all. Start on one platform (i.e. Instagram).
Don’t ever think that you are leaving people out, work on perfecting your product in one place first. If you can’t sell one, you can’t sell one million.

NDA = Non Disclosure Agreement
The problem with being protective of your ideas: if you can’t execute it, it doesn’t matter. Someone else can execute it and they will think of it, too.

An idea is only valuable if it’s executed properly.
Rely on executing well to protect your ideas. It doesn’t matter if you where there first, know that someone is going to copy you and try to make it bettter.

Apps that perform well are very simple and very to the point.
If your app can mimic something in real life, people are more willing to adopt and accept your product.

The core of your app needs to be how you can help your clients track your relationship (i.e. pizza app that tells where you food is in the prep and delivery process).

Respect the personal space of your users.

“People love their iPhone, but that app can go.”

If your alert doesn’t implicitly help the user solve a problem, don’t do it. Don’t have a push notifaction that only spreads the word about your app.

Have discipline. What you say no to matters way more than what you say yes to. Anything you keep addding, you’ll never get your app out to market. Expanding the scope of our original project gets expensive.

Make your decision and take a stand. You don’t need everyone on your team. There are other apps out there. You can’t ever please everyone. People will congregate around you and you can build from that success.

Your idea that needs to get built goes through a process. You can choose a due date, but if you aren’t the developer you can’t forsee delays likes bugs, design, etc. Give a general timeline for release and build excitement. Get people emotionally involved with the process and they’ll help you market. Think Apple’s releases. They never give a date until a couple of weeks before the event with the announcement.

It’s much better to have people banging at your doors when they open, then to have your product sitting on the shelf waiting for customers.

Use a Beta list group to test ideas, design screen shots, etc.

It’s a huge mistake to think that you’re marketing an app.
The apps that succeed are the ones that sell an idea.

Don’t get into vanity metrics. If it doesn’t relate to money, it’s not relevant to you. No one cares about photo shares or toggles or connections. If you are selling apps to supplement the business you already have, you don’t need to worry about the revenue.

If you can prove that you completely understand your customer’s problem, they will automatically assume you have the solution. The first few lines of your app description should be like an infomercial. “Have you ever…” “Do you feel…” “Have you noticed…” Then offer the solution.

Don’t aways ask for all the information you want up front, ask more info the more the app is used. Unlock achievements as your user progresses through your app.

Don’t be lazy. Your app will be more likely to get used if you do as much for the user as possible. Don’t make them do all the work à la fitness apps that require you to enter your workout/diet information).

You need to clearly define the idea, and lean on your developer for the execution. If they can say no, they know their limits.

This is the wild wild west of application development. There’s no certification process and no one with more than 5 years of experience. You need to spend the time to have conversations with your developer.

Create a test project. Set aside a budget to see if your developer can do what you want them to do. Hire a speciaist to hire an app developer for you.

Almost every app has a squeeze page to get people to sign up with an email before your launch. Cultivate an audience. Allow yourself to be found, focus on search, and let your audience market for you.

It’s time for developers to get smarter in their approach. First was in-app ads. Then it was in-app upgrades. Now it’s in-app subscriptions.

No one spends any money on android. If you want to make money, start on iOS then move toward the android platform. Apple’s iTunes ID requires a credit card to create, Android doesn’t and users aren’t willing to type in all their credit card info on their phones.

Always use native code on your first app. Use Apple’s code, not a translation/buffer tool. The more barriers between the device and the code, loses something in translation.

“Developers don’t like other people’s code.”

There are different levels of features that drive up the price of the app. But so many people overlook the simple things, like a call button.

Resources
RayWinderlich.com
StackOverflow.com (if your developer doen’t know this site, they’re either perfect or lying)
maniacdev.com (code snippets)
SmashingMagazine.com
whomakesapps.com (Fandura)

In the span of 12 months Elijah went from knowing nothing about apps to completing over 100 mobile, social, and web application projects for clients spread over 5 continents. Elijah then started a podcast discussing the world of building a successful mobile app, which netted over 2500 subscribers in its first 5 episodes, and is downloaded in over 52 countries.

Elijah is the Co-Founder of Fandura, Inc., a mobile development firm in Atlanta, GA, runsWhoMakesApps.com, an online educational magazine for developers and non-coders alike, and hosts The Business of Apps Podcast, an hour-long show featuring some of the best minds in Application Development, along with tough, in-depth reviews of mobile, social, web apps, and games.

61% of mobile web surfers abandon websites that aren’t mobile friendly.

In less than 2 years, more than half of your web traffic will be from a mobile device. Those visitors will become less tolerant of websites that aren’t mobile friendly.

In the near future you will not need to carry a wallet. Google and Text to Pay are working on this technology. There are apps that store all of your loyalty cards already. Receipts are all emailed. All your photos of your kids are in your smartphone already.

Instagram was recently purchased for $1 billion by Facebook.
YouTube boasts 200 million views on amobile device
Twitter has 165 million active users and more than half are mobile users.

We play games, check news, sports scores, surf the web, find our way around town, in the dark, update social media… we are using our phones constantly. We are all attached to our smart phones.

Two years ago mobile devices outsold personal computers for the first time. But business owners ignore mobile because we don’t want to get involved or learn something new.

People who jump onto and understand the mobile bandwagon will have the competitive edge moving forward.

By 2013 you really need to havea mobile marketing plan. Mobile changes all the time. Websites, apps, QR codes, Microsoft Tag, text messaging…

Where to start:
with a mobile friendly website that’s easy on the thumbs and easy on the eyes with obvious calls to action.
If you send an audience to a website that’s not optimized for mobile, you lose that audience going
Email marketing drives traffic to your website! You need a landing space, at the very least a microsite that’s ready for your mobile visitor.
Microsoft is doing it right. Apple is not.
When someone is on a mobile device, they have different goals and different priorities.
Put your contact info and directions in a priority space, many folks looking you up on their mobile device are trying to find you.

How to get a mobile website?
Can create a secondary website for mobile users specifically. But this means you need to update your website in different places and could affect your SEO.
WP Touch (and Pro) are WordPress plugins (1 out of 6 websites are built on WordPress) that make your site mobile friendly.
Responsive design has fanatics. Claims to be future proof and will be ready for any size screen created. You create three templates for desktop, tablet, smart phone and the design folds down around iitself like origami.

Google will never buy your widget. Write in a way Google will understand it, but write for people. “Do not design for Google first, design for users first.”

The job of your business website is not to look pretty (that’s just a bonus), it’s to build your business and get conversions.

The bigger the button to click on, the more people will actually click on it. And make your forms as short as possible to allow people to actually want to fill it out on their mobile device.

2D Bar Codes
Many QR codes fail. But you can use them for good and not evil. It can engage audience interest if done correctly.
Direct mail companies can work with you to create PURLs on your QR codes so you can track which people are scanning your QR codes.

Mobile Advertising
Mobile ads are expected to increase 80% over the next year.
44% of the audience earns over $75k/year.
Targeting can get very specific by gender, age, location, time of day, behavior and more.
Whenever you do a PPC ad, you want to put similar imagery on the landing page to remind users why they clicked.
Send users to a place where you can actually business with them.

Text Messaging
Biggest mobile audience.
Mobile coupons have 10 times the redemption rate of print coupons.
Immediate response.
Saco Drive-In has a text list with 675 subscribers, coupon redemption reached 15% and the final discounted admission had 35% redemption rate.
88% check email daily on a mobile device.
25 min/hour on mobile is spent on email
63% of US close or delete emails not mobile optimized
Simple “hack” is to make the link you want folks to click bigger and direct them to a mobile/web version of the newsletter.

Mobile apps
If you want to promote your business or engage your audience and you can do everything in that app that you can do on a website, don’t build an app. Too many extra steps for the user (to find in the app store).
Why should I build an app? You have to develop for all platforms and it helps to have a revenue stream.
Building an app costs from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands of dollars
App developers have to be accepted into the Apple store.

Location Based Apps
Reward your mayor, but don’t forget your other customers – they want to be rewareded too.

Crafting a Mobile Campaign
Determine your goals – what are you looking to accomplish with your business and on mobile?
Are your users mobile centric or mobile aware?
Do you need a mobile website?
Do you need an app?

Rich Brooks is founder and president of flyte new media, a web design and Internet marketing firm in Portland, Maine. His monthly flyte log email newsletter and web marketing blog cover topics such as search engine optimization, blogging, social media, email marketing, and building websites that sell. He is currently an Expert Blogger at FastCompany.com and a regular contributor at SocialMediaExaminer.com.

We have been told lies: get on Twitter, get on Facebook, start a blog and you’ll have so much money tomorrow.

The minute you see a full-page ad it means business isn’t going well.

When we think we’re doing it wrong, we feel like we have nothing to share or add to the discussion.

If you don’t start with goals, it doesn’t matter what your ideas are.
What is a vision, but a story told out of goals?

Next problem: A platform of value of your own creation.

They don’t sell Twitter at the airport. The reason Chris Brogan writes books is because CEOs and other important job-holders have a takeaway they can digest and revisit. “This guy knows what he’s talking about.”

The right social network to be on is the one where you can tell your story the best way.

Facebook’s fastest growing market is women 31-80 who primarily look at and post photos of their kids and grandkids. “If your well-formed idea does not also have a onesie, that’s a problem.”

Platform of value concept: how can my make my customer the hero? When you equip people for success, they remember it.

Reciprocity is how business really works.

Broadcast to a network of people that care by caring about them, romancing them. This process can’t be automated! People hate to be sold to, but love to buy things.

Impact = C x R + E + A + T + E
Contrast – how does your idea stand out from another person’s idea.
Reach – how far does you information go?
Exposure – we have to see something several times before we respond to it
Articulation – can I make something that makes sense with a small amount of words, but don’t make it too obscure or clever
Trust – be transparent! Put your face on what you sell, people like to know who they’re buying from
Echo – “Do I see some part of myself in you?” Any time you’ve ever felt “in the know” that’s a marketed feeling.

“The internet will not hurt you, I’ve been testing.”

If you don’t start thinking about yourself as a tv station and evaluate your programming. We tune into passion. If you are only broadcasting the “me” station, please be interesting.

You have to learn to do the grind-work. The number one response of stuff people aren’t doing is invoicing. For some reason we have this guilt about asking for money.

Make bigger risks and moves. You have to make a calculated risk every now and then.

“Everything I sell is common sense; the reason I can sell common sense until I’m dead is because no one does it.”

Beginners guide to bravery
Your opinion is every bit as valuable as everyone else’s.
“Is your life any better than it was four iPhones ago?”
Smaller victories are the path to big victories.
Accept that you are not always brave.
The opposite of bravery is not fear, but surrender.
Bravery should rarely cost others as much as it costs you if you fail.
Bravery in your opinions creates contrast.
Bravery comes from conflict
Bravery comes from daring to fail

Email Marketing
If you are of the mindsight that email is dead, i will ask you fora latte later at your new job as a barista.
You have to hook your readers from your subject line.
Put your most important information in the first paragraph.
Did you end the email with one question or action and is it the most important thing you could say.
When you giive a person more than two choices, they stop listening and move onto something else.
Can your recipient read your email in under 30 seconds.

Reply to people online.

“Don’t suck up to me, suck up to this army of people around you here.”

Never call the people who follow you your fans. That puts them in a very low box.

Thank your critics and praisers and move on. Don’t reply, don’t engage the haters.

Chris Brogan is president of Human Business Works, a media and education company dedicated to helping companies improve customer acquisition and community nurturing.

He is the New York Times Bestselling author ofGoogle+ For Business: How Google’s Social Network Changes Everything, and he blogs atchrisbrogan.com, a blog in the Top 5 of Advertising Age’s Power150. Chris consults and speaks with companies like Disney, SAS, Citrix Online, Microsoft, Pepsico, Ford and many others.

I was visting a Facebook [Fan] Page today and found an “Edit” button available to me when I clicked on the “Info” tab. So, like anyone with the curiosity of a well-seasoned web user, I clicked the button.

I suddenly had acces to edit the company’s business information, including website, hours and address. I had that sudden “something isn’t right here” feeling and sent the link to a friend. She had the same reaction.

I thought, ‘Holy crap! Does this business even know what other people can EDIT their information? I should email them!’

Then I thought, ‘Hey wait a second, I have a Fan Page and I’ve never seen such an option before. I should look into this.’

So I went to my own Page and scoured the settings and options available. There are options to allow others to post, add media and tag photos, but nothing that allows visiting users to edit information. I turned to Google for an answer, but nothing immediately surfaced.

I finally scoured the Facebook Help Center and found my answer:

Why do people see the option to edit my Page information?
On Pages that list an address and choose to display a map in the Info section, anyone viewing the Page sees an “Edit” link. This link allows people to notify Facebook of any location information that may be missing. Note that people aside from Page admins can’t edit the information that displays on your Page even though the link is labeled “Edit.”

Crisis averted. I deleted the email I had drafted to the business without sending it.

I took a closer look at the edit screen that appeared before me. At the top it is labeled “Suggest Information” and shows the contents of the fields (if they are filled in). From here one can edit, delete, and enter new information in each field and click “Save.”

Once you click save, a screen comes up thanking you for helping to improve Places and offers you the option to suggest edits for other nearby Places.

Facebook should probably find a way make it more clear that visiting users are not actually editing the Page’s information, but merely offering a suggestion to Facebook Places. (Does the Page Admin even get an alert that someone is making a suggestion?)

The “Edit” button too much resembles the “Edit Page” button that Page Admins see when they are viewing the business Page. This is misleading to both visiting users and panicky Page Admins.

Today’s lesson brought to you by The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Don’t Panic.

Taking all the fun out of social media.

You have to run your business! Don’t lose yourself in social media; it doesn’t pay your bills. Social media is a powerful marketing tool because it’s the most measurable marketing tool that we have.

Tie your social media goals into your business goals.
What are you here for?
Short term sales
Engage existing customers
Complementing your other promotional campaigns
Brand awareness
Increasing search-ability
Spreading news/information about your business

Set up a plan!
“You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.” – Yogi Berra

Do some research to see what your competitors are doing (but don’t copy!) and find a way to do it better. Figure out where your people hang out — not your peers, your customers! Go where they are, don’t make them come to you. Don’t be where you want to be, be where your people are.

Managing your time.
Our time is so fractured lately; you’re doing 8 things an 1/8th as well as you could be doing them individually. It’s not asking too much for asking people to respect that you have a business to run and you will not be there all the time. Make yourself available through other channels.

There’s no “on” and “off” anymore. The Pomodoro Technique is to set a timer for 25 minutes and do just ONE task during that time. It’s a great way to get MORE done and learn how you work.

Create Guidelines and Policies
What as a company will you do and not do; what your staff can and cannot do and make sure they know. If you can’t trust your employees to be on social media, you may have a hiring or an educational problem — not knowing what they weren’t allowed to do and/or didn’t think about it. Think before you tweet. What can the public do or not do? Put a disclaimer in your info section on your FB page to layout guidelines.

Talk to your lawyer. If you’re in business, you probably have a lawyer. Talk about your fears and get them addressed. Add to your existing communications policy what people have permission to talk about (or not talk about), etc.

Measuring Social Media
Traffic data
Fan/Follower data
Interaction Data
Content performance

Where is the ROI in social media?
It’s a little more measurable than your traditional media (Neilson ratings suck — in Amanda’s humble opinion!). The more digital we get, the more we can track.

Ratio of value rec’d to the actual coast over a base period of time. (Resources X Rate) / Return = ROI
((Time spent + talent & tech) X Rate / money in the bank = ROI

You’re in charge of tracking the money you’re bringing in from Twitter. No one is going to do it for you.

What’s the problem?
High bounce rates, low conversion rates, low pages per visit and fear. We’re afraid of change and how fast things are changing.

If you have something you have to get done and you’re going to use this marketing tool (social media), figure out the best way to use it. You don’t have to use the channels that don’t apply to you!

Social media is the cap of your sales funnel. It’s a way to attract new people. It’s also the very bottom. It’s how you retain customers after you’ve got them.

Eloqua Content Grid illustrates prospect goals, key performance indicators and distribution channels (see link in presentation).

Let’s Measure!
As long as you’re measuring something, it shows that you care. Even if you aren’t required to put a report together, you’ll have something to say. You don’t want to miss an opportunity because you’ve got nothing to say.

The easiest thing to measure is fan/follower data. This lets your marketing department know what’s going on and that people care about what you’re doing. Use the available free tools! Collect fan/follower data from the sites that you are on.

Facebook has insights. Twitter has follower counts and list counts. (Twitter analytics is coming! It will offer information on tweet buttons, etc.) Manage Flitter shows how many people you’re following on Twitter that aren’t active.

Google Analytics is free! People can’t see it, but it inserts cookies into your website. The number one source to your traffic site is usually Google. The second is usually “direct” people who know the URL or have bookmarked your site. You can tell where people have come from, how many pages they visit, if they’re new or returning, etc.

Interaction data shows your posts, impressions and feedback stats. You can drill down stats to the day, but you don’t have to go that far. Content Performance shows what posts are working and what ones aren’t working and allow you to accommodate accordingly.

Hall Internet Marketing does a blog contest to see which blog posts perform better within the office. This makes blogging fun.

Google offers a free URL builder. This tracks exactly what happens with this link. You can enter Campagin Source (social), Campaign medium (Facebook), Campaign Name (coupon) and Google Analytics will TRACK this long link (that you can shorten with bit.ly or a similar service).

Advanced Segments in Google Analytics allows you to create your own categories. For example, Twitter links come from Twitter.com or one of the dozen or so Twitter applications and you can combine these into one specific segment called “Twitter.”

You can create custom reports that you can re-use month-to-month with Google Analytics. They’ve also just added Multi-Channel Funnels as a new feature. This will help illustrate how your social media is working for your business. This will tell you where your customers/readers have been among all of your different web presences.

Social Interaction Analytics helps you measure the buttons on your website that allows users to share content. The Social Media Examiner has a really good article that explains this Google Analytics feature.

Have a plan. Protect yourself and your staff with guidelines and policies. Measure if it works and if it doesn’t, reevaluate your method and/or approach and try again. Don’t be afraid to jump ship if you aren’t getting the results you want.

Speaker: Amanda O’Brien, VP of Marketing, Hall Web Services
Amanda works with her team to execute successful internet marketing campaigns for companies of all sizes. Hall is an organization that is dedicated to public education so you can often find Amanda talking to small and large groups about a variety of internet marketing topics, on regular free webinars or writing for various blogs about everything from social media, SEO, blogging, Paid Search, content marketing and more.

She is also the organizer of Social Media Breakfast Maine.

Who — What — When — Where — Why

Social media is just one part of your overall strategy. It has to be integrated with your online and offline brand.

We’re all doing it wrong, but we’ll get it eventually.

Who: your audience, your influencers
What: your goals, what people are saying
Where: finding your audience
When: launch, frequency, time of day, etc.
Why: measure, listen, etc.

What is an online community?
A collection of all your channels. Social media, website, blog, videos, etc. Be conversational, allow your members to drive, interact with your customers, free research from your followers.

Today there are an overwhelming amount of online communities. They aren’t traditional marketing or advertising or sales-driven or self-centered.

You can’t be everywhere: go where the food is; 80% of social media consumers are on Facebook.

Why do you need an online community?
Building trust. When you build trust, people see you as a friend. You get a deeper understanding of your audience.

People on the web are talking about you whether you like it or not. Influences are strongest from friends/acquaintances versus strangers. If you do something right, people will talk about it. If you do something wrong, people will talk about it.

Begin at the beginning.
Set goals. What do you want to achieve: think concrete and tangible. Build awareness, attract customers, build WOM recommendations, promote your general industry (you’re part of a larger eco-system, once you embrace that you’re going places), generate discussion and interaction.

The community manager is the party host! They’ll make sure everyone’s needs are being met, as a group. They have to be active and high-profile, accountable to everyone (company and community), they’re the “voice” of your brand: setting the tone and creating your online persona.

Be friendly, smart, patient, creative, proactive, fun, excellent writer, knowledgable about your brand, etc. Hiring an intern versus an experienced social media business user can make or break your brand.

Find them. Follow them. Engage them.

What is your audience saying?
Paying attention helps you define and refine your target audience.
Use Google Alerts for your brand name and key words.
Do a Twitter search and keywords; “refine your results” with an advanced search.
Do a Facebook search. Facebook ads are a necessary (and creepy) evil.
Socialmention searches a variety of sources and returns “sentiment”, “top keywords”, “top users.”
Technorati is a great blog/post search tool to find places to get content and where your readers are.
Compile results by creating a simple checklist or spreadsheet, an involved Word document to document conversations, etc.

Who are your influencers?
Recognizable audience members with a greater than average reach. Engaged in conversations with thousands of followers/friends.
Diversify. Don’t put all your effort into one person.
Look for top industry bloggers or trade publications.

What should you be saying?
Build a messaging tool box with your keywords, key messages and protocol. Google has a great keyword generator that’s free. Develop a protocol for engaging, responding and escalating.

What is Good Content?
Focus on your audience and don’t try to do everything. Mix up what you’re sharing, the topics and where you’re sharing. Be sure that your content is less about you and more about your audience. Focus on a handful of topics to start. Sources for content: Google alerts, blogs, news outlets, the web, community members, influences, from within your business.

What do people want?
Useful information on a topic they’re interested. Engage your audience. Don’t tell them to buy your product: don’t shout at them.

Listen to learn and learn to listen.
Find the balance between self-interest and providing value in your messaging.
Keep your message short and sweet.
Keep an eye on your Twitter feed for ideas and headlines.
We all want to be part of something bigger than ourselves.

When you launch, officially activate your channels (twitter, FB, blog, etc.), reach out and interact with your audience, invite them to engage. A polite invitation does not include a sales pitch. Ask open-ended thought-provoking questions, Conduct polls, offer incentives, reward good content and/or participation, join other conversations, become a trusted source over time. Keep listening!

Engage your influencers
Re-tweet something they’ve said on Twitter and ADD a comment! Post on their FB wall. Interact! Be memorable. Let other people be heard and respond: immediacy is key, but not crucial.

Put a response protocol in writing if you have more than one person running your social media accounts. Respond within an hour if possible during workdays, 12 hours for overnight/weekends, but try not to wait 24 hours. But not jumping in immediately, this allows peer-to-peer interactions from customers that may benefit your brand.

Be positive, transparent, honest, timely, helpful, and when in doubt revert to real life interactions.

Negative feedback will happen. Balance between moderating (reactive) and managing (proactive). Often the best course of action is to not take any action at all. Know when (if ever) to delete a post: ALWAYS take a screen shot before deleting, do NOT be defensive.

The hardest thing to say is “I’m Sorry!” But if you make a mistake you have to own up to it. Swallow your pride, be helpful and do whatever you can to make it right.

Measuring success is more than just numbers. It’s influencer interactions, it’s stories from consumer interaction, and whatever else helps you measure against your goals.

Social media is trial and error. Finding your audience, what to say, what’s resonating, response time, etc. Keep on your toes because everything is changing and evolving. If you find that something isn’t working, change it up and/or ask your audience what they’d like to see.

Be respectful, genuine, helpful, step outside your comfort zone (but not too far), don’t fear funny, take (reasonable) risks, give up control (if you try, people will leave). Be human, even if you’re communicating as a logo.

A deleted tweet is an oxymoron. Someone’s got it; it will circulate. Mistakes don’t die.

What’s the ROI of social media?
It’s real.
It’s open.
It’s interactive.

Speaker: Derek Rice, Freelance Writer & PR & Marketing Pro
Derek Rice is a freelance writer, PR/marketing pro, and social media geek. On a typical day, he may be developing web content, conducting interviews for his next magazine piece, and managing one or more social media campaigns. As a community manager, Derek plans, implements, and manages social media campaigns, including the award-winning Liquid Wrench social media effort. He’s also a regular contributor to Mainebiz and SDM (a security-industry trade publication).