December 8, 2011
This morning my feeds were full of the news that Facebook is launching a ‘Subscribe’ button that can be added to websites. This made me revisit my use of Facebook subscribe and whether I wanted to continue.
When Facebook first rolled out ‘Subscribe’ I thought it was a good idea, in fact it was something that had been possible for a while under another guise. It used to be the case that if you sent a friend request to someone and they didn’t respond you would see their public updates in your newsfeed. Subscribing just formalised this process, and I think we have Google+ to thank for the simplification of it. Initally I allowed subscribers, partly as an experiment to see how it would work but as I accumulated subscribers I began to understand the benefits. I like having the option, it means I don’t have to friend people I don’t know and can keep my friends down to the people I do communicate with on a regular basis. However there are a few glitches that I’m not altogether happy with.
Firstly if I want to post a lot of content that I think has relevance to my subscribers there is no way of restricting this. Many of my friends are just that, they have no interest in social media beyond keeping in touch with friends, if I’m constantly posting business social media links they are going to start ignoring my updates altogether. I am what I’d call a ‘power’ Facebook user, which is a polite term for someone who posts a lot. I like that I can restrict content to just those I think would be interested in it by using friend lists but if I want my subscribers to see it I can’t stop it pumping out these social media news stories to everyone on my friend lists.
So why am I concerned? Surely I could just post the social media stuff to the Spiderworking.com business page? The Spiderworking.com page is aimed at a very specific audiece. It’s there to provide useful tips and handy information to small business owners using social media. Many of the interesting articles I want to share publically through my profile would not fit that remit. I like being able to share these with a wider audience and my Facebook profile, along with my Google+ page allow me to do this. To be able to filter content just to subscribers would give me the opportunity to share this stuff without boring my non-business, non social-media related friends.
However this isn’t my biggest problem with the subscribe button. As I mentioned above I love being able to filter content to the appropriate audience. I often choose to share posts publically, to just friends or to a specific group of people. This functionality is key to what I post on Facebook. However if I comment on a friends ‘public’ post or ‘Like’ it this appears on the newsfeeds not only of all my friends but also my subscribers. These could be fun comments with friends that may seem odd or inappropriate to a public audience. As a result of this I’ve stopped commenting on some posts. I’m becoming less social.
So I’ve reached the stage where I wonder if having subscribers is worth it? I have very little contact with them and if they fell into my target market surely it would be better for them to connect with my business page? Not having subscribers wouldn’t fix my second problem totally, comments I make will still go out to my entire friend list and publically but without subscribers they won’t automatically appear on ‘strangers’ news feeds. I have to consider if it’s just my ego stopping me abandoning subscribers and clearly if this is the case it’s not a strong reason to hang onto them. I’ll be re-thinking the entire Spiderworking.com social strategy for the New Year and will decide then if having subscribers on Facebook is a worthwhile exercise for me.
Have you allowed subscribers on your Facebook profile? If so do you see a benefit? Do my concerns concern you too? I’d like to hear your comments.
April 27, 2011
Last week in part 1 we looked at how you can boost your Twitter profile by writing a great bio and by including a picture. The tips I am going to share this week may seem like child’s play to many experienced Twitter users but they are things that are often overlooked.
3. Personality
As business owners we are constantly seeking our USP, what makes us different to our competitors? What makes us stand out from the crowd? For me, the one thing you always have over your competitors, the thing that makes you truly unique is you and your people. In social media this is a massive asset, injecting personality and tone of voice into your tweets makes them uniquely yours.
One of my favorite Twitter accounts, spanning way back to the old days when I was blogging for Feelgood Organic Hampers is @KieranMurphy of Murphy’s Ice Cream. There is personality in his tweets, somehow always related to ice cream and always making me hungry.
Bigger companies can have personality too. Last week I showed you how Honda identified the people behind their tweets. The Roger Smith Hotel (@RShotel) in New York City has become a bit of a social media celebrity of late and although they are being very creative with their marketing it’s still easy to find the personality tweets.
So how do you add personality to your tweets? As children in school we are constantly told to write in a particular way, to make sure our grammer is correct. We are encouraged to have a professional writing style. The key to tweeting with personality is to throw all of these rules out the window. Tweet as you would speak and the personality will flow in naturally.
4. Sharing is caring
If you are familiar with @chrisbrogan you may be aware of his strategy that you should spend 12 times longer talking about others than yourself. Sharing is a massive part of what Twitter is about, Re Tweeting others and sharing blog posts from others that are of interest to your target market is easy and valuable. Not only does this provide you with great content to share with your target market but it also opens a way to connect with other Twitter users in your industry, provoking conversation and forging new relationships. 12:1 may seem excessive to some but however much you choose to share it should be a huge part of your Twitter strategy.
As well as sharing other people’s content you should make it easy for others to share your Tweets. As you know tweets can be up to 140 characters long but if you want to maximise your Re-Tweet potential, especially amongst the more established Tweeters who still use the old fashioned RT method try and confine your tweets to 120 characters. This allows space for a full RT.
Asking for a RT is a way to increase the number of shares you get but be aware not to use this tactic too often. Asking for a RT of every post will just make you look like you are begging! Sian’s wrote a good post on ReTweeting recently.
One of my favorite Irish business accounts for sharing is @GarrendennyLane, Lorna the owner is a keen blogger herself but constantly tweets links to other great design blogs.
To find content to share set up some Twitter lists of your favorite tweeters, the ones who create and share the best content. This way it’s easy to discover good stuff to share. Find some good blogs covering key areas of your industry and keep an eye on them
If you have any tips and tricks you’d like to share on using Twitter do let me know, leave a comment below as I’m always looking for great Tweeps to include in these posts.
April 20, 2011
Twitter is an immensely powerful network. Compared to Facebook the user base is tiny and even with 175 million registered accounts only a fraction of those are thought to be active. The community might be small compared to other networks but it is easier to reach your target market using Twitter and Twitter users tend to be more passionate, willing to share and converse with others. Anyone who has got an @reply from a celebrity will understand how easy it can be to reach people usually innaccessible to them. So how can you make the most of your Twitter presence? Over the next few weeks I’ll be sharing my top tips.
1. Profile picture
There is nothing that makes you look as untrustworthy as the defalt Twitter profile image, people will assume that you don’t tweet or that you aren’t serious about tweeting, a lot of the spam on Twitter comes from a faceless account and as a business this is the last thing you want people to associate you with. But what should the avatar be? For business do you use a photograph of yourself or your logo? To answer this you need to ask yourself a few questions. Are you always going to be the person tweeting for your business? Is your brand based on your persona? How important is your brand identity?
If you are not going to compose every tweet yourself posting a photograph is misleading, even some celebrities have fallen fowl of this, transparancy and trust are important in social media and any doubt of your authenticity can do you more damage than good. If you are your brand including a profile picture of yourself is important, people will recognise you and associate you with the information you share – building trust. Make sure it is a good professional photograph and one that is identifiably you. A great example of this is @KrishnaDe who uses the same profile image on all of her social media channels. It is unmistakably her and you would have no problem identifying her if she walked into a room.
If your brand identity is important to you use your logo on Twitter. I use my logo for Spiderworking.com as I want people to to recognise the brand, I use it consistently in one form or another on all of my social media. I also want to seperate business from pleasure, @spiderworking is all about business, if I want to talk about anything non business related I use my personal account @hamperlady. At the moment I am the only person tweeting for @spiderworking I hope in the future other employees will join the conversation… don’t worry I’ll let you know if and when this happens.
A great example of how this can work is @CuriousWines, as featured last week. They use their logo on their account but both @curiousmatt and @curiousmike use photographs on their personal twitter profiles.
2. Bio
Twitter gives you a 160 character bio to introduce yourself on Twitter, bare in mind that this is one of the things people are going to focus on when they choose whether to follow you or not. Again you need to consider who is going to be tweeting on behalf of the company. Is it just you? Are there two of you or are there multiple tweeters?
If you alone are tweeting for your business or if you share with just one other person try and be as personal as you can in your profile. Of course you should talk about what you do, your business but try and add a bit of personality too. @Umnumnum_cork and @ladyumbrellaltd do this really well.
If you have multiple tweeters for your business using your bio to identify who is who can be a great way to instill confidence in your followers. @Toyota have five people contributing to their account, they use their bio to list each one including their individual twitter accounts and the initials they will use to sign off their tweets.
Next week we’ll be back with part two but in the mean time if you have any words of wisdom to share let us know in the comment box below. I’m still looking for tip number six so I’d appreciate any help you can give!
March 16, 2011
The Static FBML application that helped you create custom Facebook landing pages is being phased out. It was due to disappear on Friday but Facebook have extended the deadline to the 18th of March 2011. After this date you will be unable to create new FBML applications although you will continue to be able to edit existing applications.
What is a Landing page?
We’ve talked about Landing pages a lot before. These pages are seen by those who don’t already ‘Like’ your page the first time they visit. Most users will only see this page once so the key call to action of that page should be to get them to click the ‘Like’ button. Here’s a video we made recently about some pages we really like. And here are some pages we have designed for clients.
What is replacing Static FBML?
As a replacement Facebook now allow you to create iframe applications for your business page. This is slightly more complicated than FBML and requires you to host the page on your own hosting space and create an application within Facebook. The advantage is that you can do far more with the pages, for example javascript that allows you to do things like rollovers wasn’t allowed within FBML but is possible within iframes.
Can you create iframes if you don’t have hosting space?
There are a growing number of Facebook applications that allow you to create your own custom Facebook page. Pagemodo is a favorite of mine as it’s easy to use and you can include click thrus. Here’s our guide on how to use it. I just discovered this page from NCI that looks great and was created using Pagemodo.
PageLever is a very simple application. The free version allows you to add an image to your custom tab but to do anything more complex you will need to subscribe to the service.
Finally Static FBML: iframes tabs was pointed out to me yesterday. It looks great and I love the way it allows you to keep some of the FBML functionality. Has anyone tried it? I’d love to hear what you think so if you have used it leave a comment below.
Competition
Don’t forget if you would like a Welcome Tab designed professionally for you we have a competition at the moment on our Facebook page. Every 100 ‘Likes’ we get up to 700 will win a page. Click here to enter.
January 19, 2011
Back in October we asked you to share your social media questions with us. Dan from Tradesmen.ie asked:
“When you don’t have content to post to Facebook are there any other resources to use to keep Fans entertained/interested?”
Here’s our 5 top tips for keeping your page populated and your community interested:
1. Don’t panic!
You don’t have to post to your Facebook page everyday or several times a day, if you have nothing to share it’s fine to leave it for a day, your community won’t disappear. In fact recent research has shown that pages that post more than three times a day have less ‘Likes’ than pages who post less frequently. (Thanks to Krishna De for the info).
2. Create a content calendar
Creating a content calender allows you to spread your content out and ensures that you are consistent in your updates. Plan out your month, when are you going to post and what are you going to post on those days. Consistency will keep people coming back to your page. Think about creating a weekly feature just for your Facebook page, whether it be a recipe or in Tradesmen.ie’s case a DIY tip.
3. Be generous
Social media is all about sharing. You don’t need to produce all the content for your Facebook page yourself. Find content from others that would be of interest to your target market. You can post links, videos and quirky news stories that your community might find appealing. To find links use Google Alerts and subscribe to RSS feeds from your favorite blogs.
4. Ask for feedback
Ask questions or run polls to encourage your community to interact. ’What DIY job have you been putting on the long finger?’ or ‘What’s your favorite makeover show?’ for example. Ask your community to ask their own DIY questions and get some of your experts to answer them for them.
5. Be personal
People often think that just because they are running a business page they should keep it strictly about business but people like to know there is a real human being behind the page. There is no harm in sharing what is happening in the office today, Hairy Baby kept us entertained last year with stories of Seamus the bird stuck in their factory, we were all delighted when he finally found his way out. Cafe Paradiso in Cork shared photographs and stories about their refit after being hit by the floods last year. I even noticed today that Simply Zesty were talking about what bar of chocolate they would bring into the office for ‘Chocolate Wednesdays’!
Have we left anything out? What tricks do you use to keep your page populated? Let us know by commenting below.
December 16, 2010
How to find inspiration for your blog posts is a common concern for bloggers of all levels. There are times where I sit here at this keyboard wondering what is it I will blog about next, what if I run out of ideas for next week? This week at KLCK we learned how mindmapping could help us with this problem. We also learnt about the power of video as part of a blog as a website.
Frank Bradley uses mind maps for all areas of his life, to manage to do lists, to ensure he has good work life balance and of course to organise his thoughts for blogging. He blogs both on Tumblr and as part of the collaborative business blog Bloggertone.
For me it was a real eye opener, I guess I had always thought of mindmaps as being a bit out there but after playing with the concept I could see how it can help effectively organise your thoughts. Franks presentation will be available on the KLCK Facebook page soon.
The first speaker of the evening was Bryan Corden from Hedgehog Productions in Carlow who talked about the power of video blogging, and how to effectively push our videos out across the Internet (presentation here). He was accompanied by a cameraman and camera and we shot a short video on the night. I’ll share this on my videocast as soon as it’s completed.
After the speakers we discussed the best way to start blogging, we talked about the differences between the different formats; Blogger, WordPress.com, WordPress.org, Tumbler and Posterous. We also talked about using Facebook to blog and anyone who checked into my blog yesterday will have seen how easy it is to do. I’m delighted to see that three of the attendees have started blogging using the Facebook ‘Notes’ application.
A big thank you to our hosts The Seven Oaks Hotel who looked after us really well. To see who was there on the night, their blogs/websites visit our Facebook page. You can also see pictures from the evening in our Flickr group. If you missed the night we’re getting better and better at tweeting, you can view the Twitter archive here.
There will be no January meetup. The next meeting will be in Laois on the 14th of February, we will post details on our Facebook page and Linkedin group when we have them. You can also join the KLCK mailing list and we will send you out details of all further meetings.
We also have a discussion group on Facebook if you want to get involved between meetups.
December 15, 2010
When we think of Blogging we tend to think of tools such as Blogger and WordPress, some even think of Tumblr and Posterous but for many small businesses who have just become comfortable with Facebook pages the ‘Notes’ application makes a user friendly and simple solution. Although it lacks many of the features associated with the traditional blogging platforms it is a great way to get to grips with the concept of blogging before taking the plunge into a full blog site.
How do you blog on your Facebook business page with ‘Notes’?
- Underneath your logo on your business page click ‘edit page’
- Choose ‘Applications’ from the right hand side menu
- Scroll down until you see ‘Notes’
- Click ‘Go to application’
- At the top of the page click ‘Write a note’
- In the small box give your post a title, like a headline from a newspaper.
- In the larger box write the main content of your post.
- You can use the formatting pallet to style some of the text (bold, italic, bullet points etc.)
- If you have mentioned another Facebook user or page in the note you can tag them (you must ‘Like’ a page or be friends with a user in order to tag them)
- To tag type the @ symbol in the Tag box. followed by the name of the page or person you are tagging. Facebook will offer you options as you type.
- Finally you can add an image to your post.
- Click ‘Add photo’ this allows you to upload an image from your computer or choose from your Page’s images.
- Once you are happy with your note click ‘Publish’ at the bottom of the page.
If you have tried blogging with Facebook notes we’d love to hear about your experiences. And if you start blogging as a result of this post share the link with us. Let us know your thoughts and post your links in the comments box below.
July 14, 2010
Monday saw the Inaugural meeting of the KLCK Bloggers Network, a group of like minded people living in the Kildare, Laois, Carlow, Kilkenny area who share an enthusiasm for Blogging and Internet marketing.
Amongst those who attended were those who write professionally, those with popular blogs, those who were just taking the first step in blogging and those who were on the cusp of getting started.
The aim of the group is to share knowledge, put our heads together and see what we can achieve both individually and as a group.
Meetings will continue every second Monday of the month and all are welcome to attend whether you are living in the four counties or not and whether you are already a blogger or not.
Our next meet up will be on August 9th at the Talbot Hotel Carlow. Paula Sheridan from Candle Designs will be talking about using Flickr for business and we will have a second presentation on the basics of setting up a WordPress blog and useful plugins (speaker tbc). If you’d like to come along or if you have expertise to share with the group you can RSVP on Facebook or on Linkedin or by leaving a comment on this blog post.
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