Tuesday 4 March 2014

Facebook Marketing Quickstart Review


Facebook Marketing QuickStart is a training system that will show internet marketers how to tap into the power of Facebook to increase the amount of visitors they receive. Facebook is one of the most powerful entities on the internet today and it is a great way to promote your website. But, there is a lot of competition and you need to know how to get the most out of your marketing efforts.

With Facebook Marketing QuickStart you will finally get a good understanding of what Facebook pages are and how you can use them to promote your product or business. You will see some successful Facebook pages that will give you an idea of what you can do with your own pages. There are things that you need to do before you create your page - this training will help you make sure that you will get it started on the right foot. Everything is covered from determining exactly what you want to achieve with your facebook page to actually registering your Facebook page account.
You will be shown how to create a profile page that will be professional and help you create your brand. You will learn what you need to include in your about section - and this is an important step that most businesses omit. You will learn about the most powerful functions on Facebook and how to use them to your advantage. You will learn how to make your posts more productive and how to get them viral - so that others are sharing your posts and getting more people to your pages. All you have to do is follow along with the steps so you do not even have to be familiar with Facebook to effectively use the techniques in this training. You will receive ten Quickstart videos, a Quickstart Guide Book, and ten downloadable Quickstart audio files so you can learn on the go. You can get all of the training with a one-time payment of $27 and you will be able to try it risk-free for a full sixty days.

People who are using Facebook Marketing Quickstart like that the entire process is explained in great detail - from opening your account to getting your posts viral. Others like that they can use this training effectively even if they have never used Facebook before. If you have been thinking about promoting your business on Facebook but just didn't know how to get started then you will want to take a look at Facebook Marketing QuickStart.

Take Advantage Of Facebook Marketing


Facebook is very popular because it enables friends and family to easily connect with each other. You can use it to market your business. Read these tips to learn how Facebook marketing can do this properly.
Reply to people when they write something on your page. This should include monitoring the wall for questions or comments as well as messages concerning your company. It is especially important to reply if the comment needs help or a complaint.
Link all of your published content to your Facebook page.If you publish a blog, have it automatically summarized and linked on your Facebook. You can even link your Twitter account to your Facebook page and make sure tweets show up there as well.
Try putting out Facebook ads for your business. Posting to your page will only goes so far. To reach more into your specific channel, you are going to want to purchase some Facebook ads. They don't cost a lot of money and can add another dimension to your Facebook marketing.
You can do so by giving your page an attractive and making it very colorful. These pages certainly do attract more attention.
Be judicious about your Facebook updates. Your followers will lose interest quickly if you aren't sharing content that they can use. Utilize Facebook Insights to learn which updates are most successful to give your audience similar content.
Offer something that is unique when someone liking your Facebook page. You can gain a large amount of attention via "likes." Think about giving folks something unique and free to those that like your page a "like." It is something like a sweepstakes. People find it easy to click if you give them an appealing item they would like.
The goal of marketing on Facebook is to get more sales. Setting monthly sales goals will help you do this. If you are not seeing the type of business you want, your strategy may need adjusting.
Make sure that a Facebook group for your brand or business. This could be a one-stop shop where your business could field questions and encourage customers are able to chat with one another. You can inform group members of special discounts and give them all types of useful information. This is a great way to become acquainted with your customers.
You might have trouble when you first few weeks of using Facebook. A good starting point is the addition of a Facebook buttons to your own sites. This will help customers to easily connect to your business's Facebook page.
Try responding to every comment that you receive. This means both in your inbox as well ones that are left on your page. This can take quite a bit of time and patience, but this personal touch is appreciated by your users.
Run some competitions from time to time to get a contest or competition every now and then with the goal of getting more "likes" on your page. You could offer discounts or a nice prize once your goal of likes is met. This will give you more subscribers and gives an opportunity to the winner to comment on the prize or free offer.
Make sure your profile often. If anything changes within your business, change your profile page to reflect them. Keeping everything current helps your customers who are interested in what you have to offer. You may even decide to change things changed on your profile as well so people coming back to see what you have going on.
You need to be right on the posts you make often in order to be successful. Posting daily may be hard for some. Hiring someone to do it for you will cost, but it may be worth it.
Remember that it can be hard to gauge tone of a post on your Facebook page. Posting Facebook messages that appear like a bot wrote them can cause fans to lose interest.
A consistent image is important to the success of your campaign is to succeed.
Add a picture to all your Facebook posts. People love to see visual representations of what they bring us all closer.Take photos of staff members, employees and others to reinforce your message in updates.
Set monthly goals for your Facebook marketing. If you do not meet your goals, rethink your marketing strategies.
Learn to turn to your Facebook audience to provide inspiration when you need inspiration! For instance, if you have a specific marketing idea, see what your followers think about it. You should have several suggestions in just minutes that are given to you by the people you are marketing.
Consider SEO when completing a Facebook profile page. Use the very same keywords that have been used on your main site already and know that Facebook is a great way to share back-links to your website. Your Facebook page should then rank in results of a search engines if the keywords were strong enough.
While it's always a good idea to post often, you need to watch the amounts.
Don't send purchase request emails every day trying to convince contacts that they need to buy from you. While you may think that it's something that can make you some money, nobody wants to feel like you are begging them to buy anything. If they get the feeling you are begging for business, they'll likely not do business with you.
Don't think that successful Facebook marketing campaign will take off overnight. Facebook is quite a large platform in itself. There is a lot of competition out there already.
There are lots of existing apps you can seamlessly integrate to your own Facebook page to get the most value possible. EasyPromos is a valuable application that allows you to put promos on your page easily.

Facebook Vs Twitter: Which Has More Marketing Power for Your Business?


Businesses alike can agree that social media marketing can have a positive effect on a business' success. Whether your business' goal is to increase sales or better connect to customers, promoting your business through the social media spaces will help you achieve it. The popular platforms of choice for small business marketing tend to be Facebook and Twitter. Many success stories have come from these heavyweight social networking sites, so it's worth examining which platform has more marketing power for your business. To do so, it is important to understand some background information about Facebook and Twitter.
What is Facebook?
In case you haven't heard, there is a very popular social networking site called Facebook. Facebook was created in 2004 to allow college students to network with each other. Since then, it has grown to allow anyone to sign-up (at least 13 years old) and has transformed into the largest social networking site in the World. With over 800 million active users, Facebook is aimed at bringing friends, family, associates, and businesses together on its platform.
What is Twitter?
In the other corner, you have Twitter. Twitter is a free micro-blogging social networking site that allows celebrities, businesses and even average people like us to sign-up and keep the 'Twittersphere' updated on what's going on. The aim of Twitter is to answer the question "what are you doing?" in 140 characters or less. Twitter boasts over 100 million active users with those active users contributing to the 250 million daily 'tweets' that the service receives.
Which one is better for marketing?
There have been tons of debates and studies suggesting why Facebook is better than Twitter for marketing and vice versa, but to answer the question, Facebook is better for marketing your small business. Here's why:
· Facebook is larger and has a more active fan base: This is an obvious one. As stated in the background information above, Facebook has a larger number of users than Twitter. But having more users than Twitter means absolutely nothing if those users aren't active, right? Facebook's 800 million+ active users to Twitter's 100 million+ active users is a great reason why your business has more to gain from being on Facebook than Twitter.
· Facebook for Business: Arguably a top reason why Facebook is better for your small business than Twitter. Facebook for Business is a platform that literally walks you through the stages of putting your business on Facebook. Twitter simply doesn't have a clear platform like Facebook does for businesses to get started. With Facebook for Business, you don't even need to know how to use Facebook. Create a fan page, create a targeted ad, and begin promoting your business through its platform. It has never been easier.
· Integrated applications and custom tabs: Another great thing about Facebook is how easy it is to integrate apps such as maps, YouTube videos, games, contests, deals and promotions. There seems to be a free app for everything you want to add to your fan page. Facebook also allows you to create custom tabs and landing pages. Are you a restaurant? Create a tab for your menu so users can easily navigate to it. Running a special promotion? Make it a landing image so that when potential customers come to your page, your special offer will be the first thing they see. Twitter just doesn't have the ability to do this.
· Facebook Insights: Facebook insights is an analytics-based engine that tracks everything from clicks, impressions, fan growth, user engagement and demographics. As a business owner, you should want to know what's working for your business and what's not. Use Facebook Insights to learn more about your fans and do everything you can to optimize. Twitter doesn't let you track such statistics as easy it should, without using a third-party app like HootSuite, which can be very complicated for small business owners.
· Visual appeal: Yet another great advantage to Facebook marketing is the visual appeal. On Twitter, everything is text-based. When you upload a picture or video, it shows as a link that users must click on to see the image. Facebook allows businesses to attach pictures or videos to posts that show up right in their fans' newsfeeds - eliminating the need for another step for the user (clicking on a link). Not being able to see pictures and videos without clicking on a link is a huge disadvantage that Twitter has yet to confront.
These benefits surely support the statement that Facebook has much more marketing power than Twitter, but Twitter still has its advantages. It is still very important to research and make an educated decision on which platform would benefit your business the most.

How To Get Facebook Layouts For Your Page


Remember MySpace? It may have been a couple of years since you've logged in, but you certainly must remember that social networking site. While there were a lot of problems with MySpace that caused Facebook to overtake it as the top social networking site, one of the good parts about MySpace was you could customize your profile however you wanted. If you miss that aspect of MySpace when you're using Facebook, there's no need to miss it anymore! You can now customize Facebook pages with personalized Facebook layouts. Learn more about how to get Facebook layouts for your page.
Layouts for Facebook are made possible by installing a browser plug-in and getting all your friends to install it too. The plug-in creates a virtual layer over your browser window thereby creating a one-of-a-kind personalized Facebook page. This type of browser plug-in is called a Layer App because it enables users to add content over their Facebook page that appears to have been added directly to the page.
Once you have installed the plug-in you will have access to many different pre-made layouts to customize Facebook with as well as be able to create Facebook layouts with a special Facebook layout creation tool. Just log-in to your Facebook profile and then browse online through the available Facebook layouts to find the one you want. Click the select button on your desired layout and return to your Facebook profile and refresh the page. Your layout will now display on your Facebook page. If you would like to remove the layout from your Facebook page just click on the Remove Current Layout link at the bottom of any layout page. You can change your layout as often as you like!
Only your friends that install the browser plug-in can see your special layouts, so it's important to make sure they install it too. If you don't want certain people to see your layout, or one of your friends would rather just view your page without the layout, they won't see it without the plug-in.
If you would like to create your own Facebook layout it's easy with the Facebook layout creation tool. Just select your color theme; upload the images, photos or graphics of your choice; and add finishing touches like text color and transparency options. It's that easy! Once you save and publish, you can see a preview of what the layout looks like on the "create a Facebook layout" page, or go back to your Facebook profile and simply refresh the page to view your all new layout.
Getting personalized Facebook layouts for your page is as easy as 1-2-3! So what are you waiting for? Go download the browser plug-in and customize your Facebook now!
PageRage is the first web application that allows Facebook users to place graphic Facebook layouts right on top of their existing profile and personalize Facebook. More than 1.6 million people visit PageRage.com every day, and more than 40,000 create Facebook layouts every day with the PageRage CYOL tool.

How to Keep Your Facebook Data Private

Facebook is the most visited website on the planet, and has access to incredible amounts of personal information related to its users. Consider these statistics published by Facebook : 
  • Facebook has more than a half BILLION active users.
  • 50% of active users log onto Facebook in any given day.
  • The average user has 130 friends.
  • People spend over 700 BILLION minutes per month on Facebook.
  • There are over 900 MILLION objects that people interact with (pages, groups, events, community pages).
  • The average user creates 90 pieces of content each month.
  • Facebook users install 20 million applications every day.
  • More than 250 million people interact with Facebook every month on external websites.
  • An average of 10,000 new websites integrate with Facebook EVERY DAY.
  • More than 2.5 million websites have integrated with Facebook, including over 80 of the top US websites and half of the top global websites.
  • Over 200 million active users access Facebook through their mobile devices.
It is a given that Facebook tracks every single one of these activities. After all, Facebook's greatest financial asset is the user data that it holds. They have far more information about each of us than our government ever thought about collecting, and they have data mining technology that enables them to slice and dice it and pull out any information they (or their customers) desire.
Simple advice for ALL Facebook users 
  • Check your Facebook privacy settings on a monthly basis. Facebook is constantly revising these, and they often "reset" privacy settings when they update. Even though you think certain information is hidden, it may no longer be so!
  • Either leave your address, phone numbers, etc. out of your profile, or set them to something bogus such as 123 Main Street, Anytown, NY, 12345, 555-555-5555.
  • Never, ever, EVER post information ANYWHERE in Facebook that you do not want EVERYONE to be able to see. This includes friends, family, employers, potential employers, news media, government agencies, people from former relationships, etc. Facebook has become the standard source for information about what a person is REALLY like. A very large percentage of human resource departments will search out Facebook postings for employees and potential employees. What will they find? Would you want your Facebook postings broadcast on the radio, and the photos shown on network television?
  • Just because you think something is "private", or "friends only", do not assume so. As noted above, security settings are constantly changing. What was private may no longer be so. In addition, it is difficult to know what is private and what isn't, and it is impossible to know who Facebook will sell your information to.
  • When posting on Facebook keep in mind that what you post is, permanent. Even if you remove it, it could still be shown on affiliate sites, cached on multiple webservers, etc. Those embarrassing photos of you at a Christmas party may show up years later, at the worst possible moment!
  • If you use Facebook for both personal and professional purposes consider setting up two separate Facebook accounts, with separate email addresses. Do not add your professional and business contacts as friends on your personal account, and do not add your personal friends on your professional account.
  • Because it is so important, I'll repeat this one: Never, ever, EVER post information ANYWHERE in Facebook that you do not want EVERYONE to be able to see. As Facebook Vice President Elliot Schrage stated during a 2010 interview, "If you don't want Facebook to share your personal information, don't share your personal information with Facebook." That statement pretty much sums it up!
The advice above is directed at Facebook, but in reality it should apply to every website that you use. A good example of this is Twitter, where users have the habit of posting everything without giving it a second thought. It is my sincere desire that by following the simple guidelines above you will be able to enjoy Facebook, share with friends, and still keep personal things
Ted Miller, President
AVIK Technologies, Inc.
We manage technology, so you can manage your business!
Ted believes that most organizations, regardless of size, have the same basic information technology requirements. Regardless of whether an organization has five employees or five thousand, they have the critical needs of security, Internet connectivity, file (data) storage and protection, printing, email, backup, system reliability, etc. The difference in IT needs between small and large organizations is primarily one of scale. The need is the same, the size and cost of the solution may not be.
Ted leverages his experience on behalf of his clients by reviewing how large organizations tackle specific technical and business problems, then scales solutions in such a way as to meet the need of his smaller clients while keeping costs under control and aligned with the client's business objectives.

How to Promote Your Website on Facebook


Facebook is an interactive stage with millions of potential customers, targetable by common interests or home country or even date of birth. The average user mentality is receptive to new ideas and online content, and is willing to share a wealth of personal information.
Through the genius of social networking, your website or business can quickly develop a presence on the net without a large advertising budget. Here I've identified five easy ways to take advantage of Facebook's incredible reach and supercharge your online business operations.
  1. Create a Facebook Page
  2. Claim a Unique Username
  3. Add a Widget to Your Website
  4. Create a Landing Page
1. Create a Facebook Page
A Facebook Page is a public profile that enables you to share your business and products with thousands of other Facebook users. Anyone can create a page in a few minutes and invite other users to join.
The advantage of having a page to promote your business on Facebook is you can build up a dedicated following. While it depends on your niche (a page for an accountancy firm might be as boring as it gets), giving fans the opportunity to join and share opinions is not to be missed.
What's more, all your Facebook followers will be alerted to your latest stories and comments. This is just as powerful as a mailing list - if not more, because you can stay in daily contact with fans. (I don't know about you but I regard daily emails as intrusive and spammy. Yet I'll willingly listen to daily ramblings of every man and his dog on Facebook.)
With such a powerful communication channel geared to reach thousands of targeted users, I strongly recommend creating a Facebook Page for most types of business, online or offline. It is a fantastic way to create an online community and make your marketing go viral when users amplify your voice to their friends... and their friends of friends... and so on.
How to Create a Facebook Page
Make sure you populate your page with enough information about your business or website, including your name (so friends will always recognize you) and your website address and logo. I also post my Facebook Page link on my personal profile, which encourages my existing friends to join up if they're interested. A lively community will begin to snowball once you have about 500 followers, and the page will maintain itself. All you need do is check up a few times per week and post your latest thoughts and content to encourage repeat traffic.
Facebook Page vs Facebook Group
Facebook Groups are another kind of public profile often confused with Facebook Pages. There are a few key differences:
  • Facebook Pages are visible to everyone and indexed by Google. But you can only invite new people to join manually - no bulk invites. You can create a custom URL for your Page, host discussions, add extra applications, message all members via their news feed, gain visitor statistics, share videos and photos, create related events, and promote them with Facebook ads. In short, Pages are generally better for creating long term relationships with your followers.
  • Facebook Groups are only visible to fans and not indexed by Google. However you can send out bulk invites to friends, who can also bulk invite their friends. You have to use a long tail URL but can host discussions, message all members via private messages, and share videos and photos. So Groups are better for viral marketing, but not necessarily gaining repeat or long term followers.
Finally, when you promote your business on Facebook, keep a reasonable segregation from your personal Facebook activities. In particular, don't use your personal profile page to create a fan base as this limits you to 5,000 followers - plus you will never be able to draw the line between work and play. All your followers will be able to see your personal photos of family and friends and anyone other photos you are tagged in.
2. Claim a Unique Username
Once you have 25 followers of your Facebook Page, you can claim a Facebook username. This is a custom URL that changes your Facebook Page address from a long tail string to something a bit catchier, such as facebook.com/careerevolution
This is a much easier way for people to look up and remember your Facebook Page. It also creates a personalized home on the web for your business (although I strongly recommend this is not your first port of call - a custom website should come first). You can also refer to this URL anywhere on the internet as a way of directing new fans to your Facebook Page. That includes your own website, in blog comments, on other social network sites, in You Tube videos, and anywhere else you can gain new followers.
3. Add a Widget to Your Website
Aside from Facebook referrals, the next biggest source of new followers will be your website. Facebook offers a number of social widgets to promote your Facebook Page. I recommend creating a Like Box which can include thumbnails of people who already follow you. (As social creatures, we love to conform and seeing that other people already like something reinforces our urge to follow too.) Depending on how much space you have, your widget can also include a news stream.
4. Create a Landing Page
When you send a new follower to your Facebook Page, they will automatically land on your Wall. They will be confronted with the latest user comments or photos, and it may be difficult to understand what your Facebook Page is actually about. You risk losing them altogether.
Instead of dumping them straight on your Wall and hoping that will compel them to "Like" your page, send them to a landing page which gives them some solid reasons to join. It looks much more professional and can dramatically increase your conversion rate.
I suggest you use PhotoShop or another high quality design program to create an image 520 x 500 pixels, featuring your business logo, your tag line, several benefits of joining, and maybe a picture of you to add credibility (if your personality is part of the package).
A good landing page is clean and easy to understand, creates instant brand recognition with our logo and credibility with your photo. It also explains exactly what you offer and conveys your Unique Selling Proposition (a USP is something you offer that no-one else does quite the same way).
There is also a direct instruction explaining what you want the visitor to do. It's like an advert, but you are not actually selling anything. All you want them to do is hit the "Like" button which appears above the image. Using a landing page like this has been proven to increase conversion rates of new visitors to a Facebook Page.

Facebook Is Taking Over Google


Everyone knows that Facebook is unbelievably expanding and has become an integral part of our life. Still, everyone would say that Facebook is not even close to Google when it comes to dominance on the web. And with good reason; let's look at a few figures that show why everyone thinks like that: Google was launched in 1998, and Facebook was launched 6 years later. In 2010, Google had 24,400 employees while Facebook had close to 1700 employees. Google has a huge suite of products that target completely different needs: searching the web, email, video-sharing, advertising, operating systems, and much more. Facebook offers only one product upon which it develops: social networking. This proves why people tend to think that Facebook can never come close to the level of Google. Still, Facebook has been quietly stealing a lot of time that we would have otherwise spent on Google.
The obvious place to start is online searching. At first glance, one might think that Facebook definitely didn't steal any searching from Google. But wait a minute, don't you generally search for people on Facebook now? If you want to know more about a person, especially in your social circle, chances are you'll look for this person on Facebook. You get to search by the person's name, and while you might see several results, you can instantly point out what you want by looking at the person's location and, of course, the profile picture. You can then view a person's profile, look at all the information in a very structured way, and get to see what this person has been up to, from photos to statuses. This already shows the advantage that Facebook has over Google.
Moving on, you can add this person to your friend list, keep up-to-date with the person, and message them. Google doesn't come close to Facebook, which allows you to search and connect with people very naturally. The way to do it on Google is type a person's name, click on several links, try to find the person you meant looking for, and then spend some time looking for their email. Then, you login to your email, and send an email. Facebook allows you to message a person, not an inbox. You don't have to keep a contact list and update the static information. You don't have to remember an email. Just a name.
So Facebook stole searching when it comes to people. So what? There's a lot of other things we search for. Lady Gaga, perhaps? Incidentally, chances are you'll also be looking for popular figures on Facebook! You might not have noticed it, but you have been searching for a lot of things other than just people: celebrities, activities, places. You search for Lady Gaga on Facebook, you view the fan page, you see direct updates of what's been going on, check all the music videos, and you can also have a say! The introduction of Facebook pages made Facebook gather correct data from the source itself. Everything is very well organized, and pages all look the same. Moreover, you can virtually like the page, and in that way you have naturally bookmarked a figure you want to constantly know about. Comparing this to Google is pointless, the idea should be obvious.
Activities that one might have done on Google are increasingly being done on Facebook. Apart from people, celebrities, and figures, people are searching Facebook for events. They can know the latest updates, and even reserve for the event. People are searching for brands and telling everyone what brands they like. People are messaging people on Facebook instead of emailing an address on Gmail. People are watching music videos directly on the fan page instead of searching for the video on YouTube. Places are interested in having a Facebook Page instead of hosting a website over at Google App Engine. Are you seeing where this is going?
Facebook has a huge advantage over Google. A lot of effort is done on Google's part to get information. Google has to browse the whole web, index pages, and devise algorithms to best understand what a user means in a search query and in relation to the indexed pages. Facebook, however, has the content organized in fields that have been submitted by the sources themselves, and are constantly being updated. This allows very natural and organic searching on Facebook, where one is generally searching for the title of a page, be it a person, a brand, or an event. Also, Facebook presents information in a way that's much more appealing than what Google shows. Of course, there are things that you just can't do on Facebook, especially when you're researching. Facebook is not replacing Google, but in terms of dominance, it sure is close. Or ahead already.