This is some great information Donny posted in an email yesterday to some of our Facebook Page clients.  I wanted to share excerpts here as well:

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I wanted to take a moment to address the recent Facebook announcement that came out which is causing some confusion and stirring with fan page owners.  Here’s the announcement if you’ve not see it:

Preview Your New Page Layout
To make your Page easier to browse, we’re simplifying a couple things: 1. Boxes are going away (including the Boxes tab); 2. All custom tabs will be narrower (520 pixels). This is your chance to preview your Page and make edits as needed before the new layout goes public on August 23. Read full announcement

So what does that mean for your new custom fan page?  Here’s our take:

1) Boxes going away: This was new news to us.  However, this only impacts a small number of you who have added these to your fan page.  These are the small images that are located underneath the “People Like This” section which can be found under your new custom profile image.  We have these images on our Facebook Page as well.  There’s some talk that while the images might “go away”, they may also be placed in another location after August 23rd.  Several fan page owners (beyond The Marketing Twins) are very upset about losing these linkable images.  Facebook will sometimes listen to that feedback so we would not be surprised to see a change there.  Until then, we have to assume they will go away… which is a bummer to us.  If you want those graphics added back to another tab that will remain, contact us and we can work out a nominal fee to make that change for you.

2) Narrower custom tab (520 px): Ok, let’s keep it simple: if we created the graphic images for your fan page, there’s nothing to worry about.  We’ve actually known about this change since April/May so any fan pages we’ve worked on since then were created using graphics that fit the 520 pixel wide format.  If we created the graphics for you, again, you have nothing to worry about.  If for some reason there’s something wrong with your page graphics after the change, we’ll adjust those but we don’t think that will be a problem since they were all done at 520 pixels to begin with.

3) Preview your Page: I would suggest all of you take a look at your page throughout next week as supposedly that’s when the preview will occur.  Note that this announcement has continually been pushed back (originally planned for early July) so who knows when the change will actually occur and when the actual preview will be available.  However, since FB has been communicating nicely to all of us recently on this change, we expect the same notification once the complete preview is available.

I hope that addresses some concerns, fears or confusion you might have been experiencing with this announcement.   Thanks!!

Donny

In the business of referral marketing, I know there are many ways to get referrals.  Before I share with you 2 practical strategies, let’s first examine a definition of marketing, as described by John Jantsch, in his best-selling book on the topic, “The Referral Engine.“  John suggests a flow in the marketing definition that creates a natural occurence of referrals (but one not without specific efforts and strategies).  Let’s consider this definition of marketing:

Getting people with a specific need to know, like and trust you.

When they trust you, they REPEAT and REFER!

When you hand over $20 bucks to a guy selling chicken-of-the-month club subscriptions, you make a transaction.  You’re not an immediate loyal ambassador.  You continue your subscription (repeat) because you like the quality of the product that comes to your door every 1st Tuesday 12x a year.  And when the ease of that product, the great taste and the price converge together over time, you are more willing to stick your neck out and tell your friends how much you love it (refer).

Don’t assume that just because you fix a cavity, repair their brakes, serve a great meal or design their (hair, cabinets, website) just right that your customers will repeat and refer.  Cultivate the relationship and make it work for you.

1. Cultivate A Network of Endless Referrals – speaking of cultivating, Bob Burg shares a brilliant article on getting more referrals.  Bob is one of the gurus of referral marketing, so read and take note!

2. Build your Referral System INTO the TRANSACTION – David Frey of Small Business Marketing Best Practices shares his strategy on how to get more referrals.

As the only Duct Tape Marketing coach in all of West Texas and North Texas, I am eager to have you join me for our upcoming Referral Engine Pro Virtual Power Group -the $250 super early bird discount has been extended to this Friday, 8/13!   Join me and learn even more practical ways to get more referrals for your business.  Learn more information about this group here.

-Randy

As more of your prospective customer base is online, the savvy business owner needs to be aware of the link between online review sites and your online reputation.

If managing your online reputation is news to you, you must click on this article as a primer.

It is too important for the future of your business!

John Jantsch also posts a good article about several ways to monitor your online brand reputation. Check out his article on AMEX OpenForum:

http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/marketing/article/do-it-yourself-online-reputation-management-toolkit-john-jantsch

After taking 2 weeks off, we’re ready to get back to work.  We’re ready to help you make the most of the remaining 5 months of this year!!

We have some exciting projects in place with clients and some speaking events coming up soon.  Just an update on some of the stuff we’re available to help you with: