It’s “BIG GAME” weekend.  Be sure to download your “FREE report – 46 Super Social Media Things To Do Before The Big Game!”

For more marketing tips for Christian business owners, click here.

Our most frequent question in terms of social media is “what should I post?“  A follow-up comment people often make is “…and who really cares anyway?”

One of the sins of the online marketing world, particularly grievous on social sites like Facebook and Twitter, is to constantly flood your follower’s content streams with incessant self-promotion.   But whenever we talk to businesses about using these prominent (and ever-expanding) online platforms for marketing, their eyes light up and inevitably someone will assert that because of the low-cost (or most often FREE) aspect of these tools, they assume their ROI to be sky-high.  “You mean we can market our products and services and tell all of our customers about each of our promotions several times a day – all for free?”  Au contraire.  Social networking sites were not intended for such purposes and to hijack them for your selfish gain goes against the rules of the game.

So, in opposition to the continuous self-promotion often evident from businesses on Facebook or Twitter, consider yourself a resource, a true helping hand to those who follow your activity.  Consider they don’t necessarily follow you just to be inundated with your self-promotion, so change the way you post.   Instead, be a H-E-L-P-E-R :

Follow this acronym:

• H – drive them to high value content at your Hub (your website)
• E – provide Educational value (this information adds value to their day; you can create unique posts or share articles you mind other places)
• L – write thought-Leadership ideas; make them Laugh (people are inspired by leadership, but love a good chuckle, too)
• P – occasionally Promote your promotions (in balance, it’s OK to do this, but just keep it as only part of the variety of postings)
• E – make it a point to Engage (make and react to comments, encourage interactions by asking questions/polls)
• R – intentionally look for ways to Reach out to key influencers (social media tools often permit you access never imagined before)

Promotion is not evil but it’s annoying and a turn-off when it’s all your followers hear from you.  Helping your followers with high-value content, they will not only continue following, but they will also encourage others to do the same.

One question often asked is “what do I post on my Facebook page?”

The second question is “how do we get more ‘LIKES’ on our Page?”

The next area we address when consulting with organizations about their Facebook page is the necessity of a custom Facebook page.  You never want a visitor to land on your Wall because the Wall offers no brand strengthening to their first impression of you.  Instead you want the custom Facebook page to increase their engagement with your brand.

One oft-neglected option you have when customizing your landing page for prospective fans (those who have not yet “liked” the page) is to offer what is often called “Like & Reveal” or a “Fan Gate.”

This is  a “gate” through which a new visitor to your Facebook page must pass before they get to see your Facebook content.  To get through this “gate” the visitor must first decide to “like” your page.  Therefore, you must “like” the page in order to “reveal” what’s behind it.  Here’s a few uses for this technology:

• Create an incentive for the visitor to your Facebook page (i.e., a unique fan-only coupon)
• Ensure the essential action step of liking the page actually happens (surprisingly many people just scan the Wall and move on unless your prompt them with what you want them to do).  If you don’t capture them into your social database, how will you remain top-of-mind in their Facebook newsfeed?  You must get them to click the LIKE button.
• Introduce a visitor to the unique aspects of your Facebook page – the gated “pause” creates anticipation before the LIKE button is pressed and the actual showcase is revealed

As the title suggests, this added bonus on your custom Facebook page will allow you to be the perfect greeter, the most effective guide to showcase your multiple offerings, and enhance your ability to get them into your social database.

You can set this up as the default page for every new visitor to your page so that this is how visitors are introduced to your page.  Below we’ll show you a few examples of how we have used this with some of our recent clients and hopefully will stir your imagination on how you can use your custom Facebook page.

CLICK ON THE IMAGES BELOW FOR LARGER VIEW

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Our most frequent question in terms of social media is “what should I post?“  A follow-up comment people often make is “…and who really cares anyway?”

One of the sins of the online marketing world, particularly grievous on social sites like Facebook and Twitter, is to constantly flood your follower’s content streams with incessant self-promotion.   But whenever we talk to businesses about using these prominent (and ever-expanding) online platforms for marketing, their eyes light up and inevitably someone will assert that because of the low-cost (or most often FREE) aspect of these tools, they assume their ROI to be sky-high.  “You mean we can market our products and services and tell all of our customers about each of our promotions several times a day – all for free?”  Au contraire.  Social networking sites were not intended for such purposes and to hijack them for your selfish gain goes against the rules of the game.

So, in opposition to the continuous self-promotion often evident from businesses on Facebook or Twitter, consider yourself a resource, a true helping hand to those who follow your activity.  Consider they don’t necessarily follow you just to be inundated with your self-promotion, so change the way you post.   Instead, be a H-E-L-P-E-R :

Follow this acronym:

• H – drive them to high value content at your Hub (your website)
• E – provide Educational value (this information adds value to their day; you can create unique posts or share articles you mind other places)
• L – write thought-Leadership ideas; make them Laugh (people are inspired by leadership, but love a good chuckle, too)
• P – occasionally Promote your promotions (in balance, it’s OK to do this, but just keep it as only part of the variety of postings)
• E – make it a point to Engage (make and react to comments, encourage interactions by asking questions/polls)
• R – intentionally look for ways to Reach out to key influencers (social media tools often permit you access never imagined before)

Promotion is not evil but it’s annoying and a turn-off when it’s all your followers hear from you.  Helping your followers with high-value content, they will not only continue following, but they will also encourage others to do the same.

- Randy

These names mean anything to you?  Sure if you are a sports fanatic, you might recognize a few of them.  But let’s add their more common nicknames and see how you fair:  Magic Johnson, Tubby Smith, The Rock and Shoeless Joe.  Now we’re onto something.

The same rule applies to your business or organization’s Facebook page.  When you first launch your Facebook page, your page is given a name or URL.  But your clear goal should be to reach the coveted 25 “fans” or “Likes”.  Why?  Because that is the minimum number you must have in order to create your own short URL or “username” as Facebook defines it.  But think of it as your page’s nickname.  For example, Troy Aikman (Pro Football Hall of Fame Member, former Dallas Cowboy great and one of my all-time favorites) recently announced on his Twitter account that he launched a Facebook page.

Here is his current page name:  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Troy-Aikman/212919242056250.

Easy to remember, huh?  I would love to hear Troy announce that URL on the next NFL broadcast he does in the fall (assuming there is a season … oh wait, that’s another topic!).  What should Troy do?  Well, it’s easy.  Troy should go to http://facebook.com/username (or anyone who has Admin rights to that page).  From there, Troy could create a username for his page like facebook.com/TroyAikman or facebook.com/TroyAikman8.   By doing so, he’s made it extremely easy to tell people how to get to his page.  This new shorter name fits well on a business card, a banner and is easy to announce to all his fans.

So have you done this yet?  Are you making it EASY for your customers, donors or fans to find you?  Once you have 25 “likes” to your page, there’s no reason not too.   Just remember that once you select your name, it cannot be changed so choose wisely!!!

Thanks Troy for letting me offer you this little pointer – it’s the only chance I’ll ever get!!   Hope it helps!

-donny-

Photo: Courtesy of the official Troy Aikman Facebook Page (the URL is too long currently to disclose!)

If you missed our webinar yesterday, here’s your chance!

WEBINAR:  “Facebook for Business:  Turning Your Loyal Customers into Brand Ambassadors!”

Click on the video box below to watch the 1-hour webinar (** if it asks you a question about starting where you left off, just say “NO”**):

Several thoughts out there on Facebook and your business brand:

1.  Join our FREE webinar “Facebook for Business: Turning Your Loyal Customers into Brand Ambassadors” – Thursday, 3/31, 1pm CST

2.  John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing writes an important warning, “Don’t Rely On Facebook For Your Social Media Marketing”

3.  Jay Baer of Convince and Convert talk about “opportunity economy” and “real-time business” and “Facebook Yellow-Paging” – ultimately “Why Most Businesses Get Facebook Wrong”! (click the video below)

If you haven’t noticed, February is almost gone.  (By the way, have you ever wondered why this month only has 28 days – this article may help.)  Earlier this month, I put together a big-game day list called “45 super social media things to do on Super Bowl 45 weekend” – I got some good feedback from the list, so I trimmed it down or consolidated and came up with a revised list.  You only got a little over a week – so it’s time to get busy folks!!

1. Start a Facebook Page for your organization or small business – here’s how to create a Facebook Page (vide0)
2. Customize your Facebook Page for optimized interaction and engagement with your new fans (those who “like” your Page)
3. Put a hyperlinked URL to your website or Twitter account in the “Description” area of your Facebook Page (like they did here)
4. Make sure that your website has a current listing to your Facebook Page – giving them an incentive to go there and “Like” the Page
5. Replace your small logo with a 200x600px jpeg as your Facebook Page profile image (maximize your Facebook real estate)
6. Setup a unique URL for your Facebook Page by establishing a branded username – it’s free and easy once you have 25 fans
7. Post videos and photos of your customers, volunteers or brand ambassadors and tag them in the photos
8. Create a Twitter account profile – multiple ones if you need to if your organization is large – make your tweets personal (avoid the single biggest mistake companies make when using Twitter)
9. Start (or re-start) your blog using WordPress – it’s better to have a self-hosted account (Thomas Nelson Chairman, Michael Hyatt, suggests it’s worth it!)
10. Link your WP blog to your Facebook Page so that your posts automatically post to your Facebook Page – this save a alot of time!
11. Post blog posts on a frequent, periodic basis – it can be daily, every other day or twice a week. Any less frequent is really not sufficient (IMHO).
12. Post blog articles that employ the H-E-L-P strategy that we’ve mentioned before.
13. Create a free news release with prlog.com – absolutely free and you get good search results
14. Open up a free account on Slideshare.net to publish all those great PowerPoint presentations that, up until now, have only been seen by a handful of people sitting around a conference room table – showcase your expertise to the world and demonstrate your knowledge to your target market!
15. Ensure you have a strong Linkedin profile, up-to-date and maximizing your words so that it is the perfect networking tool working for you even if you’re not on it every day.
16. Sync your Slideshare and WP Blog to your Linkedin profile so that any updates to your slide presentations or your blog posts are automatically updated to your Linkedin profile – again this saves time and ensures that your LI followers are getting the best of your content in real-time!
17. Create and upload targeted videos to your YouTube channel
18. Make sure that your website is hyperlinked in the description area (with the “http://” in front of the “www” so that your videos can spark a further action step for your viewers – once they see how relevant your video content is, they will want to know more
19. Tag each video with strong keywords
20. Posts these keyword-rich videos to your blog posts
21. Upload these high-value-content videos to your Facebook Page
22. Open a Flickr account so you can document experiences and testimonials (great for showcasing your gallery of work or striking before-and-after photos of your business)
23. Create a QR code that will spark curiosity of your customers and followers – link them to a special offer, drive them to your Facebook Page, or offer a unique coupon that can only be activated using a QR reader
24. Engage with location-based marketing services like Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook Pages – use them yourself and encourage your fans to “check-in” when they are at your place – even churches can use location-based services!
25. Open an email marketing account with Constant Contact and start collecting permission-granted email addresses (don’t grab an email address of someone unless they have given you permission to have it – that’s called “Spam”).
26. Send our periodic emails to your customers and followers – repurposing blog content, directing them to your Twitter and Facebook Page, and showcasing high-value content that will enhance your email open rate (on average, we hear that a good rate is 25-30%).
27. Finally, high-value, keyword-rich content is king to optimizing your social media presence – follow this 4-step rule:

• Content first needs to be created (can be text, video, audio podcast, etc…all great high-value content – but someone’s got to create it!)
• Launch the content in a highly-social venue (videos go to YouTube or Vimeo, photos and images go to Flickr, text goes on your blog, etc..)
• Share the content all over various social media outlets – manually posting them, auto-syncing them – whatever makes it easiest!
• Repurpose the content later when you need good material – like when you are making a list of 28 social media things to do before the short month ends!

-Randy

Image source: Flickr/swissmiss

Breaking News: It’s 2011.

Not 2009.  Not 2005.  Certainly not 2000.

It’s 2011.

Things have changed.

• Social media is the marketplace’s new communication currency with customers.

• Social media is the marketplace’s new venue for word-of-mouth referrals.

• Social media is the marketplace’s new display for information products that showcase your expertise.

But guess what?  Some of your competition is still partying  like it’s 1999.

Social media can be your ticket to differentiation.

Chris Brogan has a great blog post today on social media – some videos to watch that offer a great way to improve your social media efforts.

1. Start a Facebook Page for your organization or small business – here’s how to create a Facebook Page (vide0)
2. Customize your Facebook Page for optimized interaction and engagement with your new fans (those who “like” your Page)
3. Put a hyperlinked URL to your website or Twitter account in the “Description” area of your Facebook Page (like they did here)
4. Make sure that your website has a current listing to your Facebook Page – giving them an incentive to go there and “Like” the Page
5. Replace your small logo with a 200x600px jpeg as your Facebook Page profile image (maximize your Facebook real estate)
6. Setup a unique URL for your Facebook Page by establishing a branded username – it’s free and easy once you have 25 fans
7. Publish that shortened unique URL on your print, radio or TV ads
8. Reprint your business cards listing your shortened unique URL listed alongside your website
9. Update all your social profiles with a link to this easily-remembered shortened URL
10. Include this shortened URL in your email signature and link it directly to your Page
11. Look at your business, church or non-profit calendar and create a Facebook Event for every upcoming event
12. Be sure and include a easy-to-read graphic that will be included on the Facebook event (think big text, bold graphics – leave off the small details)
13. Share each event on your personal profile and encourage your fans to do the same thing
14. Use your personal profile to promote your Facebook Page, tagging it in your status update (here’s another video on how to tag in Facebook)
15. By the way, if your organization’s leadership has balked at getting on Facebook, stop everything and convince them it’s one of the most cost-effective and customer/supporter-engaging forms of communication for your organization
16. Going to any video, photo or link on your Facebook Page and clicking on the “Share” button to post it to your personal profile for all your friends to see
17. Use your personal profile to link to as many local constituents, key influencers and brand promoters as you can
18. Use your Facebook Page (formally referred to as your “Fan Page” until Facebook changed the “Become a Fan” language to “Like) to engage with your fans – respond to their questions they post on your Facebook Page
19. Related to #18 above, monitor your Facebook Page frequently so that posts and comments are responded to – here’s a new alert system that may help you track Facebook Page notifications (a link on our Facebook Page – become a Fan of the Marketing Twins if you’re not already!)
20. Post videos and photos of your customers, volunteers or brand ambassadors and tag them in the photos
21. Create a Twitter account profile – multiple ones if you need to if your organization is large
22. Include a personal photo for your corporate account in lieu of just the corporate logo – make your tweets personal (avoid the single biggest mistake companies make when using Twitter)
23. Use Twitter search to find followers in your geographic area or by subject matter
24. While Twitter backgrounds are not effective as they once were (since Twitter changed their settings essentially blocking out alot of the graphical area that Twitter backgrounds could be used for), still go ahead and customize your Twitter background for maximize branding (here’s one we did that is setup for the new Twitter settings – not alot of graphic space, but we used what we had)
25. Download HootSuite or TweetDeck to manage your Twitter feed – not sure how you can truly maximize your Twitter experience without it
26. Start (or re-start) your blog using WordPress – it’s better to have a self-hosted account (Thomas Nelson Chairman, Michael Hyatt, suggests it’s worth it!)
27. Link your WP blog to your Facebook Page so that your posts automatically post to your Facebook Page – this save a alot of time!
28. Post blog posts on a frequent, periodic basis – it can be daily, every other day or twice a week.  Any less frequent is really not sufficient (IMHO).
29. Post blog articles that employ the H-E-L-P strategy that we’ve mentioned before.
30. Manually or automatically post your blog articles to Twitter
31. Create a free news release with prlog.com – absolutely free and you get good search results
32. Open up a free account on Slideshare.net to publish all those great PowerPoint presentations that, up until now, have only been seen by a handful of people sitting around a conference room table – showcase your expertise to the world and demonstrate your knowledge to your target market!
33. Ensure you have a strong Linkedin profile, up-to-date and maximizing your words so that it is the perfect networking tool working for you even if you’re not on it every day.
34. Sync your Slideshare and WP Blog to your Linkedin profile so that any updates to your slide presentations or your blog posts are automatically updated to your Linkedin profile – again this saves time and ensures that your LI followers are getting the best of your content in real-time!
35. Create and upload targeted videos to your YouTube channel
36. Make sure that your website is hyperlinked in the description area (with the “http://” in front of the “www” so that your videos can spark a further action step for your viewers – once they see how relevant your video content is, they will want to know more
37. Tag each video with strong keywords
38. Posts these keyword-rich videos to your blog posts
39. Upload these high-value-content videos to your Facebook Page
40. Open a Flickr account so you can document experiences and testimonials (great for showcasing your gallery of work or striking before-and-after photos of your business)
41. Create a QR code that will spark curiosity of your customers and followers – link them to a special offer, drive them to your Facebook Page, or offer a unique coupon that can only be activated using a QR reader
42. Engage with location-based marketing services like Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook Pages – use them yourself and encourage your fans to “check-in” when they are at your place – even churches can use location-based services!
43. Open an email marketing account with Constant Contact and start collecting permission-granted email addresses (don’t grab an email address of someone unless they have given you permission to have it – that’s called “Spam”).
44. Send our periodic emails to your customers and followers – repurposing blog content, directing them to your Twitter and Facebook Page, and showcasing high-value content that will enhance your email open rate (on average, we hear that a good rate is 25-30%).
45. Finally, high-value, keyword-rich content is king to optimizing your social media presence – follow this 4-step rule:

• Content first needs to be created (can be text, video, audio podcast, etc…all great high-value content – but someone’s got to create it!)
• Launch the content in a highly-social venue (videos go to YouTube or Vimeo, photos and images go to Flickr, text goes on your blog, etc..)
• Share the content all over various social media outlets – manually posting them, auto-syncing them – whatever makes it easiest!
• Repurpose the content later when you need good material – like when you are making a list of 45 super social media things to do on Super Bowl 45 weekend!

Enjoy the game!

-Randy