Facebook Pages Manual

Facebook has made an effort to supply guides and informative packets for it’s business users. Their most resent series of official guides provide some great tips for Facebook Page owners.

These guides are not only a great reference but they allow you to take your Page to the next level.

The Facebook Pages Manual provides step-by-step instructions to create a basic Facebook Page.

You should download and share!

Facebook Pages Manual

Best Practices Facebook – 4 Questions All Businesses Have About Facebook

At every event, presentation, and workshop I’m asked a plethora of questions. Eventually the questions boil down to the four below. Here is a breakdown of best practices and standard procedures that will display your professionalism and ultimately aide in the success of your Fan Page.

1. How often should I and or the business post?

Post Frequently but remember that people who “Like” and are passionate about your brand, are probably not wanting their Facebook News Feed flooded with updates at the top of every hour. Keep in mind that a user’s News Feed is live and real time information and is used the majority of time as a personal environment.

Posts are more effective during the week when people are typically checking Facebook (in the morning, just before or after lunch and in the evening). Have a posting  schedule just like you would for other media.

Post frequency can also differ depending on the industry your brand is a part of. For example, a news brand may post more often than a restaurant. The users are expecting more posts from a news organization than their restaurant which makes more post acceptable to the user.

2. What type of content should I post?

Types of posts – Not only do multi-media (text, audio, still images, animation, video, and interactivity) content forms posts present engaging content, they also create discovery components that help content become viral. Here is where the Facebook “share” function is so valuable. The link is automatically included on every wall post using the Facebook “links” app. Facebook’s video, audio and image posts lets users share with friends via news feeds and notifications, which helps create WOM so they keep coming back.

3. Long URLs look bad and unprofessional, what should I do?

Short URL – URL shorteners are Internet tools that shorten longer URL links. These shorteners will accommodate character space, are more aesthetically pleasing, and the professional standard online. These shorteners also allow brands to track the analytics of a link. Analytics like: how many times the link has been clicked and redirected, and where the link is being shared. Quite a lot of online services offer to shorten your URL for free but I would question their creditability and accuracy.

4. How do I build an audience?

Building an Audience

· Driving traffic to your page is the key to Facebook success. Facebook offers “Facebook ads” that can increase the amount of people to your page thus increasing the likelihood they will connect with your page. When using Facebook ads, promote the Fan Page not a website. When people “Like” your page you will be able to have an ongoing dialog and be able to share more content. Promoting Facebook exclusive offers is another way to attract users to your page. Each environment requires a specific interaction style, make sure you’re not just duplicating your tweets.

· If applicable, cross-promote with other associated official fan pages to give credibility to your page. For example, if you have an official company page and have offerings to other pages, make sure you link them to their main page for user reference and vice-versa. That way, users who are connected to one page have the opportunity to see the other pages and connect with it too.

Page Information

· Fill out your page information with as much detail as possible within the Info tab and the blurb box underneath the profile image. In the blurb box don’t just write your business’ mission, write purpose of the page and how are you will engage your supporters and bring them value. Page info helps users find your page when conducting a Facebook search for your company.

· Focus the brand’s social presence by limiting the number of pages. Too many separate company pages can lead to over-fragmentation, which can be confusing for users trying to find accurate information.

Engagement

· Updates should ideally be posted when most people are checking their Facebook accounts. Posts are more effective during the week when people are typically checking Facebook (first thing in the morning before 9am, just before or after lunch and in the evening).

· Brands should set a goal to post 2-3 times a day to keep content fresh on their wall. A brand who posts occasionally will have outdated content which will not encourage users to return to a page. A brand who posts too much may annoy their audience, which may result in their social connections opting out of your company’s updates.

· Posts should solicit as much engagement as possible. The preferred way to engage your audience is by asking questions (not open ended questions), sharing relevant content that the audience will want to comment on and share. Fan comments are more desirable than “likes” because they show more of a time investment from the audience. Also when a fan comments, it gets broadcasted to their friends through their news feeds.

· Remember, users are on your page to interact with your brand, so try to respond to user comments and wall posts in a timely fashion. Fans will appreciate the attention and might tell their friends about the experience.

· Moderate fan posts and comments for obscenity and spam as defined in your company’s social media policy. Moderation is extremely important as it will allow for a safe environment for all ages. Of course, some brands will accept various levels of language depending on their brand personality.

· As mentioned above, it’s crucial to use a branded URL shortener to give your links trustworthiness and guarantee that the link will redirect to an applicable page. Another benefit of using branded URL shorteners is that they protect against making your links analytics public. Tip – If you add a “+” to the end of any bit.ly link, the analytics become public.

· Social media is a more informal landscape than traditional media; the brand communication should reflect that and be more personal. Please balance promotional offers with conversation. Users expect a two-way communication — don’t simply use social media as a push medium for promotions.

- @peterlang

For more Social Media coverage, follow Peter Lang on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook

Social media statistics in real-time

The world of social media is invading the web at a speed that we cannot even imagine. It ‘a revolution, the social media revolution, social networking, the new way of conceiving the web, media, sharing. It ‘a revolution before our very eyes, of which we are all a part of and can no longer control. No one could have imagined, even a few years ago, that this would have happened. Read and watch these stunning statistics on social media:

Gary Hayes has collected some statistics and has made a counter that shows the numbers in real time: ‘Gary’s Social Media Count’: Which I have included below.

• 20 hours of video are uploaded on Youtube every minute!
• 600,000 new members each day on Facebook
• 700 million photos and 4 million videos on Facebook per day
• 18 million new users per day on Twitter and tweets sent 4 million per day
• 900,000 new items on blogs a DAY!
  
• 1 billion videos viewed on Youtube DAILY!
• 250,000 virtual goods in Second Life each day, and 1250 messages per second!
• 73 million visitors and 700 million Flickr photo uploaded a month!
• More than 2.3 trillion SMS messages were sent in 2008 alone! Here is it written out  to make it clearer 2,300,000,000,000,000,000 SMS!

via (web.splesh.net)

Thank you noltha.

Tricks Facebook is HERE

In collaboration with the web.splesh.net and PeterLang.us we would share all the Facebook tricks, tips and guides that FB has to offer. Join the Fan site or Subscribe to stay up on the must know FB info.

Steps to Change the Meaning of Social Media

If you think you can’t change the meaning of social media maybe it is because you believe you can’t change your state of mind. I am not attempting to change your life, but it’s important to at least understand your social media association.

The book Man’s Search for Meaning shows how you can change the emotional association from painful     experience. Some people believe this change to social media is painful, but can this emotional association be caused by other factors? If so, let’s change the association…

Here I will expand on the topic of Changing the “meaning” of social media. Let’s change the negative association and transform Social media into a lifestyle and create Social Media Momentum.

Let’s create a fundamental change. Creating Leverage over yourself and understand social media is a lifestyle.

1. You must reach a point where you know that not being in Social Media will bring you PAIN.
   If you are only at the point; where you feel you should change, or you might change, there is not enough of a commitment given to the change that will give you the emotional/ financial return that you will be looking for during the process.  Write down 10 reasons for why you need it and why you’re able to do it.
2. Break your normal pattern of professional and personal social media interaction and development.
   We have to interrupt the current pattern, daily distractions and weekly obligations. The key is, creating an environment where a person doesn’t have a choice not to expect the change. Have fun with this, and if it is awkward at first understand it’s like riding a bike; after a while you won’t even notice a change.
3. Condition yourself to a new empowering social media association.
   Personal Branding, Global Communication, Sharing of information, and yourself. Link family, Professional Networking, Sharing, Communication, and other unknown opportunities all to social media.

These are the three changes you need to jump into social media today, not next week, next month, and especially don’t wait till next year. Let’s use social media leverage and create personal and professional success.

Update Everything You Need with Ping.fm

Those of you that are worried about the social media demand on time have nothing to fear. I realize that the thought of logging in to every social media and uploading content really puts a damper on the experience.

If this is you, then Ping.fm is a must. This is a one-stop service that will allow you to post to all your important social networks. Not only will Ping.fm update statuses and micro-blogs it can now update your Facebook Page. Their step-by-step guide will help with the setup. The first attempt at creating the connection was tricky but if you follow the steps closely you will be just fine.

To point out- Once you’ve finished the setup you will need to grant permissions to the desired pages. Your options include posting status updates, notes, and photos to pages

Once Ping.fm is setup then you will see the advantages.

Communication in 2009

Are you looking to start a conversation in todays environment? Begin here.

The Conversation Prism by Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas

Social Media Revolution

One of my favorite resources is Mashable. Offered a video from http://www.essentialresearch.co.uk/.

The Video that was relased last Year, with the same music is included below.