Tag

facebook for business

Three Ways Your Company is Doing it Wrong on Facebook

By Social Media

Facebook is tricky; devious, even. Navigating the guidelines for operating successfully as a business is mystifying. Every day I catch companies doing something that violates the Facebook terms of service or is an unsound practice in online marketing. A sampling:

  1. After posting as the business on the business page, the admin user is commenting on the post, again as the page. Here’s how to do this right. 
  2. A random display of not necessarily relevant “likes” appear in the left sidebar. Here’s how to change that. 
  3. Promoting a contest or offer that requires Facebook interaction. e.g., Like us and you’ll get . . . that’s not kosher according to Facebook rules.
Stay tuned for some tips on ways to use Facebook the right way to earn more fans. 

Social Media Assignment #10: How to Smoosh Your Facebook Page and Twitter Together

By Communications

In certain situations, a Twitter feed is established as a method of publishing information. It’s not there to engage, and the people behind it are not tweeting conversationally at all. Some examples of this are the feeds from news organizations, some nonprofits or other institutions. There are often too many regulations placed on these institutions to allow them to engage in social media the way a business, individual or nonprofit would.

In this case, for an organization that wants to have a presence on Twitter integrating that account with an official Facebook page is probably the most efficient way to achieve their communications goals.

Hopefully, the organization has set up a Facebook page (not a group or a profile). If you’re an admin of that page (and I hope you are!) take the following steps:

  1. Login to Facebook and go to your page.
  2. Click on Edit Page in the upper left.
  3. Click on Resources in the right hand sidebar.
  4. Halfway down the page you will see Link your Page to Twitter.
  5. In a separate window, log in to the Twitter account you want to link to the Facebook page.
  6. Click on Link to Twitter.

If you manage more than one page and more than one Twitter account, take care that you’re linking the right Twitter account to the right Facebook page!

Now, updates on Facebook will cross publish to Twitter. I think it’s important to mention that users that choose to use this method of integration still need to log in to and monitor Twitter — there’s no excuse for not paying attention to replies, mentions and direct messages your Twitter account may have, regardless of your method of publishing there.

 

Five Actions to Take on your Facebook Business Page Right Now

By Communications
  1. Grab your vanity URL by going to www.facebook.com/username (you must have 25+ fans to qualify) so your URL will look something like this: http://www.facebook.com/JaggersCommunications
  2. Go to Edit Page and Manage Permissions — at the bottom, choose Strong if you don’t want any profanity on your page, medium if you don’t mind a little, or none if you’re a member of the George Carlin club (link NSFW if you read it out loud).
  3. Go to Edit Page (again) and click on Featured. Manage the links to page you like that show up in the sidebar on YOUR page. (Consider featuring clients, partners, top customers, etc.)
  4. On the same section as #3, select a featured page owner or owners. This helps people see who the humans are behind your business to know with whom they’re interacting on the page.
  5. This is the badge for CHOAirport

    Back on Edit Page under Marketing, select create a badge and then, well, create a badge and put that on your website.

Stay tuned for future posts featuring more smart ideas for your Facebook Business page.

Facebook Business Page Boot Camp

By Communications

The last few weeks have had me teaching members of the business community in workshops and internal meetings how to use social media and specifically social networking as a method of building business relationships.

What has emerged most frequently is a demand for education and help with creating Facebook pages for business — and then, a plan and assistance with what to do with the page once it exists.

This need has led me to develop Facebook Business Boot Camp, a workshop for businesses who are new to Facebook, who need to learn about the platform and marketing uses from the ground up. Facebook has very specific guidelines for how businesses can offer promotions, run contests and communicate with fans. It’s important to understand these, and be in compliance as well as taking advantage of the potential to reach millions with your message on a site that attracts users for hours every week.

The first workshop will be May 5, 9am to 11am in Charlottesville.

Register today!