We actually get this question pretty often from small and medium sized clients alike (B2B and B2C clients too), so I wanted to share with you our opinion on how many social media accounts you should have.
First off, it truly does depend. We think it is best to start with one. Make it really easy for your customers and fans to know what page they should follow/like/subscribe to. Start with one account and strive to make that account become popular. You want lively conversation, good feedback and loads of followers or subscribers.
I’m popular, now what?
Not a bad problem to have… too much action on your social media accounts! After your Twitter account or Facebook page gets some traction, then you can start outlining what people are using the page for. Some may use it for things like customers service, job opening questions, inquiries about products and support. Once your page is popular and you can identify the needs your users have then you should consider breaking the page into sections.
Things to keep in mind
If you are going to maintain several social media profiles, here are a few things to keep in mind:
More accounts mean more time. Do you have the resources to keep multiple accounts fresh and deliver relevant content?
Keep all of the accounts fresh and full of information, an account that doesn’t look ‘lived in’ won’t get much traction.
Make a plan before to alert your current fans and followers of the new resources that are available to them.
If it isn’t working, don’t be afraid to cut your losses.
So don’t start your social media marketing by spreading your content, time and accounts thin. Let them grow first and then let the users decide which direction you should take your profiles in. What we always see is people trying to do too much and then burning out, leaving a bad taste in their mouth. Start small and as it builds, think about expanding.
What do you think? Should businesses start with multiple accounts or with one?
Creating a Facebook page for your business is a pretty good idea; most of the world seems to be on it, public business pages are indexed by search engines and it is an easy way to interact with your fans, customers and people in your industry. Facebook has taken some hard hits from businesses (especially B2B businesses) that it isn’t a real arena for a business to use as a marketing tool. That said, Facebook is regularly updating the site to answer some of these calls.
This week I noticed two very small changes that help the user experience of a business Facebook page:
Being able to see what other businesses ‘like’ your page
An easier way to display notifications
Blogging about these steps seemed harder than just showing you so I made a really quick screen cap video of what I am talking about.
Even though other pages ‘liking’ your page doesn’t add to your number of people that like your page, it does show you who is tuned in to your content. Business pages now can interact with other pages as their business. They can also set up a news aggregator just in and around their industry, location, interests, customers, partners and more. Knowing which pages have ‘liked’ you lets you know who is really tuned into your messages.
The notifications alert on the side lets you quickly see, even if you are logged in with your personal account, how many times people have interacted with your page much easier. This little alert on the right is quicker and easier than logging in as the page and going to the top navigation to see the alerts.
Photo tagging business pages on Facebook
I also wanted to mention that yesterday Facebook rolled out tagging photos of business pages in photos. Right now it is only for brands or people pages (the example Facebook gives is Coca Cola and Kanye West) but I think it is safe to assume we should expect that on business and places pages soon.
Well I hope some of those little Facebook tips make it a little easier for you to engage on Facebook as your business! Good luck out there!
There is a lot of talk about Facebook Newsfeed Optimization and Social Media Optimization going on. Some are saying it is as important as SEO. I can’t say I agree with that but I do think it is important to think strategically about what you are posting to Facebook as your business, when you do that and how often.
Think of Newsfeed Optimization as just that, thinking strategically about what you are posting to your newsfeed, this goes for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or whatever social media site you are using to promote your business.
Facebook actually published their algorithm for how they rank items that are posted. They take into consideration how often a user interacts with your content usually, how popular the update is (likes and comments) and how recently it was added.
So how can you use this information to optimize your Facebook posts?
Be smart and publish things that your fans will ‘like’ (literally), not just something self promotional.
Be consistent but don’t be overbearing. Think once or twice a day, not once or twice an hour.
If you are going to post multiple posts per day, spread them out. If you do them all at the same time, you will probably get less interaction per post and they will all go through the timeline at the same time. Your update will be old news by the afternoon.
The biggest thing is just to be smart about what you are posting and when. We talked about Newsfeed Optimization and much more at a recent webinar: Anatomy of a Business Facebook Page. The slides are included below!
Hold the phone!
Alert the media!
Put tape on the windows!
Go to the store and buy milk! Facebook changed its Pages again!
Facebook quietly rolled out some HUGE changes to their ‘Like’ or ‘Fan’ or ‘Business’ Pages, whatever you like to refer to them as. These changes are optional right now but all Pages will be changing to this format in March. Again, I am not going to spend a whole lot of time on the specific changes because you can read all about them here, here, here and here, you also can get a tour when you switch over to the new format (if you are the Page admin).
What I do want to do is talk about how I think this is a game changer for businesses. With the new layout, you have much more functionality in the Page; you can interact with other people’s content as your Page and you have just about the same functionality as your personal Page.
So here are 5 reasons I think these changes are a game changer for companies:
Alerts and Notifications for your Page – This. Is. HUGE. Previously if you were adding Facebook to your marketing strategy, you had to make a conscious effort to go digging around on Facebook regularly to see if anyone interacted with your posts, pictures or links. Now, if you are logged in as your business on Facebook, all those alerts are sent to you as notifications. No more digging around. I know, for us, it was hard if someone commented or ‘liked’ something that wasn’t in our most recent content. For example, if someone commented on a photo in one of our older photo albums – we wouldn’t see it until much later and we lost that opportunity to interact with that person.You also get an alert when someone new ‘Likes’ your Page. If someone ‘Likes’ your Page, that means they have some vested interested in your business and your content. You can almost see this as a notification every time someone enters your sales funnel. You can also choose in “Your Settings” to receive any and all of these notifications in your email.
Feel more secure on Facebook – We work primarily in the B2B space. Many of our clients who are trying out Facebook don’t even have a personal account. You still will need to set up a personal account but users can be more comfortable that their actions on Facebook will be the voice of their company and not as themselves. If you want, you can log in as your company and never even use the personal account side. If you do have a personal Facebook account, sometimes you see something that you want to comment on or ‘like’ but you don’t want your personal Page to interact with posts and content we see as for ‘work’.Businesses are also afraid of what people will post on their Facebook Pages without their consent. Now you can take some steps to feel more comfortable. There is a function in the ‘Manage Permissions’ section where you can set a Profanity Blocklist. From Facebook: “Facebook will block the most commonly reported words and phrases marked as offensive by the broader community.” You can also moderate words on your own that you don’t want to appear on your Page.
Interact AS your brand to build your reputation – Now businesses can interact with content on Facebook as their business or brand. You can enter feedback to something you see as your business. This is a great way to build the reputation of your company (and not just a person in your company). Now, right on Facebook, you can interact with bloggers, thought leaders, partners etc. on behalf of your business.
Create a powerful dashboard of related industry news – Now, as a Page, you can ‘Like’ other Pages. Before, that was for personal accounts only. With this functionality you can create your own real-time news of content based around your business! As your business Page you should find and ‘Like’ your partners, customers, industry leaders, conferences you attend, bloggers you like etc. and you will create a powerful aggregator of your own. You will be able to see alerts about upcoming events, specials or new offers from vendors, what your customers are up to and so much more. I plan on spending a good amount of time optimizing this dashboard for the Facebook Pages that I am an admin for. The opportunity here is big.
Value added spots – One of the features that hasn’t gotten a ton of attention in the media reviews that stuck right out to me was the ability to select the ‘Liked’ Pages you want right on your Business Facebook Page. You choose up to 5 ‘Liked’ Pages to always be the ones rotating on your Page. That is a total value added piece for me. If you are planning an event, working with a partner or tying your business to other organizations you can add them here. For example we plan and host the Social Media Breakfast’s in Maine. Each month, we have sponsors to help with the event. This is a great sell to tell sponsors that they will be displayed on our Facebook Page for the entire month that they sponsor a breakfast! How can you use that section? There is some opportunity here.
Of course there are more but those were the 5 biggest implications I saw right off for businesses. Facebook has taken some major steps to make participating as a business more tangible for everyday users. In the past, Facebook has been seen as something for young people, early adopters or for people that had the time and energy to spend lots of time on the site. With these new changes, Facebook is easier for a business to add to their workflow, to show return on your efforts and add value to the business experience on Facebook.
As a business, what do you think of these new changes? Does this make you want to use Facebook more, less or do you still want nothing to do with it?
Hall Internet Marketing delivers technology enabled Internet Market solutions for corporate clients including Paid Search, Strategy, SEO, Alternative Search, Display Advertising and New Opportunity Validation.
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Hold the phone!
Alerts and Notifications for your Page – This. Is. HUGE. Previously if you were adding Facebook to your marketing strategy, you had to make a conscious effort to go digging around on Facebook regularly to see if anyone interacted with your posts, pictures or links. Now, if you are logged in as your business on Facebook, all those alerts are sent to you as notifications. No more digging around. I know, for us, it was hard if someone commented or ‘liked’ something that wasn’t in our most recent content. For example, if someone commented on a photo in one of our older photo albums – we wouldn’t see it until much later and we lost that opportunity to interact with that person.You also get an alert when someone new ‘Likes’ your Page. If someone ‘Likes’ your Page, that means they have some vested interested in your business and your content. You can almost see this as a notification every time someone enters your sales funnel. You can also choose in “Your Settings” to receive any and all of these notifications in your email.
Interact AS your brand to build your reputation – Now businesses can interact with content on Facebook as their business or brand. You can enter feedback to something you see as your business. This is a great way to build the reputation of your company (and not just a person in your company). Now, right on Facebook, you can interact with bloggers, thought leaders, partners etc. on behalf of your business.
Value added spots – One of the features that hasn’t gotten a ton of attention in the media reviews that stuck right out to me was the ability to select the ‘Liked’ Pages you want right on your Business Facebook Page. You choose up to 5 ‘Liked’ Pages to always be the ones rotating on your Page. That is a total value added piece for me. If you are planning an event, working with a partner or tying your business to other organizations you can add them here. For example we plan and host the 
