Internet Business Mastermind .com » Facebook

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #75: Get More Facebook Fans with a Facebook Ad

Ralf Skirr — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 17:10:15 +0000

Your Facebook fan page is a great medium to get more traffic to your site, establish your online presence, and generally achieve success. However, without anyone knowing about your site, achieving any of your goals is next to impossible. That is why once you have your fan page in place, you must consider promoting it with a Facebook ad. Since Facebook can capture a tremendous amount of demographic information about its users (because they freely post it in their profiles), you can drill down carefully to determine which types of profiles your ads should be placed near. The great thing about this is that it is both an inexpensive and highly-targeted strategy for bolstering the ranks of your fan page. If you have just created your fan page and are looking to make it grow faster, then I highly suggest that you promote it with Facebook ads to get the ball rolling.

Losing Its Cool – Is Facebook Embarrassing Itself To Keep Up With Google Plus?

Ralf Skirr — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 06:40:11 +0000

The most circled Google+ user? Ironically it’s Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg with 475,697 followers.

After Google launched its service on June 28th, he created his own profile and quickly covered the top spot.

It was a cool move of him. That he created his own Google+ profile exuberated an aura of self-confidence.

‘We’re cool with Google+, we’re not afraid.’

Guess what?

Within days, Facebook’s coolness vanished like morning mist in the rise of a supernova.

Google+ received raving reviews, and its user base grew faster than any social network before. News started to popup that Facebook banned accounts and apps who promoted Google+ in any way.

Facebook suspending ad accounts.

On July 15th, Facebook suspended web developer Michael Lee Johnson’s advertising account because one of his ads promoted his Google+ profile.

The ad said: "If you're lucky enough to have a Google+ account, add Michael Lee Johnson, Internet Geek, App Developer, Technological Virtuoso."

Facebook said: "Your account has been disabled. All of your adverts have been stopped."

Not so cool anymore.

Getting cold feet?

On August 11^th, just hours after Google+ launched its games tab, Facebook announced improvements to its own games platform. One can’t help but wonder if Facebook is starting to work hard to stay ahead of Google+.

I’m not saying they hadn’t been working on that for a long time, but the timing of the announcement is suspicious.

Are they rolling out their features in a mere response to what Google+ does?

Facebook didn’t announce their group chat and video call feature until after Google+ had beta launched, getting great feedback for their video hangouts.
Shortly after Google announced it will offer a custom profile type for businesses, Facebook launched its ‘Facebook for Business’ page.
Then Facebook announced their game improvements, just a day after Google+ launched its own games.
Well, just read below…

The news today, Facebook likes the clarity of circles, straight from Facebook’s blog.

Facebook says: “Today we're announcing a bunch of improvements that make it easier to share posts, photos, tags and other content with exactly the people you want.

You have told us that "who can see this?" could be clearer across Facebook, so we have made changes to make this more visual and straightforward.”

Facebook should say: “Today we're announcing a bunch of improvements that make it easier to share posts, photos, tags and other content with exactly the people you want.

Google+ circles are such a success; we finally had to make a move. Our users did complain in the past, but we didn’t care as much as we do now.”

It's not only a response to the targeted sharing that is possible with Google+, it's also a response to the frequent privacy issues, that Google+ addressed better than Facebook.

What do you think? Google+ banks on the weaknesses of the old Facebook. Did Facebook need the competition to improve? Are they afraid now of big bad Google+?

German Data Protection Commissioner Bans Facebook Fan Pages And Like Buttons

Ralf Skirr — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 15:47:32 +0000

Facebook like buttons and fan pages not allowed in Germany's state of Schleswig Holstein anymore.

You may think this is a joke, but it is not. German privacy protectors asked web sites owners to remove Facebook like buttons from their sites, and threaten to fine € 50,000. They claim Facebook Like buttons and Fan pages violate European privacy law.

From the Independent Centre for Privacy Protection's web site:

The Data Protection Commissioner’s Office (Independent Centre for Privacy Protection – ULD) calls on all institutions in the federal state of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany to shut down their fan pages on Facebook and remove social plug-ins such as the “like”-button from their websites. After a thorough legal and technical analysis ULD comes to the conclusion that such features are in violation of the German Telemedia Act (TMG) and of the Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG), respectively the Data Protection Act of Schleswig-Holstein (LDSG SH).

You can read their reasoning here:

https://www.datenschutzzentrum.de/presse/20110819-facebook-en.htm

If I told you now what I think about this newest German bureaucracy stunt, I'd probably go to jail…

What do you think? Tell me in your comments.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #74: Proving It All with Your Facebook Fan Page

Ralf Skirr — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 01:43:12 +0000

Some people are very hesitant when it comes to availing products and services online, even when it has now become a safe and easy method for everyone. However, you can't blame them as there are still a lot of thieves and deceitful people lurking online. That is why you need to calm them; you can do it easily with your Facebook fan page. Another way in which you can use your Facebook fan page is to promote fan photos and testimonials. As I mentioned earlier, you should make a concerted effort to extract testimonials, photos, and relevant artwork from your customers and visitors; this is one of the reasons why you should. Once you get them, you have to add then to your Facebook fan page (if they’ll allow it). This will provide you with some evidence that you are running a legitimate business and selling good products. With such testimonials and photos, you can rest assured that people will be more willing to accept your friend invites, join your fan page, and give you traffic and sales.

Gamer or Not, You’re Going to Love Google+

Ralf Skirr — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 07:36:54 +0000

There is something about Facebook that makes it so addicting for its members. Otherwise, it would not have been able to beat MySpace and acquire 750 million users through the years.

Now, just what could this something be?

It seems Google has figured it all out, and that is why it has added a good number of games to its new social network.

Games Invade Google+

Google+ is still in its beta phase, but new features are frequently being added. One of its new features is the games API. This new tab allows members to gain access to all the games Google+ has to offer. Although it currently has only 16 games, Google made sure that it is offering nothing but the best. Some of its starter games are Angry Birds, Bejeweled Blitz, Bubble Island, and Zynga Poker.

Crowd favorites like Farmville and Mafia Wars are yet to be added, but rest assured that Google+ are working on getting more quality games up on their network soon.

The great thing about this new feature is that you have all the game notifications in just one place. Invitations, updates, high scores, etc.—they are in that one tab for you to check and access. This makes it a lot easier since you won’t need to click on multiple buttons just to see what your friends are up to, if you are leading or losing the top high score race, if you want to check out new games your circles are going crazy for, and so on.

Even better, this new tab helps game haters like me.

Game Haters Don’t Need to Hate

Now, one thing that I didn’t really like about Facebook—and probably one of the factors that made a lot of users like me favor Google+—is the fact that it bombards users with game notifications.

I mean, I created an account with business purposes in mind, and my business is far from being related to games. That is why I do not really appreciate all those game notifications cluttering my news feed.

Are you the same?

If yes, then you will surely like that Google+ had that in mind when it created the games tab. That is to say, since there will be one separate tab for the games, we won’t need to see all those game updates when we are not interested in them. Our feed tab will be clean and be full of only real news and personal updates from the people in our circle.

Calling Interested Developers

With its aim to bring the best games to its members, Google+ has also opened its doors for developers. It even created a separate developers’ blog for fast and easy communication with any parties interested in the offer.

If you are a web app developer and you want to take this opportunity, you can simply head over to the Google+ Platform.

Google+ is definitely still on its way to developing a top-notch social network. However, if it continues to bring well-thought features like this one, I’m sure it is going to win over a lot of users faster than anyone ever thought possible.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #73: The Power of Your Facebook Fan Page’s “Insights”

Ralf Skirr — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 18:27:09 +0000

There are a lot of features on Facebook that you can use for getting more traffic. However, some of them are left behind, even when they can produce great results if used wisely. One of these often-ignored features of Facebook fan pages is the “insight” feature. This feature lets you break-down your fan site traffic in great detail. It provides you with traffic info such as: Location IP addresses Likes and dislikes Other details about your fan site traffic. This information can prove extremely useful if you are trying to analyze your visitors to determine what types of people buy your product ...

Location
IP addresses
Likes and dislikes
Other details about your fan site traffic.

This information can prove extremely useful if you are trying to analyze your visitors to determine what types of people buy your product and have an interest in your niche. Try it today, and see how your business is doing and how you can improve it to get better traffic and sales.

Facebook Passes News Feed Control to You

Ralf Skirr — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 11:07:14 +0000

With more and more people getting hooked, or at least interested, with Google+, Facebook just had to make a move. So, what’s Facebook’s decision? Start with passing the news feed control to users—consumers, developers, and marketers alike.

Basically, what happens is that the news feed filter, which categorizes your friends' or fans' posts, is removed. This means whenever you post something, all your friends or fans will immediately see it, if they are logged in at that specific time.

With appealing posts and irresistible offers, this can greatly help in our marketing campaigns. And if your fans or friends "like" your posts, this can mean instant viral boost. Of course, you will still have control over who gets to see your posts and don't. That is the control Facebook is now offering to developers, business owners, and common users.

Facebook News Feed Floodgates Are Finally Opened!

Although it might seem that users are able to see feeds in real time—exactly after they are posted—the opposite is actually true. That is to say, up until now Facebook actually controls what feeds users are able to see: the feeds you get are from friends who are active users or those you constantly communicate with. That means if a relative or a close friend does not post often on their account, it will be likely that when they do post, it will be buried beneath all the posts of those who log on to their Facebook regularly.

Now, this is something that is disadvantageous not only to common users but particularly to business owners—to internet business owners like us.

Why?

First off, Facebook is meant to be a marketing platform for developers and businessmen. Now, with millions of us competing on this popular platform, getting recognition is tough. With the Facebook administration filtering what users see and don’t, our chances of getting more attention are further diminished.

Second, internet businesses don’t just use Facebook for marketing but also for research. To know what our target customers really want to have, what changes they want to see, and what we can offer to guarantee sales—that is one of our primary goals in starting a Facebook account. Sure, there is Facebook Insight, and yes, we might be able to track leads with our web links. However, those alone can’t provide us with concrete information. Only the posts, opinions, and activities of our target customers can really give us easily actionable data.

Last, without enough data, we can’t guarantee that our new marketing plans will exceed or at least reach our expectation. While it is common for business experiments and first launches to deliver mediocre results, it definitely pays to gain as much market data as possible for our results to continuously improve.

That is why the former stance of Facebook in filtering news feeds is highly unfavorable.

Fortunately, Facebook now understands that users, especially developers and businesses, need more freedom with regard to what feeds they get, what they don’t, and what they want others to see; Facebook finally understands that while letting go of valuable content might become a weakness, it is also the only real way for this social network to continuously grow and, perhaps, beat continuously rising competitors like Google+.

Internet Businesses Taking Advantage of the Revamped News Feeds

Although I keep saying that this big step Facebook is taking will be of benefit to all type of users, there is no denying that developers and internet businesses will be the ones to get the most out of this change.

Basically, this revamped news feeds answer the three problems I earlier noted.

First, it allows us to stand out in our target customers’ news feeds, once they “liked” our page or accepted our friend request, if you are using a personal account. When we post something, they will instantly be notified on their home pages.
Next, we will gain instant access on their activities. We will effortlessly discover what activities they like to do, what things they love to have, what apps they often use, what games they will willingly recommend, and so on. This new wealth of information may be a little unorganized in the beginning, but once you get the hang of it, it will beat any simple statistics tool out there on the market.
Last, with the information we are able to gain, it will be easier to create marketing plans and products that the market will definitely grab. There is no more trying in the dark; with enough data directly acquired from our target consumers, production costs will be reduced and revenues can increase more rapidly.

With this big change on the news feeds, Facebook might just regain the spotlight that Google+ is trying to steal away.

I’m Pretty Happy With My Facebook…Why Google+?

Ralf Skirr — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 11:40:22 +0000

No, I'm not

It's just a quote from this video that I found. Actually, I never liked Facebook at all. That's why I'm promoting Google+ so much.

If you're a happy Facebook user, click below and take a look:

Hopes for Better User Experience: Rise of Google+

Ralf Skirr — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 17:20:41 +0000

What are you going to do if something you invested time and effort on starts controlling you instead? Of course, you will surely start looking for alternatives that give you freedom and privacy! That is exactly the driving force of people who have left Facebook and started broadening their networks through Google+.

Facebook has, for years, enjoyed monopoly over the social networking market. MySpace is continuously plummeting, and smaller networks like Orkut and Hi5 have yet to gain popularity and appeal as strong as Facebook. With such power, Facebook implemented a lot of changes—some excellent, some good, and some seemingly bad. Although Facebook users enjoyed and endured the changes, with a new player out to steal the scene, it seems that the tides are starting to turn.

Last June 28, Google+ is finally launched. With a year spent in its making, Google+ promises more control, more targeted search, and more privacy for users. While Facebook allows users to control who can view their photos, videos, and the like, the latest annual report from ForeSee Results indicates that users are finding greener grass on Google+; in other words, Facebook is now becoming just a second option. There are a lot of reasons why users are now thinking that Google+ will provide them with better services, but probably one of the biggest factors is that it currently offers a more private and personal network.

ForeSee Results further noted that Facebook is currently at the bottom 6% of the 2011 American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). ACSI is a renowned and respected economic indicator established in 1994 that, as the name implies, measures the satisfaction of American consumers with regards to goods and services. Annually interviewing 80,000 Americans, it has easily become a reliable source for academic researchers, market analysts, corporations, investors, and government agencies–as well as individuals who wants to constantly be at the top of their games like us.

Now, with Facebook being left behind by its competitors as proven by ACSI, specialists speculated a big impact on how Google+ will be welcomed, and indeed, it turned out that a big space was left for Google+ to penetrate and leave a strong impression.

Google+ Launch and Growth

Since its launch, Google+ has experienced a boom in its member base. Within 10 days, it has reached 2 million members. By July 18, it has reached 18 million members, and on July 21, barely 3 weeks after its launch, its member count has already reached 25 million. Although this number is not yet on the official releases and is simply insider information as cited on SFGate, the steady increase in member count and activities as well as the constant flow of feedbacks is proving to be a good sign.

As of this writing, Google+ is still in beta mode and has currently restricted access even to those who already received invitations (Google+ works on an invitation-only access). This is because it has already exceeded its capacity—indeed a sign of the successful launch of Google+.

Google+ Features

Critics are describing Google+ as a Facebook-style Google network. However, Google+ has some unique features that definitely make it stand out. Three of its notable features are Circles, Hangouts, and Sparks. What are these features for?

Circles- this groups your contacts (e.g., family, co-workers, etc.) and allows you to share items with them through various Google products, services, and platforms.
Hangouts- this features lets you have a group video chat (with 10 maximum participants). Only people who you invite or posses the unique Hangout URL can join.
Sparks- Sparks make searching for topics you’re interested in a lot easier.

Google+ is still in its baby stage right now, but it certainly has a big potential to succeed. With its current statistics and its continuously growing popularity, Google+ might just outshine Facebook faster than we might think possible, just like how Facebook has easily grabbed the spotlight from MySpace before.

Sources:

Google+

ForeSee Views on Google+

ForeSee and ACSI 2011 Report

Paul Allen on Google+

SFGate Google+ Report

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #64: Attract Attention with a Splash Page

Ralf Skirr — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 01:33:39 +0000

Sometimes you can't easily attract attention with just some bits of info regarding your business and your products. At such, you might want to change the default settings on your Facebook fan page. This is so your Facebook fan page visitors will see something more entertaining and will be easily swayed to join your page. Frequently, businesses and organizations will leave their “info” or “wall” pages as the default arrival page. However, one recent trend is to make a “splash” page as your default page. Splash pages are basically initial pages wherein info about the website (in ...

Coupons
News
Sales information
Product inventory information
Upcoming events
Awards, if any

Creating splash pages is beneficial if you want to easily attract fans. After all, who can resist a page that offers not only great information but discounts to products they are longing to have? Try creating splash pages for your Facebook fan page today, and start seeing the difference.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #63: Traffic-Building with Facebook Fan Page Forum

Ralf Skirr — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 01:31:04 +0000

One of the best and easiest ways to drive traffic to your site is by creating a discussion forum on your Facebook fan page. You can then channel the forum traffic you get to your site. Facebook fan pages allow you to create a forum section. In this forum, you can create threads where you can better interact with your business fans. You can discuss your old and new products. You can answer common questions your customers have relating to your offers. With every post, you can provide a link to specific parts of your website where they can get more information. You can easily create forum threads by adjusting the settings to the “discussion” tab on your Facebook fan page. This is a feature of Facebook fan pages that is most underutilized. Today, forums are a hit as they allow members to share their opinion freely; this is something you must observe on your discussion page. Do not just allow your members to reply on threads you yourself have created. Rather, encourage them to start their own threads and provide your own thoughts. If you are able to fully use this feature, you can gain a lot of benefits, some of which are as follow:

Ideas about new products
Solutions for problems existing customers are having
Ways to develop your marketing strategy, products, prices, etc. to better appeal to your target audience

The discussion forum on your Facebook fan can be very handy. Try using it more, and you will soon see how it ca help you and your business reach success faster.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #62: Attract More Customers with a Facebook Application

Ralf Skirr — Wed, 25 May 2011 15:31:01 +0000

In many situations, this simply won’t apply to you, as it does not make sense for most businesses to create an application on Facebook. Nevertheless, if you have the right business model and products, creating a Facebook app can be a great way to increase your business’s presence online. If you don’t know anything about creating applications, don’t worry; we will discuss the basics of Facebook app creation today. While you might be eager to create a Facebook app, keep in mind that you don’t actually have to program the application yourself. Rather, you can simply work ...

Facebook App Creation

One: Create a Facebook app draft. Before anything else, there are several questions you need to answer. These questions will determine what kind of application you will create. These questions are:

What is the purpose of your application?
How do you want your fans to interact with it?
Do you want them to play an interactive game?
Do you want it to serve some other purpose?

Two: Review your plan. If you leave your Facebook app plan and return to review it after a day or two, you will find that there are things you will want to change, things you want to add, and things you simply want to polish. Go through your plan thoroughly, so that someone who knows nothing about your project can understand it. Three: Post your product on Elance. As mentioned earlier, you do not exactly need to be the one creating the Facebook app. Once your Facebook app plan is complete, you can simply post it on freelance sites like Elance and allow programmers to bid on it. Provide some time to gather bidders, and carefully consider offers that are at or below your budget. Visit the bidders' portfolio and settle on the one who has the greatest examples. If you work through this process, you should be able to get a good Facebook app at a reasonable price. From there, it will be up to you to promote it not only through Facebook but through your blog and website as well. You can even write an article and press release about it, if you like.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #61: Successful Product Launch with Facebook

Ralf Skirr — Wed, 18 May 2011 18:30:58 +0000

Will you be launching a new product? Do you have somebody who is planning a product launch who you want to support? There are various ways in which you can support a product launch through Facebook. Nevertheless, one I personally recommend is to creating an event. After creating the event, you can then promote it by inviting all of your business’s “fans” to participate in the event (i.e. your product launch). The success of your product launch is crucial to your achieving business success. With the help of social networks like Facebook, you can easily reach out to hundreds or thousands of people with a few clicks. By creating a Facebook event, you can easily tell people about your product launch's itinerary. It’s important that you spell out exactly what it means to participate in the launch event, so you will have to give specific details. Aside from the date and time, you can also describe what the launch is all about. For instance, you might explain that on the launch date, you are going to hold a variety of contests and award prizes, ranging from cash awards to coupons for products. It is also vital to remind fans that they must confirm if they are attending the event in order to be eligible to receive prizes in the contests. This will create a buzz about your event and possibly encourage new people to become fans. Depending on how many people are attending, you can plan different sets of prizes: smaller ones if you have, say, 50 attendees or less, or bigger prizes when you are able to get hundreds of confirmed attendees. It is also best to post reminders on your Facebook page to ensure that your business fans will not miss your product launch.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #60: Get Feedbacks with Your Facebook Fan Page

Ralf Skirr — Wed, 11 May 2011 15:45:54 +0000

In addition to sending updates to your customers and colleagues with your Facebook fan page, you can also use it to gather information from your fans, as I’ve mentioned previously. There are specifically three things that you should try to request from your fans. Three Things to Get from Your Customers with Your Facebook Fan Page Filled out survey form about your internet business. To adapt to the changing needs of your customers, to triumph over your rivals, and to continuously gain attention, reputation, and sales, it is best to learn what your customers feel. If you ...

Three Things to Get from Your Customers with Your Facebook Fan Page

Filled out survey form about your internet business. To adapt to the changing needs of your customers, to triumph over your rivals, and to continuously gain attention, reputation, and sales, it is best to learn what your customers feel. If you can get your fans to fill out surveys about your products (perhaps by offering some incentives), you have a good chance of capturing vital information that you can use to create, market, and fix your products. This is a surefire way to make your road to success smoother.
Photos or art related to your internet business. There are not a lot of cases where this can be applied, especially if you are focused on creating and selling virtual products like ebooks. However, if you can collect these, you can rest assured that you will have powerful proofs of your products' or services' excellence. To do this, you might want to ask your fans to post pictures of themselves using your products; this can be a very useful way to draw in additional people on Facebook.
Testimonials. Regardless what kind of business you have started or what niche you are targeting, testimonials can play a vital role in improving your credibility. For this reason, you should make a concerted effort to get testimonials from your customers through Facebook. You can post a link to a testimonial form or leave an email address where they can freely send their thoughts about the improvements your product or service has brought to their lives.

There are a lot of things you can do with your Facebook fan page. Getting feedbacks is just one good way to use it to enhance customer experience and help yourself achieve success.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #59: Update Customers with a Facebook Fan Page

Ralf Skirr — Thu, 05 May 2011 01:27:27 +0000

Another great benefit of having a Facebook fan page is that you can easily send out information to your colleagues and customer. If you already followed my earlier tip of reaching out to your subscribers with an autoresponder course and getting them to become your fan on Facebook, then you should now have a broad base of fans to reach out to. There are a lot of ways through which you can send updates with your Facebook fan page. Some of them are: Post on your fan page wall. Start a discussion. Upload a photo and caption. Upload a video. Post ...

Post on your fan page wall.
Start a discussion.
Upload a photo and caption.
Upload a video.
Post a link to your blog or website.

What kind of updates or information can you give to your customers and colleagues? Well, you can talk about different aspects of your business such as dates of sales, coupons, and upcoming product launch information. You can even use your Facebook fan page to collect feedbacks and suggestions from your customers. This way, you are not only giving updates but getting ideas for further developing your business.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #42: Easy Way to Get More Facebook Fans

Ralf Skirr — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 13:05:36 +0000

In the last Web 2.0 tip, we discussed how you can quickly locate new Facebook friends using the email addresses you have in your autoresponder account. Have you done it yet? If yes, then you should be prepared to take another great step after that. That is to say, you should invite your Facebook friends to like or be a fan of your business page. Turning Friends to Facebook Fans While you might think that having Facebook friends is similar to getting business fans, they are actually quite different. For one, with your Facebook fan page, you ...

Turning Friends to Facebook Fans

While you might think that having Facebook friends is similar to getting business fans, they are actually quite different. For one, with your Facebook fan page, you can create a forum and start various discussion threads with fans. With this, you can easily collect data for product creation and marketing plan adjustment--something you just can't do with just a personal profile. Hence, it is essential to invite your personal friends to join your Facebook fan page. Of course, you must first begin on your mailing list. Once customers choose to become your friend on Facebook, you can then suggest that they become a fan of your business. While doing this, however, you must remember not to spam them or be too pushy. Otherwise, they will refuse to join, or worse, they will block you. Also, you must realize that many will decline or ignore your invitation. It is important for you to take this approach rather than just building a Facebook fan page and silently looking if there are new fans coming every day. By taking this step, you can rest assured that your Facebook marketing campaign will have higher chances of leading you success.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #41: Getting Facebook Customers with Your Mailing List

Ralf Skirr — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 15:05:25 +0000

Have you created a personal and business Facebook profile yet? Facebook is a very prominent social network, so it is just natural for you to use it as a marketing platform. While some simply creates a personal profile to keep in touch with colleagues and customers, a Facebook fan page will actually be beneficial. You see, a fan page offers more benefits such as follows: A personal Facebook profile limits you to 5,000 friends; a Facebook fan page allows you to have millions of contacts A personal profile lets you communicate through wall posts, polls, and private messages; ...

A personal Facebook profile limits you to 5,000 friends; a Facebook fan page allows you to have millions of contacts
A personal profile lets you communicate through wall posts, polls, and private messages; a fan page lets you easily acquire more data through wall posts, polls, and discussion threads

How to Get More Facebook Fans

It is undeniable how beneficial a Facebook fan page can be for you and your business. After all, the more fans you have, the more people you can market to on a recurring basis. Aside from that, with more fans, you can instantly have more fan referrals without doing any additional work. That is to say your fans will help you get more fans. However, the only problem you will encounter is this: How do you get more Facebook fans? The answer is rather easy. A good place to start when it comes to building a fan base is to take your email list from your autoresponder. Here are the steps you need to follow:

First, you must create a spare Gmail account.
Add all of your autoresponder contacts to it.
Next, login your Facebook account.
Select the option to locate friends using email addresses.
When you have done this, use the option to search from an existing contact list (here is where the spare Gmail account you have created will come in handy).
Let Facebook quickly determine whether anyone from your original autoresponder list is already a member.
When you have found customers using Facebook, start adding them as friends.

Of course, with this approach, it will be crucial to have a good mailing list to begin with. Nevertheless, if you have already acquired some subscribers, the process will be smooth and easy for you.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #40: Seduction Tip for Getting Facebook Fans

Ralf Skirr — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 01:05:15 +0000

Facebook has skyrocketed to success. It has become so popular today that you will surely be missing a lot if you do not use it for establishing your online presence and promoting your business. Now, one thing you must know when it comes to Facebook, though, is the fact that you must set up both a personal profile and a fan page if you want to achieve optimum results. Getting Facebook Fans When it comes to using Facebook to promote your internet business, it is almost always a good idea to have both a business/personal profile and ...

Getting Facebook Fans

When it comes to using Facebook to promote your internet business, it is almost always a good idea to have both a business/personal profile and a fan page. Doing this gives you a great deal of versatility when it comes to recruiting new fans as well as provide you with options for collecting valuable consumer data. Now, one problem all marketers encounter, regardless which platform is being used is the fact that it can be difficult to get lots of customers (in this case, Facebook friends and fans). Fortunately, I have an approach that might be easy and beneficial for you to use. Here is the "Get More Facebook Fans" approach:

Locate people who could be potential customers for your business- you can do this by finding your customers (if you have their email addresses) or joining groups and fan pages related to your niche.
Use your business/personal profile to add them as a friend- this is purely based on the hope that they will accept.
After you’ve added the people in question as friends, you can then use Facebook to suggest that they become a fan of your business. As earlier mentioned, it is best to have both a personal profile and a business fan page. That is why after your prospects accept your friend request, you can start inviting them to join your fan page. Remember, though, that at this stage, a lot may ignore or reject your offer. Nevertheless, some will join and this will add to your fan base.

To make sure that your invitation appears friendly and not spammy, however, remember not to send invites multiple times. For instance, each time you add a friend, do not suggest that they add other people that you know. Also, do not ask them to join the fan page multiple times.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #27: Give Freedom with Your Facebook Fan Page

Ralf Skirr — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 12:58:49 +0000

If there is one thing about Web 2.0 that make it sooo great, it will be the fact that users are given more freedom to express their thoughts. Some marketers think that this is a disadvantage since customers can give negative feedbacks. However, you must look at the bright side instead. If you allow your customers to air their thoughts, your business can prosper! Make Your Customers a Real Part of Your Business One of the most important functions of Web 2.0 is that it allows businesses like our to receive and actually encourage feedback from customers ...

Make Your Customers a Real Part of Your Business

One of the most important functions of Web 2.0 is that it allows businesses like our to receive and actually encourage feedback from customers and visitors. These feedbacks are very valuable. Why? Because you can use feedbacks to develop your business. You can use it to:

Establish customer loyalty
Polish existing products or services
Create new products or services

But, how can you easily collect feedback from your customers? One of the best way to is by using your Facebook fan page. These are the methods you can employ:

Post an update, sincerely asking visitors to post or send you a story about how they’ve used your product
Hold a contest where the person who wrote the best story gets free products or discount coupons from your online store
Open a discussion thread and let customers air their thoughts

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #24: Make Readers Your Facebook and Twitter Advertisers

Ralf Skirr — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 14:49:05 +0000

When it comes to Web 2.0 marketing, it's important that you gain a lot of followers or fans, depending on the medium you are using. There are various ways you can accomplish this, and one we have already pointed out is the fact that you can start contests with reports, discount coupons, and the like as prizes. However, not all marketers have enough money or products to give away. If you feel like you don't have enough resources or you are simply feeling lazy to organize such a scheme, then you have to learn this other ...

Easy Way to Get More Fans and Followers

Facebook and Twitter have become very powerful marketing platforms, thanks to them being home to thousands and millions of our targeted customers. However, if you can't get a good number of fans and followers, marketing on these media will be in vain. Do you want to get more followers for your Twitter account or more fans for your Facebook page? Why not try this approach?

To get started, simply ask your readers to tell friends about your Twitter page or your Facebook fan page through a status update or tweet.
In your status or tweet, include 2-3 lines of encouraging text. You can simply say that you will appreciate if they recommend your page to friends, should they find your content and resources useful.
Let your current friends and followers do the scouting and inviting for you.

For best results, you might want to use any of these tools or posts they can easily use and re-post or re-tweet:

Tell-a-friend scripts
Direct links for social bookmarking
Pre-written e-mail copy
Facebook update/comment
Pre-written tweets

You might be wondering: Will this bring instant massive traffic to your Web 2.0 business profiles and primary website? The answer? Probably not, but if you combine many of these tiny steps, which take very little time to do, you will surely reap a combined result that's worth it!

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #23: Get Closer to Fans with Your Facebook Fan Page

Ralf Skirr — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 12:26:24 +0000

If you want to establish customer loyalty, then it is essential that you keep close and continuously interact with your customers. You must engage them and let them air their thoughts. Only through this way can your business flourish and only through this can you acquire a lot of new customers every time. Giving a Behind-the-Scenes Tour You can gain a lot of benefits from freely interacting with your customer base. Some of them are: You can collect important information, which you can use to adjust your marketing plans or products as well as create new products or ...

Giving a Behind-the-Scenes Tour

You can gain a lot of benefits from freely interacting with your customer base. Some of them are:

You can collect important information, which you can use to adjust your marketing plans or products as well as create new products or services.
You can easily give them an update about your internet business.

Now, the question is: How do you engage your customers? There are various methods you can employ. However, one good strategy is to use your Facebook fan page to offer a behind-the-scenes look at what goes on with your business on a daily basis. Basically, what you do here is:

Post status updates to announce the various stages of your product launch, announce new product ideas, or present changes you are planning for your website.
Provide photos, screenshots, or videos, if possible.
Allow your customers to share their thoughts, comment, or share their own stories.

If I do this, what benefits will I exactly get? If you are asking this, then here are the answers:

It will increase customer engagement by exposing them to your thought process and daily business happenings
It will show them how much thought and work goes into the products you create. Eventually, they will grow to appreciate your brand and efforts in connecting with them.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #22: Power of Twitter and Facebook Combined

Ralf Skirr — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 13:46:03 +0000

Facebook and Twitter are great marketing platforms you should not miss using today. Why? The top reason will be: Because those are the places where thousands of your customers will be! While it is beneficial to market on both social network, however, in time, you will find that it can be tiring; you will need to post an update in Facebook and then tweet it on Twitter. Logging in and out and doing several tasks twice can be boring, don't you agree? How to Save Time When Marketing with Facebook and Twitter One way to save some time ...

How to Save Time When Marketing with Facebook and Twitter

One way to save some time while maintaining your presence on both Facebook and Twitter is to link the two accounts. This way, whenever you post a new tweet, a status update will instantly be posted on your Facebook account. The process it involves is very simple. Aside from that, you won't need to hassle yourself and move between the two accounts and re-post the same messages multiple times. Does that sound good to you? If yes, then you should check this out: http://apps.facebook.com/twitter/. Here, you will need to login to directly access the app. Once you are logged in, the Facebook page will present you with a request from Twitter app to access your information. All you need to do is click the "Allow" button. Once you do, your Twitter and Facebook accounts will be connected. After that, every time you post a tweet, your Facebook account will will automatically be updated.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #17: Integrate Your Web 2.0 Marketing Efforts with Everything Else

Ralf Skirr — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 18:15:06 +0000

Twitter and Facebook are great marketing platforms on their own. However, if you want to optimize the result you will get from them, it is best to use them to complement your other Web 2.0 accounts as well as your primary website. Your web sites, blog, and Web 2.0 accounts are probably created at different times, and at such, you are using them for separate purposes. Perhaps, you did not have the big picture at that time, so never planned on how to interconnect these different "points of contact" for your prospects and customers. Need for Integration While you ...

Need for Integration

While you might be getting good profits from your Web 2.0 accounts, it is still a good idea to connect all your sites and Web 2.0 profiles. This way, you can deepen the connection with your visitors easier, as you are giving them more ways to stay in touch with you. For example, it has become common on news channels to refer watchers to company and reporter Facebook profiles and Twitter profiles. The reason for this is simple: by getting people to follow them through social networking sites, those news stations gain yet another medium through which they can advertise and engage watchers. Aside from that, their customers are able to know more about them, further establishing their loyalty. If you opt to integrate your Web 2.0 accounts with your other marketing website and blog, you can gain those same benefits as well.

Cross-Promotion

Aside from integrating your marketing platforms, you should consider cross-promoting, too. You can try any of the following cross-promotion methods:

If you do print advertising, you might consider using it to channel traffic to your social networking site profiles.
You can add a badge for your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social networking accounts to your web sites and blog.
You can use your blog's news feed and publish them on your Web 2.0 accounts.
You can add links to your web sites and blogs on your Web 2.0 accounts.

If you use the above strategies, you can rest assured that the traffic all your marketing platforms get will be boosted, and your profits will generally increase. Aside from that, you will have more ways to keep in touch with your customers, and you will have a lot of options for tasks such as:

Collecting consumer data
Product launch advertisement

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #14: Encourage Your Customers And Subscribers to Visit Your Facebook Fan Page

Ralf Skirr — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 18:34:40 +0000

In the previous Web 2.0 marketing tip, we discussed why you should create a Facebook fan page for your business and how you can make one. Today, we will look at how you can use you it to successfully boost your traffic and sales. The Power of Your Facebook Fan Page Taking some time and encouraging your customers and subscribers to visit your Facebook fan page and to become a fan can be an advantage to your business. It will provide you with various benefits, and two of those are especially vital for your business to flourish. The ...

The Power of Your Facebook Fan Page

Taking some time and encouraging your customers and subscribers to visit your Facebook fan page and to become a fan can be an advantage to your business. It will provide you with various benefits, and two of those are especially vital for your business to flourish. The two benefits you must aim for through your Facebook fan page are:

First, you can get additional exposure for your messages besides using the paid mediums (such as Facebook ads, PPC ads, or any paid advertisements)- you can use the money you save for your other ventures or for new software you might need.
Second, you can market new products and services to existing customers without pitching to them directly- regardless if you admit it or not, customers don't like getting pitches, especially those that make them feel you're only after their money. With your Facebook fan page, you can appear friendly and nonchalantly share thoughts and ideas.

If you are able to lead your prospects to your Facebook fan page, even if they overlook your email offers or opt out of your mailing list, you will still have a way to communicate with them; you can readily establish contact through something as simple as a quick status update. Whenever your customers log into their accounts, even if they have no actual interest in purchasing something from you, they’ll see your status update on their feed. If you don't spam them (e.g., post updates every half hour), then surely, once they find something you’re offering as useful, they might go and buy it immediately. The best part of all of this is that you don’t have to make a high-pressure sales pitch, which might be awkward to do with existing clients. Instead, you can simply let them choose which pitches interest them and which do not.

Next Step to Take

So, you have discovered how powerful Facebook fan pages can be, and you now want to use it to your advantage. What are you to do? The next step you ought to take is to find ways to tell your customers about your Facebook fan page. Start by sending a link of your fan page to your subscriber list, and then work your way from there.

Web 2.0 Marketing Tip #4: Facebook Fan Page for Success

Ralf Skirr — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:58:19 +0000

Facebook is one of the most promising Web 2.0 sites when it comes to marketing your products and your internet business. This is unavoidable as Facebook is home to hundreds millions of members and allows you to create discussion threads and even application. We are not going to focus on those, though. Rather, we will discuss one of the best ways to use Facebook: Creating a fan page on the site and using it to draw in potential buyers. Creating a Profitable Facebook Fan Page You can start your Facebook marketing plan by investing some time to create ...

Creating a Profitable Facebook Fan Page

You can start your Facebook marketing plan by investing some time to create a high-quality fan page. This page should include...

Links to your site and/or blog
A well-written description of what you do or what your business is about
A brief description of the purpose of your fan page

A sample for the purpose could be: To provide all of your loyal customers with free information about upcoming product launches, product give-aways, and coupons.

How to win “fans” for your facebook fan page?

The way to get more traffic and sales for your web site is to get as much fans as possible. If you don’t have enough fans to get the ball rolling, it might make sense to start by giving people an incentive to become a fan. You can do something like these:

Offer everyone who joins your fan page a 20% discount coupon for one of your products.
You can say something like “If this fan page has over 5,000 members by July 10^th, every fan will get product X for free.”
You can start a contest where you will give a nice prize like a free product, a ticket to a seminar or something similar. The only thing they need to do is to join your page and post an update on their walls about your page.

There are a lot more ways to get more fans for your page, but the above are already enough to get you started. Of course, before you actually plan ways to get more fans, you should first create your fan page. No reason to put it off; it takes only a few minutes. Login to your facebook account now.