Use Facebook For Biz? Deadline FEB 15, 2012 to Save Old Tracking Data

Having a Facebook page is a GOOD thing.  Knowing how people are using your Facebook page is a GREAT thing.  Knowing how to USE all the valuable information contained in your Facebook Activity Tracking Analysis Reports is an AWESOME thing.

It's also something that many business owners don't really understand.  That's where Cole WebMarketing, a Charlotte, NC based Social Media Consulting Firm, can help!

If you currently have a Facebook Page for your business, you need to know:

• On December 15, 2011, Facebook stopped collecting "activity tracking" data in the OLD format.  
• After this cut off date, your data will be collected in the NEW format, called Pages Insights.  
• All old format data from your page will be deleted on February 15, 2012, so be sure to archive (export & save as Excel or CSV file) anything that you want to keep. 

ABOUT Facebook's ''Activity Tracking Data Program'' for Facebook Page Owners:
Facebook says "Insights provides Facebook Platform developers and Facebook Page owners with metrics around their content. By understanding and analyzing trends within user growth and demographics, consumption of content, and creation of content, Page owners and Platform developers are better equipped to improve their business and create better experiences on Facebook".

Don't Just Know, DO! Knowing something useful is nice; doing something useful/beneficial with that information is what it's all about!

To learn more about Social Media Marketing for your business, especially how to understand and utilize the gold mine of marketing data provided for FREE in Facebook's Insights, please contact Cole WebMarketing today - visit ColeWebMarketing.com, and then call 704-456-WEB1 (9321) to discuss the many ways that we can help you grow your business using the internet.

Facebook Page vs Group - What's The Difference and What Should My Business Have?

If you're confused, here's the quick answer: A business should have a Facebook Page, not a Facebook Group.

Here's an example that should help make the distinction clear:

PAGE: ''The Bead Lady'', a local Concord, NC business, would want to create a Facebook Business Page. She'd want to name it after her business - something like: "The Bead Lady". The Page will help her increase awareness of her business and help promote it.  The page connects her business with prospects, customers, and supporters (friends & family) who become "fans".  

GROUP: She might also want to increase awareness about her "type" of business and help promote her industry, so she would want to create a Facebook Group.  Perhaps simply calling it "Beading", for people interested in beading. The group connects members, who share a common interest, with each other. To better target a local geographic area, a business owner might want to add city or region to the group name, such as "Cabarrus County Beading" or "Concord Beading".

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DETAILS:

Facebook Pages:
Like a friend's profile, Facebook Pages enable public figures, businesses, organizations and other entities to create an authentic and public presence on Facebook. Unlike your profile, Facebook Pages are visible to everyone on the internet by default. You, and every person on Facebook, can connect with these Pages by becoming a fan and then receive their updates in your News Feed and interact with them.


Facebook created Pages when they noticed that people were trying to connect with brands/businesses in ways that didn’t quite work on Facebook. Business Pages not only connect ''fans'' with the business, but they can show their friends what they "like" (support) and recommend by adding Pages to their personal profile. When people become a fan of a brand/business, that information is posted on their wall. You can see which Pages your friends are fans of via the “Info” tab on their profile.

It's also important that I point out that a Facebook ''Business Page'' is different from a Facebook "Business Account". The Account is mainly for companies that pay to advertise their brand/business on Facebook.

Facebook Groups:

A group is best suited for something of shared interest - a cause, a hobby, etc.. While Pages were designed to be the official profiles for businesses, Facebook Groups are the place for small group communication among "members" who share a common interest. 

Facebook Groups are set up for more personal interaction. Groups are also directly connected to the people who administer them, meaning that activities that go on there could reflect on you personally. Pages, on the other hand, don’t list the names of administrators.


PRIVACY - The Separation of Your Business & Your Personal Life: It's important to understand that Facebook considers groups to be an extension of your personal actions. When you post something as a group administrator, it appears to be coming from you and is attached to your personal profile. In contrast, Page Adminstrators can create content that comes from the Page itself, so that content doesn’t have to be linked to you personally.


SEO: Regarding which type is best for a business, one critical difference involves SEO (Search Engine Optimization).  Pages are indexed by external search engines such as Google, just like a public profile, while Groups are not.


There are MANY other differences, unique features/benefits, and pros & cons between Pages and Groups, but hopefully I've shared enough here to show you that if you're a business owner/manager, you need to create a Facebook page to represent and promote your brand/business rather than a Facebook group. 

For more information about this blog post topic, please visit CarolinaWebsiteDesign.com and then call Cole WebMarketing at 704-456-WEB1 (9321).

Build Your Business On The Web By Attraction Rather Than Promotion

OK, so your brand new website was recently launched. It's ready to start sending prospects from the web to you. Although it does happen, usually simply launching a website doesn't make your phone start ringing off the hook.


What can really help is taking advantage of social media to help gently PULL prospects to your website/company. Everything you put online helps increase exposure and awareness, especially if it involves Facebook, Blogs, Twitter and YouTube.


With social media, the key to success is not to use it like traditional marketing. You'll attract AND retain far more followers & fans if your posts are interesting and informative. This strategy PULLS prospects to you, rather than PUSHING you to them. If your Social Media Marketing campaigns mirror traditional marketing, that is they are all or mostly about posting specials, discounts, ''buy now & save'' and similar content we all see (and often tune out, ignore, hate!) in Company Emails, Print Ads, Internet Ads, Radio and TV commercials, you risk pushing propects away rather than pulling them to you!


Attraction Rather Than Promotion: The best PULL marketing is NOT direct hard selling, but rather it's very subtle soft selling. A good way to engage in PULL marketing is posting something of value that's interesting AND educational. You may be familar with the term ''edutainment'' - content that makes us smile/laugh AND teaches us something new. It's not a new concept - Walt Disney was using it back in the 1940's and it's been gaining widespread popularity since the 1970's. But the past decade is where the concept really has taken off, thanks mainly to the explosive growth of the internet as THE information source.


I think you'll be pleasantly surprised if you begin develop a mindset of PULL marketing in your social media and other internet marketing efforts.


What are some of the ways you can use "edutainment" to help grow your business?? Start making a list of possible ideas today!


For more information about this blog post topic, please visit CarolinaWebsiteDesign.com and then call Cole WebMarketing at 704-503-7069.

How To Insert a Facebook Fan Box Into a Website

Here's How To Insert a Facebook Fan Box (data feed) Into Your Website:


Facebook makes it easy, in 3 simple steps, to embed your Facebook Business Page into your own external website. This is a win-win for you the website owner. If someone finds you on Facebook first, with one click they can be at your website. If they find your website first, with one click they can be checking out your Facebook Biz Page and then "become a Facebook fan" of your business.


HOW TO: In order to get your Facebook Fan Box "widget" (data feed) embedded into your website, you need to first generate the "code" that's needed by Cole WebMarketing to insert into your home or other page.


When you are on your Facebook Business Page, CLICK EDIT (upper left), all the next page you'll see on the RIGHT side "PROMOTE WITH FAN BOX". On this page, follow the prompts - where to add the widget, select OTHER, and you'll see the code needed. Simply copy & paste that into an email us and we'll complete the process on our end.


Note: if you prefer NOT to have a live data feed (Fan Box) we can simply add a SHARE button or a Facebook Page BADGE to you website, to quickly & easily enable visitors to your site to connect with (and become a FAN of) your Facebook business page.


For more information about this blog post topic, please visit ColeWebMarketing.com and then call Cole WebMarketing at 704-503-7069.

How To Create a Facebook Business Page

You can quickly and easily create a FREE Facebook Page for your business. The process requires no HTML knowledge or other website development skills and within an hour you can have a presence on the most popular and powerful social media website in the world.


This presence will help increase exposure/awareness, enhance your corporate branding, and, most importantly, a Facebook biz page will create a "community of customers" that like your products/services and enjoy doing business with you.


"Fans" of your business become a priceless recommendation of your business, and due to the nature of social networking websites like Facebook (growing FAST: NOV 2010 = over 500 million users), this "two thumbs up vote" grows exponentially over time.


IMPORTANT: there are several different types of Facebook pages. Personal Profiles, Community Pages, Group Pages and Business Pages. Once you have a Personal Profile, make sure you create a BUSINESS page. "Friends" are for your personal account. You want "fans" to "like" your business. There are a number of other advantages and reasons why it's important that you start with the correct type of Facebook page.


Here is a link to get started: http://on.fb.me/bwWKfc


For more information about this blog post topic, please visit CarolinaWebsiteDesign.com and then call Cole WebMarketing at 704-503-7069.

What is Facebook....and as a business owner, "what's in it for me"?

What Is Facebook?
Wikipedia says: Facebook is a social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. Since September 2006, anyone over the age of 13 with a valid e-mail address (and not residing in one of the countries where it is banned) can become a Facebook user. Users can add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Additionally, users can join networks organized by city, workplace, and school or college.

The website's name stems from the colloquial name of books given at the start of the academic year by university administrations in the US with the intention of helping students to get to know each other better.


Why is Facebook Considered Such a Powerful Business Marketing Tool?
I think ''the numbers'' speak for themselves! Here's some stats off the FB website (MARCH 2010):


Company Figures
More than 400 million active users
50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
More than 35 million users update their status each day
More than 60 million status updates posted each day
More than 3 billion photos uploaded to the site each month
More than 5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each week
More than 3.5 million events created each month
More than 3 million active Pages on Facebook
More than 1.5 million local businesses have active Pages on Facebook
More than 20 million people become fans of Pages each day
Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans


Average User Figures
Average user has 130 friends on the site
Average user sends 8 friend requests per month
Average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook
Average user clicks the Like button on 9 pieces of content each month
Average user writes 25 comments on Facebook content each month
Average user becomes a fan of 4 Pages each month
Average user is invited to 3 events per month
Average user is a member of 13 groups


Mobile
There are more than 100 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.
People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice more active on Facebook than non-mobile users.


Based on what you see above, do you see the enormous VALUE in tapping into business marketing potential of Facebook?  For more information about this blog post topic, please visit CarolinaWebsiteDesign.com and then call Cole WebMarketing at 704-503-7069.


COMING NEXT: How Do I Create a Facebook Business Page?