The complete beginners guide to using Twitter for business

George and Stewie Twitter

George and Stewie Twitter

Bonjour, George here. A few days ago I met a handsome dog called Stewie from Summers & Vine. He’s never used Twitter before and wanted to know how to use it and make the most out of it fur his Mum’s dog grooming business.

There are many business owners who have never used social media before starting their business and it can be quite confusing knowing where to start.

Twitter is pawhaps the most confusing social network out there, so sit down and grab a bowl of water cup of coffee and let me explain how you can use Twitter for business and get the most out of it.

 

Twitter jargon buster and how to do the basics

Twitter’s jargon can be furry confusing, so here’s a rundown of what it all means and how to do the basics.

Twitter handle – This is how people communicate with you on Twitter, ours for example is @themrketingdogs. Your Twitter handle does not have spaces, can have capitals and has a maximum length of 15 characters.

You can use a twitter handle anywhere in a tweet. Fur example, imagine you are sending us a tweet, you could say:

  • ‘@themrketingdogs it was nice to see you today, hope to bark sometime soon.’
  • ‘It was pawesome to meet @themrketingdogs today, hoping to see them again soon.’

Username – This is your ‘name’ on Twitter, ours is ‘George and Chops’. Your username may be the same as your Twitter handle.
Followers – These are the people who are following you. They will see your tweets in their newsfeed.
Following – These are the people you are following. You will see tweets from these people in your newsfeed.
How do I follow someone? – To follow an account visit their page and click ‘follow’. To find people you can use the search by to search for their username or Twitter handle, or you can follow people from search results.

Unlike other social networks it’s completely acceptable to follow people you don’t know or haven’t met.
Newsfeed – This is where you will see tweets from people you follow, starting with the most recent tweets. To view your newsfeed log in to Twitter and click the ‘Home’ tab. You may also see tweets in your newsfeed that say ‘Promoted’ next to them, which means it’s an advert.

You may also see tweets from someone you don’t follow because one of the people you are following has retweeted them.
Tweet – A Tweet is the message you send out for your followers to see. It has a maximum character length of 140, which includes hashtags, Twitter handles, links and images.
How do I send a Tweet? There are two ways to send a Tweet. The first is type in the box that says ‘Compost new Tweet…’ on your Home page.

The second is to click the blue icon on the top right hand corner that looks like a quill. A window will pop-up over the page where you can type your Tweet.
How do I share a link? To include a link in your Tweet, copy and paste the URL of the page or video you want to share into the tweet.
How do I upload an image? To upload an image click the camera icon. This will bring up a window which allows you to choose an image to upload. Note that your image file size must be less than 2MB.
How do I upload a video? You cannot upload a video straight to Twitter. If you wanted to share a video on Twitter you would need to upload it to YouTube or something like Twitpic first and then copy the URL and paste it into a Tweet.
Retweet – Think of this as sharing. If you retweet a tweet you will share it with all of the people who are following you.
Favourite – This is the equivalent of a ‘like’ on Facebook. If you favourite a tweet it’s like saying ‘I like this’ or ‘I agree’.
Trends – On your homepage you will see a box called ‘Trends’ on the left hand side. This shows the 10 most popular thing people are talking about at the moment.

The top trend on the list will often say ‘Promoted’ next to it, which means that it has been paid for by a business and is probably promoting a new product, event or a competition.

By default trends are ‘tailored’ to you, which means that Twitter will show you trends it thinks you’re interested in based on what you tweet about and the accounts you follow.

You can change this though to show you what topics are trending worldwide, in your country or even in your region. To do this click ‘Change’ next to ‘Trends’ and then click ‘change’. This will take you to a page where you can select nearby locations or search for a location. To see worldwide trends type ‘worldwide’ into the search bar.

 

Hashtags – A hashtag (#) is used to help you join a conversation about a topic.

Imagine you are attending a dog grooming expo, the organisers might use the hashtag #DogGroomingExpo14, so everyone who’s attending who tweets about that will use that hashtag.

You don’t have to use capitals in your tweet but it helps make it more readable and you never use a space in a hashtag.

You can use as many hashtags as you want in a tweet, but studies recommend no more than two per tweet.

If you click on a hashtag you will be taken to a results page which will show you all of the tweets using the same hashtag, so you can see what other people are saying.

 

 

How do I make the most out of Twitter for business?

The general rule is that 20% of your tweets can be self-promotional, while the others should be talking to your customers, sharing links to interesting copy or just striking up a conversation.

People don’t want to follow an account that is going to overload them with self-promotional messages.

 

Profile images

The Marketing Dogs edit Twitter profile

This is what you will see when you ‘edit’ your Twitter profile.

Your profile has two images: a header image and a profile image. Your profile image should be something instantly recognisable to people who follow you, for example your logo.

Your header image is the large image that runs across the top of your Twitter page and this can contain anything you like, though it’s best to keep it eye-catching, simple and in branded colours.

If you want to upload a new profile or header image, the easiest way to do it is to view your own profile (which you can do by clicking ‘Me’ at the top of the page) and then clicking ‘edit profile’ which is on the right hand side of the page.

Then click on the image you want to change and upload a new photo. Press save and your profile has been updated.

 

Get your bio right

When you see someone’s Twitter page, you will notice a short bio underneath their profile image, username and Twitter handle.

You’re limited to 160 characters and it should tell people about your business and what you do. You can also put in your location and a link to your website.

Fur example ours is: ‘Life at @themktingpeople, a web design and marketing agency, for George (French Bulldog) and Chops (Pug).’

It’s short and tells people who we are and what we’re up to.

Edit your bio by clicking ‘edit profile’ on your page.

 

How often should I tweet?

Twitter is very fast-paced so you should be aiming to tweet a few times a day. You may now be wondering what on earth you can tweet about ‘a few times a day’, but calm down and read on.

 

Communication

One of the best uses for Twitter if you’re a business is to talk to your target audience and customers.

You can ask questions about your products or what they think about something happening in your sector, general questions like ‘what are you doing this weekend?’, market research or tell them about your latest blog post, offer, competition or product.

 

Share interesting content

As well as sharing your own blog posts, share content from other websites, such as: news stories, information about an event your audience may be interested in, funny pictures or quotes and useful blog posts and articles.

It really helps to know your audience when you’re trying to find content that you think they will find interesting.

Fur example, if you run an ecommerce website that sells pet products you know that your audience will like things to do with pets and animals. So they might want to see content about news pieces involving animals, videos of animals doing funny things, informational pieces about how they can best look after their pet or taking their dog on a plane.

For B2C businesses it’s fairly easy, but B2B can be harder and you will need a better grasp of what your audience are like and will need to make sure you’re sharing useful information.

 

Images and videos

Images and videos work very well on social media and an update which involves an image will usually do better than just a text image, so where possible use images in your tweets.

Examples of images or videos you could use:

–          Your products / services in the self or in use

–          Happy customers

–          Images / videos from an event

–          An image or video about a competition or offer

 

Customer service

A lot of consumers are turning to social media for customer service because it’s faster than picking up the dog and bone (that’s phone by the way) or filling in a contact form.

If someone tweets you asking for help with your product / service, get back to them as soon as possible.  If it’s a simple issue you may be able to resolve it over Twitter, however you will probably find that you will need to ask that person to email so you can find out more and help them.

 

To inspire you take a look at these five businesses who are using Twitter well and engaging with their audience.

Examples of businesses using Twitter well;

Innocent drinks – @innocentdrinks

Their Twitter page is full of amusing updates and replies to customers. Their replies are not just about complaints and queries, most of them are conversational.

 

Waterstones – @waterstones

The UK book retailer share information about new book releases, competitions they’re running, reply to customers, information about events and share quotes from books.

The Oxford Street store Waterstones Twitter account (@WstonesOxfordSt) is worth looking at also. The majority of their tweets about their obsession with books and getting you to read them. It isn’t quite as useful as the @waterstones page, but they’ve certainly got humour nailed.

 

KLM – @KLM_UK

As well as sharing promotional information about flights and airfares, the KLM UK Twitter account shares ‘behind the scenes’ images, retweets customers images, shares destination information, posts images from throughout their history, tweets about competitions they’re running and replies to customers.

 

Tesco – @tesco

Tesco’s Twitter account replies to customers, they share topical jokes, recipes, links to their blog posts, updates about fundraising and images of food.

Interestingly they don’t really self-promote.

The Tesco Mobile Twitter account is notable for getting involved in banter with customers and other UK brands. Here are a few examples.

 

Vocus – @vocus

B2B marketing and PR software company Vocus are a great example of B2B companies using social media well.

They post links to news and takeaways from events, images from events, links to whitepapers, retweet customers, links to videos and tips. They don’t appear to reply to any customers though.

 

I hope you’ve found this furry useful and now feel more confident about using Twitter. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to leave a comment and we’ll get back to you.

 

Seven social media marketing myths busted!

seven social media marketing myths busted

seven social media marketing myths busted

Social media is constantly changing. So there are plenty of myths about the right and wrong ways to use it for marketing.

With so much information available about social media marketing for businesses, it can be confusing trying to figure out what’s right.

To help you out, we’ve decided to bust seven of the biggest and confusing social media marketing myths we see.

 

Social media is free

This is probably the biggest social media myth we see. It doesn’t cost to join a social media network but setting up and managing one costs you time.

It takes time to look after a social media presence. Which means you’re either taking time out of your own busy day or paying someone to do it. Which means it definitely isn’t free.

 

Every business needs to be on social media

Social media isn’t right for every business. Whether that’s because you haven’t got time to manage it or you aren’t seeing enough results to warrant the time you’re spending on it.

If it isn’t working for your business there’s no shame in not having a social media presence. Especially if it means you can spend your time working on marketing activities that you know benefit your business.

 

Social media isn’t worth it

The polar opposite of the above. Some business owners aren’t willing to give social media a chance and believe it isn’t worth it.

As we mentioned above, social media isn’t right for every business. But for some it can be effective and lead to new customers and an increase in sales.

Before you dismiss social media completely, carry out a bit of research. Look at whether your audience are on social media and how your competitors are using it. If your competitors are having some success on social media, it’s probably worth you trying it.

 

You need to be on Facebook

Facebook may be the most popular social network at the moment but that doesn’t automatically mean its right for your business.

Most businesses with Facebook Pages are reporting that the number of people who view their posts is dropping drastically.

This isn’t necessarily because they’re using it wrong. In December 2013 it was confirmed that Facebook are reducing page reaches to encourage businesses to buy adverts to promote their brand.

 

You don’t need to research or plan

We understand this one; planning can be boring but the old ‘fail to prepare, prepare to fail’ is true.

Research and planning can help you identify which social network your target audience are using. As well as what kind of things interesting them.

Failing to plan means you’ll probably waste time and money doing things that don’t bring your business any benefit.

 

You don’t need to set goals

If you begin using social media and you don’t know why or what you want to get out of it, the chances are you won’t see many results, if any.

Setting yourself social media goals can help you create a structured plan to help you reach those goals, whether it’s getting 20 sales a month from social media or 200 website visitors from social media.

 

You don’t need to monitor your efforts

Once you begin using social media it’s important to monitor your social media efforts.

Though you may know what your audience like you might find that they react better to a certain type of post. Monitoring what you’re doing can help you build a better presence, engage with your audience, meet your goals and stops you wasting time posting things your audience don’t like.

If you’re based in the Burntwood, Lichfield, Cannock or Staffordshire area and need help with your social media marketing call us on 01543 387 047 to organise a chat to find out how we could benefit your business.

Is Using Social Media Risky for My Business?

Is using social media risky for my business

Is using social media risky for my business

Exactly how risky is it to use social media to brand and to boost your business profits? This all depends on how much you know, how much you’re prepared to do, and how quickly you can step in front of a crisis before it ends up spinning out of control.

Yes, there are many different risks associated with social media marketing. However, it’s important to realize that there are risks inherent in all types of marketing and in life in general. You can’t spend your time hiding from them.

Learn about the risks associated with social media for preparation purposes, but don’t let them scare you away from using social media as a tool to grow your business.

 

The Risks You Face when Operating a Social Campaign

1: The Risk of a Viral Disaster

One negative comment turns into a shared comment with a friend, who then spreads it around their network, and things start to spiral out of control in front of your eyes. You can get out in front of small disasters, but there’s a risk in social media of a full-blown viral crisis. It’s rare if you’re serious about quality control, but the risk is present nonetheless.

To prevent these potential viral disasters, you could implement some savvy steps into your branding.

  • Always apologize for any inconvenience, even if you’re not in the wrong
  • Reply to every legitimate criticism, even if it’s really negative
  • Try and quash bad situations with discounts and freebies if you can
  • Never ignore anyone
  • Be open and honest in your communications
  • Create guidelines for the process and have an avenue for people to contact you

 

2: The Risk of Poor Performance

You could hire a social media marketing consultant, read a ton of literature, have all the right programs, and still end up performing poorly in some areas. There is no guarantee of success in social marketing, and the inherent risk of failing in any area is always something that looms over everyone’s head. This risk should motivate you to try harder to succeed, of course, but the risk never goes away.

You’re constantly at risk of poor performance, and thus you may need some motivating factors. Try these tips to avoid putting your worst foot forward.

  • Run every post through a quality-control leg before launching
  • Split-test every ad to see which performs the best and where it performs the best
  • Never accept outsourced material unless you thoroughly go over it
  • Realize that a poor social media performance could cripple your brand image
  • Heavily scrutinize those you hire and those you have working on social campaigns
  • Try to outdo your previous performances with each new performance

 

3: The Risk of Wasted Money

Even though social media presents a low-cost form of advertising, you’re still going to spend a pretty penny to ensure that you’re targeting a lot of people on a site like Facebook. There’s always a risk of not properly assessing your market and spending money on ads that don’t attract people. Understanding this risk should make you more willing to research and target correctly before creating and launching material.

There are many different ways to waste your money in a social media campaign, from buying unnecessary add-ons to hiring people to put together simple posts that you should be able to handle.

  • Start off with cheaper approaches and build up
  • Research the rates for ads and the suspected reach they could bring
  • Never spend money on unneeded courses and coaches and the like
  • Invest in a solid ad-management app to get your money’s worth
  • Avoid outsourcing or hiring new people unless you cannot do the work yourself

 

4: The Risk of Being Hacked

Yes, hackers are prowling around social media sites in large numbers, just waiting to pounce on exposed information. They’re sending out malware in an abundance of links, and some unlucky few find out the hard way that they shouldn’t have clicked. The risks of being hacked are real in social media, and you need to be aware of them.

If you want to limit your risks of being hacked, here are a few measures you can take to keep you safe.

  • Use a different Facebook email than your actual business email
  • Never give out your main email address to people
  • Make sure your main website has a great security suite
  • Avoid giving out personal information of any kind
  • Change your password every few months just in case
  • Create complicated passwords: I4_aJZ$_mNo, rather than Qwerty or asdfjkl;
  • Never click on links that you don’t recognize

 

5: The Risk of a Dead Market

If you think you’re the only brand operating within a certain niche, you need to quickly come back to reality for a visit. There is ample competition in nearly every conceivable niche, and the things you’re trying, no matter how original, aren’t exactly going to break new ground. So there is a risk that you’ll run into dead tactics, where the audience is immune, or even a dead market, where the audience is tapped out.

How do you avoid running into these dead markets? For starters, you can try:

  • Thoroughly researching the market before you decide to target it
  • Sending out feeler posts and ads to measure your response
  • Testing multiple demographics to see which is the most vibrant
  • Changing your approach and consistently testing new demos within the market
  • Researching what your competitors are putting out there
  • Trying new tactics for engagement that haven’t been done to death
  • Avoiding flooded markets and looking for smaller niches and subsets

 

6: The Risk of an Unprofessional Image

Brands successful at social media management understand that letting a personality develop is important for the context of a social atmosphere. However, there’s always a risk here inherent in this humanization of a business. You run the risk of coming across as unprofessional – an amateurish business that doesn’t command the proper amount of respect.

You don’t have to present a suit-and-tie Wall-Street-like image, but you also can’t risk presenting a devil-may-care, unprofessional image. Here are some things to avoid to ensure your image stays respectable.

  • Don’t get into those vitriolic, profanity-riddled social troll debates
  • Keep your personal life personal
  • Don’t post material that’s offensive to anyone
  • Be careful with what you think is “humor”; it might not be funny to some
  • Keep your grammar clean and to the point
  • Don’t mix your brand’s image with a personal social account

 

7: The Risk of Upsetting the Balance

A lot of brands fear that the balance of harmony in social media is delicate and that everyone’s just happy, holding hands and singing songs. Then along come an offensive post or a harmful word and the whole world crumbles into chaos! Well, this is a sensationalized version, obviously, but there is a risk of offending people when you advertise so often. This is just one of those risks you have to accept.

As touched on above, you want to avoid posting anything that could be deemed offensive, but what does that entail? Here are some specific topics you should try to avoid, unless they’re explicitly a part of your niche.

  • Avoid topics about any religion or religious people
  • Try to stay out of politics, as in choosing a side
  • Stay away from topics of anything gender-based
  • Avoid speaking about sexuality, or even sex in general
  • Don’t alienate audiences with issues of class
  • Keep your material specific to your niche and noncontroversial

As you begin to learn more about social media advertising, you’re inevitably going to find that there are many more risks out there that you have to focus on. The risks listed above are just the most common risks that you’ll have to focus on. Under the umbrella of these risk types, you’ll find a slew of other potentially harmful risks. The key is to learn what you can to prevent them. Be proactive as well as reactive.

Craig Robinson, an online writer for Qwaya, a facebook ad campaign tool. He loves to write different topics about social media tips and strategies. Besides writing, he also enjoys engaging with different communities and social forums. Do follow him in twitter, Craig_Qwaya

How Facebook Hashtags Can Benefit Your Business & How to Use Them

how facebook hashtags can benefit your business

how facebook hashtags can benefit your business

The Hashtag seems to have taken over the internet since the rise of Twitter. You can use it on Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr and now Facebook. So what do hashtags on Facebook mean for businesses and how can they use them to their benefit?

Facebook have finally announced that they are rolling out clickable hashtags. Meaning users and Page updates can be part of a discussion, which is especially useful for things like events or a popular news topic.

Facebook hashtags

On their blog Facebook said that the reason for introducing hashtags was to help users find other users talking about the same things they were and take part in public conversations.

They also mentioned that they will be rolling out more features over the next few weeks and months. Including trending hashtags and deeper insights.

 

How Facebook Hashtags can Benefit my Business?

Hashtags are clickable. Meaning that users can click on a hashtag and see posts from other people who are using the same hashtag. This means that businesses will be able to use hashtags to get their posts in front of people who wouldn’t have seen it otherwise. Without the need to fork out for advertising.

People use social media to talk about things they’re interested in or their friends are interested in such as;

 

–          A concert or event they’re attending

–          A business event or networking event

–          A film they’ve just seen

–          Something they’re watching on TV

–          A news story

–          The weather – this is especially popular here in the UK where we get all excited by the odd sighting of the sun and think summer has finally arrived.

This means that businesses have got some great opportunities to get their updates and content in front of people who are interested in something they’re selling or talking about.

 

For example:

Imagine you have an ecommerce website which sells camping equipment. The summer is fast approaching (apparently) and over the next few months plenty of people will be going off on camping holidays and going to festivals and sports events.

Now imagine you want to target people who are attending the Formula 1 British Grand Prix. To tell them about some of your tents in an attempt to intrigue people who are yet to buy their tent. So you use the hashtag #britishgp in your update.

A user searches #britishgp in the search bar to see what other people are saying about it. They see your update and decide to visit your website and buy from you as a result.

The main takeaway and benefit for businesses here is that they have a great opportunity to get their posts out there in front of users who might not have seen them otherwise.

 

Six Tips for using Facebook Hashtags Effectively

Now you know why Facebook Hashtags will benefit your business, what’s the best way to use them? Here are six tips to help you use hashtags effectively. (These tips don’t just apply to Facebook, it can be applied to Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and Google+ etc also)

 

1. Make Sure Another Brand Aren’t Already Using It

Before you decide to claim a hashtag make sure it’s not already in use by searching for the hashtag you plan on using in the search bar.

If there are people or other brands already using that hashtag and talking about a different product, service or business, it’s probably best to think of a new hashtag as it could easily get confusing trying to monitor what people are saying about you.

 

2. Keep it short and simple

While you aren’t faced with a 140 character limit on Facebook, people don’t want to use a massively long hashtag because it can be a bit of a chore to type out and easy to forget.

 

3. Don’t Spam Hashtags

Using hashtags which have absolutely no relation to what you’re talking about will make you look spammy and will put users off you right away. Especially if you make the same mistake as fashion retailer Kenneth Cole you hijack hashtags who hijacked a tweet relating to the unrest inCairo at the beginning of 2011.

 

4. Don’t use multiple hashtags in one update

It can be tempting to try and use several hashtags in your updates to try and get as many people to see your updates as possible, however using too many hashtags will annoy people, so try to stick to two or at the very most three hashtags per update.

 

5. Consistency across all social channels

As with your branding, any hashtags you use which relate to your business, your products or services or an event you are running should be consistent across all social media platforms you’re present on. This makes it easy for people to talk about you or find about you across multiple platforms.

 

6. Promote your hashtag

If you’re using a hashtag to promote your brand, one of your products or services, or an event you’re running make sure you promote it on your website, marketing emails and social media so people know that’s the hashtag they need to use when talking about your products.

 

 

Since Facebook’s IPO in May 2012 they have been trying to make money from the social network, which meant bad news for Facebook Page owners who were forced to pay for advertising if they wanted their updates to reach 100% of the people who have ‘liked’ their page, despite those people expressing an explicit interest in the page. So the introduction of hashtags is brilliant news as Page Owners will now be able to reach more people without having to pay for it.

 

Contact Us

If your business is based in Burntwood, Lichfield, Cannock or Staffordshire and are interesting in marketing which creates opportunities to sell your products or services, get in touch with us to find out how we can help. Call us on 01543 387 047 or email us on contact@themarketingpeople.com to find if we can help you and your business.

How To Use Social Media For Customer Support.

How to use social media for customer support

How to use social media for customer support

As more and more companies take to social networking sites. More and more customers are realising that they’ll receive a faster response by reporting an issue on a social network rather than calling or emailing them.

Complaints are much more common on Twitter than Facebook. Possibly because the fast moving nature of Twitter means you’ll get a swift response and the ease of typing out a quick complaint and just tagging a company in it.

Some companies understand this and have realised that they can utilise Twitter for customer support. Some even have a separate customer support Twitter profile; such as Twitter themselves, Microsoft , Netflix and UPS.

If your customers are complaining or reporting problems to you via social networking sites, you need to be able to handle them. And respond in the correct way to avoid a PR disaster.

So how do you deal with customer complaints on a social network?

Look for them.

This probably sounds daft, why would you go out of your way to look for a complaint? If you care about your customers, you’ll want to help them as much as possible and you won’t want to leave a complaint unresolved.

Monitor your Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and any other social networks you’re on for complaints. You can also search for your brand on social networks to see if there are any negative comments mentioning your brand.

If you work for a hospitality business, you’ll also want to keep an eye on websites like Trip Advisor or Yelp.

Create a policy.

You should create a policy which details. How you will deal with a complaint, what you will do to try and rectify the problem and who will deal with the customers problem.

This is really important and will help you handle any issues in a way that maintains your brand image and tone of voice correctly. If it’s dealt with an inappropriate way, it will be remembered and could do your brand some damage.

Don’t delete it or ignore it.

Unless it’s abusive or offensive, don’t delete the comment, even if you fully intend on dealing with the complaint.

Deleting a complaint makes you look as if you’re shying away from a problem and not willing to listen to or support customers after they’ve made a purchase.
It will only anger the person who complained and make them post further complaints.

If a person has taken the time to calmly explain their problem or why they’re unhappy. You should have the courtesy to reply.

Dealing with it.

Reply to a complaint quickly. The chances are a customer has complained on a social network because they think it will be faster than calling or emailing you. The more you make them wait, the more annoyed they will become.

Keep your response professional and be as helpful as possible. At the same time though, remember to come across as human, so show some emotion. You probably know yourself how frustrating it is when you speak to someone from customer service. Especially if their responses sound automated and like they’re being read off a sheet.

You may choose to deal with the complaint openly or in private. In the case of the latter, respond to the complaint publicly and tell them that you’ve acknowledged their problem. That you’ll be in contact with them or give them a number or email address to contact you on. This shows everyone who sees the complaint that you aren’t ignoring the comment and you are dealing with it.

Remember that a customer who has complained is not automatically a lost customer. You can still win them over if you deal with an issue correctly.

 

So many questions pop up when it comes to social media, but don’t get stuck, just head over to our social blogs for all the answers you need.

Remember you can find us on facebook, twitter, pinterest and google+ for all our latest social media updates. Or if you feel you may need a little advice with your own social media, whether that’s getting started, or refreshing your knowledge, give us a call on 01543 495752 for a no obligation chat.

Is Your Business Facebook Page Set Up Correctly?

Is your business facebook page set up correctly

>Is your business facebook page set up correctly

Facebook Timeline will be implemented on all Facebook Pages by the end of the month; are you ready? Have you got it right?

A business needs to be set up on Facebook as a Facebook Business Page and not a Profile.
Personal Profiles can be ‘friended’ and are for personal use, Facebook Pages can be ‘liked’ and are for businesses.

Some businesses may have been set up incorrectly as a Profile for a number of reasons; such as Pages hadn’t been implemented when the Profile was set up, or you may have simple just created it wrong by accident.

You’ll be happy to know that you can convert your Profile to a Page, without losing your friends. Any friends associated with the Profile will be converted to ‘Likes’.

There are several advantages to taking the leap and converting your Profile into a Page, especially now that Facebook Pages have been spruced up;

    1. You may be spending a fair amount of time responding to friend requests, with a page you won’t have to do this as a user can just ‘Like’ your Page and no action is required by you.

 

    1. All the important information you would want a customer or potential customer to see is displayed right below your profile picture.

 

 

    1. A mini-map will be shown below your cover photo which can be enlarged so people can find out exactly where you are based.

 

 

    1. One of the new Page features is the ability to highlight a post, which keeps it at the top of your page for seven days. This would be useful for announcing new products, events or an offer.

 

 

    1. The main new feature is a timeline, which allows you to show off the history of your business and milestones.

 

 

    1. Insights are a Facebook analytics tool which allows you to see things such as; likes, reach, people talking about your business and check-ins, you cannot not view any statistics like this on a Profile.

 

 

    1. Facebook have also brought in the option for users to message a page, so they can still ask you questions privately.

 

 

    1. You may not know that as a Facebook Profile you are limited to 5000 friends, whereas a Facebook Page can an infinite amount of ‘Likes’.

 

At the moment Facebook Timeline for Pages is optional, however on the 30th March all Pages will switch to timeline whether you’re ready or not.

Recently we converted a Facebook Profile into a Facebook Page for Gardening Delights and redesigned their page in the process.

With the end of the month approaching fast, what better time is there to get your business set up correctly on Facebook?

 

So many questions pop up when it comes to social media, but don’t get stuck, just head over to our social blogs for all the answers you need.

If you want your Facebook Profile converting into a Page and/or want your Page redesigning before timeline comes in, call us on 01543 495752 or email us at contact@themarketingpeople.com to see how we can help you.

How to “moderate” comments on Facebook Brand Pages

How to moderate comments on Facebook Brand Pages

Currently there is no way to moderate comments on Facebook business page’s. This means any comment posted will be visible, there is no way of keeping a comment private until you view it and approve it.

Understandably, this can make some people feel a little uneasy and unsure of whether they should create a Facebook business page incase a negative comment is posted.

This post will explain a few options you have to control comment posting.

Facebook page moderation blocklist.

Facebook page settings give you the option of creating a list of ‘blocked words’, which in theory means you could prevent any negative comments being posted on your walls if you blocked negative words like ‘bad’ or ‘awful’.

Any comments containing any of the blocked words will be flagged as spam and will not be posted to the page wall.

There is also the option the block profanities, which has two settings; medium and strong.

You can do this by;

  1.  Viewing your page and clicking on the ‘Edit page’ icon in the top right hand corner of the page.
  2. This will take you to the ‘Manage permissions’ tab where you will be able to edit your moderation blocklist and profanity blocklist as shown in the image above.

Comment moderation

As mentioned at the beginning of the post, there’s no way to hold a comment for moderation on a Facebook page but there are a couple of commenting settings you can tweak.

You could go all out and block comments entirely by removing the posting ability by unticking the ‘People can write or post content on the wall’ box

You can alter the page people land on when they go to your Facebook page.
Instead of them being taken straight to the page wall, visitors could be taken to a welcome page and then choose the page they want to visit.

These features can be accessed by:

  1. Viewing your Facebook page and clicking on ‘Edit page’ in the top right hand corner.
  2. You will then automatically be taken to the ‘Manage Permissions’ tab where you can alter the ‘Default landing tab’ and the ‘Posting ability’.

If you decide not to disable comments and you’re concerned about negative comments, there are a couple of things you can do to limit damage.

The comment can be removed by hovering over the comment and clicked the world icon and then selecting ‘delete post’.
Alternatively you could just hide the post or report it as abuse if you consider it to be abusive.

The page settings can be altered, so an email will be sent as soon as someone comments on something on the page. The comment can then be read and decision can be made over whether to keep it on the page or delete it.

This can be done by;

  1. Viewing your page and clicking on the ‘Edit page’ button.
  2. Then select ‘Your settings’ from the tab on the left hand side.
  3. When you are taken to this page you will be able to check the box saying ‘Email notifications’.

It’s a shame Facebook don’t allow full comment moderation, it would make people feel much more comfortable and happier about putting their brand out there, knowing a negative comment would never have to be seen by the public.

So many questions pop up when it comes to social media, but don’t get stuck, just head over to our social blogs for all the answers you need.

Remember you can find us on facebook, twitter and pinterest  for all our latest social media updates. Or if you feel you may need a little advice with your own social media, whether that’s getting started, or refreshing your knowledge, give us a call on 01543 495752 for a no obligation chat.

Why should my business be using social media?

Why should my business be using social media

Why should my business be using social media

As Social Media week draws to a close, it only seemed natural to talk about why you and your company should be using social media.

The idea of using social media to help promote a business may seem like an alien idea to some, Facebook’s for telling people about what you did at the weekend not promoting your products, right? Wrong, here’s why.

To put things into perspective, if Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest country on the planet, behind China and India. With over 483 million daily users at the end of 2011, you have a huge audience at your fingertips.

It’s not just Facebook you need to consider, there are other social networks such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr and Google+, all of which allow you to reach a much wider audience.

As well as keeping in touch with your customers, it allows people to gather information about your company quickly and easily.
The widths of phone directories are getting smaller and smaller each year and people are turning to social media and the internet to get the information they need about businesses and their products and services.

Social media is great for showing off your products, services and any recommendations your company has received, giving you the ability to entice potential customers and keep current customers coming back for more.

Whether you like the smell of it or not, Old Spice is an example of a brand who really knows how to make the best of social media, many of their videos have gone viral as a result of social media.

You can use social media to increase the traffic to your website or blog, by providing your readers with a call to action. An increase in traffic to your website or blog can lead to an increase in sales.

For example, we published a blog post on the SEO advantages of blogging the other day. We used Twitter and Facebook to encourage people to read it by giving them a call to action by asking if they wanted to know what the advantages were and then providing a link to the blog.
With people of all ages on social media, the chances are your target audience is already using social networks.

Remember that social media success doesn’t just happen over night, like everything else you need to put hard work in to get results.

 

So many questions pop up when it comes to social media, but don’t get stuck, just head over to our social blogs for all the answers you need.

Remember you can find us on facebook, twitter, pinterest and google+ for all our latest social media updates. Or if you feel you may need a little advice with your own social media, whether that’s getting started, or refreshing your knowledge, give us a call on 01543 495752 for a no obligation chat.