Tag Archives: facebook

Who Benefits from Daily Deals Sites?

Groupon, Living Social, Eversave, Facebook, Amazon, these sites selling deeply discounted deals are everywhere.  And, views about their use and value are also across the board.  Especially, for business owners.

Personally, I love a deal.  It means I have more money to spend on something else or save it for later.  As a business owner, I’m not a fan.  Let’s be realistic, frequent discounts or deals can devalue your product or service.  Eventually, no one wants to pay full price and it becomes harder and harder to cover costs without reducing the quality of the service.

So, how did we get here?

When this new concept of pre-paying deeply discounted deals came out, the attraction for the consumer was that they “would never pay full price again”. Of course at the same time, the merchants were being told, “you’ll get new customers who will stick around and pay full price”.  Anyone else see the issue?

There are numerous success stories.  But, lately it seems there are far more complaints from businesses that find these deal seekers are harder to please and more critical on the social networks.  Which leads me to ask the question, are these deals worth it for businesses?

Facebook Pages are Changing Again – Here’s What’s New

It’s been talked about for a long time and if you manage a Facebook business page, I’m sure you’ve complained about all the work-around’s.  That’s going to become a thing of the past with the new Facebook business page layout.  And, whether you want to change, you have no choice, all business pages on Facebook will appear in the new layout beginning March 2011.

Summary: Using the new business Facebook page will enable you to do almost everything you can with your personal profile. Note-In order to go back to editing your personal profile, you will need to revert back to “Use Facebook as “personal profile name”.  Biggest loss is the tabs across the top of the page.

Should you upgrade now or wait. I recommend updating now. That way you can control the features you want and don’t want.

What’s New?

1. How you Showcase Your Latest Photos

* The most recent photos that you post to your page Wall or photos that you tag your Page in will appear at the top. This area will not include any photos posted by your fans.

* There’s not too much functionality associated with it, but at least you can hide a photo (if you don;t want it to be featured), by rolling over it and clicking X.

2. Page Design.

The tabs are gone and the navigation links are now on the left, just like on people’s profiles.

3. Show the Top Posts on Your Wall

* You now have two Wall filters. You can show posts by your page and top posts from Everyone, a new way for people to see the most interesting stories first. As an admin, you’ll have additional filters for viewing posts on your page.

* To set a default filter for your Wall, go to Edit Page.

4. Use Facebook as Your Page

You can get notifications about activity on your page, see stories from the pages you like in your news feed, and interact with other pages as your page.

-You now have the flexibility to interact with the other areas of Facebook as a page (instead of using your personal profile).

-Get notifications when fans interact with your page or posts

-See activity from the pages you like in your news feed

-Like other pages and feature them on your page

-Make comments as your page on other pages

* To try this new feature, go to your Account page and select Use Facebook as Page. You can go back to use Facebook as yourself anytime – just click Account and select your name.

5. New settings

* You can set defaults for your email notifications and how you post to your page – as yourself or your page. You can also select which featured pages appear in the left column.

* To manage your settings for email and posting preferences, go to Edit Page and Your Settings. To select which pages appear in Likes, go to Edit Page and Featured.

Here’s some links to more information on Facebook page changes:

Introducing iframe Tabs for Pages http://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/462

An upgrade for Pages: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150090729064822

So, what do you think?  Has Facebook done enough to make Facebook page’s more admin and user friendly?  Are there other features you would like to see?

Social Media Networks an Inside Look

A few months ago, a question was asked in one of the social media groups I belong to on LinkedIn:

“How many social media profiles do you actively manage?”

To date there have been over 830 comments from at least 500 people.  It’s a pretty active discussion.  It made me start to think…what a great informal research project.  So, that’s what we did.  We went ahead and tabulated how many social media networks this group uses regularly and what the most important/popular networks that are being used.

Here’s what we found:

Social Media Accounts LinkedIn users Manage Regularly

Social Networks Usage from Study

I found it interesting that most people that contributed to this called LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook “The Big Three”.  From the results you can see that a good portion of the respondents used these three social networks as their primary focus.

One other thing we found from this Discussion Group was the preferred tools.  Here’s a listing of the “best” tools to help make social media more manageable:

Let me know your thoughts.  Do you agree with the results?  How often do you update your online profiles for work or personal thoughts?

10 Tips to being Successful in Social Media

Social media is so new and ever changing it is hard to find one definitive definition for it.  My definition is an uncensored conversation in as few words as possible, in as little time as possible, to as many people as possible on a worldwide stage.  That includes blogs, wikis, social-networking sites and other online communities, and virtual worlds.  According to Alexa.com the top social networking sites in the U.S. are (in ranking order): Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, Craigslist, Blogger, Photobucket, Flickr, LinkedIn, Tagged, Ning, Twitter, and Yelp.

Here’s ten tips to using social media effectively:

1. Keep content current. Do updates frequently to stay credible and to keep people coming back for more.  Mix up what you post.  Keep the content helpful, fun, and informative.

2. Pick and choose the best for you. You do not have to be all places.  Pick the networks that are right for you.  Determine your demographics first.  Then target the networks that fulfill your objectives and where you will have the most impact.  Remember to be engaging!

3. Just do it. Try out a social site personally first.  Watch for about 30 days to get a feel for how people interact.  Once you get a good handle on how it works, and then create a company profile page.

4. Embrace conversation. Don’t just feed information about your business.  Remember, this is an opportunity to talk, interact and create advocates from your customers.

5. A picture speaks louder than words. Content is important but don’t forget the visuals such as photos and videos.

6. Be friendly. Create advocates.  After you join a network, make sure to connect with other businesses like yours, industry people, and major brands that partner with you and others in the industry.  The more people you connect with, the more they can spread your messages.

7. Give people a reason to participate.   Social networking is an incredible outlet for grass roots marketing within this high tech culture.  Create reasons for people to talk back, enter a contest, or simply participate  in a discussion.

8. Resist the temptation to sell, sell, sell. When people are invited to participate in online communities, they expect resorts to listen and consider their ideas.  They don’t want to feel like they’re simply a captive audience for advertising.  If they do, they’re likely to leave and not come back.

9. Jump on the bandwagon now, and remain in the conversation for the long haul. The sooner you act, the more leeway you will have with experimentation.  You’ll also be a significant step ahead of your competitors (unless they get there before you).

10. Oh the humanity. Get creative and try to let the conversation flow freely. The more accessible you are to your customers than your competitors, the more likely it is that you’re going to be a part of your customers’ lives.  So, as a brand, this is your opportunity to humanize your company and be part of your customers’ life experiences and their personal networks, from which they draw so much. You can be part of a positive association in the good times. And, in the bad, you may have the support of your friends and followers when you need it.