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How to Utilize the Personalization Features of Facebook

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facebook marketingFacebook is becoming more intuitive and taking strides to give Facebook page administrators more creative control over their pages. There are several new features that make it possible to have a somewhat cohesive theme throughout the page as a whole.

Cover Photo
Many Facebook users are taking their time when it comes to getting acclimated to the new Facebook Timeline layout, but it  can be a great way to further promote your company and its products. A good example of this would be a website design firm listing their available services, or a business consultancy     including a photo of their office with the contact information. The photo could also change to reflect current marketing promotions or seasonal messages.
 
Custom Tabs
Custom tabs have been around for years, but they remain under-utilized, especially by small businesses. They have so many uses, but many owners stay away from them because they do require  some set-up time with a knowledge of HTML or FBML. Custom tabs can be used to create contact pages, coupons, event sign-up, and much more. All it takes is the installation of the blank tab app and creating the new page.
 
Posting Display on Timeline
Another new feature of the Facebook timeline layout is the options to decide how certain posts, timeline milestones, and photos are displayed. They can span the width of the page or just be on one side. Or, they can be removed completely.
 
Post Promotion
Facebook now allows page owners to promote either their pages via Facebook Advertising on the sidebar, targeted to their demographic,  or the promotion of posts via the option to sponsor it, meaning that the post may show up in target audience members’  newsfeed, even though they haven’t liked your page yet. Users can opt  out of this service, but a highly targeted ad is likely to engage their interest and make them want to “like” your page.
 
Offers
Facebook Offers is slowly rolling out to all pages; it is an option that isn’t available to everyone yet. It allows a business to host a deal or coupon on their page. If someone clicks “get offer”, they will be sent the coupon or offer link through their personal email account that is connected to their Facebook account. Users like claiming offers because it doesn’t tell the company their personal contact information and also allows them to get a great deal.
There are so many different ways to personalize Facebook and make it showcase your company’s personality and the products or services that you have to offer. Not taking advantage of these may only prevent you from being as successful as possible on Facebook.

What NOT to Do on LinkedIn

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What NOT to Do on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a great place to connect with potential clients, customers, and people you worked with before and in the present. Many LinkedIn users are not using this popular social network  properly, thus making it difficult for them to be successful. It is important to follow these basic guidelines to understand how to make the most out of your LinkedIn profile and activity. Below is a few guidelines of what not to do on LinkedIn.

Spam Groups

LinkedIn groups can be a great resource for users that want to connect with other business people in their community, industry, or those that have common interests. However, just because the LinkedIn groups that you have joined share your common interests or location, it is not okay to spam the groups with self-promotional information and other types of advertisements that are not useful to the group. This is seen as an abuse of the privilege of joining LinkedIn group. Please be respectful of other users’ time and only post content or information that is directly useful to those users.

It is okay to share your most recent blog post for an upcoming event in your area that your company is hosting, but repeatedly sharing a link to download an e-book or posting salesy messages will make you look less reputable and people will be less likely to be interested in what you have to say in the future.

Add people you don’t know without introducing yourself

Never add someone to LinkedIn as a connection that you haven’t met in person before or through email/phone, without at least introducing yourself first. The whole purpose of LinkedIn is connecting with people you already know, and trying to add strangers as connections shows US someone that is only interested in expanding your own network, without getting to know the people you are trying to connect to. If you do want to connect with the stranger, in the connection introduction, give a brief overview of who you are and what you do, along with why you would like to connect them.

Have an Incomplete Profile

LinkedIn is continuously updating the options in available profile fields for its users. Be sure to regularly go through your own personal profile, it slows your company profile, and make sure that all available fields are complete and filled in. Not doing so is not allowing you to make full use of what is available on LinkedIn. Stay up-to-date on LinkedIn news and updates so you know when the best times are to add new information to your profile.

Not Participate

Simply filling out your LinkedIn profile and going on your way is it taking full advantage of what LinkedIn offers as far as communicating with others in your field or industry. Join a few applicable groups, answer questions in LinkedIn Answers, and update your profile status regularly. This shows that you are an active LinkedIn user and thus are more reputable to users that are viewing your profile.

Four Online Tools to Help You Be More Productive Online

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Four Online Tools to Help You Be More Productive Online

When you are a social media marketer or just spend a lot of time on the internet, there are several tools you can use to make the work you do much more productive. In some cases, if the tool is saving you a lot of time and energy, it is worth paying for. Peace of mind and higher output levels are usually worth the cost, especially if they are going to be used every day.

Buffer

Buffer is a social sharing app that is so easy to use. They have a basic account that is free, but then an “awesome plan” that allows you to add up to 12 social media accounts to post on for $10 per month. This includes  Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Buffer picks times that most users are on social media (the morning, lunch time, afternoon, and after dinner) and then sends your message out then. You build up a buffer queue that only sends out the messages at these chosen times (which you can change). It makes sharing painless, quick, and easy, especially since they have browser plugins and a mobile app.

SoundGecko

SoundGecko is a FREE content transcribing service. Simply enter in the URL of the blog post, article, or other piece of content that you want to transcribe, and SoundGeck then emails you a link to the MP3 of the content. You can either stream it from the website (they only host it temporarily, however) or you can download the MP3 to listen to it in your car, iPod, or turn into a CD. This is a great way to consume content when you don’t have the time to read it on a screen.

Brosix

Brosix is a simple instant messenger that has both a free public version and a paid enterprise version, which allows companies to have their own private instant messaging network. Both versions have most of the same great features, including a collaborative whiteboard that lets you draw out ideas with other users in real-time and a co-browsing feature, which lets one user browse the internet with another. Other features like secure file transfer and screen sharing make this a great secure instant messenger. It is available for Mac, PC, Linux, and iPhone.

Evernote

Evernote has been recommended by hundreds of people online, and with good reason. It is a great way to write blog posts, take notes, or save other content and then access it via another computer, tablet, or phone. Having a central account that stores your documents on the cloud makes it easy to collaborate with other users or get your documents from almost anywhere. They have a premium version that is $5/month or $45/year.

 

Whatever your favorite online tools are, the internet is constantly providing great ways to be more productive without breaking the bank.

What are your favorite online tools?

Stay Updated on Social Media with Webinars

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Stay Updated on Social Media with Webinars

There are a variety of well-curated internet and social media marketing blogs and websites that offer great free webinars about social media. Regularly listing to webinars or podcasts from experts in the field that you are trying to improve on can help increase your expertise while keeping you up-to-date with the best marketing practices. Below are some great webinar resources for marketers looking to keep their skills sharp.

Hubspot: You can’t fault Hubspot for following their own advice when it comes to offering free resources to customers and users. Their Internet Marketing Webinar section of Hubspot.com has several free webinars about social media and internet marketing. You can view a live webinar or view all of their past webinars on demand.

Social Media Today: Social Media Today has a occasional webinars that tie in to current news and events. As these webinars are live, it’s important to check the webinar pages often to see a schedule of upcoming webinars.

Buddy Media/Salesforce: Buddy Media is a company owned by Salesforce.com, and has a great list of on-demand Social Media Webinars. They also offer free white papers.

HootSuite: If you use HootSuite for your social media marketing, they offer related webinars that show users how to use their products to improve their social media marketing.

VerticalReponse: VerticalResponse has a list of their past recorded webinars that can be listened to at any time. Each webinar focuses on a different expert and their take or expertise on a particular topic.

It is important to note that many of these webinars are viewable once you fill out a form giving the company your information. While free webinars are definitely a resource that can help your marketing strategy, it is OK to be wary about what information you give to companies. Each of the above mentioned are reputable, but be sure to make sure that the company is legitimate and practices the same methods they preach.

Other free resources that can help you increase your social media marketing knowledge include podcasts, audiobooks (if you check them out from the library), and white papers. In addition, subscribing to social media marketing blogs is an easy way to stay updated. SoundGecko is a free service that will transcribe articles into MP3s (and then email them to you) so you can also listen to them while driving, working, or exercising. For many, listening to information can help  them retain it much better.

 

How to Verify Your Website on Pinterest

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Pinterest now offers the ability to verify your website on your profile. This not only further legitimates your profile to customers and followers, it also helps Pinterest better determine which profiles are real people and which are spam. Because you can only verify a website you actually own, this prevents spammers from creating accounts pretending to be a certain individual or company.

To verify your website on Pinterest, first make sure it is added to your profile in Pinterest. Then, go to the domain verification page to begin the process. Pinterest will give you a meta tag to embed in your website:

 

you can also upload a text file to the root folder of your website (this requires FTP or back-end access and can’t be done via WordPress or some other CMS system).

Once this is completed, you will ask Pinterest to verify that the file or meta tag is on your website. Once this is completed, your website will be verified and will have a check mark next to it on your profile:

One important thing to be aware of is the fact that you can’t verify the same website on 2 different Pinterest profiles. Each profile must have a unique website. This doesn’t include subdomains or different pages of a website, like coats.com/fur. If coats.com was already claimed on a separate profile, another Fur profile couldn’t claim coats.com/fur. This may be an issue for larger portal sites that have different sections, such as The Huffington Post Health and The Huffington Post Politics sections. While these could theoretically have different Pinterest profiles that are independently successful, they most likely couldn’t both claim a domain that is a variation of huffingtonpost.com.

Of course, this isn’t a hard and fast rule and perhaps Pinterest support might be able to make an exception, but if your company website is on a smaller level, be sure you are verifying the right website on the right profile.

Additionally, because your website is represented as part of your Pinterest profile, make sure that your profile correctly reflects your website. In the second graphic above, for example, my personal profile is shown but I accidentally verified my company website. I should have verified my personal blog instead. Pinterest support has luckily helped me clarify this, but it took a few days and emails.

Save the time and hassle by making sure your website is correctly verified on Pinterest the first time it is done.

How to Make the Most of LinkedIn Groups

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LinkedIn groups

LinkedIn is a great place to connect with potential employees and clients, catch up with co-workers, and connect with other people in your profession. However, many users don’t utilize the benefits of LinkedIn to its full potential. In order to be successful while using LinkedIn, be sure to stay active in other areas besides your own personal profile. This includes LinkedIn answers and groups. These are great places to share information, find professionals in your industry and local area, and more.

Join a few LinkedIn groups that directly relate to you and what you’re doing- this includes local community groups such as “Kansas City Professionals” and industry specialty groups, like “Internet Marketing Experts” if you were a freelance online marketing consultant.

Post Job Openings

After joining applicable groups, regularly post job openings that your company may have. Along the same token, look for active members in your area that are participating in groups that you are also involved in. Posting a link to the job description, as well as a contact name and email address or link to the online application. Make it easy for people to apply. Be sure to monitor your post to check for questions people may leave in the contact section.

Promote Your Content

If your content is well-written and applicable to the main topic and discussions of the groups you are in, post a link to the blog post you wrote. Make sure to write a title and description and make it seem worth the time to click through and read the article. Be sure to not post the content in every group, and don’t post every blog post you write, unless they are all high quality or newsworthy. If you over-post, people will start ignoring your posts all together.

Participate in Conversations

Don’t go into the groups only to post content or share your items about your own business. Answer questions that other users have posted in a thoughtful, engaging, and professional manner. Try not to use slang terms like LOL, OMG, or emoticons and try to say something original that hasn’t been said before. LinkedIn is a great place to learn, build connections, and gain exposure from other users truly interested in your company. However, be sure to return the favor but answer messages, comments, and other ways that users may try to connect with you.