Facebook Places– What does it mean for your local business?

The news has been all over the internet about Facebook’s new Places check-in application. It remains to be seen exactly how this will affect local businesses. It may have no more affect than Four Square– there are a lot of great ways to use it for marketing, but it won’t hurt you too much if you choose not to participate.

On the other hand, there is some talk that Facebook Places is actually designed to take on Google Places. There’s also some chatter that Places will eventually replace Facebook business pages for the most part. If that’s true, then local businesses will want to make sure that they claim their Facebook Places listing to insure that any information about their business is correct. The good news is that some random person can’t claim your Places listing, as the claim process is pretty specific. You receive a phone call giving you a code at the number listed for your business or you will be required to provide documentation that the business is really yours.

In case you’re wondering how to claim your Facebook Places list, you’ll need an iPhone, or you’ll need to go to touch.facebook.com with your non-iPhone mobile phone. You’ll need to be at your business location. Do NOT check in from home, unless you have a home business, as Facebook will tag wherever you are as the location of the business. From there, the process is pretty easy. Check in at your location, and you will be asked “Is This Your Business?”. Then, you just need to follow the instructions moving forward from there.

If you’ve claimed your Places listing with Facebook, leave a comment and let us know how the process went.

Best Facebook Apps for Promoting Your Business

In today’s technologically savvy world, there are more ways to market your business than there are hours in the day… which can be both beneficial and overwhelming to the business promoter.  Which programs are best for your company?  How much maintenance do they require?  How much new business can you expect from participating in these new marketing channels?  These unknowns can be daunting and may keep you from trying new marketing techniques, like using Facebook. But to get ahead of your competition you need to use everything at your disposal and one of the best resources right now for promoting your business is Facebook!

Facebook recently passed Google as THE most visited site on the web. Facebook is now one of the best ways to promote your business online.  It began as a way to connect you with your high school friends and has evolved into perhaps the best way to reach your target market. You can begin your journey into promoting your business using Facebook by learning about all the fantastic applications available from Facebook.

So, what are the best Facebook Apps to use for promoting your business?

Well, here is a list of some of the best Facebook Apps for promoting your business and what they are used for:

• Promote Your Self or Your Business:  whether you are promoting yourself or your company, applications like Define Me, Testimonials, and iEndorse (where your “friends” contribute testimonials to endorse your company) and applications such as GLPrint Business Cards, Professional Profile, and Posted Items (Default App) which allows you to share your business contact information, upcoming activities or goals help to inform your clients about your company.
• Communicate to Your Customers: Applications such as Smart Phone, Telephone and CalliFlower allow you to make free phone calls and conference calls, whereas applications such as SmartMessage Center and Voice Mail allow you to send messages to groups and individuals or simply add sound to your profile.
• Network, Network, Network: Social Fly allows you to organize your contacts and add notes and reminders about each one, Tag Biz Business Network creates a cloud of descriptive words on your profile which link you to similar businesses and people, while Workin’ It! helps send your resume and recommendations from friends to potential customers and employers.
• Show them How it’s Done: You can share videos, product demonstrations, PowerPoint presentations through Facebook Video (Default App) and SlideShare, or you can utilize an application like  PodCast Player allows you to share your audio files.
• Promote your Blog: Networked Blogs app displays your blog as well as any other blogs you read on your Facebook Profile, while applications like Simplaris BlogCast links your blog to your profile, thus connecting your various promotions efforts and making it easier for you customer to find out more about you and your business.

Promoting your business on Facebook is something every business owner should be doing. There are many great Facebook Apps to help you do it. By using Facebook to connect with customers, you can communicate with them year-round, making it more convenient for both you and them.  And before you know it a majority of your leads will be coming to you because of your online presence!

Mathnasium Facebook Fan Page Design

I should write about some more of our recent designs, but since I haven’t written about any of our facebook fan page web design projects I thought I would mention this one. We just finished creating a Facebook fan page for Mathnasium in Cypress, TX. We set up the entire fan page and created 3 custom landing pages on it. You can check it out by clicking here:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cypress-TX/Mathnasium-Cypress-TX-Math-Tutors/120296381339705

What is Social Media?

For those who have been in the internet marketing world for a while, this may be a big “yawn” question. But there are a lot of local business owners out there who hear this buzz word and don’t really know what on earth this means.

I talk to such owners frequently and when I ask about social media, the typical answer is typically something along the lines of “you mean Facebook?”. It’s impossible to leverage a tool when you don’t really understand it.

So, let’s answer the question. What is social media? There are a million definitions out there, but all the definitions have a few things in common. When you’re talking about social media, you’re talking about an internet or mobile application that involves user-generated content or feedback intended for public consumption. So, if there is a way for you, as the website visitor, to interact directly with the content of the page and others can see that interaction, it’s probably social media.

What about email? Is email a form of social media? It depends. If you are using email in a group setting, such as Yahoo groups or Big Tent, then that’s a basic form of social media. The content for that group is user-generated and intended for public consumption.

Private email is not social media, as it is intended only for the person to whom it is addressed. If email is like a letter in your mailbox, social media is like putting up a message on a billboard and allowing others to spray paint messages on your billboard in response.

Some other examples of social media include:

Blogs — Notice that there’s a comment at the bottom of this post. That means you can give feedback on this post, and we can have a conversation. That makes this a social media site.

Website polls — If you put a poll on your website, and people can vote and see the results, that is a basic form of social media.

Facebook — This is a pretty easy one to grasp. Everything on your Facebook page, whether it’s a personal page or a fan page, is created by you, your friends, your “fans” or someone who is reading the page.

Twitter — Again, it’s pretty easy to grasp why Twitter is a “conversation” tool. You don’t go to Twitter to read what the creators of Twitter have to say. You go to say something or ready something that some regular person (or not so regular person) had to say.

YouTube and other video sharing sites — Although it’s obvious when you think about it based on the above definition, many people don’t immediately think of YouTube as social media. But it is. Where does the content come from? Users. People can comment on that content and provide feedback. That’s social media.

Social bookmarking sites, such as Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon — For the sake of brevity, I’m lumping all of these together. Social bookmarking sites are websites made up entirely of links to articles that users have said are worthwhile reads. Users give content a thumbs up or thumbs down, and people can see the most popular articles on a given topic.

Websites that utilize Facebook’s new social media tools — This is a new option for changing any website into a social media site. Facebook now provides a suite of tools that allows you to incorporate some of Facebook’s features directly on your website. People can “like” your page and perform and see other Facebook actions without ever leaving your site. This is a great opportunity to include a social media aspect on a site without spending a fortune designing a brand new site.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of all of the social media sites and applications that exist. But I hope it gives you a better idea of what people mean when they mention social media.

If you have any questions about how you can use social media on your website or to promote your business, please give us a call or contact us. We’re always happy to help.