The Key to Growing Your Facebook Fan Base

A common complaint I hear from business owners is that their Facebook page fans have not increased. Those who complain share some common characteristics. On the other hand, I’ve seen steady growth in the fan bases of other Facebook pages that I manage. The pages that have steady growth also have a common characteristic.

The common denominator in both of these equations is incorporating email marketing. The pages that don’t grow in their fan base, don’t use email marketing to reach out to their fans. The pages that enjoy steady growth, touch their fans with email.

“Why should I send them an email?” asked one client. “Don’t they hear enough from me on my page?” No your fan doesn’t read every one of your status updates. Do you read every status update from your friends? Probably not.

Facebook fans are a fickle lot. Catching their eye with compelling copy displayed in a moving news feed is tricky. If your message doesn’t have the right offer or copy that engages them at the moment, you’re forever lost in the news feed noise. Your fan doesn’t read everyone of your status updates. That’s where an monthly email blast with an offer, relevant tip and link to your Facebook page can secure their loyalty.

Of course my job is to write status updates that tickle, engage and add value to the fans who happend to be on Facebook at the time reading their news feed.

Some of the status updates that fans answered include:

• Ask a mechanic. What’s your question today?
• What are you doing this weekend?
• Who are you rooting for in the SuperBowl?
• What do you read when you’re riding the JO?

Notice that these updates didn’t push out any offers. Instead, I asked a question that the fan answered. Why is their answer valuable to the page? When a fan answers an update, all of their friends see their answer. I’ve created a conversation with the fan that engages them with the business.

Try it. Send an email blast to your Facebook fans. Mailchimp and Constant Contact both offer plug-ins where you can add a link on your Facebook page for your fans to sign up for your newsletter. Don’t forget to collect email addresses in your business office as well.

And try asking your fans a question that’s not related to your business. Engage them, relate to them and soon you’ll see them walking through your door placing an order.

What’s your favorite status update you’ve ready from a company? Post your comment on my Facebook page.

A New Year’s Gift for You

What’s your 2012 New Year’s Resolution? Losing weight, saving money or exercising more are usually the top 3 resolutions for every year. At Haywood Marketing Communications, we want to help you fulfill your business goals for 2012. This last year, I’ve seen dramatic changes in the major social media channels and new opportunity for location-based businesses.

Here’s a summary of the major changes in these channels that affect businesses and a list of New Year’s resolutions for you:

Facebook
Rollout of check-in deals. Businesses that have claimed their place on Facebook, can create check-in deals for their fans. I’ve created a few of these deals for my clients and have yet to see deals claimed effectively. I see huge opportunity for businesses willing to promote these deals among their customers and prospects.

Launch of ability for businesses to message customers or fans directly. The catch is that the fan needs to message the business first to activate that functionality within the page. This has also been limited to a few select pages on a beta basis.

A New Year’s Resolution for your business - Increase the use of check-in deals. If you would like to know more about check-in deals, call / text me at 816.332.0720.

Twitter
Branded business pages have been rolled out on a beta basis to select business users. Social Media Today reported that Twitter will offer businesses more space to display their logo and message more prominently in the header image. For now, most businesses branding graphics may be covered up by the timeline. Businesses will also have the ability to buy a “featured tweet” that can be linked to a YouTube video, flickr photo or landing page. For 2012, Twitter will be a major player for marketing when branded pages are available to all businesses. Below is Disney-Pixar’s branded Twitter page.

Disney's Pixar Branded Twitter Page

I manage Twitter accounts for some of my clients. Twitter is a time-intensive channel that has produced customers for Yogurtopia, and other clients that offer specials via Twitter. I believe this is an untapped lead generation channel. I still see a lot of spam in Twitterspace but have met some incredible people. I’ve got a ton of stories on how I’ve resolved customer service issues using Twitter.

A New Year’s Resolution for Your Business - Incorporate Twitter effectively within the social media mix for clients who are serious about using this channel to generate leads or provide customer service.

Location, location, location
The other major opportunity for any business with a fixed retail location is location-based social media. Millions of people are using Foursquare and Yelp to find businesses. And 97% of people online use Google to search for products or services. I believe this the most under-used channel because of the lack of knowledge for businesses.

When a business claims their venue on Google, Yahoo, Foursquare, Yelp, Bing or CitySearch, they have access to demographics about their customers. Businesses can also create deals and special offers for free on these channels. I’m amazed at how many businesses have yet to claim and manage their venue. Besides offering special deals, you can add photos and video to those listings.

A New Year’s Resolution for Your Business – Claim your venue on Foursquare, Yelp, Google Local, Yahoo Local, CitySearch and Bing!

Video
And of course the trojan horse of of online marketing opportunity is video. Video is the second-most shared item on Facebook. There are a billion videos watched EVERYDAY on YouTube. Video has been proven to convert web site visitors to customers. My partner company, FINDitKC is the only online video business directory in Kansas City. I would highly recommend adding this to your New Year’s Resolution list to add video to your marketing mix.

A New Year’s Resolution for Your Business - Produce a video and add a listing to FINDitKC’s online directory.

In summary, here are my New Year’s Resolutions for you -

• Create check-in deals that produce customers on Facebook
• Use Twitter to provide customer service or generate leads for you
• Add location-based social media to your online marketing mix
• Add online video so your products and services get in front of millions of customers looking for you online

To help you with your resolution, I’m offering a free social media audit – a $99 value gift. Call or text me today at 816.332.0720 to book your audit. May 2012 be a year of unprecedented growth for you!

Happy Holidays! Give The Gift of Content That’s Shared

Big brands like Subway are incorporating branded content, such as a web show, into their marketing mix. Last summer I answered an inquiry from a reality show producer looking to interview a family with an unusual family holiday tradition. I answered and forgot about it.

Late September I get a call while I’m lost outside of Liberty, MO from a producer. I thought it was a prank call. Then I got an email from the producer. They wanted to do a Skype interview.

I gathered the family and we answered questions from this L.A.-based producer from our livingroom in Kansas City. “Your family is unusually unified,” the producer commented. “You rarely see families that like being together.”

In October the producers contacted me again and said they wanted to come to Kansas City with a team of about 10 people to shoot the episode. “Can we come in 3 weeks?” I gulped, freaked out inside and said, “I need to talk to Jerome.” Pulling off a party in 3 weeks is a miracle for me.

My husband, being so calm as usual, said we could do it. This is a guy who can pull off a dinner for 50 people in 3 hours. I invited friends via Facebook because I didn’t have time to print out and mail invitations. Over 80 people showed up!

Watch the Holiday Luau Party!

I don’t know how many of my friends and family will eat a Subway sandwich as a result of this show. But I’ve shared it with over 1,300 of my friends on Facebook and Tweeted it out to over 600 followers. If everyone who was at the party did the same, that’s a huge reach for Sunbway. Of course, Subway’s logo displays next the shared video, giving the company even more massive exposure.

Oh, and I emailed the link to the show to hundreds of people as well as shared it with my over 500 contacts on LinkedIn. User generated content is a precious commodity for marketers. But how about user-pushed content? That’s a gold mine for marketers. Creating branded content pushed by users is an art form and video is the perfect canvas.

Video is the second most shared item on Facebook with 800 million users. A billion videos are viewed per day on YouTube. I don’t know many times my holiday party will be viewed online. Sunbway is one of the fastest-growing franchises for a reason. Maybe user-pushed content is helping their steady increase in sales.

Do you have a story? Go to freshtakes.msn.com. Your family could be featured on a web show! In the meantime, have a wonderful holiday.

Three Free Online Marketing Tools for Your Holiday Specials

As my gift to you, I give you three free online marketing tools that you can use to market your holiday products or specials. These tools are easy to use and you can actually use them throughout the year to promote other specials. Since the holiday season is here, enjoy these free holiday marketing tools.

Gift 1: Facebook Check-in Special

Create a holiday-themed check-in special on your Facebook page. It’s so easy. Just click on the deals icon to get started on creating your deal. There are three types of deals you can create—

Loyalty Deal – This is a one-time offer that your customers can unlock when they check into your store via Facebook.

Group Deal – Your customer can redeem this deal if they bring in a friend who purchases an item.

Charity Deal – A percentage of your customer’s purchase goes towards the charity of your choice. This is perfect for the holiday season when food banks are collecting donations. Instead of being a drop off point for canned goods, why not commit to donating a percentage of your customer’s purchase towards the local food bank?

Gift 2: Yelp Deal

Claim your venue on your Yelp, and you’ll have access to a suite of tools to market your business on this website that attracts about 20 million unique visitors per month. You can set up a Yelp Deal with a time cap. When someone reads a review of your store, your offer will be displayed. They purchase the offer on Yelp.

Gift 3: Foursquare Check-in Special

There are 10 million people worldwide that check-in to their favorite stores through Foursquare. There are also over a billion check-ins with millions everyday, according to Foursquare. You can create a check-in deal for free after claiming your venue on Foursquare.

The beauty of creating a check-in deal on Foursquare is that you can see who redeemed the special. The back-end of Foursquare’s dashboard is a marketer’s dream. You can see the age range, gender and time that the deal is being redeemed. You can also reach out to those individuals on Foursquare and invite them to join your Facebook page.

With these three free promotional tools, Santa should be really good to you this year. For information on claiming your venue, call / text me at 816.332.0720.

How to Handle Negative Reviews

Yelp is a web site of independent reviews with over 61 million unique visitors during third quarter of 2011. That’s about 20 million visitors who are reading reviews on restaurants, products, hotels and much more. Yelpers have written over 22 million local reviews, according to Yelp.

I witnessed the power of Yelp when I wrote a review on Deke’s BBQ in Raytown, MO. Deke’s is a hole-in-a-wall BBQ joint on the corner of 55th St. & Raytown Road. I told the owner about my review one day while I was in there for my customer burnt ends sandwich. He had no idea what I was talking about because he’s never on the Internet.

When I returned a month later, he told me that he had customers from Michigan and all over the United States that came into his restaurant because of my Yelp review. “Thank you!” He said. “I would have never had those customers if it wasn’t for your review.”

My stellar review worked for Deke’s BBQ, but I have other clients that have had negative reviews. Yelp published a video about how restaurant owners handle negative reviews.

The first action restaurant owners can take is to claim their venue on Yelp. Claiming your venue gives you the ability to respond to negative reviews. Yelp even suggests verbiage for responding to the reviews. If you need help claiming your venue, call me at 816.332.0720. Don’t let a negative review ruin your business.

My Thanksgiving Gift for You: A Free Tool to Market on Google

You’re a turkey if you’re not taking advantage of this free online tool to promote your business. With 97% of people online searching for a business, product or service, use this free tool to promote holiday deals or sales.

Google Local Offers
Whenever a listing is displayed on Google Places, you’ll see an offer displayed.

These are free for businesses that claim their venue on Google. Claiming your venue on Google is as simple as finding your address, and clicking on “Edit this place – Business owner” link in the upper right hand corner.

To verify that can claim the venue, you need to take a phone call from Google. Otherwise, you’ll be prompted to have Google mail you a PIN number that you’ll need to enter to finish claiming the venue.

After claiming your venue, Google offers a free spot for a promotion on your place page. You can revolve these offers with seasonal promotions. You can also manage negative reviews which is another article. If you need help claiming your venue or creating your offer, call me at 816.332.0720.

My First Mac

Steve Jobs, Founder of Apple

I got the news Steve Jobs died today. I’m shocked. I’ve never met the man personally but his work profoundly changed my life. You see, I graduated in Journalism and Political Science. I wrote my way through college. I had no design or layout background.

Then in my first job in public relations, I was charged with writing and designing a newsletter for Budget Rent-A-Car. I remember staring at my first Mac and fiddling around with the design software. I attended a workshop on how to design in Adobe PageMaker but the instructors bored me. I decided to teach myself how to layout and design a newsletter.

On the Mac platform, layout and design was really easy. From newsletters, I went on to design and layout newspaper pages, magazine pages, annual reports, brochures and the list goes on. I even won an award for a design project. I went from being a writer and editor to a publisher. The Mac put the power of publishing in the hands of the people. The Mac also opened up a new world for me beyond just writing and editing.

I salute Steve Jobs for his incredible foresight, relentless innovation, commitment to quality software and hardware and excellence. He pioneered and changed the computer landscape for millions of people.

Why is Online Video the way of the future?

Note from Leilani:
I started working with FINDitKC because I believe online video offers businesses a way to tell their story in a compelling, engaging manner. This is a guest post from Chris Olsen, founder of FINDitKC, Kansas City’s first online video business directory and video-driven social media company.
—
By Chris Olsen
In today’s tough economic climate one thing will prove true: If you’re not making progress, then you’re falling behind.

The web is here to stay, we all can agree to that, but why are so many people reluctant to say the same thing about online video? When television came into play many thought the Goliath called radio was just too big to fall. In just a few short years we saw TV move from black and white to color, from tube to flat screen, and now from flat screen to 3-D. Now we have thousands of channels at our fingertips and just you wait, in due time, cable will move exclusively to the internet and people will be watching most video based content online.

I’m not talking YouTube, I’m talking internet based TV programming. Alan Kay, a famous computer scientist, once stated the best way to predict the future is to invent it. Well, I’d have to say we agree with that. While online video is still in its infancy it has progressed leaps and bounds from grainy, pixelated images to clear HD… Yet many are still reluctant to believe online video will catch on.

I am here to tell you to it has and will continue to be the driving force on the web. Our online video business directory is a concept that is only being attempted by few, none of them in Kansas City, and none at the prices we offer. There are a million so-called directories out there. Some charging as much as $1500 a month to list on their site. None offer near the value FINDitKC.com can. Your company could have a place online to tell its story about its products and services. Or you can take that video clip and post it on your own YouTube channel or Facebook business page. These are the marketing tools of the future.

The Power of Your Story

This morning I heard a presentation from John Stevenson, owner of Client Kudos, a business that tells client stories. John reminded me of how powerful story telling can be for businesses. I’m a writer by trade who has spent the last 10 years in the online world. John brought me back to the value of the printed word.

“Meaning + Memory = Stickiness,” he said during his presentation. Sharing the relevancy of your product and services in a memorable way increases engagement – my words. I admire John’s campaign to eliminate the corporate brochure. I’ve written hundreds of corporate brochures and have tried to incorporate the elements of story into the copy.

The building blocks of a story are anecdotes or a sequence of events and actions that end in a moment of reflection or what does this mean to the reader. Elements that move the reader include challenges, journeys, finds and what it all means. In other words, why should I care about your story?

Last night I read a blog post by Scott Stratten of @unmarketing (Twitter) about Facebook events. He told his story of being invited to an event that was thousands of miles away and irrelevant to him. In this case it was a “hands-on” singles mixer. Scott is a happily-married guy and wondered how he merited an invitation to a “hands-on” singles mixer. I don’t even want to think of what “hands-on” means lol!

Scott’s post resonated with me because I get lots of Facebook invitations to events that are halfway across the country. His point was that these invitations could kill Facebook. Hopefully Facebook has on their radar fixing the functionality of events.

Scott shared an anecdote, pulled out the meaning of that anecdote for all of us and for Facebook. What’s your story? Start with a simple anecdote. If you need help telling your story, contact John at js@clientkudos.com. Tell him that Leilani sent you.

Yelp Works

I walked into Deke’s BBQ which is down the street from where I live to pick up my customary burnt ends sandwich. “Are you the one that put something about me on the Internet,” the owner asked. “Yeah, I wrote a review about you on Yelp.” He smiled, “Thank you, I’ve had people come in from Michigan and other states because of your review.”

He gave me some free soft drinks because of the review. What can I say? Yelp works. I’ve been yelping off and on for about year. I’m crazy busy with zero time to write but I decided to start yelping because of my soft spot for the mom and pops who don’t have big ad budgets to market their services. If you don’t know what’s the big deal with Yelp, it is a site where you can find reviews on almost every restaurant and business.

In Deke’s BBQ case, the customers searched for barbecue in East Kansas City or Raytown and pulled up my 4 star review. Deke’s BBQ looks like a little house from the outside but the BBQ has big flavor. My review pulled those customers from the “big name” barbecue places in Kansas City – Gates, Smokehouse etc. into his little place on the corner.

Do you use Yelp to find restaurants, events and businesses near you? Do you “Yelp” about them?