Go Beyond MLS » Social Media

Setting up Facebook Pages for beginners

Matt — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 11:32:29 +0000

Matt Brown

Before we set off on our voyage of discovery today I want to give you a bit of background as to why I am writing this article. I have found myself of late being adviser to a lot of people setting up facebook pages for lots of different reasons. Rather than repeat what I have to say ten times I am going to try and summarize it. Where possible I am going to use the Go Beyond MLS page as an illustration.

Now I should also point out that I am not a guru at this sort of thing but a really enthusiastic geek. With that in mind let us look at setting up pages.

What is a page?

A page is a blog.

Don’t look at me like that a page is basically a cross between twitter and wordpress. For plugins you have applications and instead of tweets you have posts with attachments.

All the basics of blogging apply to your page. We will talk about this in a moment. First some basics to make sure we have not missed anything.

Making the page

Most of you that read this article will know how to make a page already but for those that don’t this is the quick version.

1. Go to a page (the Go Beyond MLS Page is good).

2. At the bottom of the left hand column you will see a link that says “Create a Page for My Business” (this link leads tot he same page).

3. Click it, fill out the details and there you are a page. It has no fans (not even you) and is ready for customisation.

Getting the basics in place

There are some things that a page needs before you even make yourself a fan of it. These are simple that it is easy to overlook them.

1. Upload a picture. In fact if you got as far as making the page and did not have the perfect logo then you need to stop whatever you are doing and get one. Now.

Your picture is your only branding that you get. Everything else looks exactly as facebook wants it to look.

A good image can be as tall as you like but is limited in width. Take a look at the Lord Matt fan page (and become a fan perhaps). You will see that it has a customised image that fills down the page and adds my character to the page. I also get to make the public speaker and blogger points boldly while getting two pictures of me on the one space.

If you do not have the skills to make such an image then a photograph might do. Just remember whatever you use had better be yours to use.

2. Put something short and snappy in the about box.

Treat this like the most important tweet you will ever send. I like to end with a call to action (suggest to friends).

3. Find something worthwhile to say for all the fields under the info tab.

If the fields on the info tab are very much not what you need and do not fit in the slightest then you are not to late to delete the page and try picking a better category. Make up your mind now because it’s the work of ten minutes to change things with no loss if you change them now.

Okay assuming that you stick with your current settings write that “about” section and make sure you make it good.

You have around 100 to 300 words before people have to click to see more so just like blogging you must capture people’s interest within as few lines as possible and then keep it. If it takes days to get the “about” perfect then that is what it takes.

4. Consider making the about tab the default landing page because your wall is not going to be very interesting to start with.

There are more advanced things you can do like adding new tabs that people land on but for now let us just stick with the info tab.

To make it the default landing page you are going to have to click “Edit Page” which is found just under the image you set a while back. Get in there and make some changes.

5. Consider making the default for the wall both fan and page so that it is as much like a basic facebook profile as possible.

You can do this when looking at the page proper.

Still not ready, whatever you might think

It is still not time to be a fan of your own page. The basics are done (more or less) but now you need to do something so fundamentally simple that you could actually miss it entirely.

You need, and I do mean need, to make one of the best status updates you have ever written. You need this because as soon as you are a fan it is possible people you know might come and visit the page. Becoming the first fan is the first motion that starts the door opening and you do not want to invite people to the party before the catering is planned.

Only then are you free to fan the page.

How to get notifications when someone comments on your page

There are only two ways to get a notification of something getting a comment (that I know of) on a page.

1. You have to like the something in question – press that like button and move on.
2. You have to comment on the something and (I think) not be an admin.

A word of warning to page owners with many posts. If you go “like” made you will spam the hell out of your own wall and devalue it. Also if you are the only one carrying out actions on the page it will look spammy if you went and liked everything. No one likes everything. Don’t do it.

If you can get a friend or two that you trust to co-admin the page with you then you can carve the likes up between you but remember that none of you can comment as you on the page once you are an admin. So you might like to get your closest friends to poke you when there is something to look at.

Honestly though you should be going to your own page most days anyway…

Your page is a blog so write on it

Your facebook page is a blog. So like a blog you need to write on it. Daily.

You want to see regular updates. Links, videos, comments, forum posts (that’s a whole other topic), pictures and all the other stuff that walls can have and it needs to happen organically – a little at a time.

I’ll talk about how you can automate a few tasks at another time and place but before you can understand what tasks can be trusted to a computer you need to understand the tasks. Most of them can only be done by you.

Now that we are one!

Now that you have your first fan (you) it is time to get more. This is how.

1. Add value. Make it worth while to be a fan.
2. Invite all your friends. Twice if need be.
3. Link tot he page on your blog or website.
4. Do not stop with the valuable updates.

Getting fans is a slow and organic process but by removing reasons not to fan your page you help things move along well.

I’ll be talking about this and other topics soon.Similar Posts:

Facebook Marketing: Initial Case Study

Matt — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 21:35:48 +0000

Go Beyond Facebook

What I am going to do int his first article is simply look at the Facebook fan page for this website and use it to explore Facebook pages in general and what they can do for your blog (regardless of niche).

Vlad tells me that apart from setting up the page he has not actually done very much with it least of all tell anyone about it.

This, for this article’s purposes, is fantastic! It means that we can actively measure what I am about to have said (keep on reading or you might miss it) and watch what happens as we implement the theory. Over the next few months I’ll revisit the topic of Facebook and representing your blog therein reporting on our efforts to go beyond just having a page and to actually getting traffic from it.

As I write there are 3 fans. In three months let us see if we can get over 100.

The page as it is

Go Beyond Facebook Page

As the page stands there is nothing obviously “wrong” with it. The blog posts are being added to the page and there is a graphic that matches the website theme. However, as you can see, there is a lack of variety and this makes the page visually unappealing and repetitive.

In other words we have settles down to making Facebook a very expensive feed reader. That’s fine but it’s not exciting enough to get the average Facebook user to do much by way of interaction.

According to something I was reading (somewhere) the average Facebook user fans two pages a month. That means to see growth in the page’s fan base some work is going to be needed.

Then the page must add value to the user’s day and if that was not enough it must actually be interactive enough to get enough interaction to show up in the news feed of the fans who have added it.

Facebook promotion is no walk in the park. Keep reading for an insight into using pages.

Go beyond what is missing!

The first thing that most people are going to say is missing is the fans. Look for yourself. (When I wrote this there were three of us)

Go Beyond MLS on Facebook

Yet this is not what is missing but a metric that we are heading in the right direction to attract people.

What is missing is the variety of media that can be found on any page in Facebook.

Pictures

This is a tough one for a blog. Many blogs are of non visual topics and yet people are going to want to see that the blog has something of a gallery. Pictures break the page up and give the senses a change of pace.

So what can a blogger show pictures of?

Well for starters there is the writer or writers of the blog. Assuming that your names are known then some images of you serve to help the fan connect with you on a deeper level.

If images of oneself are not enough then there are diagrams. A well thought out diagram illustrating some key point from you recent blogging allows Facebook users to see that they are getting exclusive content.

Product shots – fans in your t-shirts. If you produce a physical product then this is an ideal space to allow fans to show themselves off with their newly purchased product. Mum’s, sisters and close friends might also agree to get the ball rolling.

Status updates

The Facebook page is like your personal Facebook wall and has the opportunity for you to speak with the voice of your blog. Give your fans something to ponder or shout out to a fan that has submitted some particularly interesting comments.

Let the Facebook users know that the page has a life that goes beyond publishing the blog feed.

Videos and links

Any article, youtube video or podcast by someone interesting from in or near your niche could be worth sharing on your page. The concept of linking out, adding value and being the resource for others that drives blogging applies here too.

Furthermore a good resource can be sued to connect with your Facebook friends and promote your page to them in a not-at-all aggressive way. Posts of all forms of link have a SHARE button which will post the link to your page and say “from NameOfYourPage” which gives you a little exposure and, so long as it is interesting, enhances your social capital as an interesting person.

Go Beyond what is expected

One thing that you will find about pages is that they have very little opportunity for energy saving automation, branding or free text. However with a little inventiveness you can get quite a lot out of them.

Take as my first example a little shameless self promotion: My very own fan page.

The image below is a screen shot of that page.

Matt's Facebook Page

You might notice that the left hand side is almost all customized. This is because there is no limit on relative height for your profile image. Use this space to get the most out of the branding and impact space of your page.

In my case I made sure there were images of me that I could use to get an attractive thumbnail which you can see is a picture of a poster of me getting some attention from the lovely ladies (yes it is a genuine fake).

A little planning and you can maximize your impact buy controlling the image dimensions.

Additionally you might notice int his screen shot that there is a visual variety in the posts themselves. This happens to be because I posted a largish number of links recently and have yet to write a new blog post.

Talking of blog posts when-ever I write a blog post I know that my Facebook page (and twitter account) will be updated to. To do this I use NetWorkedBlogs which is a valuable application for Facebook using bloggers. To get the most out of it it is vital to make sure that 80% or more of your blog posts have an image in them that the NEtWorkedBlogs app can use. Keep the images varied and the page “wall” will look interesting.

You can also get added feedback onto your page if the NetWorkedBlogs application posts to other locations (like your personal wall or another page). This is because a like or a comment in any location is a like or a comment on all copies of the post. This too makes your page look interesting.

Going beyond the theory: The game plan

This is the game plan for the page over the next few weeks and months in roughly the order they will be carried out.

1. A taller image.

2. NetWorkedBlogs doing it’s thing.

3. Status updates, links and videos.

4. Invite fans.

Once this minor tweak is fully in place I shall revisit the topic and look at what else can be done to use Facebook to engage with potential readers and promote your blog. The results we are looking for as a result of good promotion of the Facebook page are:

1. More fans

2. More fan interaction

3. Traffic to the blog

Final thoughts

So far we have not looked at methods of getting from three fans to one hundred. However it is vital to get the foundations right or the rest will not stand up too well.

Have you made a fan page yet? What was it like and did many people “fan” it?Similar Posts:

More Nofollow Tags On Twitter: Is This Beginning Of The End For Twitter?

Vlad Zablotskyy — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:14:16 +0000

UPDATE, March 2, 2010: After experimenting with a plugin for Google Buzz, I have decided not to use on at this time. All available plugins as of now offer to ad comments to Google Reader items- this potentially can scatter the discussion all over places. Hopefully a better solution will be implemented soon.

With the arrival of Google Buzz, I began to question whether or not I should continue to concentrate on Twitter. I hope I am not the only one. Two days ago Twitter decided to intruduce even more “nofollow” attributes this time to their internal linking structure. I understood (but did not agree) when they introduced the first round of nofollow attributes to their links, I guess as young startup you needed to do what you needed to do.

So today I have replaced the Tweetmeme button (courtesy of Tweetmeme ) with new and shiny Google Buzz button (courtesy of Hameedullah Khan). The Tweetmeme button was moved to the button of each post. This is just a symbolic gesture of my personal dissatisfaction of the way Twitter is “innovating”, I have nothing but love for Tweetmeme.

Twitter has bigger issues to deal with….

For Twitter trying to manipulating the flow of the Google juice at this stage of the game is really childish, and if that is the reason for the latest change I just feel sorry for Twitter. Really guys, is this the best you’ve got? Now if the recent change was made as a further attempt to eliminate spam my question is the same, is this the best you’ve got? There are ways to eliminate spam without punishing your users.

There is also another factor, and I maybe completely wrong about it… I appears to me that many of my online are starving for a more meaningful way to keep the conversation going (which in my opinion is impossible to have on Twitter). So if you compare Twitter and Google Buzz from that perspective, Google Buzz wins hands down, and if you thought Google Buzz is no threat to Twitter you should really think again.

Now back to the new and shiny Google Buzz button- you need to use your GMail/Google Reader to interact with it. You can also follow Go Beyond MLS on Google.Similar Posts:

AddThis Improves Usability and Reporting

Vlad Zablotskyy — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:00:57 +0000

Back in October of 2008, I wrote a post in which I tried to compare two services that allow your readers to share the content of your blog on variety of social bookmarking websites- AddThis and ShareThis. At the time I was experimenting with both widgets across my blogs. While AddThis may have been a little more recognizable, I thought that ShareThis offered better reporting.

Over the last few weeks, AddThis managed to win my heart and today I would like to highlight few of the changes.

Button and The Way User May Interact With it

While I am still not that thrilled about button on “hover” behaviour- I would rather it to begin interaction on “click”. But considering AddThis popularity, I think it is safe to assume that majority of visitors expect AddThis button to behave a certain way. Besides there is a reason why AddThis button responds to both “on hover” and “on click”. When you however over the button with your moths a small widow is pulled down with several essential social bookmarking websites:

However if a visitor clicks on the button, a larger window pops up which allows you to choose between about 47 different social bookmarking websites:

In the past when a visitor clicked the button, it would take him or her to a page on AddThis website.

Reporting and Statistics

Not sure it was me (highly unlikely) AddThis listened to, but they did heck of a job with improving the reporting and statistics. First thing you may notice logging into your account is that AddThis now segregates data for each domain. If you happened to have AddThis button on multiple websites, you are likely to find this feature useful.

AddThis now also provides data on where your content is submitted to. You can find that under “Top Services”.

In addition AddThis also provides information about geographical location of users sharing your content- look for it under “Top Continents”.

Similar Posts:

Social Bookmarking Widgets: AddThis vs ShareThis.

Vlad Zablotskyy — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 22:27:25 +0000

Over the period of last few years bloggers had found creative ways to allow their readers to easy share the content of the blog on social bookmarking websites. WordPress has several plugins allowing you to implement easy sharing of your content. Probably the most known plugin is Sociable- a plugin I often used on many of my WordPress powered websites. One of the things that I always wanted to see in Sociable plugin was the ability to report how many times and on which websites my content was shared. If they consider developing such reporting, I may use the Sociable plugin again. However for now I had to say goodbye to Sociable and for the past few weeks I was taking a closer look at AddThis and ShareThis.

AddThis

I came across AddThis before I discovered ShareThis. AddThis allows you to add a button to your website by inserting a piece of code into your website or, if you are using WordPress, you can try their plugin. One o the downsides of using the plugin is that it inserts the button below the post and is not offering flexibility to place the button anywhere you want.

Issues With AddThis “Dropdown” Button

One thing that I find annoying about “dropdown” version of the AddThis button is that behaves “unexpectedly” (example on the left). I belong to the “mindset” that if you just hover over the button with the cursor it should not talk, sing, smile, wink or otherwise interact with me. Unless, of course, I click on it!

AddThis Reporting And Related Issues

One of the things you may quickly discover that in order not to mess up your AddThis statistics. You may need to open several accounts if you would like to separate the statistics for each website.

I would love AddThis develop and offer more in depth reporting. In particular I would like to see them reporting not only how many times a particular URL was shared, but to tell me exactly on which of the social websites it was shared.

ShareThis Allows You To Track Multiple Domains

In your ShareThis account you can ad more than one URL. ShareThis provides separate statistics for each domain. It takes abotu 24 hours for your statistics to be shown from the time you add a domain and install the code or the WordPress plugin on your blog.

ShowThis Has More Detailed Statistics

While still short of reporting exactly which URL was submitted to what social networking websites, ShareThis offers some extra statistics that I find interesting and useful.

ShareThis Button Can Be Placed Anywhere

If you decide to use ShareThis on your wordpress, it is quite flexible as to where you can place the button on your blog. By default it places the button at the end of the article, but you can override that option or place an additional button in the beginning of your posts.

ShareThis Offers More “Sharing Options”

Besides offering your readers to share your blog’s content on top social bookmarking websites, SharThis offers other blogger to “reblog” your content. It also offers and opportunity to your visitors to share your blog’s content via e-mail, SMS or Instant Messaging.

Conclusion

I think both services can improve reporting. While certain submissions (such as when your pages are submitted to StumbleUpon or Digg) can be noticed rather easily, allowing you to interact with the submitter. Improving this side of the reporting will allow yet another way for the owner of the blog to network with his or her readers.

Final thought for the blog owners. If you have not tried either of the services, make sure to try at least one of them. The implementation is very easy, both have WordPress plugin. It will take you less than 15 minutes to implement the plugins, but you can rep the benefits for years to come. One thing you have to remember that no plugin in the world can substitute your interaction with your readers and your fans.Similar Posts:

Social Media Is Defining The New Rules Of Engagement

Vlad Zablotskyy — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 04:33:21 +0000

Thousands of people today are blogging, twittering, making friends on Facebook…

We may not fully appreciate this new emerging force on the internet, but we indeed have already embraced it and even gave it a name- “Social Media”.

This new force is changing the Internet and is writing new rules of engagement, if you wish, for a successful business. And the new rules are rather simple- transparency and honesty.

In my opinion today businesses and inviduals have three basic choices they can make:

Embrace thins new movement and follow the new rules. This some times will require to face and engage your worst critics. Most of the criticism out there can be reduced to “this item sucks” or “this is the worst wireless provider”? But if face your critics in an honorable and honest way, trying to improve your products, chances are you will disarm your critics and maybe even turn some of the them into your best allies. Just think about it, most of the times companies are criticized over the type of services or products they offer.
Do nothing about it. It looks like many companies out there are so afraid to step out of their shell. The fear is so great that it keeps them “frozen”. These are the companies that we will not remember two years from now.
And the of course you can chose to ignore the emerging social media or/and continue to be a complete asshole as far as transparency and honesty are concerned.

You are probably looking in between the lines trying to figure out if the next few paragraphs will follow with the examples. The answer is no. I had different goal in mind…

We have a golden opportunity today. With today technology and the Internet, we have an unprecedented opportunity for promoting our brand. On opportunity that was not available to many just short ten years ago. Unless you and I take on this opportunity and just do two things, be transparent and honest, we are wasting our time and other peoples patience.Similar Posts: