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Huck Huckabee

“Who should be allowed to speak for the company?” That’s a common question that is being asked by thousands of businesses as they are becoming active in social media. Different companies have different missions. But one of the key elements of Facebook is keeping the contact personal. The personal contact comes in the form of postings and replies to postings.

Make Postings Specific

Many businesses post content on their Facebook page that is of use to their broad range of followers. They fail to see the need to be specific. Some postings need to target the general audience. But don’t hesitate to post items focused on small segments of your friends and fans. It adds the personal feel to those you are addressing. And it can educate those you are not so familiar with the subject matter. When I make posts about my Facebook consultations, my blog site customers see it and the post my generate their interest in pursuing Facebook marketing.

General postings can be created by people with knowledge of the content. Some companies have their clerical staff handle this operation. While this is not necessarily bad for general information, it may come with an action generating twist if it came from someone with value added motivations.

Personal postings should be done by the people who will come in contact with the customer. Nothing is wrong with posting personal items on the company Facebook page if you want to develop relationships with the Facebook target audience.

Passionate postings need to come from the upper ranks of the company. The higher up have the most to gain and they need to show it by displaying their belief in what they do.

Replies to Postings

When you reply to postings you are in the personal format. Replies show specific interest in the person you are responding to. And it is an opportunity for you to show your personal side to the readers of the page. Replies should be made by personnel with communication experience. If you are selling goods, then use the sales staff. I may result in a new lead.

Popularity: 9% [?]

One of the most common requests on Facebook by its users has been to be able to post messages that only went to certain groups of people and not their entire group of friends.

Select A Target Audience For Facebook Messages

Facebook has acted on this request. Now Facebook allows you to create “groups” that are closed to the people you invite into it.

One handy thing to note. With groups Facebook has added a feature that allows you to chat with multiple people in the same conversation.

Potential As A Business Tool

This could be very handy for business. Postings could go to a group of employees, a group of customers, a group of vendors or some other group of contacts. Postings would be there for everyone to see and they could be referred to at some point in the future.

Here is a brief tutorial on how to create a Facebook group:

How will you use groups with your business?

Popularity: 6% [?]

Huck Huckabee

The “Like” Button On Non-Facebook Websites

The “Like” button was first introduced in April of this year. It has been implemented by over 350,000 websites and is still growing incredibly fast. Media sites were the initial users of the “Like” button but now it is being used by all kinds of sites.

E-commerce sites like E-Bay and Best Buy are using the “Like” button to promote their website content. But the jury is still out on the value to them.

To benefit from the “Like” button businesses need to get their site visitors to like their pages. Some Facebook users use it while others do not. The question is, do those users want to have an impact on who will read the content they read. People participating with the like button can be a powerful influence on their friends.

Facebook Is Keeping Their Data To Themselves

One thing that is making the “Like” button hard to put a value on is the lack of data available on who is Liking your website content. At some point Facebook may make this easier for us to access.

Click the play buttone below to watch the WSJ video on “Like”:

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Have you put the “Like” button on any of your websites? If so, are you getting any responses?

Popularity: 82% [?]

Time Is Being Invested

If you know someone who still has doubts about involving business with Facebook, tell them about this: People are now spending 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook.

Huck Huckabee

More and more businesses are creating pages on Facebook. Too often many of those businesses do not know the basic things to put on their pages.

Offer Several Forms Of Content

First, if you have a blog, set it up to automatically post to your Facebook. Different software has different tools. I use TwitterFeed to to have may blog postings automatically posted on Facebook. The initial part of the article is posted and then linked back to the blog. This generates traffic for my blogs.

Second, link to content related to your visitors interests. You’re an expert in your field. You have some information sources available on the web that many of your followers may not know about. Share them by providing links in your posts.

Third, put photos on your Facebook photos page. Photos of you, your staff, and other people related to your business give visitors a feel of comfort. It helps personalize your relationships.

Forth, post videos on your wall. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then what is a video worth? When you find something interesting on YouTube that you think will interest your fans, post it on your wall.

Finally, initiate discussions. Get your followers to respond. That’s where businesses start to learn about what they can do for their customers.

What is your favorite form of content on Facebook?

Popularity: 16% [?]

The Location Factor

Facebook has enabled “Facebook Places” so users can let others know where they are. The service is designed to help you share where you are, see who is near you, and see things that are going on nearby.

Each location has it’s own news feed which lists the recent check-ins and will list comments made by the visitors to the feed area. Facebook will tag friends in your area and notify you who is around.

The Privacy Concern

Have you ever been somewhere and didn’t want anyone to know you were there. If you’re using Facebook Places, this could be a problem. Here we get into the privacy issue. After listening to critics, Facebook has given its users some options on how they reveal where they are. You can go to your privacy settings and control who knows where you are.

Here is a great video on how to edit your privacy settings:

Here is another video on some of the details on Facebook Places:

What Can Businesses Do With This

Facebook has delayed the release of it’s Places application due to concerns over the privacy issue. But I’m willing to bet that most people will be willing to reveal their locations. The question now becomes, how can businesses capitalize on this?

Finding Potential Customers Based On Location

Being able to find potential customers based on where they are can be of incredible value. Let’s look at a simple example. Say you run an ice cream shop and your freezer has broken. You will not be able to get it fixed in time to keep your inventory from melting. What could you do with Facebook Places to ease this problem? Contact everyone in the area and make an offer that they can’t refuse to help you get rid of your ice cream.

How can your businesses use Facebook Places?

Popularity: 9% [?]

Using The Share on Facebook Bookmarklet

Facebook has a button available that people can use to share the web page they are looking at with their friends on Facebook. For example, I enjoy watching and playing golf. Well, this is the week of the PGA Championship. And the PGA has set up a really neat website for the tournament. So when I found the site I clicked the “Share on Facebook” button that I installed on my tool bar. By doing that I posted a message about the site on Facebook with a link to it.

Now, do you think any of my golfing buddies will pass that message on to their golfing buddies? I’ll bet they do!

Click here to go to the Facebook Bookmarklet page and put the button on your tool bar. It’s very simple to install and very simple to use.

Let’s Share Your Website

So now Facebook users are starting to add this ‘Share on Facebook’ button to their browser tool bars (it will probably come as a standard tool soon). And those of us in business want our websites shared on Facebook. So how do we get our site visitors to share our pages?

Make Your Website Content Facebook Sharable

Well, we’ve got to provide content that is “sharable”. Give the viewers of your website a reason to click that “Share on Facebook” button. Content is key. Take care in what you create and make it interesting enough that your site visitors want to share it with their friends.

How do you make your content interesting enough for people to share it?

Popularity: 5% [?]

Ford Explorer Introduced on Facebook and YouTube

Today Ford Motor Company is presenting the 2011 Ford Explorer on Social Media. This marks a major marketing change for the automobile industry.

On Ford’s Facebook page you can click on the “Reveal” tab and see 12 YouTube videos connected to the page. The videos are listed on a schedule. Their first video was available to view at 12:01 am. I am writing this article at 3:00 pm and at this time seven of the videos are available to view and five more are scheduled through the rest of the day.

Ford now has 48,919 people listed as “Likes” on their page. That is far above their goal of 30,000 fans. Keep an eye on this and see how it grows through the day.

Ford’s Facebook Page

Popularity: 7% [?]

Bing now has a search engine that searches social media. You have the option to search Twitter, Facebook or both with other social media. You’re given the option to sort by the “most recent” or “best match” when Bing delivers your results. When you choose “most recent” you are given the option to show real time updates. As items are posted that meet your search criteria they will scroll down the search page.

Businesses Can Use This To Monitor Chat About Them

Go to http://www.bing.com/social and type in the name of a major company. I have copied my search for “Pepsi” below. In posts made in the last hour prior to this search Pepsi can get some valuable information. There is a comment about an advertisement made during a major league baseball game, several comments about the “Pepsi Refresh Project” and several other subjects.

Just go to http://www.bing.com/social and check it out. How can you use this for your business?

Popularity: 7% [?]

Facebook has now given users the ability to “Like” comments. This sounds like a minor issue, but think about it. This should have a major impact on participation. How often have you seen a comment that you agreed with and thought “Well someone has stated my view, I don’t need to post the same thing.” In that case two opposing comments could be posted and it would appear that visitors are evenly divided in their opinions. With the “Like” button you can cast your vote with one click.

Business Can See What Customers Want

Businesses can use this as a tool to get a more specific view of what their target markets are looking for. If a business sees a Facebook comment on it’s page that generates several thumbs up, then the business knows to pay close attention to that particular comment. That provides a greater understanding for what the market is demanding.

Popularity: 23% [?]

A Business Posting Daily

SteelMaster Buildings is a great example of how a business can use Facebook on a regular basis. In May they made 33 posts on their Facebook page.

So what could a business selling metal buildings do on facebook? Well, SteelMaster does everything from offering advice on how to choose a building to playing games on their Facebook posts.

As I’m writing this hurricane season has just started. So SteelMaster put a page on their website about what their buildings have done for their customers in bad storms. The page was simple to create and focuses on a current event of the season. Then they made a post on their Facebook page and linked the message back to that page on their website. From there, who knows, the visitors may have looked at other pages on the SteelMaster website.

Another item they posted in May was a game where visitors were asked to find the difference between two, seemingly identical, photographs. And that photograph was of one of their metal buildings. People who saw the item in one photo that was missing in the other got their name put in a hat. Then they drew from those names for a $25 VISA gift card.

These are two neat ways SteelMaster has generated traffic to their Facebook page and their Website. And they had several other items posted in May. Most were short and sweet messages with links to more information back to their website. So you know they generated traffic.

Visit SteelMaster Buildings Facebook page today and see what is going on now.

Popularity: 25% [?]