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?

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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?

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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

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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?

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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.

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Syncapse, a social media marketing company, surveyed 4,000 people who have “Liked” 20 of the top marketing brands.

Companies are recognizing their need to understand the value of their fans, people who “Like” their products. A key question is “What do fans do for the company?”

• Fans spend money on the top marketing brands themselves.
• They also show a level of loyalty – they will buy again and again.
• They recommend the product by “word-of-mouth”, which includes their voice for talking and their fingers for social media.

Each of these factors adds to the value of a someone who “Likes” a product.

Social Channels Impact Marketing

The Syncapse report explains the importance of monitoring social media conversations:

Brands need to understand the causal relationship between their social programs and its effect on key performance indicators. Understanding Earned Media Value generated by a social base is a direct indicator of the amount of word-of-mouth conversation about a brand. Understanding Community Health is a leading indicator of the future sustainability of a community and the ability to nurture high value customers. Mining the conversation and understanding the tone and focus provide insights into the association fans have with a brand and how marketers can use such allegiance to their advantage.

While understanding the value of a fan is very complicated, many companies are developing ways to do it. Over time these measurements will be tested and their analysis will improve.

Click here to see the Syncapse report.

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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: 7% [?]

Take a look at some of the statistics on Facebook:

[Source: Online PhD Programs for MashableMashable.com]

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If someone is hacking your Facebook account from a strange computer, then Facebook has the ability to notify you via email or SMS.

Set Up The Facebook Hacking Notification

To get the security notification operating go to “My Account”:

Account Settings

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Click on the settings tab:

Click The Settings Tab

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Click on “Yes” to receive notifications:

Facebook Security

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Once this is submitted you need to log out of your Facebook account and then log back in. As you log back in you will be asked to register the computer you are on.

Register your computer:

Register Your Computer

You can receive security notifications by email or by SMS. If you receive a notification and you are not aware of the new access to your account then log in and change your password right away. And then notify Facebook

Dropped Cookies Require Re-Register

If your PC drops cookies for any reason you may need to re-register your computer. Facebook may also ask you some security questions to get into your account.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Facebook can now be integrated into your web presence with incredible ease. This allows more businesses to connect through Facebook than ever before because they are not required to dedicate as many resources as they have in the past.

The Like Button

With the use of the “Like” button businesses can enable their website visitors to share their findings with their Facebook contacts. The button is very simple to install (click here to learn how). Now websites become a part of Facebook and Facebook becomes a part of websites.

By reducing the cost and time it takes for websites to become a part of the Facebook platform, Facebook has created a win-win proposition for many companies hoping to market on the network. Websites will be able to provide a constant flow of content to the people who “like” what they publish online, while Facebook becomes one of the primary aggregators of social data across the web — not a bad deal.

http://mashable.com/2010/05/05/facebook-open-graph-business/

So more businesses are going to get in.

Facebook Is Reaching For The Top Spot

With 450 million users Facebook dominates social media. And they are not about to rest any time soon. Facebook is significantly impacting search engine rankings, connections between users, and Internet communication in general.

Social optimization is to 2010 as SEO was to 2005. Facebook, along with other important social platforms are now giving you the tools to optimize your social media presence based on the quality of social engagement you create. As Mark Zuckerberg said, the web is defaulting to social. It’s time to act accordingly.

http://mashable.com/2010/05/05/facebook-open-graph-business/

Wow, what a fascinating time we work in!

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