The Maine SEO Blog

The new timeline for Facebook business pages is here… And, it’s looking pretty snazzy!

For a while marketers have been creating Facebook landing pages, asking for the like, promoting their product, handing out coupons for likes etc. With the new design, Timeline for Facebook business pages, no longer can you have people land on a default landing page (you can still however have landing pages, check out the blog post on custom Facebook tabs). However, you do have a lot more space for an intriguing image that represents your business.

With this new design it’s important to follow the Facebook Cover guidelines when it comes to your cover image. Here they are:

1. You cannot have calls to action
2. You cannot include contact info
3. You can not have price or purchase info
4. You cannot have any reference to Facebook features such as “Like us” or “Share our page”

Essentially the guidelines for your cover image protect Facebook from anyone thinking that your page is an ad created by Facebook. Also, it helps to keep social social. Meaning, they don’t want pages to create banner ads for their Facebook business page profile.

Things you can do.

1. Get creative!
2. Be fun.
3. Show your brand or companies personality. (An image says 1,000 words)
4. Just like with Facebook ads, an image can make or break the success of it, so test out what images look best and work best.

Check out Facebook Help for more info on your new cover image for Facebook Timeline for Business Pages.

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
What do you think of the Flyte Cover?

So, yesterday Facebook announced that they are rolling out Timeline for Facebook pages. If you haven’t switched your page over already you’ll have until March 30th to do so, before Facebook automatically changes pages over. But, that’s not all they announced. Yesterday was the first ever FMC (Facebook Marketing Conference) which was an invite only event, however they did stream it live so I was able to listen in.

Mike Hoefflinger, the Director of Global Business Marketing at Facebook introduced us to a few new products, some of which Facebook rolled out yesterday and others that won’t be out til April.

Hoefflinger told the story of how we are “going back to the future”, relating new ways of doing business with mom and pop stores of the past. He stated, “People prefer narration. Ads come from anywhere, stories come from people that you are connected to and have a relationship with. We’ve been doing ads because we couldn’t build enough connections to tell stories and have relationships at the scale of business today.” Social is changing that.

He went on to talk about how Facebook is leading that change making is to you can build enough connections and here are some of the products that they are rolling out that will hopefully help to accelerate that change.

1. Timeline for Pages: Mission control for you business – launch pad for your stories

Not only do you get the new cleaner look and bigger cover image new pages offer a greater experience to know what your friends are doing and how they are interacting with a particular brand or page which in turn builds stronger connections for you.

You can now also include how you got started and many other milestones for your company that have happened in the past, creating a greater story for your company.

Now people can message you directly on your page. You can give a personal one on one reply that they deserve.

2. Brand new story type: Offers

These are simple offers that will show up in the news feed and all you have to do to collect on them is click the add. You will then immediately have the offer emailed to your email account that’s attached to your Facebook account.

Check out Mari Smith’s blog post “Facebook Launches ‘Facebook Offers’ for Businesses” for more info.

3. Reach Generator:
This is a new premium advertising solution for large clients seeking to reach a higher percentage of fans via sponsored activity. While this is probably not going to be used my small and mid sized businesses, it is a new product that Facebook is offering.

Currently pages reach 16% of fans/friends every month, what if you could reach 50 – 75%? With Reach Generator you can now double your engagement. This is a package you purchase from Facebook where every day they sponsor a post and guarantee a 75% reach to your fanbase over a month long period. Some numbers that Hoefflinger gave as an example:

Using Reach Generator the following companies accomplished…

-  Ben & Jerry’s reached 98% of all their fans and increased sales at a 3-1 ROI
-  Dr. Pepper had a 140% increase in people talking about this
-  Butterfinger had a 6 point increase in brand favorability

This is definitely a product worth using if you are a larger company with the money to afford it.

4. Premium on Facebook: the most impactful way for you to distribute your content on Facebook (you create, Facebook takes care of placement)

With Premium on Facebook your ads will no longer be the small ad to the right of the page but instead it will be seamlessly integrated throughout the site as if it were a regular update that had a lot of reach. As Hoefflinger says, “Marketing on Facebook will now feel like the rest of Facebook.”

Top placements for these ads? You the advertiser would start with a page post, then it would be placed on the right hand side of Facebook, then it would be put in the newsfeed.

There will also be a 4th placement option with Premium that will allow businesses to display ads on the log-out page of Facebook after users have logged out. This can include video, photos etc.

Not only will your ad now be in the newsfeed and possibly the logout, but it will also be on mobile, something Facebook has not done in the past.

According to Hoefflinger, using Premium on Facebook you should see 5 – 10x improvement in your ads success.
What are your thoughts on the new products Facebook is offering it’s advertisers?

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Check out Flyte’s New Timeline

What happens to my custom tabs or landing pages I’ve created in Facebook when pages change over to the new Facebook Timeline? This is a question I had and was asked by many others. Here’s the answer. They don’t disappear they just get moved. So, you’ll notice below there is an image of the old Facebook pages. You’ll notice the blue arrow points to the links to the tabs that were created. And, the circle is around the page itself.

With the new Timeline for Facebook pages this will get moved to the right of the page just below the cover image. Here you are allowed to have your custom tabs and applications. You can have up to 12 apps total. Facebook will also allow you to prioritize the order so you can have the most important tabs/links/apps show up first. Take the image of our new timeline page below, I have circled the area where your pages will be moved.

My second question was, “Can you still have a defaulted landing page for those who haven’t liked your Facebook page yet?”

Answer: Unfortunately with the new timeline the ability to default visitors to a particular page is no longer available. However, there is still value in setting up landing pages, as you can still set up custom tabs where people can learn more about you and you can still have folks land on custom pages coming from Facebook ads.

Here are a few suggestions on ways to use your cover image and custom tabs to provide the same service the defaulted pages for those who hadn’t liked you yet provided:

- Incorporate your tagline in your cover image
- Incorporate an arrow in the cover image pointing to the like button
- Pin a welcome video, so that it’s at the top of your page for new visitors (unfortunately you’d have to continue to do this every 7 days)
- Create a welcome page for Facebook targeted ads that ask for the like

Looking for more answers when it comes to the Facebook Timeline Pages? Check out this informative video that Facebook put together.

Resources:
facebook.com/about/pages
facebook.com/help/page/new-design
facebook.com/page_guidelines.php

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Learning Something New

This is so exciting! This morning Facebook rolled out the new timeline for Facebook Business pages! As of March 30th all Facebook Pages will get the new Timeline design, but you have the option of switching over your page now. I would recommend switching over early so that you can get a handle on all the new features and functionality ahead of the game.

When you sign into Facebook today and head over to your page you’ll see the announcement of the pages as well as have the ability to take a tour, see a preview of what your new page will look like and the option to make the switch. Facebook offers you a preview of what your page will look like. Below is a preview of what the new Flyte page will look like… Obviously we need to add our cover image and get to work on this!

The cover photo and profile image work just as they do on your Facebook Timeline profile. You can upload any image you want there. This is a great space to get creative in. It will also allow brands to have a branded/cohesive look and feel to their pages without having to create a separate tab or landing page. Next you’ll want to make sure that you adjust your profile image. There are several examples out there currently of how people have gotten creative with their personal profiles using the cover image and the profile photo together to create something interesting. Check out these examples of some creative Facebook Timeline profiles.

Organize your stories, photos, and applications in order of priority. Below you will see an example for the Coca-Cola page. The blue circle shows where these apps/pages, and photos now appear. You can add up to 12 different apps to your pages and then organize them to show up in the order that you would like.

The rest of the time line is fairly similar to your personal profile Facebook timeline, such as the ability to hover over stories to edit them. You can delete, hide and Star images from here on the split feed. Did you upload a cool product image? Make it wider by starring it. However, one cool new feature is the addition of the new Admin Panel. From the new admin panel you should be able to manage everything in one place. You can respond to comments and people writing on your page and you can check out your  insights. Below is a peek of what that looks like.

And that last new addition looks like you will now be able to message people privately and vice versa. This is really a cool feature as before this was only available for personal profiles. This will allow brands to have one on one conversations with their customers.

Several brands have already made the switch to the new timeline for Facebook pages. Check out Coca-Cola, Red Bull, Nike, and Ford who have already adopted the new timeline and tell us what you think!

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Timeline Fan

A question I hear a lot is “how do I increase my email newsletter subscribers?” Building your email list may not seem as sexy as building your Twitter followers or Facebook fans, but it’s even more important. Building your email list is always part of a great web marketing strategy. After all YOU own your email list you don’t own your Facebook page. So, here are a few tips on how to build your email list…

1. Create a subscribe box on your website.
2. Create some sort of email bait. This can be anything from offering a gift, coupon or discount to offering an intelligent eBook or whitepaper that your audience would find valuable. Research what makes your audience tic and then create something that will make them take action.
3. Let people know how many people are already subscribed – this gives the audience social proof as to why they should sign up. For instance you can say something like “join our list and and become part of our 10,000+ subscribers.”
4. Is there anyone subscribed to your eNewsletter that is really well known in the industry, or a news channel/journalist, or a national company? If so ask permission to promote your eNewsletter subscription using their name or logo.
5. Promote your appreciation for their privacy. “We never share your email address!” This makes people feel more comfortable to subscribe.
6. LinkedIn Allows you to add a link to 3 websites in your profile, make one of them your email newsletter sign up page
7. Add a subscribe box to your Facebook welcome tab. We always recommend just asking for the “Like” on your Facebook landing page. But, once you’ve got that like default your audience to a Welcome Tab where you ask them to subscribe to your email newsletter.
8. Add a link to your eNewsletter sign up page to your email signature – this one seems obvious but people still forget to put it there!
9. Add a quote from a recognizable figure that subscribes to your email newsletter and promote it in the sign up box – Notice the above image of the feature box from the flyte blog we have a great quote from Michael Stelzner of Social Media Examiner.
10. Use a feature box on your blog!
11. Include an image in your subscribe box, feature box or sign up page -Images can make or break it! Find out more about how images affect conversions over at Social Triggers.com.
12. Promote it within your blog post when appropriate. *Warning: Shameless eNewsletter promotion* – Please sign up for our eNewsletter!  

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Subscribed

If you’ve made the mistake of setting up your business on Facebook as a Facebook profile rather than a Facebook business page you are not alone.

Many of us have just jumped right off the social media cliff and are building our wings on the way down… which isn’t too too bad, because Facebook recognizes that we ALL do this. So, they have created a way to convert your Facebook profile into a Facebook page.

*Note: It is technically a violation of Facebook guidelines to set up a business as a personal profile so if you have created a personal profile as your business page, you will want to convert it.

However, this isn’t the only reason you’d want to convert it. Facebook Business pages offer better features that are created to help market your brand and connect with your audience on Facebook.

So, here is how you convert your Facebook business profile into a Facebook Business page:

1.  Sign into the profile that you want to convert to a page.
2.  Then go to this link https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php?migrate
3.  At the top of the page you will see your profile image and a note that says “Profile To Business Page Migration”, below you will notice a selection of page types.
4.  Select what type of page that you are going to create. For example, you can choose Local Business or Place, Company, Brand or product, Artist, Band or Public Figure, Entertainment or Cause or Community.
5.  Once you’ve selected the page you would like to create you will go ahead through the steps and set the page up as normal.
6.  Your profile photo and your friends will be moved to your new page. All of your friends will be converted to fans of the page.
7.  You will still be able to login from your original email address and password.
8.  No other content from the profile will be transferred, so if you have certain important updates, or other photos you’ll have to update the page with those items on your own.
9. Your Facebook username if you had already selected one will be transferred and used as your page url.

*Note: If you are an admin of any other Facebook Groups you will want to appoint another admin before you start the conversion process as you will lose your admin rights during conversion. This does NOT apply to Admin for Facebook pages, you will still remain admin of pages you manage.

To learn more about converting your Facebook profile into a Facebook Business page visit Facebook Help.

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Facebook Fan Page Fan

photo credit: By Krismartis

How to write a blog post…One of the top questions I get asked by clients is if I have a template that I use for a blogposts, or a checklist of sorts that I go by when writing a post. So, since it seems to be such a common question I created a very basic blogging template to use when writing for SEO. Of course there may be differing opinions on how to best set up your post, but the tips below have worked well for us here at flyte.

Before you start: Conduct a mini keyword analysis. You can do this by visiting Google AdWords: Keyword Tool. It’s free and easy to use. For this particular post I typed in the following…

- blogpost
- blog post
- blog post template
- Blog post checklist

Once you have you’ve chosen your keywords for the particular post there are a few places where it’s important to add them.

Blog Title (Most important place for Keywords):

Usually we like to word it in a way where you can repeat it naturally or reword your keywords.

Ex. Keyword phrase “10 Tips on Writing a blog post | How to write a blog post”

Body:

Incorporate keywords early on, first sentence if you can.

We usually start off with a brief sentence answering the question in the title using the keywords, or a brief 1 to 2 sentence description of what they’ll find below incorporating keywords.

Incorporate the keywords and version of the keyword phrase throughout the body content.

Create links on the post that go back to your website or another blog post that is appropriate for the content. Hyperlinking the keywords adds a little more SEO weight.

Image:

Adding a photo makes the post a little more interesting. Make sure that you fill in alt text describing the photo using keywords and  name the picture using a keyword, ex. “blogpost keyword search.jpg”

Steps to take before posting:

• Tag your post with appropriate keywords
• Select appropriate categories
• Use AllinOneSEO Plugin

Steps after posting:

• Tweet it out
• Share on Facebook (or set up Networked Blogs)
• +1 it
• Ask your network to help you push out the post

Basic writing tips:

• Write in short paragraphs
• Add bullet points or numbering
• Word the title in a way someone would type it into a search in Google
• Make it easily scanable and digestible
• Posts should be 300 – 500 words
• Include intrasite links

Want more info on blogging?

• Top 5 Blogging Tips for SEO
• 4 Steps to Take Every time You Publish a Blogpost
• How to Bring More Traffic to your Blogposts
• How to Get your Blog Found (Faster) on Google

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
I Love Blog!

A while back I wrote a post on Facebook engagement vs. likes, and how engagements are the new metric to pay attention to. So, I thought that I would give some tips on how to increase your engagement on your Facebook page.

1.  One tip is to engage EVERY person who posts on your wall.  This means don’t just post a question or update and leave your page, stick around for a bit to see if anyone answers right away and if so engage in a conversation with them. You can also check your page often to see if anyone has posted anything on your page and then make sure you answer everyone, even if it’s just a thank you.

2. Personalize your interactions with fans. Always mention their name when replying, and also end your post with your name. This makes the interaction more personalized and more human.

3. Use photos! Post a single picture and create a call to action asking people to add a caption to the image. Depending on what your line of work is, you can find timely events, celebrity pics, images from in the news, office photos or personal photos that will generate interest and make people more likely to engage with object.

4. Market Research. Look at other pages like your industry and see what types of posts they are creating that get the most engagement and then try a few out.

5. What do you find interesting? Think about what you typically find the most interesting on either a friends profile or another Facebook business page… What gets you to respond, share, click like? And, again, recreate those types of posts.

6. Ask Questions. It seems silly but simple questions seem to get the most engagement. Questions like true/false, Multiple choice, Agree/Disagree, or yes or no, but if they are industry related and they get folks talking it’s going to help get you in the news feed.

7. Valuable Content! And, I know this has been mentioned everywhere else on the web, but if it’s something that is truly valuable and of interest to your audience it will get shared. Think of things like photos, infographics and great blog posts with intriguing titles.

8. Mix it up! A good mix of this plus posting regularly and engaging with fans that do comment, is a great way to spawn more engagement.

9. Contests/Giveaways/Raffles: If you do this make sure to use a 3^rd party app to stay within Facebook’s guidelines. But, after you’ve done so, this is a great way to get people to engage with your page.

10. Offer promo codes, discounts and specials on products and services. People are likely to share good deals with their friends, just make sure that you offer it to everyone who comes to the page.

11. Post about other pages. I recommend liking other pages from your own business page. Whether it’s a local business you frequent or one of your vendors that you work with this is a great way to show support. This also allows you to tag them in your updates, which will appear on both your wall and theirs. This can inspire them to post about you, they can respond and their fans will see the response and it can help to get you in the news feed.

12. Timeliness: Whether it’s posting “have a great weekend” later afternoon on a Friday or taking advantage of the fact it’s a holiday, you’ll be surprised about how many comments you’ll get on these kinds of posts.

Sometimes fans are reading your content and finding it of value but they are not interacting with it which means that they have less chance of seeing future posts. By asking engaging questions and asking for feedback on your posts, your fans are more likely to hit those share buttons, comment and/or like your comment. Improving your, then your fans will click Like, Comment or Share your post which improves the EdgeRank between them and your Page.

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Let’s Give em Something To Talk About

Photo Credit: by ercwttmn

Can I create a Facebook page without linking it to my profile? The quick answer is yes.

I get asked this question quite often by folks that are nervous about their online privacy and/or that want to keep their personal life separate from their work life. This is a valid concern and one I will address below.

So, you CAN create a business account, which is just a Facebook business page that is not linked with your Facebook profile. But, the real question is what is the difference, why should or shouldn’t you set it up so it’s not attached to your profile and what is best practices when it comes to setting up a business page?

Our very own Nicki Hicks wrote a blog post on this a while back with some great answers to what the difference between these page set ups are. Check it out here “Can I create a Facebook Business Account (or Fan Page) without a Personal Account?”  Nicki has highlighted some of the missing components of the Facebook business page when you don’t have it attached to a personal profile. Such as:

• You won’t be able to link to your Twitter account
• Your basic information will be limited to year founded, and not:
  • Address
  • Phone number
  • Hours of operation
• Your detailed information about your business will be limited to website, overview, mission, and products, and not:
  • Parking
  • Public transit
• You won’t have the ability to tag (your personal) friends in photos
• You won’t be able to invite your (personal) friends to become fans
• You won’t be able to add any admins. (You can only add friends as admins.)
• You won’t be able to get a vanity URL.

Aside from the above, Facebook will ask you when you go to set up a business account if you already have a personal profile.  If you do, you need to say yes. Some people are not on Facebook, they have no interest in being on Facebook and that’s okay. Business Accounts have become a way for folks to take advantage of having a page without having to create a personal account. However, if you DO have an personal profile/account already it’s against Facebook’s guidelines to create another account. This means that if Facebook finds out that your business account is you, regardless of if you use a different email etc, your page could get pulled permanently. Which means all that hard work you put into gaining fans and building a Facebook business presence is lost.

Lastly, if you have a business account rather than the page attached to your personal profile, it will not be searchable in Facebook. This is kind of a Biggie! What’s the point of having a page no one can stumble across on their own?

Now lets talk about keeping things separated, meaning your personal profile personal and not accessible from your business page. Here is what Facebook says on the matter:

In addition, Pages are managed by admins who have personal Facebook profiles (timelines). Pages are not separate Facebook accounts and do not have separate login information from your profile (timeline). They are merely different entities on our site, similar to how Groups and Events function. Once you have set up a Page within your profile (timeline), you may add other admins to help you manage this Page. People who choose to connect to your Page won’t be able to see that you are the Page admin or have any access to your personal account.

Therefore you don’t need to worry about your personal info getting mixed up with your business page or your privacy being breached.

And, here are some benefits of having it attached to your personal account:

- You don’t have to sign in and out of different accounts all day in order to check in on things or make an update.
- You can switch between using Facebook as your page and as yourself. This is great for commenting on other pages and even commenting on your page as you or your page.

So, my recommendation is that you create a business page through your personal account making it easier on yourself and making sure that you get a pages full functionality.

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
“You Don’t gotta keep em separated” – Facebook does for you

Photo Credit: By Orin Zebest

Trying and Succeeding

So, my friend Megan and I had lunch together today. She was telling me all about her new Facebook Ad Campaigns that she is running for her Facebook Business Pages. She’s had a lot of success lately so we were comparing notes on some of our processes and tricks. Below is a compilation of some of her tips and some of my own…

1. Have a goal: If you are going to start a Facebook Ad campaign you better know what you are trying to accomplish. Is it more likes? Brand awareness? Event registrations? Sales? What is your goal for the ad? This answer is going to determine what type of Facebook Ad Campaign you are going to run. For instance if it’s to get more likes or to build awareness you might want to just use the traditional marketplace ad, however if it’s an event you may want to promote you could do a sponsored story and promote a page post highlighting it.  Having a goal also gives you the ability to measure your success later on.

2. Testing: Many people create one version of an ad, pick one target, select their bid and just run the ad continuously. This is not best practice for running a successful Facebook ad campaign and can end up costing you quite a bit of money while providing mediocre results. Here are a few testing tips:

• Images: Test different images on the same ad and see if one gets more action than the others
• Verbiage: Once you’ve seen what image performs best, test out the language you use in your ad
• Target: Test the different targets using the same ads how are these working
• Ad Type Choice: Test the different types of ads offered by Facebook (standard market place ads, sponsored story ads, like ads, post ads, check in ads etc.)
• Targeting Your Audience: Create different ads for your different audiences, don’t lump all into one, sometimes a bigger audience isn’t better when it comes to Facebook ads

3. Landing Pages: Create landing pages that make sense. If you are advertising a coupon, bring your audience to a coupon page, if you are trying to get people to like your page bring them to your welcome page, if you are advertising an event bring them to an event page or landing page that promotes it. You get the picture; just make sure that your target makes sense for the person clicking on the ad.

4. Update Your Wall: Make sure that you are still consistently engaging your audience on your page, asking questions, posting video, posting photos, bringing in your blog posts, and offering valuable content. This makes the page look lived in, interesting and inviting for the newbie arriving on your wall.

5. Ad Copy: Don’t feel compelled to use all 135 characters available to you. Sometimes a short sentence does a better job of generating interest and attracting an audience.

6. Photos: We mentioned selecting different photos above for testing, but it’s important to state again, a great image can change the whole look, feel and meaning of your ad. Make sure that your image is attracting the audience that you want.

7. Play In Their Sandbox: Don’t create Facebook Ads that take your audience off of Facebook. Now I know that there is some differing opinions on this, but in my experience, when you lead someone off Facebook you risk the chance of that user becoming cranky. People who are on Facebook want to stay on Facebook. So, lead them to a landing page on Facebook talking about your product or service, have an ecommerce page on Facebook, offer them a downloadable coupon on Facebook, or have them like your page. Not only does this keep them in the place they want to be it also allows you the opportunity to gain the like, which means you now have the ability to market to them in the future, not just that one ad click.

8. Know Your Audience: Facebook has some amazing targeting abilities but it’s up to you first to know who your audience is. What they are interested in? Where they are located? What age range they are? etc.

9. Create Audience Specific Ads: Once you know whom your audience is you should segment them out. For instance, you may have one product that you sell to a wide range of demographics. Say you are selling an anti-aging skin care product, your message to a 25 year old woman is going to be much different than the message you would deliver to a 65 year old woman. And, how you sell a weight loss or fitness program to members of the opposite sex will be much different. Create demographic specific ads, and test different ads within that space as well.

10. Measure. This is the most important part. This is how you see if your Facebook Ad Campaign is successful or not. This is how you see which ad is performing better than the other. This is how you know if your targeting is correct, and so on. This may take some time and effort on your part, but it’s worth it in order to create more successful ads campaigns.

BONUS Tip: A recent study by Neilson said that Facebook ads get stale faster than traditional ads. Your audience is sick of the same ad after 2 – 5 days, so keep a close eye on how your ads are performing so they don’t get stale.

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Fan of Facebook Advertising

Image By: AnnieGreenSprings