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

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

Whether you’re new to Twitter or you’ve been on it for what seems like a decade, it’s easy to get stuck in who you’re following. You may even find that you don’t actively make searches for new people like you used to.

It’s time to break out of that. 

Since Twitter has become so filled with spam (or that’s what it feels like, at least), why not try finding valuable Tweeps in more unique ways?

People Search

Sure, you’ve used the Twitter Search function before, but that usually means you’ll have to spend hours and hours sorting through piles of bogus tweeps. Instead, look at the “People Search”. In the new version of Twitter, you can change the search to show just people. Typically, this group is sorted by the most relevant – and often, most popular – tweeps.

Friends of Friends

Pay close attention to those tweeps you hold in high regard and watch who they’re talking with. A lot of times, you’ll find relevant tweeps when your favorites ReTweet or reply to them!

Seminars & Webinars

If you’re attending a webinar or even a live seminar, be sure to follow the hashtag. You’ve already got one thing in common with these people: whatever it is that brought you to this conference/seminar/webinar. Start checking out some profiles; my guess is you’ll find a ton of interesting tweeps. Then, take it to the next level by tweeting out phrases and takeaways from the conference; this way, people will start following you, too!

What about you? What are your favorite ways to find new tweeps?

Nicki Hicks
Tweep finder

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

Can search engines read PDF files and if so how well? This is a great question posed by one of our developers this morning at our staff meeting. So, guessing that others are asking the same question I thought I would create a post about it.

The quick answer is, Yes. All search engines can read PDF files. Therefore it’s important to optimize your PDF for the search engines.

How to Optimize your PDF for SEO -

1. First step is to make sure that you create your PDF in a text based program like Microsoft Word or Adobe Pagemaker. If you create your PDF in Photoshop, it is considered a large image and is not an actual readable PDF.
2. Optimize your title, header tags and descriptions. There are a few ways to do this.
   -  If you are working in Microsoft Word, use the H1, H2, H3 tags provided where necessary.
   -  Also, make sure that when you go into Adobe Acrobat you fill out the proper description fields. This means adding a title, subject and keywords into the appropriate content fields.
   -  Title your PDF with a keyword, for example it should be named keyword.pdf.
   -  And, lastly create alt text and captions for any images used in the document.
3. Don’t bury the PDF on your site. Make sure that you create a link to the PDF from a page on your site that is crawled often, like your homepage.

There has been a bit of discussion about how well a PDF will rank compared to html content. And, while we recommend html over a PDF, there have been cases where a PDF ranked for a certain search term quicker than the html version, however, eventually the HTML landed at the top.

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
If only Google Bots were as Cute as that Dog!