Facebook for business

[Michelle Carvill]

Hi there
I'm a big fan of blogging, forums, twitter - have a linked in profile and a Facebook profile etc - but have to say that I concentrate my social media activity towards blogging, twitter and forums. Facebook hasn't really featured. However, given recent 'Google' partnerships - I'm aware that there seems to be a groundswell towards businesses identifying the impact that social media can have on traffic - interesting post I read earlier about SEO and Social Media 'colliding' (http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/5231/When-Two-Worlds-Collide-Social-Media-Marketing-SEO.aspx?source=Blog_Email_[When+Two+Worlds+Coll]).
So do any of you have any advice, tips etc for using Facebook for business. My objective is to promote both Carvill Creative (I've now set up their FB page) and also Logotastic (still to set that up as yet). I'd also like to get feeds from the blogs on these sites directly into their Facebook pages - is that possible? So at least when I post to my blogs it gets published on the Facebook pages too. Any ideas, advice, views, suggestions - all greatly welcomed.

[MARLEY2]

Hi there, I was thinking today about using facebook to bring traffic ti my forum.

I Have found a way to get RSS Feeds running into twitter which updates my twitter every couple of hours with the latest Tv news. I have also managed to get the twitter feeds going to my website , So when someone twits my page my forum dates with the tweet.

been jumping for Joy, Today my forum got 400 new posts just by RSS feeds , Youtube and BBC and yahoo news etc .

Big world out there and lots of gadgets to use

[MARLEY2]

Hi there
I'm a big fan of blogging, forums, twitter - have a linked in profile and a Facebook profile etc - but have to say that I concentrate my social media activity towards blogging, twitter and forums. Facebook hasn't really featured. However, given recent 'Google' partnerships - I'm aware that there seems to be a groundswell towards businesses identifying the impact that social media can have on traffic - interesting post I read earlier about SEO and Social Media 'colliding' (http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/5231/When-Two-Worlds-Collide-Social-Media-Marketing-SEO.aspx?source=Blog_Email_[When+Two+Worlds+Coll]).
So do any of you have any advice, tips etc for using Facebook for business. My objective is to promote both Carvill Creative (I've now set up their FB page) and also Logotastic (still to set that up as yet). I'd also like to get feeds from the blogs on these sites directly into their Facebook pages - is that possible? So at least when I post to my blogs it gets published on the Facebook pages too. Any ideas, advice, views, suggestions - all greatly welcomed.


try this , Put a post here = http://twitter.com/forumswholesale , Say anything and then take a look here : http://wholesaledropshippingforums.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=55

you will see what you just put on twitter will be displayed on my forum, I am in the process of doing the same with facebook.

digg is also a good one, People can digg your post . I am new at this , Sorry if you know this already

[Birmingham]

LinkedIn has often been described as the FaceBook of business execs

[dots and spots Jeff]

In the Summer (August I think) I went to a presentation on social media marketing where the speaker gave a statistic that made me sit up & listen: in the UK 13% of internet usage is on FaceBook. (The source was reliable & credible - Nielson, I think) I had only just got into facebook on a personal level, but determined then that I needed to set up a Facebook fan page.

We now have 88 dots and spots facebook fans (and the number grows daily) who once or twice a week will be reminded of us by receiving a post on their news feed. We use it to keep people updated of what we offer, whats new, special offers etc. We've just done an 'October Give Away' in which one of our 'fans' - drawn at random - won a few dots and spots goddies.

Its a useful way, with (once its set up) little effort, of just reminding people of our brand. Its a very useful tool, but I'm very mindful to keep a softly, softly approach and not start spamming peoples facebook pages - a route to disaster I'm sure!

[fisicx]

We now have 88 dots and spots facebook fans (and the number grows daily) who once or twice a week will be reminded of us by receiving a post on their news feed. We use it to keep people updated of what we offer, whats new, special offers etc. We've just done an 'October Give Away' in which one of our 'fans' - drawn at random - won a few dots and spots goddies.
How many of these 'fans' have converted into customers?

[Dawg]

How many of these 'fans' have converted into customers?

I'd like to know this too.
I'm going to talk on Thursday by a Facebook employee/proletyzer and am fairly sceptical of conversion rates. It would be interesting to have some information from the coal face to put to him/her.

[dots and spots Jeff]

How many of these 'fans' have converted into customers?

I haven't done any detailed analysis yet, and there's a bit of a chicken and egg situation - I don't know how many fans then became customers rather customers who liked the product and so became fans. To be honest, (without drilling down into the figures, which is a task for another day!) I suspect it is more of the latter. However, since our products will often generate repeat business, it seems a good way to keep in touch with our former customers. People have to choose, and take an active step, to become a 'fan', and, encouragingly, we've not found people taking themselves of our fan list, so at least we're not alienating anyone!

We had one (Ok so only one, but out of 88 that's not a bad conversion rate!) fan who actually placed an order by placing the order on our wall as a comment to one of our posts about a new product - not what I suspected, I thought facebook would drive them to our website, but I'm not complaining!


Its not a universal panacea, but its pretty simple to set up, quick and easy to use and a good way to spread the word about the dots and spots brand.

Jeff

[fisicx]

I remember a thread some time ago where twittering and facebooking and so were promoted as a great thing for business. There were a few success stories but very very few people could show that spending time social networking was more profitable than other forms of marketing. I could spend two hours a day updating my facepalm pages or I could spend two hours earning money.

[dots and spots Jeff]

I remember a thread some time ago where twittering and facebooking and so were promoted as a great thing for business. There were a few success stories but very very few people could show that spending time social networking was more profitable than other forms of marketing. I could spend two hours a day updating my facepalm pages or I could spend two hours earning money.

We probably spend about 10 minutes a couple of times a week to update the 'fan' page, so not a huge onerous task! It helps that our product is 'social' rather than 'business' - having a great photo of some spotty bunting appear in your news feed is, perhaps, more exciting (for our 'fans' anyway!) than anything an accountant say ( with all due respect to accountants!) could post to his 'fans'. Its a useful tool, but only one tool of many.

[jdat]

There are some really good bits of advise on here, I'll definitely will be using some of the points mentioned on here, particulary the fan page.

Thanks again all for the useful information.

Jay

[MARLEY2]

I find FACEBOOK very slow and takes ages to move around. Anyone else having the same problem ?

[Comspec]

I use facebook both Socially and to promote my repairs business. It is quite useful in that it brings in a number of local repairs (usually friends of friends on facebook), but the numbers are definitely not worth spending anything more than the minimum time on it.

I set up a 'comspec' group and have it up to about 80 members, but I'm not sure if any posts I make in the group actually show up on members news feeds or not... I asked someone yesterday and they said it doesn't.

[dan_1985]

There was a post on SEOmoz a few weeks ago which mentioned how it is possible to get followed links on Facebook; using FBML (which is basically the same as HTML, just for Facebook - you will find it and tips on how to use it by searching for FBML on Facebook). I'm not sure how well it works, but thought I would share that little bit of info if anybody didn't already know about it!

[DotNetWebs]

I set up a 'comspec' group and have it up to about 80 members, but I'm not sure if any posts I make in the group actually show up on members news feeds or not... I asked someone yesterday and they said it doesn't.

That because you should be using a [fan] Page NOT a Group.

"Pages" are very powerful if you use them wisely. Each post you make appears in your "Fans" newsfeed in a similar way that their friends status updates do.

Regards

Dotty

[DotNetWebs]

There was a post on SEOmoz a few weeks ago which mentioned how it is possible to get followed links on Facebook; using FBML (which is basically the same as HTML, just for Facebook - you will find it and tips on how to use it by searching for FBML on Facebook). I'm not sure how well it works, but thought I would share that little bit of info if anybody didn't already know about it!

Yes we have been doing if for a while with our facebook application.

e.g this page:

http://apps.facebook.com/horsham/Business.aspx?business=Sussex_Lighting

Has a "followed" link back to it's parent page (http://www.visithorsham.co.uk/Business/Sussex_Lighting.aspx).

Both pages appear in the SERPS eg:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=horsham+lighting&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=

Because of this our subscriber now appears 4 times on page 1 of Google (including the map links)

Regards

Dotty

[LightingGiants]

I suppose social network marketing does take trime however

in my experience it is time consuming and slow but i am revising the way i approach social networks rather than selling directly to them it is about networking with them and its hard to get that balance

anyone got a easier way to do this effectively would be great

[Neil_LI]

Neil from LinkedIn here. Following on from this conversation about how you can get more from social networks, I wanted to post about the first ever LinkedIn Business Awards that we have just launched.

We are looking for people and businesses to nominate themselves or their colleagues for one of the categories; Best Start up, Business Innovator, Rising Star and Business Leader of the Year.

Information on the Awards can be found on the LinkedIn site and by searching for European Business Awards under the LI groups.

Hope this is of interest.

[Bri]

...just another excuse to use facebook & twitter when your supposed to be working.Methinks:rolleyes:

[dan_1985]

Yes we have been doing if for a while with our facebook application.

e.g this page:

http://apps.facebook.com/horsham/Business.aspx?business=Sussex_Lighting

Has a "followed" link back to it's parent page (http://www.visithorsham.co.uk/Business/Sussex_Lighting.aspx).

Both pages appear in the SERPS eg:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=horsham+lighting&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=

Because of this our subscriber now appears 4 times on page 1 of Google (including the map links)

Regards

Dotty


Just noticed that our links from our FBML fan page have been no-followed! Facebook have obviously worked that one out!!

[DotNetWebs]

Just noticed that our links from our FBML fan page have been no-followed! Facebook have obviously worked that one out!!

They are still 'follow' on the Facebook applications although my app page now appears to have 'gone supplemental' again.

I think the problem is that Facebook currently doesn't allow you to overide the standard meta description and when Google uses this for your 'snippet' you are dropped. Every now and again it ignores it and uses the text from your content and you pop back in the main results again!

Regards

Dotty