Facebook | Letters From Dan

Don’t join the “follow us on Twitter” heat wave.

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: 5k marketing, facebook, facebook strategy, follow us on Facebook, follow us on twitter, Local Small Business Marketing, My Twitter Clinics, social media strategy, twitter strategy
Posted in What is Social Media

Arghh. . . Don’t just follow us on Twitter. . .

I got a 5K flyer in the mail yesterday, and the Twitter/Facebook logo duo caught my eye immediately. That’s probably strange to you, but I see them everywhere – and most of the time I take pictures of them or clip them out and put them in my ‘workshops example folder’.

So the entire flyer was about a 5K race coming up. Great imagery, cool logo and art. Then they had the date, race starting times and the “Register at Active.com” statement. And then to finish up the flyer, the footer including the host organization’s mission statement and the Twitter/Facebook duo.

I didn’t include an image of the flyer itself. It’s a local event for charity and I really just thought they didn’t need to hear this at this point. But I’ll tell you this is a perfect lesson in Marketing that I think all small businesses should heed.

To be blunt “Nobody wants to follow you”. Or me. Or anyone else for that matter. We want information. We want discourse, tips, strategies, etc. . . We just don’t want to follow you on Twitter for the hell of it. That’s no incentive whatsoever. And I have “liked” so many companies with poor Facebook pages, I’m not inclined to visit too many more.

On the flipside, their Facebook page is 1000% better than most. They’ve got actual social interaction going on. They’ve got videos of people talking about their race last year, race maps, updates on training run times and practice race days. Just great stuff. It’s too bad their flyer doesn’t say that.

On top of that, they ask you to register at Active.com right on the flyer, when they could easily have had you get the link to the Active registration page on their Facebook page. In fact, their fan page is so good, I bet it would even improve their conversion rate over the Active.com order page.

1 more missed opportunity.

So my charge to you is: Don’t ask anyone to follow your business on Twitter. Don’t set up a fan page on Facebook and don’t put that “Follow us on Facebook” sign on your company invoices. Nope. Resist. Don’t do it. In fact, don’t even start a social media strategy unless you know what you’re going to do.

The 5K folks had a great plan in mind for their Facebook page. They should have said, “Get up to date information about the race, get registered for door prizes and hear what past participants have had to say about the race – all on our Facebook page. Also, become a fan and then get all the Registration Information.”

How many more fans would a race of 700 people get to their page with that marketing plan? With only a week to go – they have 114 fans. That’s 586 fans shy of the number who registered directly through Active.com.

I would encourage you to jump over to this Social Media Examiner article where they interviewed the folks at Intel about how they manage their Facebook page. You can see here how important it is to have an objective – and how to drive people there using that objective.

Don’t ask people to “follow you on Twitter” – give them a reason.

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Social Media for Offline Business

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: Business, facebook, Ice cream, MaggieMoo's, marketing, My Twitter Clinics, myspace, social media, Social media marketing
Posted in What is Social Media

Being a social media for offline business guy, I take special note when anything local businesses are doing online and making visible to the customer. This weekend I had the pleasure of dining at MaggieMoo’s on West End in Nashville and thought I’d share that experience.

MaggieMoo’s is the first place I’ve been where their social media marketing efforts have gone beyond a Facebook sticker on the door. For the first time ever, an employee contributed positively to their efforts (unlike my example at Daily’s Gas Station).

Next to the register they have an 8 x 11 stand-up flyer suggesting customers “like” them on Facebook (as you’re about to do with the button at the bottom of this post :)) – but they didn’t stop there. The employee actually pointed out the sign, suggested that I “like” them on Facebook and added “Do so before March 15th because we’re giving away free ice cream that day”.

Social Media Marketing is about 2 things:

Engagment and Community
Driving Traffic to take action

What a breath of fresh air that was. Promotion, scarcity, likability and a knowledgeable employee. However, social media for offline business is still a leap. With 4 kids in tow, MaggieMoo’s was asking a lot of me to remember to go to Facebook and “like” them the next time I logged in. And since they didn’t gather my contact information, they didn’t have any way to remind me.

So at this point they’re relying on “hope”.

Unfortunately, hope comes into play again with their Facebook strategy as well. Since they haven’t uploaded any special, custom pages – they still don’t have a way to grab your contact information (which is the Gold in marketing). There’s no place to put your e-mail address or anything. And since you can’t message all your fans at the same time on Facebook – they don’t have a real good way to get me back to their FanPage – other than hope.

When you press “like” you’re taken directly to the wall where they pretty much post specials and promotions. I did find mention of the “free ice cream” down the page a bit, but there’s a disconnect immediately without seeing that promotion front and center.

That covers gathering contact information, but I’d also like to see them working to create more of a community on their page. I love that they posted a photo of one of their truffle cakes, but I would like to have seen them “tag” the person whose party it was eaten at. Maybe even start a “tagging” promotion for people who upload their party photos.

I’d love to see discussions about the best ice cream cake stories, or messy kids with their ice cream cones. Perhaps questions like what’s your favorite “mix-in” ice cream flavor, or name this mix-in recipe, or even stories of ice cream cakes that melted before they could get eaten.

Social media is about taking a group of unrelated customers and turning them into a community of fans. But a marketer must recognize the temporary nature of everything on the web. How good is 1,00o friends on MySpace right now? Without moving people from Facebook’s world to your own list – you end up with nothing for your efforts.

At least at MaggieMoo’s – you started out with great ice cream.

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Foursquare: the Future of Marketing

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: facebook, Foursquare Solutions, Grocery store, My Twitter Clinics, Pepsi, RadioShack, social media, using foursquare for business, Vons
Posted in What is Social Media

As a marketer of small businesses, I started using Foursquare with the sole purpose of learning how others were going to use it and make it successful. I checked-in to every place I was, places I wasn’t, got every badge I could find and every Mayorship. I really wanted to see how business was going to use Foursquare’s tools.

Guess what? Marketers are now seeing the true power Foursquare has.

Pepsi and Von’s Grocery Stores are really moving the needle. When you register for a Von’s card and sync it with your Foursquare account, they’ll give you a free 2 litre of Pepsi. So what? That’s nothing new, eh?

How about this then. . . when you swipe your Von’s card at check-out, you’ll automatically be checking in to Foursquare – which means all your online friends will see “Von’s”. That’s some great advertising for Von’s. And to keep you “checking in” Von’s adds free stuff to your Von’s card based on your Mayorships, Badges and check-ins.

Imagine becoming the Mayor of your local Veterinary Clinic (which means you visit there often) and getting a dog food coupon from Von’s – automatically! That kind of target marketing based on your social media preferences is surely changing the game.

The consumer gets rewarded over and over and over, Von’s gets publicity, Foursquare gets new users who check-in unconsciously, Pepsi gets word-of-mouth marketing like this and many times everyone gets a plug on Twitter or Facebook. Win! Win!

Scoot on over to the Bellagio in Vegas. The Bellagio has a team dedicated to monitoring social media sites like Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter for mentions of their name. Guests who check-in on Foursquare, tweet their location or rave on Facebook get upgrades and rewards from The Bellagio. Mayorships and badges to them aren’t nearly the value of rewarding the “word-of-mouth” marketing guests do on their own.

Different from those two is Radio Shack and their holiday promotion. Instead of taking advantage of existing customers, Radio Shack and Foursquare created a “badge” that Foursquare users can earn when they go to Radio Shack and check-in. The incentive of the “badge” wasn’t enough to drive sales, so the badge itself gives users 20% merchandise during the holidays.

For Radio Shack, they not only get new customers into the door using the coupon, but have their name on a badge on all Foursquare user’s phones, the internet, every Foursquare related website, press releases and more. From a driving traffic perspective, Radio Shack’s promotion is much more traffic-centric.

The Pepsi / Von’s promotion is certainly the most cutting edge. Connecting your grocery card to social media as a means of getting the Von’s name out there hundreds of times per day is genius. But then rewarding users based on their Foursquare habits – that’s over the top cool.

Please. . . please tell me if you know of any cool Foursquare promotions. Leave a comment below. I love hearing how business is using these new social media tools.

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Don’t build a Facebook page! (Unless. . .)

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: 2010, Business, business model, customers, don't get a facebook page, facebook, marketing strategy, Page
Posted in What is Social Media

It’s true I’m an internet marketing guy who loves and values the proximity Facebook creates – but I’m telling you now, do not “get a page”. Stay away from it like the plague, like the green fuzz on old bread, like the highway during a construction project.

I know you’ve wanted to get a page for a long time and you’re thinking it will be a great place to post your real estate listings, or the status of your most recent client meetings. I know how valuable you think it will be to post photos of the new clothes you just got in stock – and you’re sure if you just do that people will flock to the door.

So if you’re thinking that getting a Facebook page would be a great addition to your company, you’re not even in the ballpark. In fact if “let’s get a Facebook page” is something your company has said, you’re missing the boat.

The biggest challenge I see small companies have with Facebook is they don’t completely understand the utility of it. “Build it and they will come” just isn’t a sound philosophy. In fact, it should probably be reworded to say “Build value and they may come once. Build a valuable community and they’ll be back.”

Facebook is not radio or billboards. It’s not a site to just post stuff. However, it is a great answer when you’re determining your company’s marketing strategy and you’ve reached the “how do we communicate with our customers better” section. Or perhaps answering the question, “how do we engage our cheerleaders and have them work for us?”.

There is a huge difference between “getting a page” and deciding to better communicate with your customers. Facebook pages can be great tools in your efforts to create a client community. However, you’ll hear crickets if you decide to “get a page” just so you can post your stuff for sale.

Once you decide you’re going to build a Facebook community, the challenge becomes content. How do you allocate the time? What content do you post? How do you stay engaged on a daily basis? And how do you determine what your customers really want to hear that keeps them coming back?

That’s a challenge you must undertake internally as a company. To some degree you’ll have to test what works and what doesn’t. As long as you’re treating your customer the way they want to be treated, your testing will come off just fine. Don’t get discouraged if the feedback doesn’t come right away. Engage. Engage. Engage.

To get back to the topic at hand. . . Don’t get a Facebook Page, UNLESS what you really meant to say was “Let’s create a customer community, and utlize the power of Facebook”.

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A Career in Internet Marketing?

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: affiliate marketing, Business, career in internet marketing, company website, Customer, domain name, experience, facebook, Fortran, Internet, internet marketing career, iPad, iPod, keyword research, learn internet marketing, Pay per click, QuickBooks, Rachel Ray, Regis Philbin, sitesell, Wordtracker
Posted in An Internet Marketing Journal

You know what’s interesting about a career in internet marketing? I don’t know anyone who is doing it and is unemployed. Nope, not a single person.

You may have to answer this question for me, because I just don’t know the answer, but back in the late 1980′s were there any C++ programmers who didn’t have jobs? Fortran? Basic? Like internet marketing now, I think there were more jobs open than people looking.

I believe there will be a day when internet marketing is no longer a career, but something as fundamental as knowing how to use QuickBooks, or how to do payroll. It will eventually become a necessity of doing business, successfully.

Despite some notable celebrities declaring the internet to be dead, it’s in fact in its infancy. I believe the iPad is the first application that is taking the internet to a new level. Perhaps that could be said about the iPod – but that was just a new application for your phone. If you know anyone with an iPad, they’ll tell you that they do use the internet differently now.

Some day the internet and your TV will be one thing. You’ll be able to click on Regis Philbin’s tie and buy it directly from the company website that made it. You’ll be able to download Rachel Ray’s recipes directly to your stove top computer. And you’ll be able to access your fridge from the grocery store to make sure you actually do need milk.

The part that really makes internet marketing a good career choice is its ability to create income when you’re not employed. Affiliate marketing, pay per click ads, electronic products and even physical product sales are always at your fingertips.

Since companies hire internet marketing gurus to help increase their sales, the end of those consulting contracts means you just have more time to dedicate to your own websites, products and direct income. It’s a marketable skill you can use for others or yourself.

I don’t think “doing just to do” is the best way to learn the trade however. You can spend a lot of time learning lessons many have learned before you. Teaching yourself how to write effective copy, install autoresponders, build squeeze pages, create affiliate links and read html is a bit daunting. I’d recommend you take a course that teaches you how to do “everything” with one site, so that you can take those lessons and use it for any site.

The one I recommend is the e-Learning course SBI puts out. It does take a little focus and some time, but do you really think you’re going to absorb it all in 3 days anyway? The best part about the e-Learning course is that it includes:

The internet marketing course that is taught at Universities
A Wordtracker Pro Keyword research account
Keyword analysis tools
A domain name of your own
Hosting for your website
Newsletter software
Customer contact capture autoresponder software
Complete integration with Social Marketing tools like Facebook
Forums for in-depth question, case studies and learning
A complete series of how-to’s, like how to make money from your site
And more. . .all in video, audio and written format

It doesn’t get much better. So if you’re looking to make internet marketing a career, a second income or a way to escape your current job . . . PLEASE check out SBI’s e-Learning Course now by clicking this link:

SBI e-Learning Course

You’ll be glad you did, and you’ll learn more of what works in this short course than in two years training yourself. If you’ve taken the course, please leave a comment and share your experience – otherwise, ask me about it and I’ll tell you more.

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Coffee with Jason Elkins

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: 100 cups of coffee in 100 days, customer service, facebook, facebook marketing, facebook marketing strategy, jason elkins, networking
Posted in What is Social Media

This week I had coffee with a friend, Jason Elkins. He’s doing a program he calls 100 cups of coffee in 100 days”. While his program is a relationship building program, it makes a great marketing program, too.

He and I spoke at length about our client’s, what we’re doing for them and how that’s working. Fortunately, though we’re both internet marketers, we do entirely different stuff – so it was a great learning experience. (If you’re interested in the ‘notes’ for that meeting, subscribe at the end of this post).

One thing that is clear is that no two clients deserve the same strategy, or should I say no two clients could be successful using the same strategy. And I’d be willing to pen even for similar companies in the same strip mall. The company’s goals, strengths and weaknesses change that strategy completely.

I was amazed at the vast array of things you can do on a Facebook Fan Page these days. Jason’s team have really come up with some great ideas and new functionality. I’ve been reluctant to suggest a Facebook Fan Page to my clients, but am now rethinking that.

My reluctance comes from seeing the great number of companies that have fan pages but no real reason to do so. Without a really good purpose, and one that brings people back to the site, they could become a liability without constant posting and social interaction.

I’ll put together my notes from our meeting expressing what we learned and how you doing these things for your business. No matter what you do, the goal has to be improvement to the bottom line. No questions about that. Whether the activity is exposure, branding, networking, relationship building, sales, customer service or technical help – make sure that you’re activity is supporting the ultimate goal.

What’s the goal of your business? And can you see the little things you do supporting that ultimate goal – no matter how minute.

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Google Starred Results – A New SEO tool

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: facebook, google favorites, google SEO, google starred results, google stars, Search Engine, Search Engine Optimization, Web page, Web search engine
Posted in Local Small Business Marketing

Did you happen to see the new “Google Starred Results” on your last search? It would have showed up at the top of the search results. It’s like an interactive “favorites” button – but one that stays in Google and not necessarily on your computer.

My question about Google Starred Results (and I see Wayne Liew has the same question) is whether they’ll play a part in the search engine’s algorithm. Since the entire web is moving from “factual proof” to “social proof”, it only makes sense that Google will weigh these stars as “social proof” that a web page is good.

Right now “links” and “traffic” are the ways Google measures “social proof”. (I’m way overusing quotes now, sorry). The more links a page has from other sites and pages on the net, the more likely it is that your page is “valued” by the general community.

As Facebook and Twitter take over as the leaders of social proof, will a combination of links from those sites plus the stars give a web page even more value to the search engines than either alone?

SEO is fun if you like puzzles. And I imagine being the guys that design the puzzles is pretty fun too. If Google wants to remain the top search engine, it continually must prove it returns the best most relevant results.

The question for us SEO lovers is whether Google Starred Results is just another piece of that puzzle for them, or is it just an added feature purely for the enjoyment of searchers?

So your task, if you choose to accept it, is to star not only your favorite sites as they come up in the search results – but your own sites. And if you’re a company with employees, I’d ask that you have them do it too.

It’s a dog-eat-dog world – so don’t hesitate. Step up and play ball.

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How to Add the Facebook Like Button – A Daunting Decision

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: facebook, facebook fan pages, how to add the facebook like button
Posted in What is Social Media

Please "like" me

So I added the Facebook Like Button to my site today. And now I’ve got a couple hundred posts that haven’t been “liked”. I wonder if I was better off a few moments ago. (pssst. . . I include “how to add the Facebook like button” at the end of this post.)

Contrary to the advice I give clients about starting Facebook Fan Pages, I didn’t tell anyone about it before adding it to the site. And let me tell you how embarrassingly awkward it looks when every single posts has the words “Be the first to like this”. . . Arghhh. . .

So my mom came to the rescue and “liked” a few posts. That’s what moms are for “Doncha know?” Now I’m wondering, will the “like” button cut down on the comments section? Will it actually increase the number of people who do something when they’re here – the ones who don’t even comment. Maybe it’s just me. . . I’m curious.

So think about this daunting move before you decide to create a Facebook fan page or even add the button to your company site. Fan pages are a bit “delicate” when it comes to the start up. Ever show up at a fancy restaurant only to find you’re the only one there? What kind of impression does that give you?

So if you’re going to learn how to add the Facebook button with the intention of doing it, contact some of your existing fans and see if they’ll “Like” you before you announce the change. Don’t press the button yourself or get all the employees in the office to do it – ask your clients, fans and vendors. They’ll like it that you “owe” them one, anyway.

If you can get 10 people to “like” your blog post or 50 people to join your Facebook Fan Page before you really announce it, you’ll be looking really good. That ball will start rolling downhill immediately – and no one will feel awkward being the first.

OK, so how to add the Facebook Like Button to your blog – you can do one of two things. You can go to “plugins” and search for “Facebook Like button” or you can e-mail me and I’ll send you the zip file. But please, before you go, please, please, please. . . . press the “like button”.

You’ll make my mom happy. :)

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What to Name Your Facebook Group or Fan Page

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: facebook, name facebook fanpage, name facebook group, steps of the buying process, title
Posted in What is Social Media

The name you pick for your Facebook group or Fan Page is critical to its success. If subscribing to groups and becoming fans of pages were a private thing, and no one knew that you did so – titles would probably not be as important. But on Facebook – becoming a fan or joining a group is a way to communicate to others what you like – and who you are.

Look at the Facebook Group called “I Went to Bellevue East High School” – there’s no real content value there. In fact all the posts are “Hey, I went there too and I went to X elementary school”. But, what if that was the Facebook Group name of the school you went to? Would you click on it?

: Image via CrunchBase

Compare that to a Facebook Group named “My Favorite Place to Take Kids on Vacation Is. . .”. This is one of the most content rich, user generated Facebook Pages. There’s no spam, and users give great tips on places to take their kids on vacation. Awesome resource.

But if you think about the Buying Process, as we’ve talked so many times about, people don’t necessarily come to Facebook for content. You’re at Facebook to connect, write on people’s walls and show people pictures and tidbits about you. Having the title “My Favorite Place To Take Kids on Vacation Is. . .” on your Facebook wall doesn’t say anything about you. Maybe it tells people you have kids, but it doesn’t tell people what your favorite place is. The only reason you’d join that group is if you were actually looking for that kind of information.

Let’s look at the numbers. The Facebook group with the title that speaks volumes about who you are by showing people where you came from drew 486 people in a matter of three weeks. The heavily promoted Kids on Vacation site garnered 200 people in 9 months.

Aside from choosing a shocking title like “I Will Quit Facebook If They Start Charging Us”, choose a title that speaks volumes about the person who joins it.

Think about this. . . People talk about going to Legoland on the Taking Kids on Vacation group. It’s a great place to learn about it, but the Legoland California fan page has 2,016 people and the Legoland Billund site has over 5,900.

Would you rather tell your Facebook friends “I have kids” or “I’ve been to Legoland California and it rocks”? Tell me which group you’d join.