Facebook for Social SEO
BrightEdge, an enterprise SEO company, has written a great white paper on how to optimize Facebook for social SEO. Key takeaways:
- Top 200 brands in the Fortune 500 rank 1st organically for their brand name, but 70% don’t rank in the first 20 results for Facebook fan pages
- Optimize Facebook for social SEO:
- Link to your fan page from your website using your company name as the anchor text
- Frequently use your brand name in your posts
- Getting more “likes” increases authority because you get links to your fan page from other user profiles
- Add a fan box widget to your website or blog to drive social engagement
- “Shares” is the number 1 social factor for search rankings so add Facebook functionality to share and like other pages on your website that could drive social engagement (i.e. blog, videos, etc.)
- Create sub-pages on your Facebook profile that are optimized for search and inter-link them back to relevant pages on your website
- Give your website a healthy dose of Facebook kool-aid to increase user interaction by adding more social plugins to your site - comments, activity feed, recommendations, and login
Using Facebook Lists and Setting Privacy Rules
I’m always surprised when I talk to people about Facebook privacy rules and they tell me they don’t use friend lists to manage their connections. I often get requests from professional connections that I may not know that well in the real world. Some people choose not to accept those friend requests, but I’ve opted to accept some and set privacy rules for how they can interact with me and what they can see on my profile.
For example, my professional contacts can only see my business email and phone number, while close friends and family have my personal number and address. So here’s a quick rundown on how to set up Facebook lists and set your privacy rules.
1. Create a List of Friends
Click on the “Friends” link under your profile photo, then choose “Edit Friends” in the top right corner. Click the “Create a List” button - pick a name for your list and the friends you want in the list. I’m super organized so I have a list for friends, friends of friends, friends from school, work, etc. Start by thinking about what information you’d want to share with groups of people and create groups based on those segments.
2. Set Privacy Settings for Friend Lists
On your Account drop-down in the top right corner, select “Privacy Settings” and then “Customize Settings.” Facebook gives you the option to customize who can see and comment on things you share, things on your wall and things you’re tagged in. From my earlier example, this is where I can choose my “Address” and then make it visible only to my Family and Friends list.
3. Keep it Updated
Yes, Facebook privacy rules are known to change over time so be sure to keep your lists up to date and review your settings every 3-6 months. I’ve made it a good practice to add friends to a list when I add them as a connection or accept a friend request. This way I don’t have to go back into my list settings every time I’ve got a new friend.
Photo credit: massimobarbieri
SXSW Tips for a Newbie?
I’m getting ready to head to SXSW this year. I’ve heard great things about the event, but I feel like I’m not prepared to get the most out of the event. Any tips for a newbie? What are the best sessions and events to attend?
How To Create a ‘Tweet This’ or ‘Facebook This’ Link
I love getting emails with ‘Tweet This’ or ‘Facebook This’ links built in because let’s face it, I’m lazy. Unless it’s the next best thing since sliced bread, I’m probably not going to take the time to go out to Twitter or Facebook, log in, and then post the update. But, if you’ve done all the heavy lifting for me then I might be more likely to help you push the info along.
Adding social media sharing buttons should be part of your email marketing best practices. Here’s how to create Twitter and Facebook sharing links. If you want them to be images instead of links, just hyperlink the image instead of the text in your campaign. There are plenty of free icons out there.
Create a ‘Tweet This’ Link
http://twitter.com/home?status=How+To+Create+a+Tweet+This+or+Facebook+This+Link+http://hub.tm/tweetthis
You should create your own shortened URL first using Bit.ly or Hub.tm if the full website URL is too long. Remember you only have a total space of 140 characters.
Create a ‘Facebook This’ Link
http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http://www.erincolbert.com/bid/11570/How-To-Create-a-Tweet-This-or-Facebook-This-Link&t=How+To+Create+a+Tweet+This+or+Facebook+This+Link
Facebook with automatically grab a photo from the website to use as the thumbnail.
5 Steps to Express Inbound Marketing
I’m calling this the express inbound marketing because marketers always tell me they just don’t have time to do everything they want. I give them ideas on little things they can do with the time they have, but they’re always pushing for a task list. You asked (and you all know who you are), so I’m answering.
Here’s the 5 step process every B2B marketer with limited time should follow to get inbound marketing success. The rate at which you complete these steps will determine how quickly you’ll see success (a.k.a. do it more and you’ll get more out of it, do it less and it will take longer to see results).
Step 1 - Create a compelling offer
This should be a truly compelling offer - not a contact sales form, request more information, or free consultation form. It needs to be something that your target audience will find valuable. If you can help it, this compelling offer should not mention your products or services at all. It should help your key market solve a problem they have. This can be things like a guide, kit, whitepaper, webinar, slide presentation, article, or video.
Examples: Website Re-Design Kit or New Homeowner’s Guide to Purchasing Insurance
Step 2 - Put it on a landing page
Create a landing page with a form that encourages visitors to give you their contact information in exchange for this compelling offer. When creating the form fields be sure to think about how much information your target audience is willing to give up to get your offer. If you ask them for everything but their social security number just to download an article, they’re probably not going to fill out the form - and neither would you! The number of form fields often highly correlates to the conversion rate of that landing page.
Step 3 - Write a blog article to promote the offer
Now, go to your blog and write an article that promotes the compelling offer you just created. Using my examples above, good blog posts might be titled, 5 Simple Steps to a Website Re-Design or What Every New Homeowner Should Know about Insurance. Then, create a call to action (ideally a graphical button, but text will do) at the bottom of your blog post and link it to your landing page.
Examples: Thinking of Re-Designing Your Website? Download the free Website Re-Design Kit to help you get started.
For more helpful tips, check out the New Homeowner’s Guide to Purchasing Insurance.
Step 4 - Promote the blog article to your network
Go out and promote this blog article to your network. Post it to Twitter, your Facebook and LinkedIn status updates, the news section of relevant LinkedIn groups you’ve joined, look for LinkedIn and Yahoo! Answers to respond to, and send out an email to your database. Don’t be shy, but don’t be spammy either. Look for relevant places that your target audience might be spending time online and go there first.
Step 5 - Analyze and repeat
Now that the heavy lifting is complete it’s time to analzye the results. See how much traffic your efforts brought in and the number of leads and customers that resulted. You should also track to see if you increased the number of blog subscribers, Twitter followers, LinkedIn connections, Facebook fans and so forth.
What did you learn? What could you do differently next time? Now, go do it and share your experiences below!
Social Media for B2B Lead Generation Takeaways
Last night I attended another SVAMA event - Social Media for B2B Lead Generation. HubSpot CEO, Brian Halligan, started off the discussion with Mike Linton, former CMO at eBay, and Zack Urlocker, of MySQL now Sun/Oracle. The panel was moderated by Lilia Sherman, author of 42 Rules for Growing Enterprise Revenue, and Managing Director of The Shirman Group.
One key theme of the night that emerged was around content creation. For B2B companies this is crucial for social media engagement so that you can entice your audience back to your website, but not try to push them with a hard sell.
They key takeaways were:
Always test - At Sun/Oracle Zack found that calling something a “guide” vs. a “whitepaper” resulted in more leads.
Be part of the community, but don’t manage it - Mike says that once he helped create an eBay community, he had to step back and just be a member. If he tried to control it, he would fail and members would fight back.
Start a content creation machine at your company - Brian wants all companies to go out and start creating content, even if you sell left-handed monkey wrenches. At HubSpot, we create videos, whitepapers, guides, e-Books, webinars, presentations, and blog articles.
Social Media Tips from Jeremiah Owyang
I just got back from the SVAMA event on how to approach social media across your entire enterprise. It was held at the Cisco Telepresence suites in Santa Clara which made for an interesting panel discussion - everyone was in a different room.
The panel was led by Jeremiah Owyang, former Forrester analyst on social media. He discussed 3 major trends / pain points for comapanies utilizing social media.
1. Fragmentation - Customers are distributed across numerous channels and it’s up to companies to meet their customers where they are spending time online.
* Tip: develop listening programs at your company so yu can monitor conversations and begin to engage.
2. Rebellion - Managers and employees are reluctant to participate and be part of the marketing team.
* Tip: create a risk mitigation plan that enables employees, not polices them. Try running social media brown bag lunches where you bring in internal and external presenters to teach about various social sites.
3. Not thinking long term - While the social mediasphere is the current wave, there are new trends emerging that should be part of your planning. Mobile technology for B2B is an example with the proliferation of the iPhone.
* Tip: schedule a planning meeting with your management team to review emerging trends and don’t be afraid to experiment while the technology is still new.
And, the million dollar question that everyone always asks - how do you measure the ROI of social media? Jeremiah’s advice is to make sure you’re measuring the success by the original goal. Every company wants more business, but there are plenty of other goals for using social media, like using it to engage with customers so you can build a better product or improve your support function.
Importing Blog Articles Into Your Facebook Fan Page Wall Using Notes
I’ve really been frustrated with Facebook lately because their business fan pages are so difficult to set up with the various applications. Because they are all built by 3rd parties, they are spotty at best. All I want to do is integrate my blog posts, publish my Flickr photos, and share YouTube videos. Well, I’ve found a way to make integrating your blog posts a lot easier. Sorry, I haven’t had much luck with the Flickr and YouTube integration.
Yes, there are 2 applications out there that seem to work okay - Simply RSS and Social RSS. Currently I’m using Social RSS on the fan page for my husband’s startup Car Overload. Honestly, the only reason is that I was using Simply RSS for another page I was the administrator of and when I tried to add it to the Car Overload page too everything just broke. I spent hours trying to fix it and finally just gave up. The problem though with these apps is that they don’t publish the blog articles to your wall, a feature that a lot of companies want.
Here’s how you can use the Notes function to publish your blog articles to your Facebook fan page Wall and add it as an additional tab too.
- Go to your Facebook Fan page
- Click on “Edit Page”
- Scroll down to the “Notes” section, click the pencil and select “Edit”
- On the right you’ll see a box at the top that says “Import Notes from an External Blog”
- Select this option and paste the URL from your blog feed
- You’re all set! Your blog posts will now appear on your Wall
- To add a tab at the top of the navigation for the Notes, go back to the Fan page and click on the “+” in the menu and select “Notes” from the drop-down
- Now the Notes page will appear as a tab in your page’s top navigation
