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
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.
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
