This week: FaceBook pages

I have been having a lot of luck lately with FaceBook pages, and have been creating FaceBook pages for several different clients.

This is a good thing, because as CopyBlogger pointed out recently (www.copyblogger.com/facebook-killing-seo/), FaceBook is really changing the game. With reportedly up to 250 million people on the site now, you really have to have a FaceBook strategy.

And lest you think it’s still just for the kids, the membership in the older demographics has been going up steadily.

FaceBook has been referred to as a “walled garden,” because the vast majority of what goes on in there is not available to Google. Traditional marketing strategies such as SEO, or AdWords, simply don’t work in there.

And it is this walled garden that people are flocking to, taking refuge from spammers, and just a glut of information.

But now, on to the point of this: FaceBook pages offer an incredible opportunity to businesses.

Anyone who has an account on FaceBook can create a FaceBook page, for their business, service, product, or even as a fan page for a concept or cause.

And, here is the ideal situation: Your friends see your posts in their news feed, fall in love with it, and click “Become a Fan”. Then, their friends (who don’t even know you exist!) fall in love with it too, and then they become fans. And, as the old commercial goes, “and so on, and on, and so on,” until the whole world–or everyone who could possibly become a fan–becomes one.

Meanwhile, lots and lots of them end up becoming clients, or buying your products, or supporting your cause, etc.

Does this make sense? FaceBook has made it really easy for people to share things with their friends. All you have to do is click “Become a fan,” and you’ll start getting updates in your news feed. All you have to do is click “Share”, and you can share the post with any friends you think will find it valuable. And that is how it can spread.

Emphasis on the word “can”. Like anything else, thought needs to be put into this, to do it right. To take full advantage of the situation.

I can’t cover everything here, but here are the basics:

1. Use Your Page Title. Your page title needs to be the front-line marketing for your page. Ask yourself this: “If I knew nothing about this company, but I was interested in the topic, what would cause me to become a fan?” A great example of this is theKbuzz (www.facebook.com/thekbuzz). They use the page title to list both their brand, and their function: “theKbuzz | Social Media and Word of Mouth Marketing”.
2. Make a Compelling Image. Pick a compelling, fun, and interesting image. Remember that it needs to work for both the thumbnail image, and for the larger image on the page. Play around.
3. Write for Your Readers. Oh, yes, that. Post something, at least once a week. Remember: do not hype your brand, product, or service. Instead, give people valuable information in an easily readable format. Using the Notes tab in your page is an easy way to post content.

There’s lots and lots more, but that’s a start! Email me with any more questions you may have!

Somehow, the addition of a couple of very mainstream media sources of a Twitter feed (for a newbie’s description of Twitter, read Newbie’s Guide to Twitter). For example:

http://twitter.com/nprnews

… has made me re-question whether I should re-consider its use. Yes: It has lots of applications.

The reason I stopped using it, was because the incessant “instant message” delivery medium I was using, the particular Twitter client, was not helpful to my “ADD” nature. What Twitter needs is an easy-install client that is:

1. Very easy to install. Something I can send my web newbie clients to and they can just press a button, and it’s done.
2. Easy to get updates without trying. Sort of like email. Not like a forum, where you have to be a dedicated follower to remember to participate. But also, not like an instant message program, because again–ironically, on the other side of the attention-grabbing scale–this is good for dedicated followers, but not for the casual observer.

On the scale between low-push to high-push modes of online communication, we need to be able to decide easily just exactly how much push is too much, or not enough. In fact, we should have a scale, a slider, where we can decide exactly this.

Furthermore, I do not want another “client” I have to monitor. I turned off Skype for this reason. Too many darn apps running at the same time. Instead, make a working Firefox addon, for example, that bugs me just enough to remember it’s there, but not so much that I want to turn it off!

I am still trying to find this AddOn, because the ones I checked out were really not adequate for a variety of reasons.

At any rate, the geeks are really going to have to start thinking like newbies around here! Otherwise, it will make the adoption to the masses difficult. To put it another way, I think the first entrepreneur to get it right is going to do quite well.

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