Posts Tagged ‘Facebook Marketing’


Facebook Changes Everything…Again

Friday, September 23rd, 2011

Here’s a rundown of recent stories on the changes happening at Facebook, and what they mean to your business and your free time.

Still coming down off the high of the 3rd annual Social Media FTW Fall Conference (#ftw2011), and I’m taking a day off. But it’s hard to spend any time on the Internet this morning without running into chatter about the changes going on at Facebook.

Quite honestly, I haven’t had a chance to digest it all myself, but if you want to dig into some of the stories, here are a few of my favorites this morning:

Facebook Changes Again: Everything You Need to Know: An overview of the changes Facebook has rolled out. Long story short, Facebook wants to become Scrapbook, creating a digital timeline of your life. Cool, but super creepy because you know they want to sell all that information to marketers. Damn, evil marketers. In other attacks on your privacy, an app only has to get permission from you once to share your information, not each time. That’s going to cause some embarrassing moments for sure.

How to Enable the New Facebook Timeline Now: Don’t want to wait for your Facebook overlords to capture every moment of your life so they can sell ads next to it? This step-by-step tutorial is for you.

What Facebook’s Changes Mean for Marketers: If you’re using Facebook to connect with your customers, then you’re a marketer. Best read this article to learn about the new challenges ahead of you. Takeaway: it’s going to be more difficult to stay in front of your customers, and you better be ready to put out some kick-ass content to keep them engaged. (Nice quote from #ftw2011 presenter Jenna Lebel.)

Does Facebook Really Care About You? Thoughtful piece reminding us that we are not Facebook’s customers, but rather their product. Since we don’t pay for Facebook, their real customers are the people who are paying to get in front of us. (Which is weird, because of course Facebook just made it more difficult to get in front of our customers. At least for free.)

What’s your takeaway? Are you happy or upset with the changes Facebook rolled out?

Rich Brooks
Find Us on Facebook

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Posted in Social Media | No Comments »


Facebook’s Dirty Little Secret

Wednesday, July 6th, 2011

EdgeRank FormulaWhile everyone and their mother knows that you need to have a Facebook page for your business, here’s a dirty little secret people don’t talk about: even your fans don’t return to your Facebook page.

It’s true: the last time people visit a Facebook page is when they like it. Most of us never return to a Facebook page without some sort of prodding.

So what’s a business to do?

The goal is to get into people’s News Feed. You know, the recent updates you see from your friends and pages you’ve liked once you’ve logged into Facebook.

So how do you get into someone’s News Feed?

Well, that’s where this funky little thing called EdgeRank comes in. Edgerank is Facebook’s algorithm about which updates get posted to your News Feed, and which ones are buried under the “Most Recent” link where few people think to look.

Understand the EdgeRank algorithm, crack the Facebook code, and you’ll know how to increase your chances to be shown in your fans’ News Feed. Once you’re in the News Feed people can see your updates, comment on them, like them, and follow your links. This in turn helps your updates reach more people for a virtuous cycle.

Where can I learn more? I’m hungry for more!

For more on how EdgeRank works, what type of updates and behavior will increase your EdgeRank, and how to conquer the world, you need to check out this month’s flyte log article, What Is Facebook EdgeRank and Why Is It Critical To Your Business?

Rich Brooks
As Seen On Facebook

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Posted in Social Media | 4 Comments »


Post to Your Facebook Business Page As You…And More!

Friday, February 11th, 2011

Facebook rolled out some changes to their Pages this week that should give businesses more control over their presence on Facebook. Here’s a quick overview of what page administrators are likely to see.

When you visit your Facebook Page you’ll have the opportunity to “upgrade” your business to the new page style, to take the tour or to preview what your page will look like. Below are some screen captures from the tour.

Your latest photos will show up at the top of the page, just like they do on your personal profile. Fans photos won’t appear here, and you do have the ability to delete/hide photos.

The navigation now appears on the left column, similar to the profile pages on Facebook. File under “Big Whup.”

Posts won’t necessarily appear in chronological order only. You can promote specific posts, making you look even more popular than ever. Better hope that someone slamming you isn’t the most commented and liked post on your wall. Right, Cooks Source?

“Use Facebook as Your Page.” That’s a confusing turn of phrase, but basically you can use Facebook as your page in the same way you would as yourself…within reason.

Actually, it’s the first bullet that’s the most interesting I think: “Get notifications when fans interact with your page or posts.” This is a great new feature, as in the past someone could put up some Acai Berry spam on your wall and you might not notice it for days. Up until now I’ve been using Nutshell Mail, which sends you an email which includes new posts on your wall, whether from you or a Fan.

There are some new features in the administration panel as well. Facebook now lets you “set defaults for your email notifications and how you post to your page.”

SWEET! That was the number one request we heard from clients who have Facebook pages…the ability to comment and like items as themselves. To do so you just need to edit the setting in the admin area.

There’s no turning back now…once you upgrade your page there’s no CTRL-Z. However, Facebook is going to kick you to the new design in March anyway, so there’s little reason (that I see) to hold back.

The new features and controls administrators now have over their pages make the switch well worth it.

What do you think about the new layout and features of the Facebook Page Makeover?

Rich Brooks
As Seen on Facebook

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Posted in Entrepreneur & Small Business, Social Media | 23 Comments »


Posting to a Business Page from Your Business: Facebook Tips

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

Yesterday I posted How to Post to Your Facebook Business Page As You (And Not Your Business). That post (and accompanying video) got a lot of good response and some great follow-up questions.

One of the questions was from a woman who wanted to post to a business’s Facebook page, and have the post attributed to her business, not to herself.

I created a video which you can watch on YouTube or below, but here are two critical steps:

  • You need to become a fan of the business in question (and what do you know, I created a video on that, too!)
  • You need to use the Facebook convention of “mentioning” the other business in your post with the @ symbol.

That’s it! Of course, it helps if the other business has their default wall setting to show all posts, not just their own posts.

UPDATE: You can now post, comment or like something on your business page as yourself.

Rich Brooks
flyte: extremely likeable on Facebook

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Posted in Social Media | 15 Comments »


Fanning a Facebook Page from Another Page

Monday, April 12th, 2010

The other day a client of ours wanted to know how she could fan a business page on Facebook from her own page…not her profile. Turns out it’s pretty easy…but that didn’t stop us from making a movie on how to do just that.

The way we figure it is, maybe a bunch of people don’t know how to do that. Who knows, maybe you just Googled “how to fan a facebook page from another facebook page.” If so, no worries; your secret is safe with us.

You can also watch How to Fan a Facebook Page from Your Fan Page on YouTube. It looks pretty much the same over there, but then you can watch videos like the intro to ABC’s Saturday night lineup from 1982.

Rich Brooks
Untitled Tagline

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Posted in Social Media | 25 Comments »


Customizing Your Facebook Fan Page

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

If the number of invitations I receive every day to become a fan of yet another eatery in Des Moines, or an interactive agency in Tuscon, is any indication, companies of all sizes are realizing the benefits of a Facebook fan page.

Then how come they’re all so boring and repetitive?

Without taking some steps to customizing your Facebook presence, your fan page will look like every other page on Facebook. It’s time to stand out from the crowd and customize the look.

Using FBML (Facebook Markup Language) you can add a box (tab) to your fan page where you can render HTML or FBML to enhance, customize and brand your little area of Facebook.

(As you can see, flyte has recently created a branded landing page for our Facebook fan page.)

You should customize your landing page with complimentary graphics that you use in other marketing material, especially your Web site, blog and email newsletter.

You can make it the landing page for non-fans in the Wall Settings section of your fan page admin under the setting “Default Landing Tab for Everyone Else.”

Special kudos to Ryan Goan, our creative director who designed our new landing page, Gloria Maher who developed it, and Chrystie Corns who inspired us to add more color to our own landing page.

If you’d like to customize your Facebook landing page, contact flyte new media today.

Rich Brooks
Facebook Marketing for Small Business

flyte new media on Facebook

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Posted in flyte news, Social Media, Web Marketing | 3 Comments »