It seems that everyone is on Facebook these days.  News about using the platform for business pepper broadcasts and print media alongside updates about the upcoming IPO.  If you have been waiting to create a Facebook page for your business or if you have one that you haven’t touched since creation, the following promotion tips are written for you.  Even if you are managing your business’s Facebook page, the following top ten tip list may give you a few ideas to help promote your page and your business on this constantly evolving social platform.

1.  Create Your Page
The first promotion tip is more of a step one – create your page.  Without a page, you will have nothing to promote and no one will have anything to talk about.  Create your page and make sure to include content.  Nobody will want to share a page that is blank or that looks abandoned.

2.  Manage Your Page
Create a schedule and begin adding interesting and informative content to your Facebook page, even if you don’t have a single follower.  When you start promoting your page, visitors will hopefully be curious what they can expect from you in regard to future communication.

3.  Invitations – Soft Launch
Your business’s social network can be divided into different groupings (such as employees, business partners, philanthropic partners, customers, friends, and family).  Each of these groups can be alerted to the creation of your Facebook page and invited to engage with you as you actively manage your page.  Initially, start with your friends, family, and employees.  Ask for feedback.  Make changes as needed.

4.  Invitations – Hard Launch
Now that you have a presence on Facebook, a number of friends/followers, and a calendar with which to guide your posts, you can invite your business partners, philanthropic partners, and customers to join you.  Since you are adding customers to the mix, make sure that there is someone monitoring your Facebook page for questions, feedback, and complaints and you have a plan in place to respond to each in a timely manner.

5.  Cross-Promote Your Social Media Channels
If you are active on other social channels, such as YouTube, Twitter, or others, consider adding content from these channels to Facebook or promoting Facebook within these channels.

6.  Link to Your Facebook Page From Your Website
Consider adding a Facebook icon and link to your Facebook page from your website. Consider embedding a Facebook module in your website or blog if applicable, to show what your customers and you are saying.

7.  Social Sharing Buttons
Consider adding the Facebook Like button to your website (or other social sharing buttons such as ShareThis or AddThis) to help visitors promote your content on Facebook.

8.  Consider Contests
Not only do contests give you a reason to promote your Facebook page on your website and in your other channels, but customers and potential customers tend to love a contest by a brand they like.  There are a variety of different contest set-ups available for Facebook, but they all must abide by Facebook’s guidelines.

9.  Don’t Forget Print
Just because Facebook and your website are digital, does not mean that you can not promote them in printed media related to your business.  Companies are posting icons or links to their Facebook pages on business cards, billboards, clothing, and even shopping bags.

10.  Paid Ads
Research the possible benefit of creating a Facebook ad to promote your business and Facebook page to be displayed on Facebook.  One big benefit of using paid Facebook ads is that the targeting is very precise and you only pay when someone clicks on your ad.

Any or all of these promotional tips can help you build a Facebook page that becomes an important part of your marketing mix, but you can’t start without tip #1: Create Your Page.  If you would like additional tips, a social media strategy, or customized design for your Facebook page, please contact MoreVisibility.

LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com) isn’t just for job seekers.  Over 120 million members makes LinkedIn the world’s largest professional network; a network your firm could use in a variety of different ways:

• Establishing a Professional Presence: By including information about your firm as a LinkedIn Company Page, users of the social network can learn more about your firm on the medium of their choice and then move to other off-site mediums, such as your website, if they choose.  Additionally, as lawyers in your firm grow their professional profiles, they have the opportunity to add sections that could include slide presentations, blog posts, or other content that would help inform visitors to their professional profile about your firm. 
• Resource & Knowledge Center (Groups): Groups on LinkedIn is a wonderful way for a firm to interact with those in an industry.  Individuals from your firm can ask questions, look through members interested in the same area as your firm, add job postings, and more.
• Social Networking: The lawyers in your firm can network with other users who may seek legal services.  Be careful to abide by any restraints on who you may network with by checking with The Bar Association in your area.  Additionally, your firm can use LinkedIn to network with colleagues, perhaps those in other firms to whom you refer or are referred business.
• Link Building: As the lawyers in your firm build professional profiles, they can post content including links back to your website or blog.  Their connections could read these posts and see the links and choose to link to your content.
• Hiring: LinkedIn, with their built in Job section, is a wonderful way to connect with those looking for opportunities in the field of law.

The LinkedIn Learning Center has a User Guide specifically devoted to helping individual attorneys as well as law firms to take advantage of all of the opportunities LinkedIn has to offer.  If you are interested in growing your social media presence or hearing how MoreVisibility can help you grow on LinkedIn, please request a quote or contact us for more information.

There are over two hundred million registered users of Twitter.  This number grows by hundreds of thousands each day as new users sign-up.  There are over one hundred and fifty million Tweets per day.  So many, in fact, that many people find it hard to monitor ongoing conversations without using special platforms.  Twitter is used not only by individual people, but by businesses, organizations, governments, and individuals on behalf of animals or fictional characters.  It seems everyone wants to share information in 140 character snippets. 

The White House ( @WhiteHouse ) uses Twitter to share quotes, information, and interact with citizens.  Jason Scott uses Twitter on-behalf-of his cat Sockington ( @Sockington ) and has amassed almost 1.5 Million followers (dubbed Army of Socks).  The mastermind behind the internet meme “Nyan Nyan Cat” (a looped music video of a pixelated cat shaped piece of buttered toast flying with a rainbow) signed-up for a Twitter account to share the sage advice “Nyan Nyan.”  On April 23, 2011, @NyanNyanCat had 114 Tweets and @replies containing little more than a variation of “Nyan” and some symbols.  Which makes one wonder, a repetitive looping fictional cat can make over 100 Tweets in a day – is there a maximum Tweets per day allowance?  How many Tweets can a business make before they reach Twitter’s maximum daily Tweet limit?

The answer is 1,000.  A Twitter user can make 1,000 Tweets in a day (although special restrictions apply. 

The takeaway from this blog post is simple: You have little to worry about with regard to the maximum number of allowed Tweets per day.  Your business should focus on delivering the most relevant content in 140 characters on a frequency that works for your audience.

LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network on the Internet, has over 120 million members as of August 2011.  These individuals are browsing the internet and when they come across good onsite content, they have the same urge many of us do – to share what they have found with others in their network.  A simple snippet of code, typically added to a section of your website near other buttons such as Google’s +1 Button, Twitter’s Tweet Button, and Facebook’s Like or Share Buttons is all that is needed for set-up.  You can build a LinkedIn Share Button through LinkedIn’s Developer Network.  The buttons come in three basic designs: No Count, Vertical Count, and Horizontal Count (example below).  No Count is simply the button without a numerical count of how many people have clicked the button to share the content.  Vertical Count places the numerical bubble count above the button and Horizontal Count places the bubble count to the side of the button.  

http://mashable.com/2011/08/22/khan-academy-kno/

Upon clicking of the LinkedIn Share Button, the count (if shown) will increase by one and a pop-up will appear (if you have pop-ups allowed).

http://blog.linkedin.com/2010/11/30/linkedin-share/

The pop-up box has three options of how you can share the snippet: Post to updates, Post to group(s), and Send to individuals.  The first option, Post to updates, allows you to add a personalized message to the snippet, post to Twitter at the same time you post to LinkedIn, and adjust the visibility of the post (anyone or connections only).  The second option, Post to group(s), auto-completes a group’s name as you type it into the Group(s) field.  If there is a grey lock symbol next to the group name, this signifies that the group is Members Only and that posts will only be visible to members.  If you are posting to an Open Group, note that the post will be visible to everyone on LinkedIn.  After selecting your preferred Group(s), you can also add a subject and details to the post, both of which are optional fields.  The third option, Send to individuals, allows you to share with people who you are not currently connected to by entering their email address in the To: field.  You can also include a personalized message and check a box to disallow the recipient from seeing your name and email address (the default for this box is checked – where those you are sending the post to would see your name and email address).  Once you have decided how you would like to share the snippet of content (and you have the option of using any combination of the three options) you can click the blue “Share” button.

Klout (www.klout.com) measures a person’s influence in aggregate of all of their social networks (at least those currently integrated with Klout).  The San Francisco based company has scored over 80 Million people since 2008.  The unit of measurement compiled is called The Klout Score and is a number from 1 to 100.  The higher the score, the more influence Klout has computed that you have. 

Your Klout Score is compiled from three factors – True Reach, Amplification, and Network Score.  Your True Reach measures how many people you actually influence. There are safeguards in place to filter out bots and spam to sift down to how many people are actually interacting with your content.  Another way of looking at your True Reach is to think about how many people share your content and how many people are compelled to respond to your messages.  Your Amplification can be thought of as how many times your message is spread. Do your friends want to share your message with their friends?  Your Network Score takes into account not just how many people are in your network, but how many of those people are influencers themselves.  The more influencers you know who react to your content, the higher your Klout Score is likely to be.

The Klout Score Formula

Until recently, your Klout Score was determined from online influence in five social media channels: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare and YouTube.  Klout doubled that number to ten by adding Blogger, Flickr, Instagram, Last.fm and Tumblr.

Keeping with the trend of social media companies having their very own buttons, Klout introduced the +K Button in June.  The +K Button is similar to Google’s +1 Button in that you are making a recommendation.  In Klout’s case, you are recommending an individual as a good source of information on a certain topic.  You can read more about the +K Button on Klout’s Blog.

So far, MoreVisibility’s Social Media blog has covered Promoted Tweets and Promoted Trends.  Promoted Accounts is the third form of paid advertising currently available through Twitter.  First introduced in October of 2010, Promoted Accounts is a way of having Twitter suggest following your account to users who may find you interesting.  It almost goes without saying that within this calculation there is a note to check if those users are already following the account and only to display the message to those who are not. 

The calculation takes into consideration a Twitter user’s public list of who they follow and what categories those followed accounts could be grouped into.  It then tries to display Promoted Accounts that fall into related categories. 

An example of a Promoted Account in Twitter is @DietCokeUS who showed up during a recent log-in under the Who to follow section of the Twitter Sidebar:      

Many household name companies have tried Twitter’s Promoted Accounts to have their Twitter account suggested to Twitter users, the first of which was @Xbox.

As you can see, a small yellow-orange icon with an arrow pointing to the top right corner of the screen is present with the word “Promoted” next to it, clearly noting that this was a paid placement.

If you are interested in learning more about Promoted Accounts and other paid placement options on Twitter, please contact us.

In a previous blog, we touched on Twitter’s first form of paid advertising: Twitter Promoted Tweets.  Twitter then came out with Promoted Trends in June of 2010.  There were a lot of trending searches for hashtags and keywords and many people saw “Toy Story 3″ with a yellow-orange button next to it with the word “Promoted” inside.  Today many people have seen Disney-Pixar’s animated movie and so too, have those continuing to use Twitter, seen the progression from a button with the word “Promoted” to a small yellow-orange icon with an arrow pointing to the top right corner of the screen.

An example of a Promoted Trend hashtag is #BornElectric – the following is what may appear in the Trends section of your Sidebar as you are logged into Twitter:

It should be noted that advertisers can not simply pay to be on the trends list.  To be eligible to be a Promoted Trend, a topic must meet or exceed a minimum level of popularity on Twitter.  In other words, a topic must already be trending toward the Trending Topics list on its own.  Being accepted as a Promoted Trend simply gives the topic an extra push into the Trends section.

Just because some Promoted Trends are seen at the top of the Trends section does not guarantee that your topic will make it there.  Twitter experiments with placement much the way that the search engines do and does not guarantee placement amongst the displayed topics.

If you are interested in learning more about Promoted Tweets and other ways your business can leverage from Twitter, please contact us.

If you use Twitter regularly, you may have noticed a small yellow-orange icon of an arrow pointing toward the top right corner of your screen.  This little icon indicated that the tweet, hashtag, or username it appears near is a promoted – read “paid” – Tweet, trend, or account. 

An example of a Promoted Tweet is the following from @generalelectric:

This Tweet does not show up in the regular stream of Tweets from @generalelectric.  It is displayed in the home streams of Twitter users who have conducted a relevant search or are one of the advertiser’s followers.  The Tweet can be replied to, retweeted, or marked as favorite, the same as a regular (non-promoted) Tweet.

Promoted Tweets helped move Twitter from a micro-blogging platform into a paid advertising platform.  Today, hundreds of advertisiers have tested the waters of Promoted Tweets and eMarketer, Twitter, and ClickZ have compiled some data as to the level of engagement to be expected.

Because Promoted Tweets allow your business to get in front of a large number of people with varying interests that are using Twitter but who are not necessarily currently following your account, by adding Promoted Tweets into your marketing mix you can extend the reach of your brand.

You can sign up for more information from Twitter’s advertising department by filling out this form or you can contact MoreVisibility to talk to our paid placement team.

The Google +1 Button was developed by Google as a way for people to recommend products, services, businesses, people, or anything else that may be found on a webpage that they might like.  A website owner or business would add the button to their page or site and a visitor wishing to recommend the page or site to others would click the button when logged into their Google account.  The network of that Google account user would then see that +1 when seeing the page or site come up in search or when visiting the page or site directly.

1. Search results (both paid and unpaid) can include the Google +1 Button. 

2. The URL to be +1’d is identified in one of three ways (in the order that Google checks for the URL): href attribute, rel=”canonical” tag, browser displayed URL.

• The href attribute is in the code placed on your website.
• If for any reason, you copied the code and did not select a href attribute, Google will then check for any indication of your preferred canonical URL.
• If neither of the two above items is present, Google will use the URL as it is displayed in the address bar.  This third method can cause errors due to variables being present in this form of link that would not be present in the canonical version.

3. The Google +1 Button is currently available in over 42 languages.

4. The Google +1 Button comes in 4 sizes (small, medium, standard, and tall) with the option of with or without count (the total number of clicks of the +1 button).

http://code.google.com/apis/+1button/#button-sizes

5. Google makes it easy to customize your preferred +1 Button code through their Create A Custom +1 Button page.

An example of the Google +1 Button, standard size without count, can be seen on MoreVisibility’s homepage:

http://www.morevisibility.com/

Contact us if you would like assistance with selecting and implementing social media buttons on your website.

There are a lot of buttons appearing on websites these days.  Twitter has the Follow Button and the Tweet Button.  Facebook has the Like Button and the Send Button.  All of these buttons allow visitors to be active participants in the promotion process.  LinkedIn released a Share Button that is growing followers amongst businesses looking to promote content B2B.  The Share Button is placed on a webpage with a simple snippet of code. 

http://www.linkedin.com/publishers

Visitors to the page click on the button and a pop-up window appears.  Within this window you can edit the content to post on LinkedIn.  The content includes a title for the snippet, a blurb, and an image.  Visitors can choose whether or not to include the image (pulled and minimized from the webpage).  Also within the pop-up window are three ways you can select to share the content: post to updates, post to group(s), and send to individuals.

‘Post to updates’ which goes into the stream of posts on LinkedIn (similar to a Twitter stream) goes as far as to allow you to also post the content to your Twitter account (essentially a Twitter Tweet Button within the LinkedIn Share Button).  You are also able to segment who sees the content to ‘anyone’ or ‘connections only.’  If you are active in groups on LinkedIn you are able to share the content to one or more groups.  If you have a specific individual in mind (whether you are currently connected with them through LinkedIn or not) you can share the content with them through the ‘Send to individuals’ option.

LinkedIn’s Share Button is a great tool for businesses with webpage or blog content that they think professionals would like to share.  The button and pop-up are easy to use and take up very little real estate on your site.  If you would like help choosing which social media buttons to add to your webpage or blog, please contact MoreVisibility’s Social Media Team.