With Facebook, you can promote your business a couple of different ways, including:

1) Building a Fan Page

2) Creating a Business Profile

3) Setting Up Facebook Advertisements

Fan pages are designed to help you interact with your target audience, giving you the opportunity to design community pages or ‘portals’ around your business. Those visiting your fan page can choose to “like” it, and when they do, they become a part of your community.

Every “fan” is then added to your network and you can post direct broadcasts to your entire group!

The power of a well constructed, targeted fan page is unmatched and since Facebook carries incredible weight within the major search engines, creating fan pages is also a very easy method of getting quickly indexed and generating organic traffic to both your fan page, and other money pages and even personal blogs and websites.

Fan pages are quickly indexed within the search engines, and if you want to generate targeted traffic to your fan page, you’ll want to make sure that you implement common keywords used by those searching for information on your topic.

One of the easiest ways to do this is by using Wordtracker, a free tool (with an upgrade option) available at http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com

This will enable you to quickly determine exactly how many searches are taking place each month for specific keywords.

To begin, you will need to create a Facebook account if you haven’t already.

Each fan page can be linked from your main Facebook account, but is also considered an individual page with its own features, plugins and applications.

This means that you can create as many different fan pages as you wish, with each one focusing on a specific niche market. This makes it easy to span your coverage across multiple markets without having to create a new Facebook account each time you develop a new page.

If you already have a Facebook account, go ahead and log in. Then, scroll down until you see the “Advertising” tab. Click that to get started. (Subsequently, you can just enter the following URL into your browser: http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php )

You will also have to choose a category for your page from the drop down menu.

This is very important so don’t rush through it!

You want to make sure that you properly categorize your fan page for maximum exposure. A mis-categorized fan page will make it harder for potential customers to find you.

The more interactive you can make your fan page, the better. People need to be given a clear benefit of joining your fan page, especially as more and more marketers in your niche market begin to develop fan pages as well.

To start, make sure to give your fan page a distinct title, that incorporates your keywords. You want people visiting your fan page to be aware of exactly what you are offering, so include the most important keywords relating to your market.

Your fan page should also have a photo that represents what your page is all about.

Videos are a common component in building popular fan pages and there’s a good reason for this. Videos interact and connect with your target audience in a way that traditional print simply can’t.

You can link directly to YouTube videos, or integrate video content into your Fan Page by using video based plugins.

Note: There are hundreds of applications available to you that will help to enhance your Fan page. You can browse through free applications at http://www.Facebook.com/apps/directory.php

You can also create a viral fan page by offering high quality, free products that your target audience will find useful including:

Exclusive Interviews with niche authority figures

Fan Only conference calls and webinars

Special discounts and coupons that are available only on your fan page

Video tutorials and guides

Ebooks, Reports and Articles

One of the ways that you can monetize your Facebook Fan Pages if you currently don’t have a product of your own is through CPA offers.

To start, you will need to create a CPA account with http://www.CPALead.com

Then, you can choose CPA offers that target your niche market, choosing from a wide variety of formats, including surveys or “content blocker” (where your fans will not be able to download or access specific content until they have filled out a form).

You are paid every time one of your fan page members completes the CPA offer. You can find the current offers from within your CPA Lead account by clicking on “Widgets”, and if you choose to implement the content blocker format, select “Create New Widget” and CPA Lead will provide you with a snippet of code. You copy and paste that code into your fan page and you’re good to go!

You can also set up highly targeted Facebook advertisements, paying only whenever someone clicks on your link.

Facebook provides powerful flexibility and customization options to advertisers, making it very easy for you to penetrate your niche market, while displaying your ads only to those who are genuinely interested in the type of product or services you offer.

One of the most attractive aspects of advertising on Facebook, apart from the sheer exposure that your ads will receive, is that Facebook allows you to customize your Facebook ads so that they become visible only to potential customers based on gender, age, or even location.

By taking advantage of the advertising platforms flexibility, you can tailor your advertisements based on the segment of your market that you feel would be most responsive to your advertisements.

Facebook helps you target your advertisements based on the information contained within a users profile fields. For example, Facebook members can customize their profile to include their interests, hobbies and even their area of employment.

When you create your Facebook advertisements, you can choose to display your ads only to those with profile information that match what your ad is about.

You can also generate exposure just from your personal Facebook account by developing a following base of people interested in your niche market. You can import contacts from your email account, or from other social media communities that you are a part of.

One thing to keep in mind is when building your marketing campaigns for social media networks, you always want to direct potential customers to a squeeze page, rather than to a money page.

This way, you can build a massive email list, capturing leads, and minimizing lost profits, since it’s unlikely that everyone visiting your website would purchase on their first visit.

Social networking requires that you take an aggressive approach to becoming an active participant within the networks.

People want to read your updates, stay up to date with what’s going on in your business life, and the more interactive you are with your target audience, the easier it will be to build a brand and solidify your place in some of the Internet’s most profitable niches.

Brought to you by Elsie Roach, Virtual Social Media Manager :>)

With Facebook member numbers about to surpass 700 million, it’s time to take notice of what Facebook has to offer. We help businesses get ahead with Facebook. Check out how, here.

CASE STUDY

Facebook’s transition from FBML to iframe apps in March 2011 was met with mixed reactions. Non-technical individuals felt threatened by the technical issues involved and, truth be told, the instructions Facebook issued were definitely written for developers. Large organizations, on the other hand, who have technical staff on their payroll, very quickly realized that the iframe technology opened new opportunities for them to promote their brand and create Facebook pages tailored to the very core principle of social media  – social engagement with their clients.

So, what has changed? The application files that you want to create and display on a Facebook canvas are now stored on your own servers – on hosting accounts where you store your ordinary website files. What this means is that you can now build creative applications that promote social engagement and attract new fans; videos, surveys, contests, discussions, product offers, free gifts, email opt-in forms and much more. Creative developers are no long restrained by the previous Facebook code requirements and can use any variety of HTML/XHTML, CSS, Javascript and programming languages.  Nothing stands in the way of creativity.

Many developers went into overdrive and now offer very affordable templates that enable you to acquire and publish a Facebook fanpage effortlessly, using the new iframe application technology.

We have already mentioned the core principle in social media. As this applies to Facebook pages, the principle is social engagement with your Facebook fans. It is not enough to simply acquire a vast number of “Likes”, you also need to come up creative ideas that motivate your fans to come back to your page frequently and share your page with their friends; this is the viral concept that social media provides.

To illustrate what is possible, let’s examine 5 prominent Facebook fan pages that illustrate different ideas on how to engage fans. Each one is different, each one is tailored the vendor’s specific audience  – the demographics, needs and interests of a client base that they have come to know and understand.

Learn from these examples so that you know what is now possible when you put on your creative hat and design your own page.

Pringles

Pringles, owner of the well-known potato chip brand, has a fanpage that is unique primarily because it uses video very effectively. In addition, they engage their fans with reviews, discussions and authentic interactive games.

Video is now the media that people most frequently share online. This is the reason why many companies create entertaining videos in the hope that they will go “viral”, meaning that they will be distributed to an exponentially growing number of people.

Pringles understands its market and generally produce low budget videos that incorporate humor. The aim is to motivate their fans to distribute these videos to their friends. This way, Pringles need not rely exclusively on ad production. Fans “Like” the videos and they then become visible in the newsfeed of their friends. This can potentially attract large numbers of new people to the Pringles fanpage.

Coca-Cola

Your first glance at the Coca-Cola fanpage may not reveal what is hidden within the 27 different tabs that you can access. The guiding principle in its design is clearly user participation or, as is said in social media circles, social engagement.

The company’s commitment to their fans is well illustrated by the way their fanpage evolved to what it is today. The fanpage was originally built by two fans who loved Coke. Coca-Cola found the page and, instead of undermining the original creators, they rewarded them and worked with them to continue developing the page. This way, the company was able to build on the fan relationships that were already established and merge these into what has since become the official company fanpage.

The first observation to be made is that Coca-Cola made the decision to display user created comments on their Facebook wall, be it good or bad comments. This was a courageous decision and demonstrates their interest in getting fans engaged with the Coca-Cola brand.

Another creative feature is their photo albums. These albums show the product, company employees at work, pictures of Coke fans, images of their merchandise from all over the world and pictures of Coke nostalgia. This demonstrates their understanding that Coke is an icon and people collect items related to the brand.

Starbucks

The Starbucks fanpage demonstrates the company’s commitment to social media. The page has good videos and diverse content. Their solution to social engagement with fans is the way in which they use status updates.

The unique feature of Starbucks status updates is that they provide the means for two-way communication between the company and its fans.  Fans post comments about the Starbucks updates which are varied, entertaining and appealing. Fans come back to view and comment on new updates that appear every couple of days. The updates are informal but informative and often include videos, blog posts about all aspects of coffee and the growing of coffee beans. News about the company and its workers are mixed with information about books and music CDs that are available for sale in their shops.

Other companies should take note as these types of status updates receive thousands of comments from a very engaged fan base. They appreciate something more than just stale product announcements or updates that are either too infrequent or so frequent that fans cannot keep up with them.

Adidas

The Adidas page has a large following with content variety, good videos, pictures and notes. It is different from the other pages we have described in the way it promotes Adidas alternative social media channels and advertising campaigns.

Well designed contests provide variety to page content and can engage and attract new fans. Adidas does this particularly well. They recently partnered with MTV and ran an exclusive Facebook contest with an all expenses paid house party as the top prize. It was successful because it was tailored to the demographics of its user base. The campaign and its end result was cleverly integrated into status updates, photos and videos showing blog posts, photos and videos about the house party and the lucky winner. This was seen as a new and fun way of engaging and attracting new fans with a strong call to action.

Red Bull

The Red Bull fan page is one of the best pages featured on Facebook.  Apart from incorporating amusing applications, they cleverly use Twitter feeds to encourage fans to interact and engage themselves with the brand.

The Twitter feeds are not only drawn from their official company account but they use aggregated tweets from sponsored athletes like skateboarder Ryan Sheckler and snowboarder Shaun White.  This fits very well with the demographics of their fan base which is made up primarily of teens and college students. The opportunity to connect with popular athletes provides a strong draw card for attracting new fans.

Humor is always a strong draw card and an amusing application invites fans to rate phone calls made by drunk or tipsy people to the Red Bull 1-800 number. This is a clever way of encouraging interaction and engagement.

The page is a clever combination of creative applications which provide fans with humor and fun.

Conclusion

Although the brands we have described were well known and had a strong and loyal following before they appeared on Facebook, their fanpages offer good insights into the core principles of social media – social engagement that is informal and based on good content that is regularly updated and encourages comments and discussion. In addition, a good sprinkling of humor never goes astray. To be successful in building creative Facebook features and application, you need to know the demographics, interests and social attitude of your audience.

Brought to you by Elsie Roach, Virtual Social Media Manager :>)

A Virtual Social Media Manager can do all the tasks to help you develope an online presence on the sites that will help your business become well known in the internet world. They will free up your time to work on the tasks of your business that require your own personal skills. A Virtual Social Media Manger will establish your accounts, keep your accounts looking professional, and delete all messages that you do not want to be bothered with.

What Can Social Media Marketing Do For Your Business?

Social Networking has literally transformed the way we communicate with our target audience, establish contacts, potential networking partners and know, with certainty, what our customer base REALLY wants.

No longer are we restricted with ‘static” marketing strategies where we were unsure as to whether our market was responding to our campaigns the way we expected (or hoped for). Instead, we can now keep a steady pulse on what our customer base is interested in, what they want from us, and what problems they need solved.

Social networking sites are also an incredible resource in helping us establish credibility in our markets, as we are able to develop a presence that puts us in close contact with our customer base.

We can finally really get to know our market, evaluate potential campaigns, test the viability of markets, and of course, analyze the competition – up close and personal.

Aside from the incredible power of interacting with our customer base, social networking sites also help us in yet another way.

With the two highest ranking websites online being both focused around social communities, we can generate maximum exposure, jump-start websites, build buzz around upcoming launches and even get brand new sites indexed quickly, just by participating in these ever-growing communities.

In fact, both Facebook and Twitter are among the top 10 most popular websites online, attracting millions of users every single day (while continue to grow at a staggering rate). If Facebook were a country it would be the third largest county in the world with over 300 million users. What better place to push your marketing message out to the world than with such dynamic, popular and ever-growing communities?

This post, “What Can Social Media Marketing Do For Your Business?”, focuses on the most powerful strategies used by savvy marketers who develop high performance marketing campaigns within some of the Internet’s most high traffic resources.

With just a few of these marketing strategies, you can blast an unstoppable flood of traffic while maximizing your income, quickly and easily (and at very little cost!)

Let’s begin.
Brought to you by Elsie Roach, Virtual Social Media Manager :>)

Linked In – http://www.LinkedIn.com

Linked in is a great place to find potential partners, JV’s and networking opportunities, and links displayed on your Linkedin profile page are quickly indexed within the major search engines.

Also, by changing existing labels and tabs within your Linkedin account so they feature relevant keywords relating to your niche market, you will be able to quickly optimize your Linkedin account and boost your search engine ranking!

Linkedin is also helpful in promoting your blog’s RSS feed by connecting your Linkedin account with external blog sites, including Bloglink, Blogger, Live Journal, Movable Type, Vox and WordPress.com

Ning, available at http://www.Ning.com is also an incredible source for traffic and qualified leads. Launched in early 2005, Ning offers the opportunity to develop your own social network around your chosen topics.

This is a great way to set up your own community, while generating fresh leads instantly!

You can customize your social network with a unique blend of design customizations and layout ideas.

You can take things a step further by developing surveys, polls and allowing those who join your network to respond to profile questions, open conversations and threads.

If you develop your own social network within Ning, you will be given a unique URL that you can give to your customers, peers and associates.

You can also enhance your network by adding in modules through a simple ‘drag & drop’ system, and best of all, users only require one login to access all of the social networks and communities they become a member of from within Ning.

And finally, here is a listing of other sites worth exploring.

Just make sure to develop each account so that it’s established and shows those visiting that you are an active member of the community. It’s important to be consistent with your social marketing campaigns so that you can continue to attract qualified leads and establish a presence within some of the most active circles!

Friendster: http://www.Friendster.com

Orkut: http://www.Orkut.com

Zorpia: http://www.Zorpia.com

Bebo: http://www.Bebo.com

Flixster: http://www.Flixster.com

Tagged http://www.Tagged.com

hi5 http://www.hi5.com

Fubar http://www.Fubar.com

Here’s to your social media marketing success!

Brought to you by Elsie Roach, Virtual Social Media Manager :>)

Twitter, available at http://www.Twitter.com is an incredibly popular social network and should be a central part of your social marketing campaigns.

With Twitter, you can instantly tap into your niche market, evaluate potential niches, test the viability of a market and build both a presence and credibility in your niche, quickly and easily.

But in order to build effective Twitter campaigns, you need to learn how to automate the process, so that you aren’t spending every waking moment monitoring your campaigns, updating your status or interacting with those that choose to follow you.

You can set up automated Twitter marketing campaigns with http://www.SocialOomph.com , a premium service that gives you the tools you need to set up interactive marketing campaigns that not only improve your marketing performance, but help keep your account fresh, interactive and current.

One of the ways that Social Oomph does this is by giving you the opportunity to set up “auto-broadcasts” which are scheduled to appear within your Twitter account’s public timeline on specific times or dates.

This way, you can keep your account fresh without having to actually update your account manually, saving you a lot of time and automating a lot of the work involved in maintaining a presence within Twitter’s social network.

In order to synch your Twitter account with your Social Oomph account, you need to give your Social Oomph account permission to access your Twitter account.

You can connect your two accounts together from within your www.SocialOomph.com account area by clicking on “Schedule New Update”.

SocialOomph also allows you to add multiple twitter accounts to your account, so that you can set up and manage multiple marketing campaigns all from within one interface.

Once you have connected your twitter account to your Social Oomph account, you will be able to create your automatic updates and messages.

These messages will post on Twitter based on the date and time settings you’ve determined. You will also be able to automatically “greet” people who follow you by having Social Oomph send each user a customized welcome message (this is where you will want to include a link to your squeeze page):?

Here are a few things to keep in mind when setting up your Twitter campaigns:

Do not follow too many people at once.

You want to build a gradual, natural following on Twitter so that your account doesn’t appear to be spamming but more importantly, so that your following base is targeted, rather than filled with generic subscribers who aren’t interested in your offers.

Twitter also restricts the number of followers you can add on a daily basis, and if you add too many or go over this limit, you run the risk of losing your Twitter account (the limits change frequently, so read Twitters guidelines to stay up to date on changes).

Keep Your Broadcasts Relevant

You want to build a quality list of followers and it’s important to keep your updates and broadcasts on point with what your offers are about. Remember, those people who choose to follow you can preview a history of your updates, so you always want to be professional – and relevant!

Form A Network

You can post links within your Twitter updates that direct people to visit your other social accounts such as Facebook, Linkedin, Squidoo pages or your other websites such as blogs or forums.

Utilize automation tools such as the free service available at http://www.Ping.fm to automate your updates and synch all of your social account updates together. Not only will this save time but it will help people stay connected to you.

Customize Your Twitter Profile

You want to establish a unique and memorable presence within Twitter, so that you stand out and can capture as much attention as possible.

Consider customizing your Twitter profile to include a new design, a photo of yourself, an introduction within your bio field, and direct links to your personal and business pages.

You can get a custom Twitter background at any of the following resources:

http://www.mytweetspace.com/

http://www.twitterimage.com/

http://www.BrandableTweets.com

Interact With Your Followers

Aside from posting frequent updates, you want to spend some time answering questions, addressing concerns, replying to open discussions and staying active within the community.

The more that people see you, the more likely you’ll be recognized as a viable source for information within your market, so tweet and tweet often!

To find targeted Twitter users, you’ll want to search some of the major Twitter directories for keywords related to your niche.

Some directories include:

http://wefollow.com/

http://twitterholic.com/

http://twittercounter.com/

http://justtweetit.com/

http://www.tweetertags.com/

http://twellow.com/

Brought to you by Elsie Roach, Virtual Social Media Manager :>)