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Guide to Small Business Marketing
The
®
Guide to Small
Business Marketing
by Ramon Ray
The®
The Facebook® Guide to Small Business Marketing
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 10475 Crosspoint Blvd. Indianapolis, IN 46256 www.wiley.com
Copyright © 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
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About the AuthorRamon Ray (www.ramonray.com) is a technology evangelist who is passionate about
helping small businesses grow using technology as a strategic asset. He is also regional
development director, NY for Infusionsoft (a sales and marketing software company).
Ramon is a journalist, event producer, speaker, author, and editor of smallbiztechnology.
com. His previous two books include Technology Solutions for Growing Businesses
(AMACOM Books, 2003) and Technology Resources for Growing Businesses (2011).
As a journalist and writer, Ramon has written thousands of articles (product reviews,
interviews, and more) about technology for small businesses. His work appears on
smallbiztechnology.com and also on allbusiness.com, entrepreneur.com, openforum.
com, blackenterprise.com, and more.
Hundreds of small business owners have attended his events, including the Small
Business Summit (www.smallbiztechsummit.com), Small Business Technology Tour
(www.smallbiztechtour.com), and Small Business Influencer Awards (http://influencers.
smallbiztrends.com).
Ramon is a speaker whose audiences routinely use the words informative and energized
when describing his content and speaking style. Ramon has spoken at the Inc. 500,
OPEN Forum at Consumer Electronics Show with Guy Kawasaki, Black Enterprise
Entrepreneur’s Conference & Expo, New York Expo, Infusionsoncon, and many other
events.
Ramon is not just a technology writer. As a former small-business technology consultant,
he has years of hands-on experience in building networks, installing software, upgrading
computers, and supporting the technology that small businesses use daily.
Ramon is often quoted in the media, including in Crain’s New York, the New York Times,
the Wall Street Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle, and others.
Acquisitions EditorAaron Black
Project EditorKristin Vorce
Technical EditorPaul Hammond
Senior Copy EditorKim Heusel
Editorial DirectorRobyn Siesky
Business ManagerAmy Knies
Senior Marketing ManagerSandy Smith
Vice President and Executive Group PublisherRichard Swadley
Vice President and Executive PublisherBarry Pruett
Project CoordinatorKatie Crocker
Graphics and Production SpecialistsJennifer Henry Jennifer Mayberry
Quality Control TechnicianLauren Mandelbaum
Proofreading and IndexingLinda Seifert Valerie Haynes Perry
Credits
To my family — Ronnie (wife), Timothy (son), Charity (daughter),
Clabe (father — deceased 1998), Olivia (mother),
Clalin (sister), and Joanna (sister).
To the 30 million small businesses who continue to struggle with
acquiring new customers and keeping the ones they have.
AcknowledgmentsI would like to deeply thank Carolyn Crummey (VirTasktic) for her supreme collaboration
to bring this book to fruition (hundreds of e-mails and more). Thanks to Laura Leites (L2
Event Production) and Pierre DeBois (Zimana) for their help and contributions toward this
book’s production and research.
Introduction .................................................................................................. xxiii
Chapter 1: Learning Facebook Basics .................................................................1
Chapter 2: Designing a Business Page ................................................................9
Chapter 3: Drawing More People to Your Page .................................................39
Chapter 4: Making Money on Facebook ............................................................71
Chapter 5: Boosting Your Website with Facebook ...........................................107
Chapter 6: Creating Facebook Events .............................................................131
Chapter 7: Using Facebook to Generate Local Store Foot Traffic .....................145
Chapter 8: Catching Media Attention Using Facebook ....................................169
Chapter 9: Leveraging Facebook as a Platform ...............................................187
Chapter 10: Creating and Using Facebook Apps .............................................199
Chapter 11: Learning Lessons from Real Businesses ......................................219
Appendix A: Resources ..................................................................................237
Glossary ........................................................................................................243
Index .............................................................................................................247
contents at a glance C
Acknowledgments ............... xiii
Introduction ........................xxiii
Chapter 1 Learning Facebook Basics ....... 1
The Power of “Social” in Social Media ..... 2
Content Is King and Customer Engagement Is Queen .......................... 3
What Is Facebook?.................................. 5
Why are individuals using Facebook? ..................................... 5
Why are small businesses using Facebook? ..................................... 5
Chapter 2 Designing a Business Page ..... 9
Facebook Business Pages versus Traditional Websites .......................... 10
Facebook Redesigns ............................ 11
Designing Your Basic Facebook Page ..... 14
Creating a Facebook login ............. 14
Creating a business Page .............. 15
Customizing Page content ............. 16
Profile picture ...................... 17
Business information ............ 19
Timeline posts ..................... 20
Cover photo ......................... 22
Views and apps .................... 23
Applying Page settings and adding admins ............................ 26
Publishing your Page ..................... 29
Choosing a Page Design Tool ............... 30
Other options ................................ 32
Selecting a design ......................... 32
Adding promotions ....................... 32
Establishing a Facebook connection .................................. 32
Best Practices in Design and Content ............................................. 33
Take the easy path: Use a Page design tool ......................... 33
Use simple and expressive visuals ....................................... 33
Get creative with profile image and photos ................................. 33
Profile photo ........................ 33
Cover photo ......................... 33
Inject your personality .................. 34
Follow Facebook guidelines .......... 36
Engage, don’t educate ................... 36
Refresh often ................................ 36
Case Study: It’s a Perfect Day ............... 37
Chapter 3 Drawing More People to Your Page ............................. 39
Creating Contests, Polls, and Questions .......................................... 40
Contests ....................................... 40
Polls .............................................. 42
Questions ..................................... 46
contents C
The Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing
Reviewing Your Facebook Page Analytics ........................................... 77
The Facebook algorithm ................ 77
Insights ......................................... 78
Other analytic solutions ................ 81
Hootsuite Pro ....................... 82
Crowdbooster ...................... 82
PageLever ........................... 82
Postling ................................ 82
Google Analytics .................. 83
Webtrends Social .................. 83
Radian6................................ 84
Adobe Social ........................ 84
Advertising on Facebook ..................... 84
Identifying your goals ................... 86
Defining your target customer ...... 87
Creating your advertisement ......... 87
Step one: Design your ad ..... 88
Step two: Use Sponsored Stories ............................... 89
Step three: Select your audience ............................ 90
Step four: Name your campaign and set your pricing ............................... 92
Step five: Review and submit your ad .................. 92
Determining cost and budgeting ... 93
Daily budget, daily spend limit, and lifetime budget ... 94
Auction system .................... 94
Test different messages and images ............................... 95
The Like button in Facebook advertisements ........................... 95
Using the Facebook Ads Manager ... 96
Measuring advertising success ...... 97
Ad performance reporting in Ads Manager ..................................... 98
First ad analysis steps ................... 99
Additional Ways to Drive More Facebook Visits ................................. 46
Include a link to Facebook in your business material ................ 47
Make your Page name simple ........ 48
Tag people .................................... 50
Participate in forums ..................... 51
Encourage fans ............................. 51
Make it easy for folks to share ..... 52
Using Groups ....................................... 52
How are Pages different from groups? ...................................... 52
How do I set up a group? .............. 53
How do people join my group? ...... 58
How do I poll a group? .................. 58
How do I find a specific post in a group? ..................................... 58
How do I delete a group? .............. 59
Managing Backlash .............................. 59
Do not be overly insistent on your point of view ...................... 60
Do not delete comments ............... 60
Consider judgment in using planted posts .............................. 61
Using Social Media Dashboards ............ 63
Leveraging Offline and Online Marketing .......................................... 68
Chapter 4 Making Money on Facebook ... 71
Selling Online Using Facebook ............. 72
Creating a Facebook Page to make money ............................... 72
Brainstorming content ideas for your Facebook Page .................... 73
Using Facebook and Skype ............ 73
Contents
Creating Livestream Events ................ 136
Promoting Your Event ........................ 142
Using Other Event Apps ..................... 143
Chapter 7 Using Facebook to Generate Local Store Foot Traffic ...... 145
Your Local Business and Facebook ..... 146
Using Facebook Places as a customer .................................. 146
Establishing a Facebook Place Page for your business .............. 150
Setting up a Place Page ...... 151
Adding details to your Place Page ........................ 153
Using Facebook Check-in Deals ........................................ 156
Using Facebook Places and Check-in Deals for your local marketing ......................... 160
Getting customers .............. 161
Spreading the word ............ 161
Building loyalty .................. 161
Local Check-in Deal Best Practices ...... 161
Is Your Business Ready for Your Check-in Deal? ................................. 162
Be proactive ................................ 163
Build your Facebook Place or Page content ............................. 163
Put yourself in your customers’ shoes ........................................ 163
Staff appropriately ...................... 163
Promoting Your Check-in Campaign ........................................ 163
Using Insights to Understand Your Campaign ................................ 165
Using Facebook Offers ....................... 165
Using Sponsored Stories .................... 101
Creating a Sponsored Story ......... 103
Setting up your budget and targeting criteria ....................... 104
Generating more stories about your business ........................... 105
Chapter 5 Boosting Your Website with Facebook ..................... 107
Integrating Facebook with Your Blogs and Website ........................... 108
Connecting your users’ accounts with Facebook accounts ............ 114
Authenticating users ................... 117
Publishing News Feed stories ...... 120
Plug-ins that work with Facebook Connect and Open Graph .............................. 120
Other integration ideas ............... 121
A meta description ............. 121
Facebook plug-ins .............. 123
Social media icon ............... 124
Website versus Facebook-Only Presence .......................................... 124
How a Cake Recipe Website Integrates with Facebook ................. 126
Facebook Like button .................. 126
Facebook comments ................... 127
Facebook group .......................... 128
Chapter 6 Creating Facebook Events ................................. 131
Creating an Event in Facebook ........... 132
Announcing Your Event ..................... 135
The Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing
Apps and Mobility .............................. 193
Designing for Community .................. 193
Case Study: Leveraging the Facebook Platform to Raise Brand Awareness ............................. 194
Objective .................................... 195
Execution .................................... 195
Strategy ...................................... 195
Cost ............................................ 196
Success and results ..................... 196
Chapter 10 Creating and Using Facebook Apps.................... 199
Facebook Apps for Your Business 101 ................................... 200
Discovering apps ........................ 200
Using apps with your business ................................... 204
Top Facebook apps for business ................................... 206
Should You Create a Facebook App? ................................................ 209
App Approval and Policy .................... 211
App Marketing ................................... 213
Facebook Ads for Apps ...................... 216
App Maintenance ............................... 217
Chapter 11 Learning Lessons from Real Businesses .................. 219
How Real Businesses Are Making Real Money on Facebook ................. 220
Content ....................................... 220
Advertising ................................. 220
Chapter 8 Catching Media Attention Using Facebook .................. 169
Conducting Audience Research .......... 170
Determining Desired Outcomes ......... 171
Working with Bloggers and the Media .............................................. 171
Finding and connecting with enthusiasts and influencers ...... 172
Good old-fashioned promotion .... 172
Public Relations Gurus Share Their Insights .................................. 173
Cheryl Snapp Conner, managing partner, Snapp Conner PR ......... 173
PR for building a dialogue .......................... 174
PR for building a following ......................... 176
Expanding the reach and the scope of a company’s PR program ...................... 178
Mistakes to avoid ............... 179
Janet Tyler, president, Airfoil Public Relations ........................ 179
Making friends with media .............................. 182
Marketers must push and pull the story ................... 183
Chapter 9 Leveraging Facebook as a Platform .............................. 187
Why Platforms Are Important ............. 188
Integrating Facebook and Your Website ........................................... 189
Social plug-ins ............................. 190
Authentication ............................ 192
Personalization ........................... 193
Contents
Appendix A Resources ........................... 237
Facebook News, Help, and Guidelines ....................................... 237
Facebook for Business ................. 237
Facebook Newsroom ................... 237
Advertise on Facebook ................ 237
Facebook Advertising Guidelines................................. 237
Facebook Brand Permissions Center ...................................... 237
Facebook Marketing .................... 237
Preferred Marketing Developer Program .................................... 237
Facebook Video Calling ............... 238
Facebook Help Center ................. 238
Promotion Applications ...................... 238
Wildfire ....................................... 238
North Social ................................ 238
Woobox ...................................... 238
Votigo ......................................... 238
Strutta ......................................... 238
Offerpop ..................................... 238
Social Plug-Ins .................................... 238
Facebook Social Plug-Ins ............. 238
SexyBookmarks ........................... 238
Wibiya ......................................... 239
Analytic Tools .................................... 239
Hootsuite Pro .............................. 239
Crowdbooster ............................. 239
PageLever ................................... 239
Postling ....................................... 239
Google Analytics ......................... 239
Webtrends Social ......................... 239
Radian6 ...................................... 239
Adobe Social ............................... 239
Analyzing Case Studies ...................... 221
How Community Coffee builds a loyal customer community on Facebook ............................. 221
How Squishable used Facebook ads to get more fans on Facebook .................................. 222
How the company How Fast Time Flies used keyword targeting to boost sales ............ 224
How CM Photographics uses targeted Facebook ads to sell more photo services ........... 225
How Wedding Paper Divas attracted engaged couples to buy wedding stationery ........ 225
How Thumbtack uses Facebook tools to sell services ................. 227
How Pretzel Crisps boosted its likes in 36 hours using Facebook coupons .................... 228
How Sweet Poppin’s gourmet popcorn keeps customers informed using simple Facebook posts ......................... 229
How TicketLeap sells more tickets through Facebook .......... 230
How Framework Media Strategies keeps customers informed with likes and shares ................ 231
How the organic body care company Motherlove grows with Facebook .......................... 232
Educating mothers ............. 232
Short-term customers ......... 233
Advertising on Facebook .... 234
Building a community ........ 235
End result: word of mouth .............................. 235
The future .......................... 235
The Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing
Workshifting.com ........................ 240
Blue Penguin Development Group ....................................... 241
ClickZ.com .................................. 241
The Small Business Web .............. 241
Appendix A: Resources ....... 237
Glossary.............................. 243
Index ................................... 247
Video Streaming ................................ 239
Vpype ......................................... 239
Ustream ...................................... 240
Justin.tv ...................................... 240
Brightcove................................... 240
Small Business Information ................ 240
Smallbiztechnology.com ............. 240
Small Business Trends ................. 240
Inc. Magazine .............................. 240
AllBusiness.com .......................... 240
Entrepreneur.com ....................... 240
OPEN Forum ................................ 240
When I wake up in the morning, I first think, “What can I do to build deeper
relationships with the customers I have?” And second, “What can I do to build
relationships with new customers?” There are many ways to do this, such as being
nice, speaking at events, nurturing referrals, and so much more. Many of the old
ways of building relationships still work, but compared to digital communication,
those ways are often slow and hard to measure.
Digital communication (blogs, websites, e-mail newsletters, online advertising,
and so on) enables you to reach new and current customers faster — to track their
responses to your communications, to enable them to forward your message to
others — all with a few clicks of the mouse.
With the advent of social media, digital communication capabilities have grown
exponentially. Not only can businesses communicate directly with their audiences,
but audiences can more easily communicate with businesses, and audiences
(customers and potential customers) can communicate with each other about
businesses, brands, products, services, or marketplaces.
When small business owners look for new customers, the Internet is the best
option — it’s better than print, TV, radio, Yellow Pages, billboards, and so on. The
Internet provides a variety of ad options small businesses can consider, such as
search engine advertisements, banner advertisements, mobile advertisements,
and social media. But if I had to pick one place for advertising online, it would be
Facebook. It has the broadest range of options. Facebook is perfect for small
businesses on a low budget that are just testing the waters or businesses with a
much larger budget and more experience. Facebook allows you to reach a broad
audience or be very selective and target a specific audience, making it an effective
way to reach potential customers and beyond.
With approximately 1 billion profiles, Facebook has just about everyone. If you’re
looking for a business customer, a retired uncle, a military veteran, a stay-at-
home mom, a high school teacher, or your “average” consumer, you’ll find them
all on Facebook.
introduction I
The Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing
xxiv
As you’ll see in this book, Facebook gives you a variety of free tools to engage with your
audience (through great content — posts, photos, video, and more), interact with
customers (Check-in Deals), voting, interactive apps, advertising, and so much more.
This book will help you strategically use Facebook as a powerful communications tool.
Maybe you just want to start by posting a relevant message or two. Maybe you want to
get fancy and include a video and photo. How about taking the training wheels off and
building a better Facebook Page for your business, product, or service? What about
customizing this Page with some cool and useful apps? Getting comfortable? It might be
time to purchase advertising on Facebook and drive local traffic to your local retail store.
This book also covers creating Facebook events, driving traffic to your website through
Facebook, and catching media attention. And I think one of the best parts of the book is
the real-world examples from successful small businesses.
John Wanamaker, a famous advertising executive, once said, “I know half my advertising
is wasted; I’m just not sure which half.” Using Facebook is much better than print
advertising to precisely reach the right customers, measure your return on investment
and their engagement with your product or service, and ultimately, make a sale.
You’re working with customers, hiring employees, and doing so many other things to
manage your business day to day while still looking toward the future. Although
customer acquisition and development are not easy, using Facebook can make it a lot
easier.
Info Photos NotesTimeline
chapter 1
Can you remember what life was like before Facebook? You sent e-mails to friends. Maybe you participated in online chats and you might (just might) have watched some online video. However, to really keep up with your friends, family, customers, and colleagues, you talked to them on the phone or visited them face to face. Facebook and other social networks have changed all that. You now get status updates the moment your daughter gets her first job and you see photos of your customers using one of your products. This is the power of Facebook and the power of social media: It brings people together online to discuss common interests. This chapter explains what social media and Facebook are all about.
The Power of “Social” in Social Media . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Content Is King and Customer Engagement Is Queen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
What Is Facebook? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Learning Facebook Basics
The Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing
2
The Power of “Social” in Social MediaAlthough direct e-mail and flyers in the Sunday newspaper are still great ways to attract
new customers or engage with the ones you have, social media enables marketers (that’s
you) to work in a new dimension.
With social media marketing, you are able to do more than just sell your product — you
can leverage the power of your customers to tell others about your products, services,
or brand within the context of their social networks. Social media is also powerful
because you can find customers who are already talking about your specific product or
company or about something related to your industry.
According to a June 2011 blog post by ClickZ, social media is a proven success for mar-
keting very “sexy” products, especially those that are focused on consumers. When com-
panies offer money or discounts to customers in exchange for “liking” them on Facebook,
many of their customers (and new customers) sign up for the offer (see Figure 1.1). The
challenge has been for companies who are also trying to attract new customers and get
them to take deeper action, such as signing up for a new bank account or buying a
product.
However, companies are finding that social media is indeed a very powerful way to get
people to encourage others to take action. For example, a ClickZ blog post reports that
Discover Card created a social media referral program that rewarded card holders $50
for each friend they got to become a card holder. And Zecco Trading, an online investing
site, offered its customers $75 for every friend who opened and funded a new Zecco
Trading account. The company realized a big increase in new accounts by offering
incentives.
Social media is an explosively powerful way to get customers to influence their friends
to take favorable action toward your brand, product, or service. It just takes creativity
and thinking through who to best use on Facebook to influence those decisions.
TIP Half the success in getting the most out of Facebook is knowing how to use
it. The other half is knowing what creative ways you can use to engage your
audience to take profitable action.
So do you see why Facebook can be so powerful? Facebook has a billion users, all con-
nected in one way or another. Diving into this swimming pool of connectivity means that
your customers and potential customers can engage with your brand through photos,
coupons, videos, surveys, polls, and so many other things.
Chapter 1: Learning Facebook Basics
3
1.1 Businesses offer discounts to consumers for liking their Facebook Pages.
Content Is King and Customer Engagement Is QueenBefore diving into Facebook, you should understand the importance of content and cus-
tomer engagement. Creating high-quality content is one of the key aspects of using
social networks to engage your audience.
People, be they business owners, stay-at-home moms, soccer dads, corporate lawyers,
or cooks at local restaurants, want online content. They either want to be entertained
(Hulu, YouTube) or they want to be informed (Wikipedia, HowStuffWorks.com).