With the era of social media marketing only growing by the day, more and more business owners are realizing that maintaining a presence on websites such as Facebook or Google+ is not just an option anymore — it’s essential. Establishing a business page on these sites is the first step, but once you do, do you know how to make it interesting enough to keep readers returning for more?

A recent study posted on Mashable reveals some interesting information about how people view Facebook pages and what parts of them have the most influence. As you can see by the heat map pictured above on Starbucks’ Facebook page, people tend to look at a business’ wall first — and often for four times longer than any other part of the page.

The study also proved that images get attention too, as the page that had the most photos (PlayStation) made people stick around longer. It also taught us that having a person in your profile photos rather than just a photo of an item (a person drinking a Coke rather than just the can, for instance) elicited more of a response.

Another bit of common sense that popped up in the study was that content up top on your profile performs best — which falls perfectly in line with the studies about people’s general net attention span.

It is because of this element that the idea of keeping a page moving with consistent content is a good one. If people see the same thing at the top of your page every time they visit, they are likely to visit less, but seeing something new means the chance of them visiting more often to check out what’s new.

So now we know how to make our Facebook business pages that much better, but what about Google+ pages? Huffington Post recently offered some great tips on how to make the most of yours, including how to best set up your About page, create galleries, use Hangouts and more.

Do you have any tricks and tips that you feel are especially effective for you on your own business page? Or, when you visit another business’ page, what jumps out at you first or keeps you around?

]]> http://www.searchinfluence.com/2011/12/facebook-business-page-optimization/feed/ 0 http://www.searchinfluence.com/2011/11/5-for-friday-11-18-2011/ http://www.searchinfluence.com/2011/11/5-for-friday-11-18-2011/#comments Fri, 18 Nov 2011 18:19:15 +0000 Julia Ramsey http://www.searchinfluence.com/?p=7619 Black Friday: 5 Apps That Make Bargain Shopping Easier — Mashable

The holidays are upon us, and many businesses local and nationwide are gearing up for the Black Friday sales frenzy. Be a savvy shopper and utilize these handy applications in order to find the best deals, compare prices, check to see where your desired item is on sale in your area and more!

How Groundbreaking Thinkers Spread Their Ideas — Inc.com

If you’re an entrepreneur or just a savvy businessperson, you know that knowing how to think critically in order to generate out-of-the-box ideas is a vital skill. However, once you’ve come up with your brilliant pitch, how to you get your audience to come to you? Inc.com’s Jeff Haden has some key concepts to share about the simple logistics of getting your concepts out there and your audience engaged with the message.

Photos Draw Most Facebook Interactions, Links Draw the Least — Small Business SEM

When you’re busily engaging with your fans on Facebook and promoting your online presence, it seems that putting up photos will elicit the most response and engagement on your fans’ parts. Sharing links, however, is the weakest option and comparatively offers very little reward for the effort. The theory makes sense: visual stimulation is always a plus for getting attention, and with the new Facebook UI users can simply click on a posted picture to expand a gallery-style mini-window, eliminating the need to leave Facebook itself. Will you be putting more effort into curating your business’s photo gallery now?

Google+ Rolls Out Trending Topics — Mashable

With Google+ making huge strides in recovering their previously-drooping user base and opening up to the business sphere, it seems evident that they’ve taken a good, hard look at what other social networks are doing well. The introduction of trending topics, a list of the most popular and oft-discussed items on the social network, offers users an effortless peek into the most relevant news of the moment. Several other UI tweaks have been made as well — head over to Mashable to check it out!

8 Tips to Maximize Your Branded Presence in the Google Local Search Results — Bluemnthals

With the recent hubbub over a plethora of Google service redesigns, some may be wondering where to go from here with regard to getting themselves noticed in the local search sphere. Never fear! This handy guide is an excellent overview to making sure your business is front-and-center when searchers are looking for you.

While some discouraging stats about the use of Google+ have emerged in recent days, there’s no reason to give up the ghost just yet — particularly with the recent introduction of G+ business pages. If you’re hesitating to jump into the pool and establish your business on G+, linger no longer — Inc.com’s Abram Brown is here to give you the skinny on why getting in early is a smart move for small businesses and mega-corporations alike.

Content Marketing Essentials: Tactical Advice From A To Z — Search Engine Land

For those of you who just don’t know where to start making your web content sparkle, this 26-tidbit-long list provides a fantastic resource for your publication, website, blog or newsfeed. Content is king, they say — so go check out this list and don’t let yours languish for another minute!

Places Reviews: Getting Offline Online — Search Engine Guide

With the recent shakeups to Google Place Pages and the diminishment of third-party reviews, making sure the online word of mouth about your business is positive is more important than ever — particularly when it comes to Google reviews. Since these pieces function as both a ranking factor and a critical metric, spurring viewers to click through to your site, it’s important to make sure they’re in top-notch shape so you can present the best face to the public. This article offers handy tips on encouraging reviews with a handily-placed and easily generatable QR code.

How percolation time can make you a better writer — SuccessWorks

With the breakneck speed of contemporary society, it can be hard to find a few moments to meditate on the details of your day. The simple act of reflection can be enormously beneficial both personally and with regard to work. Here, SucessWorks’ Heather Lloyd-Martin shares some of the transformative powers of “percolation time,” particularly when applied to your writing projects and beyond.

5 Ways to Give Your Content Marketing New Life — TopRank Blog

Creative content can be a tricky beast, demanding immense amounts of time, energy and skill on the part of its creator to really jump off the page when read. This step-by-step guide from Heidi Cohen, President of Riverside Marketing Strategies, is invaluable for those of us whose websites’ content just don’t seem to be quite dazzling enough. Read on to learn about targeting your audience, respecting the reader and staying relevant in a fast-paced sphere of business.

It’s obvious that my attention span on the Internet can be severely limited at times. And why not? There’s barely any reason for one to even type in words, just a lot of pretty pictures to click on. Heaven forbid I forgot the name of some obscure reality television star, but if I do the answer is instantaneously at my fingertips. The Internet experience of today is different than it’s ever been before. Websites create a far more intimate and immersive experience than just 2 years ago, and are in a completely different arena than 10 years ago. Pictures are worth a thousand words, and they need to be when one only has 140 characters to elaborate on major personal news and global current events.

While many years of information are archived in cyberspace, much of its utility is focused on the right now. Breaking news happens and a network of millions set to debate, coming to instantaneous conclusions. The people unite and use their freedom of speech to make a stand, but is this a good thing? Can the immediate evaluations made by web junkies actually be harmful?

In the case of Netflix, popular web opinions have been shown to have a powerful influence over the productivity of the company. In July, the California-based company raised the prices for their various streaming and DVD rental plans. Since the price increase went into effect, July 13th, Netflix’s stock (NFLX) has decreased 36% and has lost 800,000 of their nearly 24 million customers. Aside from the tangible effects, Netflix has suffered far worse in the court of public opinion. Users across the net threw their arms up in a rage when Netflix announced that it would be dividing its business into two entities, one specifically for streaming and the other, Qwickster, for DVD’s by mail. The plan to split the company has since been scrapped due to the public outcry.

Is what has happened to Netflix in the last four months a good thing? Netflix is a tech company and should rightfully be judged by its tech savvy clientele, but technological Darwinism is a shaky field to venture into as a for-profit company. Is the customer always right? Sorry America, but the answer is no. While the almighty dollar may empower individuals to sway decisions of major companies, it does not mean that consumer pressure always leads to the right outcome. In the case of Netflix it is entirely possible that a month from now the once-glorified media company could be trading for pennies on the dollar and begging Hulu or Amazon to buy them, and everyone could dub Netflix a failure. This is all possible, but it would not necessarily make the actions of Netflix wrong. The immediate conclusions of the Internet-savvy can severely hinder companies’ ability to make improvements to their product, because one or two of those alterations rubs consumers the wrong way. My advice to consumers: take a breath, don’t jump to conclusions, quit sweating the technique and just give products wiggle room to evolve. Who knows — you might even like it.

Business Cat approves of your online conduct.

Let’s face it: social media marketing jargon can sound like a different language, especially if you’re wrestling with the eternal question of “What do my Facebook fans want to see? How do I keep them happy?” You know your brand inside and out, so it can be helpful to think of your social media content in the same way you think about your business. Unless you’re a professional trapeze artist, chances are the day-to-day grind of your job can sometimes leave you bored to tears. The same applies to online communities in terms of marketing and promotion. For many of the 800+ million active Facebook users, logging on is habitual and something they’re doing multiple times per day. Facebookers who follow your page don’t want to see the same type of content over and over. That’s the fastest way to turn them off from interacting with your page in a positive way, or at all. The most successful Facebook pages have a give-and-take relationship with their fans. Three things to remember for growing and motivating your online communities:

• Show them you care, you really care! Ensure your newest followers feel valued, appreciated and motivated to interact with your page. Welcome new fans personally, like you would a new co-worker, by tagging them in a welcome message or sending a quick and friendly (non-spammy, of course) direct message.
• Beware of the disgruntled fan. When considering a Facebook contest as a way to gain likes, it’s important to keep in mind the resulting new “Fans” can easily turn on you should they be promised something that is not delivered. These are not the fans you want to attract to your page, as the wreckage they often leave can be detrimental to your brand’s reputation. Many a Facebook page has suffered when the competition gets ugly due to misunderstood rules. Fans can become aggressively competitive, rallying other fans around them. Remember, any competition on Facebook should comply with Facebook’s Promotion Guidelines, or you run the risk of having your page removed entirely. Don’t get me wrong, free stuff is awesome. Offering ‘added value’ as a way to gain more followers has proven successful in the past, but the lines between friendly competition and cut-throat rivalry can be blurred very quickly. There are tons of alternative ways to engage with people, and getting creative with your content doesn’t have to cost money but can work wonders for motivating your online community.

Image macro rewards such as this "Cyber High-5!" seem simple, but can be a great way to motivate interaction and connect with your audience.

• Creative content is king. Organically grow your fan base my keeping existing fans engaged with your page. Think about how you might get your co-workers motivated in the office and apply the same tactics to your Facebook fans. In terms of contests, sometimes the big ticket prize items will only spark jealousy and animosity among the group. Often a much smaller scale pat on the back will do the trick. Consider running a weekly trivia contest with a funny, motivating and free (for you) prize like a “cyber high-5” or an original Internet meme. Instead of gaining a bunch of superficial ‘Likes,’ your fans will engage, comment and even share your content with their own friends.

Lighthearted, fun content will ensure you and your Facebook fans’ interactions are positive and mutually beneficial. Keep the fans you have engaged and your number of ‘Likes’ is bound to keep climbing.

The SI Blog sends a special thanks to Lauren Litwinka for her insight and contribution to this post. Lauren is an Account Manager at aimClear where she’s pretty awesome at online community management.

Working with outside web developers is an integral part of SEO, but some of us less technically-minded folk may be confused as to where to start. Technical SEO, defined by Paddy Moogan of distilled as “elements of a page that the user can’t see without looking at the source code,” can be a tricky field to master. In this article, Moogan elucidates some of the most important things to know about this aspect of optimization, including how to keep an eye on your site speed and get a firm grasp on crawler access.

Non-Profits: How to Get More Online Donations — Outspoken Media

While “save the whales” isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of search engine optimization, it’s vitally important for nonprofits to maintain an online presence in order to gain maximum exposure and precious monetary donations. Michelle Lowery, a copywriting professional and volunteer SEO master for her local animal shelter, shares some tips for online do-gooders to optimize their fundraising campaigns, make donations easy and publicize their cause.

Content Marketing In The Echo Chamber — Content Marketing Institute

The Internet has opened up a whole new world of possibility for the independent, the unestablished and the avant-garde to spread their ideas far and wide. However, the downside has been an “echo chamber” of sorts, where those who can speak the jargon pass themselves off as a social media expert, professional marketer or even the dreaded “guru” without any real experience or expertise to back it up. Here, Content Marketing Institute’s Keith Blanchard provides you with five handy points to “kick the tires” of your potential content marketing service and make sure you’re getting the bang for your buck.

Don’t be afraid of fake reviews — Search Engine Guide

While Yelp, Places and other review engines are excellent resources to learn more about the local world around you, fake reviews are the bane of every Yelp establishment’s public wall. In this informative SEG article, you’ll learn about the fake review phenomenon, how to respond to a rating you suspect is duplicitous and the possibility that, in the future, we won’t even have to worry about it at all.

Evidence: Print Is Not Dead — B2B Bloggers

While we may bemoan the diminishment of traditional publishing models, there’s no reason to be writing a funeral dirge for the printed book just yet. In a recent media usages study by Readex Research, a whopping 74% of the 2,095 professionals surveyed said that they regularly use print publications. Print as a medium is still a relevant and important part of the mix: the study seems to indicate that, instead of favoring one form of media over another, people are consuming more and more of all different kinds. Interesting stuff!

The SEO industry is constantly in flux and, while it can and has been dominated by those with deep pockets, small businesses have some significant advantages that the savvy marketer can leverage into a tightly-coordinated and effective campaign. Skyrocket SEO’s James Agate provides us with an informative overview of the links between getting your story out there and forming a bond with your consumer base, nurturing the community and establishing strong thought leadership.

Mental Model for Minimal Viable Products — Chris McCann

Have a great idea that you’re interested in testing on the open market, but don’t want to go straight to launch? Chris McCann’s concept of “minimal viable products,” or MVP for short, may be able to help. In this blog post he goes into the details of getting your concept out there to receive feedback from real potential customers on your initial concept without the risk of sinking time and money into a startup or campaign.

Can Google Searches Predict Stock Price Performance? — Freakonomics

Several recent objective studies have shown strong data evidence that Google searches can predict stock market findings by up to ten percentage points per year. This direct method of gauging investor interest is at loggerheads with tried-and-true methods of speculation such as news and advertising data; if one Googles a certain stock, it seems self-evident that one is paying particular attention to it. Check out this blog post to get the data and learn how El Goog has the potential to function as a real-time economic speculation barometer.

Demystifying Facebook’s “People Are Talking About This” Metric — Search Engine Land

Facebook has seen some big shakeups in the last few days, not the least among them the introduction of an algorithmically-sorted “people are talking about this” display on some pages. But where does this number come from and how is it aggregated? Search Engine Land has the scoop from both an external user and page owner perspective.

What Does Eight Years Of Blogging Get You? — Six Pixels of Separation

Twist Image president Mitch Joel has been blogging since 2003, accumulating over 2700 entries and some 20k comments over the years. Here, he takes us on a retrospective of his experiences with this unique medium. Was it worth it? His answer is an overwhelming “yes.”

This past Wednesday, Facebook rolled out a couple of new updates such as a ticker in the top right hand corner of the site showing live activity and a tab that allows you to control what gets shown in your top stories. As the internet is known to do on occasion, people flipped out, complaining about how much they hated the new changes. Someecards summed it up best in their e-cards on the subject (and those guys are always on top of the game, by the way), but the complainers had no idea just how much change they were going to have to cope with … and what was to come.

This morning, Mashable posted a teasing article talking about the “new” Facebook, which was slated to be unveiled today at the F8 developers conference. The author of the blog said, “I have seen what Facebook is launching on Thursday, and it’s going to change the world of social media. And while I won’t talk about the mind-boggling things Facebook will be launching, I will say this: The Facebook you know and (don’t) love will be forever transformed.”

Whether or not you agree with him is a matter of personal preference, but one thing is for sure: Facebook is going to be very different. The new format is called Timeline, and Mark Zuckerberg explained the thought process behind it as a way to stop losing the timeline of our lives in the social media format that scrolls past us on a day-to-day basis with no way to really accurately access the history. By adding the ability to click a year on the far right of your profile, you can easily go back to the past and see everything from photos to memorable moments. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

By starring certain things you post, like a set of photos from a trip or an update, you can full screen them, contributing to a new profile page that’s reminiscent of the layout of the iPad app Flipboard. Apps are also highlighted on the profile, showing off everything from the movies you watch (directly pulled from your Netflix) and the music you play obsessively (culled from your Spotify account). Other companies such as IMDb, Flixster, DirecTV and Miso were also mentioned as partners, so you don’t have to feel left out no matter what you use.

A search of the Facebook tag on Twitter shows that the haters are still at work, but I have a feeling that it’ll be harder to complain about a new user experience that is as innovative and interesting as this one. If anything, Facebook has shown that they don’t intend to fall into the graveyard that myspace and Friendster ended up in — because they are determined to evolve. Will users to choose to evolve with it? We’ll see soon enough.

When a new visitor to the Facebook Page arrives, instead of visiting the page’s wall which may have a chaotic dialogue and brand message, he sees a branded tab with a clear call to action and a variety of “toys” to play with — videos, viral content, and user-generated content. When the user Likes the Facebook page (if it’s not bugged up), he’d stay on the tab to interact with more content before moving on. When he returns, the visitor would reach the Wall for the Facebook Page.

For slightly over a week, the user would Like the page on the Canvas App tab, then would immediately go to the Wall, bypassing the ability to immediately remarket to the user. A “Thank You for Liking Us” tab can have an immediate payoff for the visitor in the form of links, RSS feeds, or other sharable content, and solicit him for his information by filling out a contact form. This kind of progressive funneling drives highly desirable leads to a website: since they already were engaged enough with your brand to Like your page, they will be more likely to contact you for what they were searching on Facebook.

1. Call to action. 2. Pulled in by brand/mysteriousness
3. Share in other ways. 4. UGC

Using Coca-Cola’s page as an example, there are four features of a Canvas App tab that increase conversions for the first half of the funnel — the Like.

1. A direct call to action with a prominent arrow will bring attention to the point of conversion. Coke probably doesn’t need to focus so hard on getting people to Like them given the brand recognition, so more creative copy than that may be needed.
2. Offer some kind of secret sauce, a benefit for liking the page. I was fooled into hoping for at least an ad about the secret recipe — more direct benefits would be needed for a brand that isn’t already a 12-pack in my refrigerator.
3. Providing links to other social networks seems counter-intuitive as it takes the user away from the page. However, with opening the page in a new tab in the browser, you keep the viewer on the Facebook Page while offering a new place to share your brand message.
4. A set of editors picks of user-generated content reinforces brand interaction on Facebook. Coke’s prioritizing of this content above branding or further lead generation could a sign of their focus on social branding over other methods of funneling social action.

At the core of any news story is its effect on the reader’s business. As Facebook seems to count each Canvas App tab view before and after the like, you can find a rather direct metric of which tabs were affected worst under Insights>Users>Activity. Furthermore, if you’re tracking your Facebook tabs with cross-domain tracking or your tabs’ links with referral tracking encoded in the url, you’ll be able to look at Google Analytics or your tracking software and determine more specifically the effects on your campaign by searching the Content Drilldown.

At the core of any discussion of unexpected downtime is the allowance for such downtimes in your marketing and advertising plans. Either by focusing on long-term gains or by re- or proactively acting on the acknowledged bugs in the Facebook Bug List, you’ll be able to weather the storm of any accidentally lost functionality.

That's some brand love.

A few weeks ago, Facebook Marketing Solutions, the advertising side of the social media giant, released its new education portal for small businesses just starting out online, titled Facebook for Business.

The Facebook page for the group is nothing more than a simple sales pitch for businesses becoming involved on the site. It’s tips for publishing, appeals to outmoded user statistics, and overall tone is clearly directed at the first-time Facebook advertisers. Promoting Sponsored Stories seems to be the main goal, though the ability for a small business to achieve such a close relationship with the company behind the site is not clear at first glance: Nike, American Express, and a page that can get 100 answers to the question “Blue or purple?” are featured, but no one just starting out with limited brand awareness. However, as you delve deeper into the videos, a number of case studies can be heard by the part-time Internet marketer to help understand the basics of the varied services Facebook offers, explained in a way that focuses on what makes social media advertising different from traditional venues.

But July 27th brought a new arena for the first-time marketer. The Facebook for Business site offers a set of introductory slides more like what one would expect on the Facebook page. The Best Practice Guide and other tips take the unedited rambling of the taped live webinars from the Facebook page and put them into clear slideshows (though inexplicably as unsharable and minimally-graphable PDFs). Discussing Pages, Ads, Sponsored Stories, and the “Platform,” Facebook lays out its basic services in an all-too-simple way.

The site is clearly for someone who doesn’t muck with websites, as just one tab describing the Open Graph protocol for a new marketer would show a whole new world, integrating on-site tagging with a need to contact a Preferred Developer to best take advantage of the depth of information one can provide, shape, and offer to their clients.

It’s easy, at least for the somewhat experienced marketer, to come up with counterexamples, glossed-over topics that are the core of Facebook advertising such as effective demographic targeting, and the just-seething disdain for squares who just haven’t gotten how cool Social Media is. But I applaud Facebook for their efforts; the only other major social media outlet for business is Twitter, which starts its Promoted links at $5,000 per month and provides little information for its non-paid business partners. Google+ recently purged business accounts, asking creators of those accounts to “hold off,” and have been “focusing on the consumer experience” — words that are hardly music to marketers’ ears.

What the shortcomings of the Facebook for Business and Facebook Marketing Solutions pages really show off is that a business needs dedicated social media management, whether through an SEO firm or internally. The waters are murky and best handled by someone who knows not just the sales pitch for getting involved, but also the mechanics of the process and what little stuff can greatly improve the social footprint of the small business. It’s too hard to sum up everything that should and could be done to optimally advertise using social media just on a few webpages or through a few taped webinars — the best thing is to call Ghostbusters and let Peter and Ray and Egon worry about the ghosts so business owners can get back to directly helping their customers.