Image from www.adrants.com

In a previous Facebook Advertising blog post I mentioned the importance of selecting images for your Facebook ads. What I failed to do in that post was to fully explain that idea. Sure I threw out some fancy jargon about “magazine editorial ads”, but I wanted to take this time to show you three types:

1) Contextually Relevant

Facebook Ad 1

The least savvy online advertisers know, if you use a picture of what you are marketing people will interact with it. But what if you are advertising a cosmetic procedure? You can’t possibly use an image depicting the surgery. Not only could it be considered inappropriate by Facebook, it could also repulse your some of your more sensitive viewers. Instead choosing a doctor hammering away at a patient with a surgical suction device, find an image that suggest the outcome of the procedure. In Facebook Ad 1, you will see I’ve selected a graphic that implies weight loss and beauty at the same time. These ads are easiest to get approved and yield a good click rate if the right demographic is targeted.

2) Good Ol’ Branding

Facebook Ad 2

Good Ol’ Branding. Many people don’t understand why you would use imagery that incorporates branding, but this tactic not only makes viewers aware of your name and services offered but also makes your images more unique. Uniqueness is important when advertising on Facebook. In a given area there could be as many as 10 other advertisers using similar ad copy, offering the same competitive advantage, and using the same stock image as you. This is a big problem that not many online advertisers think about. We are so concerned with our targeted audience that we forget there are competitors who are aiming at the same demographic. By adding elements from your brand, images become instantly recognizable and unique. Uniqueness has always been the key to good advertising – whether it is in print, media, or online.

3) Playful Imagery

Facebook Ad 3

This is my favorite type of ad. In the section on branding, I mentioned that uniqueness is the key to good advertising but the best way to get remembered (and clicked on) is using suggestive and playful imagery. As seen in  the Facebook Ad 3 example, I’m advertising breast augmentation for a client. Instead of using the standard smiling woman in a low-cut shirt, I opted for something a little more colorful and fun. Paired with the right copy, images like this not only encourage a click through but also a form submission. However, be warned – if you are not targeting the right demographic, you could burn through your ad spend due to the curious nature of clickers.

Are these the only ways to select Facebook ads? Of course not. I can think of at least four other methods when choosing images for Facebook advertising (which I will likely explore in a future post). So the next time you are planning a Facebook ad campaign for your local business, do not be scared to experiment with the imagery. Who knows, that picture of your Aunt Petunia break dancing at your son’s Bar Mitzvah might double your leads.

The Whopper Sacrifice Comes to an End

Not enough people know about sweet little pieces of code that run on your web pages that show you how many people came to visit your site, where they came from, how long they stayed, and how many of those visits converted into actual dollars. Sure, Google Analytics might not be on the tips of the tongues of, oh, say 500 million people. But Facebook is.

Everyone who looks at this little gem below knows how well this viral internet marketing campaign worked, and how effective Facebook is when you want to reach the masses.

A few months ago, Burger King decided to offer a free Whopper to anyone who would sacrifice 10 of their friends on Facebook. I mean, the average user has 130 friends. Who wouldn’t go down to 120 just to have a free tasty treat? Who wouldn’t wallow in self-pity for joy knowing their cyber friendship was given up for a free piece of meat?

Apparently this viral marketing campaign worked well– maybe too well. The fine print says, “Facebook® has disabled WHOPPER® Sacrifice after your love for the WHOPPER® Sandwich proved to be stronger than 233,906 friendships.”

Two hundred and thirty three thousand, nine hundred and six.

Whopper Sacrifice Ends on Facebook

These stats from viral marketing goldmine Facebook give so much more power to the phrase, “It’s all about who you know.”

Facebook has more than 500 million active users. People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook. There are over 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, events and community pages). The average user creates 90 pieces of content each month. More than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each month.

So what’s the interface going to be like? It’ll display a map, a list of friends currently checked-in, and an activity stream with friends who have checked in there in the past. The best feature, in my opinion, is the ability to post stories or reviews to your wall by clicking the “Share” button. I assume it’ll also post a blurb on your wall when you just check-in as well, so it’s like word of mouth but on a much grander scale.

It’s currently available only in the United States to those who have the most current version of the iPhone application, or on touch.Facebook.com. It’ll be available to users of other mobile devices in the future, so all you Android users can stop whining!

So will it be able take down Foursquare and Google Places? Yes and no. Yes, it can take down Foursquare but Google Places will not be defeated. It’s too valuable on an SEO level to go by the wayside. Foursquare, on the other hand, is still a little too new. It‘s a David and Goliath battle… if David were a baby. It’s a genius move on Facebook’s part. It’s taking a popular social media tool and easily integrating it into their program. As much as I like Foursquare, it’s just another app to use on my phone. If I can do it all on Facebook, I will. Sorry, Foursquare!

Great Apps to Customize Your Facebook Fan Page

Facebook recently hit a new milestone: 500 million users! With this high volume it is a perfect platform for marketing, and people are already taking advantage of this opportunity. Here is a list of great apps that allow you to customize your fan page to its fullest potential.

35 of the Best Facebook Fan Pages

To go along with the above link, here is a fantastic list of fan pages that have taken full advantage of Facebook’s customizable applications. Some examples include pages from the likes of Skittles, Red Bull, and Harley Davidson.

Forrester to Advertisers: Hold Off on Foursquare

Forrester Research recently came out with a study that revealed 84% of people polled are not familiar with location-based applications, a la foursquare. This is useful information, but they conclude that businesses should hold off on using these FREE services because of it. This article explains why their conclusion should not follow their results.

Foursquare Means Businesses: Have you checked-in yet?

We’ve never been shy in our support for foursquare, and this link is a perfect follow-up to the previous one. The article just lists some more of the many advantages to utilizing this and other location-based applications.

10 Sources For Better Conversion

Getting people to your site is only half the battle. Once they’re there, you need to get them do whatever it is you want them to do. In the SEO world, this is known as conversion. This is a list of 10 resources that explain how to get better conversions on your site.

Local Citation Finder: Must-Have SEO Tool

From the article: “The tool looks at the businesses ranking for your keyphrase, grabs their phone numbers, and then does a Google.com search (or .ca or .co.uk) for those numbers, collecting and collating all of the mentions/citations that it finds.” In other words, you can get a list of citation sources your competitors use, and mimic them. Nice and easy!

10 Great Local Search Tools That Don’t Exist Yet

It’s pretty clear what this article is about, so I won’t bore you with an explanation. I will say that these tools would be incredibly easy to make, and some of these developers need to get on the stick!

On-Site SEO: How to Optimize Your Blog Posts

A blog is a great tool for SEO, but simply posting one every week or so won’t be that great of a help. This is a great guide on how to optimize your blog to maximize your exposure on the web.

Using Bing’s New Webmaster Tools For SEO

Bing recently released a new version of their Webmaster Tools. Upon being asked by Bing to give feedback on how to improve it, Chris Smith decided to provide this advice via blog post for the world to see.

Google’s New Local UI Proving Conspiracy Theorists Right

In our last installment of Top 10 for the Weekend, we discussed some changes Google made to their SERPs and Places listings. It looks like the conspiracy theorists were right. This article explains why.

As I was checking up on the performance of a few fanpage campaigns today, I was hit with the revelation that Facebook Insights is a terrible web metric tool.

What is Facebook Insights you may ask?

Here’s the abridged FB definittion: “Facebook Insights provides Facebook Page owners and Platform application developers with metrics around their content.

Facebook Insights Update

Basically it is the tool that you use to measure how successful your social media endeavors on Facebook really are. The problem I have with this tool is the lack of functionality. I guess if I was the average Joe, the how I can interact with the metrics wouldn’t be such a big deal but I spend a great deal of money on Facebook advertising for community development. Maybe I’m just spoiled by Google Analytics but Facebook Insights is just tedious to me. Sure the graphs are nice and the dashboard is set up nicely for at a glance viewing but I need more. I hope that with the increasing number of internet marketing utilizing Facebook Advertising , Facebook development team will overhaul Insights. I guess for the time being this search marketer can only dream…

Facebook stormtroopers devise plan to beat Google

We all knew it was a matter of time before Facebook started expanding into web search and they’ve finally done it by unveiling their own Facebook local search option: Open Graph search engine. What is Open Graph, you might ask, here’s what Facebook reps are saying, according to an allfacebook.com story:

“all Open Graph enabled web pages will show up in search when a user likes them”

Why is this important? Imagine a more personalized web experience where community feedback drives interaction and search position. You can search for a cosmetic surgeon or dentist and immediately be able to contact his patients for real feedback. This is huge! No longer will you type in “Atlanta dentist” and dozens of sleek websites – you’ll be able to find information on the dentist, his office location, and talk with his clients. As Facebook continues to develop this open graph search, you will see Facebook profiles and page results as well as websites being ranked by user feedback from REAL people.

If this catches on, not only will the face of SEO change, how people think about searching will change as well. It’s like Facebook is developing Deathstars and photon rifles, while Google is reloading the Spaniard cannons.

"By order of Mark Zuckerberg, we've come to kill your search."

Do I think this is the end of Google local search? No, but I do think that Facebook is moving in the right direction. Users having control over results and ranking seems like a no-brain. My only concern is potential spammers hindering the evolution of search.

Original images by Stéfan, edited by Anthony Coleman.

Facebook Markup Language at Work

Facebook Markup Language
Not so much of a language as a bastardization of xhtml, Facebook Markup Language (FMBL) allows users to “build full Facebook Platform applications that deeply integrate into a user’s Facebook experience” (otherwise known as not be boring). FBML is really huge for social media marketing and building a fan community. Having integrated pages with additional options not only keeps visitors on the page longer but it always encourages fans to interact with the page.

Think about the level of engagement you would have if you put an iframe with rotating daily specials onto a Facebook page. With FMBL you can embed your Youtube, Twitter, and Flicker, Adobe Flash objects in the lifeless page.

Even though FBML has existed since late 2007, many companies with a FB presence are still not capitalizing on its power.  However, there are companies like Target who are really using FBML to promote their brand and it’s many lines of business. By having their lines of business listed on their fan page, Target can to market new products, promotions, and store locations to loyal (and highly active) customers.

Target Using FBML for Summer Promotion

While Facebook Markup Language can’t completely reskin your Facebook page, it does allow a level of customization that the social media platform previous lacked. As the number of FB users continues to grow and social sites become more and more a part of everyday life, having unique content and pages not only allows you to promote products and services but set your business apart from the crowd because no one wants to wear a uniform.

If you’d like to learn more about Facebook Markup Language, please visit Facebook Developer.

Special thanks to johnscotthaydon for the image at the beginning of the post!

Check out this blatant use of buying Yelp! reviews. While they aren’t directly handing out cash to each customer that gives them 5 stars or writes something positive about their salon on Yelp!, this practice still goes against the ranking site’s terms of use.

Linking strategies change from time to time. The recent trends according to HuoMah’s recent blog shows a rise in content strategies such as using social media and syndication. The decline in link bait for content strategies is a strong move for the community but what happened to the outreach efforts?

As you’ve read in many of our other posts, managing a Facebook fan page can be a tricky task. Most people just don’t know where to start. This post by the Social Media Examiner walks you step-by-step through creating a strategic plan for your fan page, just as you would any other business or marketing venture… even if it’s just on a few post-its on the wall.

So you’re always hearing about how such-and-such company made it big in social media by using such-and-such tactic, but often times, you feel like that certain tactic isn’t quite right for you, your product, or your budget. This slideshow offers mini case studies on a number of different company’s successes and failures via social media. With a combination of these, you can hopefully evaluate what the tipping point could be for your social media tactics.

You can never have too much advice when you are planning your social media strategy. Once again, the heart of this post from Outspoken Media lies in creating a dynamic Facebook fan page, with a focus on what you are offering your fans, ranging from specialized content to great conversation.

Our last link for the weekend isn’t a tutorial or explanation about how to further your business, but just an interesting post regarding the changing nature of transactions in our everyday life. While the percentage of our daily transactions happening via technology is continually increasing, it’s important to remember there is still usually a human on the other end… a real person, a lot like you!

Thanks to puptoes74, and wordle.net for the nifty images!

There is obvious value to a small business owner in getting users to leave positive reviews. The question is how much should a business pay for a review? No, no, no … I’m joking. The question really is how do you encourage customers to leave Yelp reviews naturally and organically without abusing the intent of the site?

To Solicit or not to Solicit

Yelp is clear about incentives for reviews: “Yelp has advised business owners not to offer incentives for reviews. For starters, paying people to write reviews about your business is another form of shilling and that’s just wrong. Second, very often you’ll offend a customer and the offer will be quickly outed in your reviews, resulting in unintended negative reviews and/or negative publicity. Finally, it’s typically a fruitless exercise.”

It’s a fruitless exercise because of the Yelp review filter.  Yelp knows their site is a great opportunity for illegitimate behavior, and they have built tools to attempt to minimize the spam and attempt to maintain the authenticity of the site. They haven’t been entirely successful. Says Luther Lowe of Yelp,

‘It’s very tough to design algorithms that can tell the difference between the guy who’s cranking out a fake five-star review about himself, and the guy who’s flipped that laptop around and handed it to his customer and said, “Hey, write a five-star review about me.” So, you know, I know that businesses are going to ask people to write reviews. If you do that, you need to be prepared for pretty violent review fluctuation.”

From Yelp Common Questions: “Some reviewers are more credible than others. For the most part, users can decide for themselves which reviewers they trust the most. We remove some of the guesswork by filtering out reviews that are written by less established users. We do this in order to provide more trustworthy and useful content to our users and to help protect against fake reviews from malicious competitors and disgruntled former employees.”

Control Yourself on Yelp

Every small business wants testimonials to help drive traffic. Yelp is tremendously trusted by real world users. (Isn’t it more encouraging to try the new restaurant in town after you read 10 great reviews online?)

And Yelp is tremendously trusted by search engines, and being so trustworthy makes it ripe for abuse by some businesses and internet marketers. The prime example is Google Local map rankings, which are influenced by some degree by the presence of online reviews on select review sites.

But Yelp advises you to control yourself:

“Should I ask customers to write reviews for my business?

While we understand that there is a temptation to solicit reviews from your customers, it is not something we encourage. The most successful businesses on Yelp have had their reviews come organically. This is for a couple of reasons:

1. Potential customers can sometimes have an adverse reaction to a business that looks like it has solicited reviews.

2. Quite often those solicited reviews will be filtered out (see above) based on the activity level of those users within the Yelp community.

If you do ask your customers for reviews, please be prepared for the review number fluctuation that might follow.

Also, keep in mind — success on Yelp is primarily measured by the number of people who view your page and thus walk in the door or set an appointment, not the number of reviews you have. Yelp users are savvy: they care about quality — not quantity — when it comes to your business reviews.”

To be completely genuine, solicitation of reviews even without incentive is frowned upon. And incentivized reviews (buying Yelp reviews) are absolutely unethical …

This picture taken in the store suggests completing a review, and not only a review … but “as good as it gets” review, to get 20% off the next purchase. One reviewer complains on this business’ Yelp profile about the incentivized review request in the store; Mel T comments on Yelp:

“How would they base the authenticy of a Yelp review? What if I just claimed ownership of Jane D.’s (as in Jane Doe – I’m not trying to impersonate any fellow Yelpers here) review? How would they know if I was really Jane D.?

- Would I still get a discount if I had written a review, but it wasn’t “raving?”

Well, I’m sorry, Pure Beauty. You cannot buy a five star Yelp review from me. Instead, your blantant bribary is going to cost you two whole stars. Yep, that’s right; I’m knocking you down TWO full stars. Had it not been for your sign, I would have given you three stars – an A-OK for decent employees during my visits, a relatively clean shop, and reasonable prices.

But, again, I will not stand for your bribary. Hmph. (Hmm..wonder if I can get 20% off with this review..?)”

This beauty supply store has bigger issues than their Yelp spamming. There are quite a few reviews blasting their customer service. Perhaps, they should consider better ways to combat negative publicity.

Asking for Help on Yelp

One self-proclaimed newbie small business on Yelp asks help of the Yelpers, Greg “GSKChicago” K., asks, “I am relatively new to Yelp and still learning my way around … What do Yelpers look for from a business owner on Yelp?”

The answers:

Miguel “the Coach” R. says: “honesty!”

Lauren “Order” H. says: “if you do anything related to your own busines, disclose that you are the owner. and don’t use the talk boards or other parts of the yelp site as free promo or spam.”

nikki c. says: “just be real, honest and your own worst critic.”

Seems legitimate enough. This business owner wants to do the Yelp thing correctly, but Miguel “The Coach” R. comes back later to point out some problems, and all of Greg’s good intent evaporates:

Miguel “the Coach” R.:  “Greg -No offense but after reading the reviews for your business, I am a little disappointed. Everyone who did a review on your business – only did a review on your business. So, that means that you either made several profiles, had your friends make profiles, somehow convinced your customers to make a profile and only rate your company – or – some combination of the three.

If you want my opinion. No company will EVER completely 100% satisfy each and every customer. And to see nothing but 5 stars for each review is flat out unbelievable.

As of right now I feel as though you have already been dishonest by doing what you did, and that will eventually hurt your business rather than help it.”

Using Social Media to Drive Fans over to Yelp Profile

If your small business has a strong Facebook Fan base, you can attempt drive Fans over to your Yelp profile and hope that some percentage of them will actually leave reviews. These businesses on Facebook are technically soliciting reviews but offering nothing in return, so their Yelp review building may be considered more legitimate. They are still soliciting, but they aren’t buying Yelp reviews.

This Facebook-er is more blatant. The Lone Star Salon tells Fans if they leave a review on a review site, Lone Star Salon will give them $10.   Totally buying a review.

And ….

And …

We’re talking about pretty low value transactions here – a water bottle, a free cookie, etc. – but any incentive can be enough for a reviewer to take a few moments to drop a review into a Yelp profile that they would not have done if not incentivized.

Raffle Your Incentive … is Still Incentive

Another way to buy a review is a little more subtle, but it is still crossing Yelp’s guidelines for good Yelping. Essentially it is offering a chance to win a free product or gift certificate in a raffle. It’s not a direct exchange like Lone Star’s program, but these are still incentive for leaving a review.

Any reviews on Yelp from these campaigns are not the natural and organic reviewing that is Yelp has struggled to maintain. From Yelp Terms of Service:

“You agree that you will not, and will not assist or enable others to: use the Site in a manner that may create a conflict of interest, such as trading reviews with other business owners or writing or soliciting shill reviews”

And there are a few abusers on Twitter too …

Again, offering a chance to win free product or discount is not directly buying a Yelp review, but it is definitely incentive for the reviewer, warranting the review as forced.  Not natural behavior for Ramona Family Naturals.

They tweeted on the 14th and got 2 5-star reviews on the 15th. (I wonder who won the box of organic produce?  They should tweet that.)

And The Spot Yogurt in Santa Monica appear to be naively direct in their request.

And before that, they requested on March 31^st too.

Of course, we know that ignorance of the rule is not exception from it.  Yelp says of this type of false reviewing:

“very often you’ll offend a customer and the offer will be quickly outed in your reviews, resulting in unintended negative reviews and/or negative publicity”

Luther Lowe on business owners aggressively soliciting reviews from customers:  “it just looks spammy and decreases the authenticity of your overall presence. That can turn the customers off to you.”

Charles Grumblemouse O. has a more virtuous Yelper attitude. He says of being Paid to write reviews:

“… the impetus for writing reviews is surely different if you’re paid than if you were just doing it for the love right?”

Image credits: Thanks to “twonjosh,” “Silver Smith,” ZDNEt, and Steve Rhodes for the images!

]]> http://www.searchinfluence.com/2010/04/buying-yelp-reviews/feed/ 9 http://www.searchinfluence.com/2010/03/4th-annual-searchfest-march-9-2010/ http://www.searchinfluence.com/2010/03/4th-annual-searchfest-march-9-2010/#comments Tue, 09 Mar 2010 02:25:49 +0000 Amy Arnold http://www.searchinfluence.com/?p=3526 Search Influence’s Will Scott will speak about Facebook for small business at SearchFest 2010. The 4th annual Searchfest is March 9th at the Governor Hotel in Portland, Oregon.

SearchFest is the largest search engine marketing conference in Portland. Dedicated to search marketing education from the industry experts and thought leaders, SearchFest’s mission is to educate businesses on the benefits of SEO and SEM.