Facebook Friend of Small Business

Firms are building fan bases on the social networking website and using it to connect with customers.

Charles Nelson, president of Sprinkles Cupcakes, the Beverly Hills baker to the stars, doesn't have a Facebook profile. Nelson, who works seven days a week, has no time for chatting online with Facebook friends.


But Nelson is logged on to Facebook all the time. That's because more than 70,000 people have declared themselves fans of Sprinkles' Facebook page, which has its own "vanity URL" at www.facebook.com /sprinkles.


Each day on the website, Sprinkles announces a secret word, such as "ganache," or "bunny," or "tropical," or "love," and the first 25 or 50 people to show up at any of its five stores and whisper that word get a free cupcake.


"On Facebook, we can ask our customers what's the next location they want," Nelson said. "What do they think of our next flavor? It's an amazing way to communicate with our fans."


Facebook is not just for friends anymore. The free social networking site -- blocked in many workplaces as a potential time-waster -- is increasingly becoming an inexpensive marketing tool for small businesses.


Sprinkles is among a growing number of mom-and-pop businesses taking advantage of a relatively new program on Facebook, one that allows them to claim their name, become visible even to folks who aren't on the site, and stay in close contact with their customers. The business, in effect, can act like any other person on Facebook, posting status updates and seeing what its fans are doing.


Facebook doesn't break out figures for small businesses but says it has 1.4 million business "pages," with an average of 100 fans per page. Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said in a speech in New York last month that every day, 10 million people become fans of pages. (Many of those pages are for random concepts, such as the beach, or laughter, or even one called "I don't sleep enough because I stay up late for no reason," which has 3.5 million fans.)


Businesses need to go where their customers are, and increasingly these days, that's on Facebook and other social media sites, analysts say. More than 300 million people have signed up for Facebook, and half of them visit the site every day.


"Over the past two years, we've seen this increasing uptick in businesses realizing that their customers are on Facebook," said Tim Kendall, Facebook's director of monetization product marketing. "If they can create a presence in Facebook that allows customers to connect with them, it can be a way to strengthen that connection and also to find new customers."


Plenty of other sites are also wooing small local businesses. The review site Yelp, Citysearch and a host of Yellow Pages sites are all making a push.

And typically, businesses don't stick to one site such as Facebook. Instead, they spread their presence across the social media landscape, including MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn. Increasingly, these sites connect with one another so that a status update on Facebook becomes a tweet on Twitter, or a blog post could be pushed out to several sites.


"Companies don't have a lot of resources to create their own website," said Jeremiah Owyang, a social media analyst at Altimeter Group. "Using these sites where the customers already are in their communities makes a lot of sense."


Janet Rothstein, who runs a jewelry shop in Beverly Hills, used a company called MerchantCircle as her gateway to the online world, and she has since obtained a Facebook vanity URL for her page, where she has 63 fans. Having an online presence in so many places increases the odds that when someone searches on Google, they will find her.


Facebook is increasingly finding itself a rival of Google. It believes it can offer more relevant search results because the content is coming from people you know and trust, especially in the hotly contested field of local advertising.


"We are naturally really well-positioned to create a lot of value for local businesses," Facebook's Kendall said. "When you think about how you learn in the off-line world about local businesses and services, which cafe, which dentist, you learn a lot of that from the people you trust and are friends with. Facebook is able to streamline that process a bit."


Yet Google remains the king of search, and Facebook says its pages frequently turn up in the Google search results.


That's important, said Avichal Garg, a former Google employee who now owns PrepMe, a Palo Alto company that offers online test preparation.


His Facebook page drives traffic and sales because "it ranks well in search and people use search for companies they haven't done business with before," Garg said in an e-mail, noting how Facebook has brought in about 5% of his new business. "Facebook is a trusted domain so people click on it and when they see the faces behind the company name, they know we're legitimate."


"Having the vanity URL and presence on Facebook and Twitter really help," Garg said.


Social media help companies take control of "the Google resume," said Adrian Lurssen, a vice president at JD Supra, an online legal site based in Marshall, Calif. When people search for your company -- or for what your company sells -- you want your site to turn up in the first 10 results, or the first page Google delivers.


Nelson of Sprinkles agrees. Fans of his cupcakes (actually, his wife, Candace, is the pastry chef) shower Sprinkles with praise -- and word-of-mouth buzz. Their Facebook friends all see when they comment on Sprinkles' page. "You're looking for customers but you're really looking for advocates," Nelson said. "We've never had paid advertising in five years of being open."

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

How to Write a Social Media Proposal

Here are some strategies for the social media marketer to help you draft out that social media proposal for your potential clients:

1. Be modest - Don't give it all away.  

Some "potential clients" will be looking for a proposal to be a comprehensive social media strategy with specific ideas and tactics outlined. Beware of giving too much proprietary information away – many of these prospects will have no intention of hiring an agency, but are seeking high level strategy or ideas to guide their efforts. Be modest – don't give it all away on the first date.

2. Evaluate the Business - Look for quality

Before drafting the proposal – take a good hard look at the business and its current business model. Often times we have been approached by internet companies who are simply wanting to spam and sell links. Be sure to remember that even the best social media campaign cannot help a bad product or sleezy business model – use a level of discernment in choosing your clients. Ask the following questions: - Is the product or service offering quality? - How does the client make their money?

3. Get Clear - Ask Questions. 

Many potential clients have come to us and said, "We'd like a social media proposal for our company". Before running to write, the following are some examples of the questions you need to ask: - What is the benefit you wish to gain from social media marketing? - What are the current external and internal communication needs within your business? - What type of internal resources do you have available? (content creators, technologists, etc?)

Finally, if an opportunity arises to ask about the allocated budget, ask. There is literally no end to what can be done for a client in social media. The budget can help determine how many hours should be allocated for content development can have a huge determinant on the tactics and strategies that are suggested in your proposal.

Additionally, no budget and just wondering "how much this is all going to cost me" likely means they aren't very serious about making an investment. It's not that you can't start with some things and ramp up, but not even being willing to react to a range of costs (or react to a specific list of services) may send red flags up for you.

4. Tailor Your Proposal - One size does not fit all

Yes, it is tempting to shoot a list of your services and call it a proposal, but social media is not one size fits all and your services will not be the right fit for every client. A good rule of thumb we've used in tailoring our proposals is to outline 3-5 services we provide that "make sense" for the client and the client's needs. We don't put everything and the kitchen sink – but show select services that take into account the social media readiness of the company, internal resources, and company objectives.

5. Client Goals and Expectations

Ask the client what they expect from a social media investment and, importantly, how quickly they want it. Good social media marketing is patient. You give things away (information, games, whatever) and build a following with it. It's not a banner ad campaign that starts on date certain and should be generate X clicks 2 days later. It could take 90 – 180 days to gain traction (depending, of course, on which tactics you've chosen and how they are otherwise supported). Does the client understand that?

Finally - this list is intended to be dynamic.  If you are a social media marketer please offer your expertise, and if you are more of a potential client then we'd also be curious to hear your candid feedback.

Article By Lisa Braziel, Ignite Social Media 

How To Develop A Social Media Plan

Social media can be an incredible tool for you or your business. It can provide you with more fan and customer insight, direct communication channels and the ability to measure the effectiveness of these conversations very closely.


But as the proliferation of social media platforms grow, participating can turn into little more than a giant time suck without some sort of structure behind it. With that in mind, here's a basic 5 step plan for kickstarting your company's social media strategy.

Step 1: Listen

Social media is a term we use to to discuss the online tools that help facilitate conversations. Before you or your company can be a part of those conversations, you need to know what people are already talking about so you can determine how you can best contribute. Setting up some tools to monitor conversations is easy. The difficult part is choosing the keywords that will return the most usable results.

Step 2: Prepare & Identify

Social media platforms help facilitate conversations between individuals, not companies. Once you have a sense of what people are talking about, it's time to identify the appropriate people inside your organization to and prepare a strategy that fits you or your company's marketing needs.

Find the People
People want to have conversations with individuals or companies that are experts in their area, who are passionate about their work and who are empowered to act on the feedback they receive from the social community.

Set Rules of Engagement
Make sure you or your company has a social media policy in place that offers guidelines on the appropriate way to engage with your fans or customers in online conversations.

Define Your Strategy
Social media is comprised of many different platforms. Rather than trying to participate in all of them, target one or two that seem to make the most sense. Having an engagement strategy will help to determine how much time is devoted to social media campaigns, communications, what will be the focus areas for engagement and of course, it will help to measure success.

Step 3: Engage & Execution

This is the fun part! Create several different social media campaigns and start leaving comments on blogs, uploading images to Flickr, building a community on Twitter and Facebook or FriendFeed and any other communities you would like to target. Implement the social media strategy  to help generate discussions, interest and customer and fan loyalty. It might also be useful for you to create a social media editorial calendar so that it's easier to structure time to participate.

Step 4: Go Offline

As stated in step one, social media is a group of online tools that help facilitate conversations and increase brand awareness and customer loyalty. However, there's really no replacement for face-to-face interaction. Use trade shows and other events as opportunities to build even stronger relationships with the members of your online community. This could be in the form of an exclusive session, an informal breakfast or even a group picture on the event floor.

Step 5: Measure Success

Unlike other campaigns, measuring social media success begins by asking more questions:

1. Did we learn something about our current fans/customers that we didn't know before?
2. Did we acquire new customer and fans and increase loyalty?
3. Did we raise the level of our online visibility and increase brand awareness?
4. Did our efforts generate more interest and traffic to our website (s)
5. Did our fans and customers learn something about us?
6. Were we able to engage our fans and customers in new conversations?
7. Do you or your company now have an effective new tool for feedback and reputation management?
   

It's recommended that you use online tracking tools to monitor the conversations and interest of you or your company. Use blog search engines to track and graph topics as well as compare terms- to help benchmark you or your company against your competitors.

Conclusion

The potential payoff for  social media participation and development is enormous! Any individual, business, company, artist or entrepreneur using social media and social media tools will have a better sense of how they are perceived by their target audiences, they will establish a two way dialog with key stakeholders and they will empower their fans and customers to speak with them, not at them.

To achieve the highest level of success with your online marketing and social media marketing efforts, it's important that you develop a "strategic approach to social media". Developing your social media plan is key before you start participating in this new growing medium.

If you have any comments on this article feel free to contact Social Media Circle here.

Facebook Stream Tips & Updates

We're focused on creating the best ways to empower users to share with their friends, as well as providing developers with the tools they need to make applications social and add value to the Facebook experience. As a part of a greater effort to simplify the site, we're making it easier for users to discover the most interesting content by modifying the home page stream to include two views:

• News Feed will focus on popular content, determined by an algorithm based on interest in that story, including the number of times an item is liked or commented on.
• Live Feed will display all recent stories from a large number of a user's friends.

Stories your applications generate can show up in both views. The best way for your stories to appear in the News Feed filter is to create stories that are highly engaging, as high quality, interesting stories are most likely to garner likes and comments by the user's friends.

In addition to making the site cleaner and simpler for users, we're also making our APIs clearer and more straightforward for developers. We built many APIs to enable you to create rich social experiences for your users, and while we create these APIs to match pace with the evolution of the features offered, we often maintain similar, more primitive versions as well. This creates a sea of different methods with overlapping functionality. To make it simpler and easier to develop on Facebook, we're streamlining our APIs, beginning with those that publish older-style, template-based Feed stories.
Going forward, the only way to publish Feed stories into the stream will be via the stream publishing methods (stream.publish, FB.Connect.streamPublish, and Facebook.streamPublish). Posts published using the stream publishing methods contain only structured plain text data, which makes them easier to render on a variety of devices, including mobile phones and gaming consoles. For everyone else, these changes will take place in about 60 days (on December 20th, 2009), to allow time to make the shift.
This means that we will discontinue support for the following:

• Template bundles. You should start using stream attachments with the stream publishing methods instead.
• feed.publishUserAction
• feed.publishTemplatizedAction
• Facebook.showFeedDialog and FB.Connect.showFeedDialog
• Publisher stories that use templates (please transition them to use stream attachments).
• Feed forms that reference the feedStory form and the multiFeedStory form.
• One-line stream stories.

We will still publish stories that call users.setStatus and status.set, but encourage all developers to migrate to the stream publishing methods, as they let you set a user's status easily.
We are also making a few changes to how stream stories are rendered. First, we are shrinking the size of images to be rendered at a maximum of 90 pixels high or 90 pixels wide. Also, stream stories will only display the first image that has been passed to them. Most Facebook stories use a single image, and many use no images at all. If the stream story contains more than one image or a significant amount of text, the first image and a couple lines of text will be displayed initially, and the user will have the option to click a "See More" link to display the rest of the story. We find that the best images in stream stories are directly relevant to the action taken with the application. For example, if the story announces a user's high score in a game, the image should show that exact score. If the story shows content the user has created (for example, photos taken or art created), the image should be that user-generated content. Highly repetitive images that show up over and over aren't nearly as interesting or engaging.

We are also making changes to action links to create a cleaner user experience. Going forward, a stream story can have a maximum of one action link, and 25 characters in the link. Facebook's own action links tend to be even shorter than that ("Comment", "Like", "Share", "Become a Fan" are all ten characters or fewer). We'll also strip out "formatting" characters (for example, leading spaces, pipes, and brackets) to keep in the same simple aesthetic as the rest of Facebook. These changes will take effect within the next couple of weeks.
We're looking forward to making our APIs more straightforward and hope you are too. We welcome your comments in our Developer Forum.

Austin, a product manager on the Platform team, likes to keep it simple.

Original Article

 

Customizing Facebook Fan Pages

Search "FBML" (Facebook Markup Language) on Facebook and chose the app called "Static FBML" to experiment with. This app is for Facebook Pages (aka Public Profiles, aka Fan Pages) only. And YOU CANNOT RUN JAVASCRIPT in FBML pages, just CSS/HTML.


Adding Static FBML to your Public Profile (Fan Page)

1. Click "Edit Page" under the Page's large avatar image;
2. Under "Applications," under "More Applications" click the pencil/edit icon and select "Browse more";
3. Under "All Applications" in the left column, enter "static fbml" (without quotes) into the search field and hit your enter/return key;
4. Go to the Static FBML application from the search results page (it should be the only result);
5. Click "Add to my Page" in the left column;
6. You have successfully added Static FBML to your Page.

Adding Your FBML Box or Tab to Your Public Profile Page

• click on "Edit Page" in the left column right under the logo/avatar;
• Find the "Static FBML" link, click the edit/pencil icon and select "edit";
• enter the name you want to appear in the box heading in the "Box Title" field;
• enter the HTML content in the "FBML" field (I've only used HTML thus far; haven't tried FBML);
• if you want your FBML box to appear in the left column of your Wall, set the width to 180px 
• if you want it to appear in the tabs in the main Wall column, 600px is a good width 
• when you've added in your HTML -- there doesn't appear to be a "preview" function -- click "Save Changes";

Having Your FBML Appear Either in the Tabs or Left Column

• On your Page's main page, click "Edit Page" under the logo/avatar;
• Locate the FBML application (it will be called whatever you entered into the Box Title field, plus "FBML"), and click the edit/pencil icon;
• Select "Application Settings";
• Make sure "Box" is "added" and "Tab" is "added" and click "okay";
• Click on the "Boxes" tab on your Wall (at the top of the center column);
• to have the FBML box appear in the left (narrow) column of your Wall, locate the FBML box on the Boxes page, click on the edit/pencil and select "Move to Wall Tab";

To have it appear in the Boxes tab at the top, go to the FBML box you created in your left column, click the edit/pencil and select "Move to Boxes tab";
Creating Additional FBML Boxes

• Click "Edit Page" under the logo/avatar of your Fan Page;
• Locate the FBML box you have created;
• Click the edit/pencil and select "Edit";
• Below the fields for the box you created, locate and click "Add another FBML box";

Promote Your Brand Consistently

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