Facebook

#38 - Should we be Facebook Friends?

On today’s podcast I am speaking with Elizabeth Salazar, owner of Get Visible Marketing. Elizabeth helps female entrepreneurs launch online products or courses with a core focus on marketing. We know Facebook is a powerful marketing tool, but sometimes we forget (or maybe don’t know!) that our personal profile is also an important Facebook marketing tool.

How to market yourself through your personal profile

Elizabeth Salazar

When you are marketing your business organically on Facebook i.e., by engaging in Facebook Groups, etc. then this is an important issue because more often than, not clients and potential clients will send you a Facebook friend request.

You need to know what they're going to be finding when they click through to check you out. The first step is to check the info section of your personal profile. Don’t just check it from your point of view – view your timeline from the public’s point of view as well. Also, make sure people don’t have to click “About” to see more about you. Make sure the link to your Business Page or website is on the public version of your personal profile. The key is to make it as easy as possible for people to find out what you do and then take the next step to learn even more.

Why would someone want to see my personal profile?

Whether you accept everyone’s friend request or not - your personal profile is the first entry into your sales funnel. When people from a Facebook Group click your personal profile they are not trying to creep you, they are simply trying to figure out who you are, what the name of your business is, and what services or products you offer.

Keep your title simple and to the point – don’t call yourself something too ambiguous, but do have your business title and a link to your business page easy to find. People do not want to be clicking around to find out more information about you.

Should you be Facebook friends with people you are not really friends with?

If you want to – why not?

If you have a Facebook Group you may want to “friend” the members of your group so you can message them directly, without Facebook Messenger filtering them. 

There is a huge potential to building relationships with people on Facebook using your personal profile. Depending on what you post on Facebook, your content allows potential clients to get to know you better and the more you engage with them on a personal level the more they will get to know and trust you; and the more likely Facebook is to show your content to those on your friend’s list – just be careful not to discuss too much business on your personal profile because Facebook could flag your profile as being used inappropriately (business talk is for your Business Page or Group).

Let potential clients get to know you better by posting relatable content. Just remember that although there are people on Facebook who may never post or engage in your Facebook Groups, etc. they may still be seeing and paying attention to your content, so always maintain a level of professionalism that is in line with your business goals.

How can I control my personal Facebook content for clients?

You can segment your Facebook friends into lists. You can segment family, friends, clients, professional acquaintances, etc. into separate lists. So, you can segment content you publish on Facebook based on who (or which list) you want to see it or not see it. You can then put something up just for your closer friends, or put something up that just goes to your business acquaintances.

How you sort your friends list is entirely up to you and how comfortable you are with sharing your personal and public life on Facebook.

What if I am nervous about opening my Facebook Page to everyone? 

If you absolutely do not want to share your personal Facebook page then completely lock it down and keep it private - that's a personal choice that is completely OK. Instead invite clients and fans to go to your Business Page or Group and try to relate and create content there that makes you relatable and shows your more-human side. You don’t have to open your personal page if you don’t want to – there are other ways to market yourself and your business.

I’d like to learn more!

Elizabeth runs a marketing Facebook Group called, “Marketing your Business Mastermind.” It’s for service based businesses online who need help marketing themselves. There is a free weekly mastermind where Elizabeth and group members talk about a specific subject for 45 minutes – just so people know they are not alone in the roller coaster of business. There are also threads with information and feedback, as well as training available to business owners looking for more help.

#25 - Simple Digital Marketing Tips with Rebecca Stanisic

Planning, blogging, email marketing, Facebook, Instagram and content creation –these are topics familiar to myself and this week’s guest, Rebecca Stanisic from A Little Bit of Momsense. You may remember Becky from episode 19 where we discussed how to create engaging online content for your community. It was through this discussion as well as many coffee dates that Becky and I decided to put together a one day live Digital Content Framework Planning Day on May 5th in Ottawa, Ontario.

Create Digital Content: A Framework Planning Day

The Framework Planning Day will focus on blogging, Facebook, Instagram and content creation – with the idea that attendees will leave with the ability to create a digital content plan and with content ideas and a plan they can put into action right away.

Here is some of what we will be discussing:

Planning Tips

One of Becky’s biggest planning tips is to utilize any common planning tools available – for her it is a Google calendar and physical planner. She uses her Google Calendar to input and keep track of deadlines. She also inputs fake deadlines that act as a reminder i.e., if she has not started a project by such-and-such a date, she is reminded by a pop-up reminder on her smartphone, computer or tablet that she needs to start now. This allows her to effectively plan her work days.

Another planning tool Becky uses is a physical planner in which she also inputs daily deadlines and events in a way that shows her what her week looks like. This allows her to easily say yes or no to last minute opportunities as they arise.

I use goals – and not just the goal to make more money. I write out specific goals in my planners and calendars. Think about what your specific goals are. These goals could be growing your mailing list by a certain number by a specific date or getting a certain number of likes on your Facebook page by a specific date. By writing these specific goals out or inputting them in a digital calendar, it will keep you accountable. These goals can then help with what content you want to share and create online.

Blogging Tips

Becky built her business around her blog. One of her blogging tips is to write in drafts. This helps get content out there even on days when your creative inspiration is at a minimum. Write out your ideas in drafts and then they will always be there for you when you need them.

My blogging tip has to do with format. Make sure your blog posts can be easily skimmed. Readers are often overwhelmed at the amount of online content available to them, so sometimes a quick read is what they are looking for. You can make your blog 'skimmable' by adding an image, and using headings and subheadings. The use of headings gives readers the outline of your blog and they can then decide whether or not they want to read further. Images and headings also increase your search engine optimization (SEO).

Email Newsletter Tips

As an avid newsletter reader, Becky prefers nuggets of information with links and images she can click that redirects her if she wants more information. Doing this drives traffic back to your website, which is your ultimate goal.

Many businesses and bloggers have a tendency to think they don’t need to send newsletters frequently and then when they do send them, their newsletter is jam packed with too many articles, images and news. Newsletters should be as brief, therefore instead of sending your newsletter quarterly, try sending bits of information once a week or even bi-weekly; send less information more frequently versus sending a lengthy email every three months.

Social Media Tips

According to Becky, businesses and bloggers need to pay attention to Facebook and Instagram for sales conversions. Curate your content based on your followers or who you follow. Constantly paying attention to your followers and those who follow people similar to you, helps you find potential new relationships and find new people you may be interested in learning more about. Doing this creates a rich feed that will tie into quality content that you can then share with your readers. 

Facebook, and soon Instagram, rely on engagement in order to show more people what you post. A common question I get is how to get people to engage with content. My main piece of advice is to ask simple questions. Keep your questions simple so that people can answer without thinking. Your goal is to get people talking and simple questions are the most effective way to do that. Once people get used to engaging with your content they may be more inclined to consistently engage.

Content Curation Tips

Finding good content does not mean finding and sharing viral content because there is no guarantee that it will do well on your page. Instead find content that is equally or more interesting and share that – become a leader in sharing things that are new and different.

Look for content by looking at your stats; where are people coming from? Are there certain social media posts that were popular and drove people to your website? Find similar content to those posts and share them.

Think about what you want people to know. Keep your content in line with what you want people to know about you and your business.

 

Becky and I will be digging deeper into these tips and sharing much more in our live one day Content Planning Framework Day on May 5th. If you’re in the Ottawa area we hope to see you there! 

#23 Facebook Advertising with Taylor Manning

Facebook advertising is a hot topic! Most of us know that it's important to be spending money on Facebook advertising to increase our reach and audience, but we also know there is so much more to it than just hitting "Boost Post" and paying Facebook.

Taylor Manning joined me on the Social Media Simplified podcast and we had a chat about Facebook ads - it's such a broad topic we could probably have three more chats about it (and maybe we will!)

Here are a few of the highlights from our discussion:
 

Boost vs Ads Manager vs Power Editor

There are multiple ways that you can set up Facebook advertising - one is to hit "Boost Post" right from your page and get more exposure. Another is to use the Ads Manager, which you can find easily in your side bar. Power Editor needs to be installed and gives you even more power behind your advertising options.

What should you pick and why? Boost Post is the easiest option, then Ads Manager, and then Power Editor. If you're looking for easier, go with Boost Post or Ads Manager. But why would you pick Power Editor? It literally has more power. It gives you access to more options, let's you include more text and gives you access to a lot more insight information. 

Power Behind Facebook Ads

Why should you be using Facebook ads? Because you can reach your current audience and you can reach new audiences because of how specially you can drill down with your ad targeting.

Step one is to really know who you're talking to - this is why understanding your audience is so important. 

You can target ads to people based on things like age, gender, marital status, location, etc., but beyond that you can also target people based on their interests. For example, you can send an ad to someone who likes a specific page.

So, let's say you run a website that sell recipes, you could target ads to people who like the pages of big magazines that share a lot of recipes, because you know that those audiences are fairly likely to also be your audience.

Pixels

Pixels - pixels are a piece of code that Facebook gives you that you can put on your website. This helps you know if your ads are converting well and it also gives you the opportunity to target ads specifically to people who have already been to your website. 

Pixels are a really great feature of advertising on Facebook, but one people often skip because they get scared of the code side of things (this is where hiring someone might be a good idea.)

Advertising to warm leads

There are several ways you can advertise specifically to people who are already paying attention to you (they are more likely to pay attention than people who have never heard of you).

A few ways to advertise specifically to people include: targeting ads to the people who already like your page, targeting ads to people who have been to your website (this is done with the pixel), and by uploading your email list to Facebook and having ads run to anyone who has a Facebook account that uses that email account.

How much money should you spend?

How much you should spend and what is a good conversion price to get someone to do what you're wanting them to do is a tricky question because there are so many variables.

The simple answer is always the least specific answer, but you should know that if you can, spending more at the beginning of an ad campaign will give you better results on testing than spending less, therefore, $25/day is a great place to start. If you can't spend that much $5 is still okay.

What is a decent amount to spend on a conversion? Again - this can vary, but the simple answer is that $1 is often pretty good. Some people spend a lot more per conversion, but this depends on how popular the audience is (if lots of people are trying to advertise to the same audience, it gets more expensive to reach them).

The important piece is to look at how your ad is performing and you can change and tweak as you go (something you could never do with traditional advertising).

We barely scratched the surface with Facebook ads in this interview, but there is a lot of great introductory information shared. If you have more questions for Taylor, check out the links below!

Resources & Links

Taylor's Web Site

Taylor's Facebook Group - The Creative Corner where she answers Facebook ads questions every Wednesday

Taylor mentioned Facebook Groups several times and uses them to market yourself - check out episodes 20 and 14 for more on that) 

Social Media Simplified on iTunes

Subscribe on Stitcher

Join my FREE Online Community: The Biz Studio Facebook Group

#5: What is live streaming all about and should you care?

Episode five is all about live streaming – the hottest tools out there, why you should be paying attention to them, and how to use them effectively for your business.

What live streaming tools are out there and what are they being used for?

1.    Meerkat is a mobile app that enables users to do live video streaming over the web service Twitter, sending video to their Twitter followers.

2.    Periscope a live video streaming app for your Smartphone developed by Twitter. It tweets out to your followers that you are live and your video is stored on the app for 24 hours so your followers can view it later.

Both Meerkat and Periscope are great for spontaneous, brief broadcasts.

3.    Blab: Used on a computer; multiple people can live stream at one time. Participants appear in a cubes and can interact with one another live on the air. Blab is a good alternative for Google Hangout, especially if it is recorded and fans are given a URL to view the recording later.

Blab is a great way to showcase various experts or conduct an interview style broadcast that is of interest to your audience.

4.    Facebook is introducing live streaming – this is currently only available for verified public figures right now, but it won’t be long before they are offering this service to everyone.

What is the value of live streaming for my business?

There is a lot of value in live streaming:

-       Easy to use

-       Informal information sharing

-       Feels genuine

-       Allows you to show things without having to create something fancy

-       People don’t expect professional level video quality

How can I use live streaming effectively?

Here are a few tips to make your live streaming experience a positive one:

1)   Let your audience know ahead of time that you are going to be broadcasting: Having your core audience in attendance is a great foundation in which to build a new audience especially because they are more inclined to participate if the broadcast is Q&A style.

2)   Create a broadcast that can be used again later: Download and save broadcasts that you feel will help your audience now and in the future. You can create templates for uploading Periscope videos to YouTube.

3)   Don’t get distracted by the 'hearts:' If Periscope is your tool of choice don’t get distracted by the hearts fluttering on the screen or the sometimes-inane comments that may appear. Focus on the questions that fuel your broadcast and if you miss something good that you catch in the replay, don’t worry about it – use it for a future broadcast!

Links & additional resources

Meerkat

Periscope

Twitter

Blab

Facebook live streaming

What is Periscope and why should I care?

Social Media Simplified on iTunes

#4: Should your business have a Facebook Page?

Episode four is all about why your business should have a Facebook page and I also share tips on how to make Facebook work for you!

Who is on Facebook?

Facebook has over one billion accounts and is the social network we hear about the most often. It may not be the right place for every business, but if you’re going to invest time and effort into a social network, Facebook is the best place to start because more than half of all Canadians online are on Facebook.

What is the difference between a Facebook profile and page?

Your Facebook profile is where you share personal thoughts and information with family and friends. Only an individual can have a Facebook account – not a business or company. A Facebook page is where people who want to come and get your business information and updates in their Facebook feed by hitting ‘like’. People who like your Facebook page can’t see your personal information – just what you post on your Facebook page.

How do I set up a Facebook page?

Setting up a Facebook page is easy. Simply visit: https://www.facebook.com/pages

  • Choose your correct category; for small business choose “Local Business or Place”
     
  • Fill out the pertinent information i.e. category, business name, etc. and once done click, “Get Started” and follow the step-by-step instructions.
     
  • For questions and complete guidelines on how to set up a Facebook Page visit: https://www.facebook.com/page_guidelines.php

Facebook updates their guideline page frequently, so it’s a good link to save for future reference.

What are Facebook insights?

A Facebook page will give you extensive statistics that show you whether or not what you’re doing is working, which is necessary to know before deciding whether or not to keep investing time in certain activities.

Insights give you access to interesting information such as who ‘likes’ your page, where they are from, how old they are and what time of day people are viewing your page.

What are Facebook Groups and how are they different from pages?

Facebook groups are different than pages in that they are more like forums where everyone can participate and comment on a more equal footing.

Facebook groups are a great way to build community outside of your business page. They can also be great for committees or as a value add for clients, especially if you offer online courses.

Do I have to pay Facebook in order for my posts to be seen?

It used to be a lot easier for people to see your Facebook content, but over time this has changed. Why? Because of the sheer volume of content being posted. The average person has over 250 friends and follows 100 pages. There is simply too much content for people to see everything that is being posted.

The average percentage of fans who will see your posts is generally under 5%.

What is the Facebook algorithm?

Facebook’s algorithm is designed to make the Facebook experience as personalized as possible for every user. Their goal is to show you content that you want to see. The more you ‘like’ or comment on specific posts by pages or people the more likely you are to see more of that kind of content. The same works for what other people in your network are ‘liking’ on commenting on; you are more likely to see content that a lot of people are engaging with than other less-engaged with content.

How often should I post on Facebook?

At least daily, but if possible even more. Have a schedule and automate using themes and categories. What kind of content should I be posting on Facebook? Post or share content that provides value. For example, give your audience tips, recommend products, and share articles about successes. Engage with your audience by replying to comments as quickly as possible. Give value by educating, entertaining and empowering. Try different kinds of content until you find what works best for you and your audience.

Links mentioned in this post

How to create a Facebook Page

Facebook Page Guidelines

How to schedule your Facebook content

Lara Wellman Facebook Page

Social Media Simplified on iTunes