INNsights

10 Ways to Deal With Upset Customers

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Anne Baker) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 17:04:00 +0000

How are you responding to upset customers? No matter what you sell or what industry you’re in, you’re going to experience negative word of mouth.

You know, those customers who are expressing their complaints on social media.

It just happens. Things break, problems come up and employees have bad days. But it’s how you handle it that separates you from everyone else.

Remember: Negative word of mouth is an opportunity.

A great response strategy can convert angry and upset customers into loyal, raving fans. The rule of thumb is that while unhappy customers talk to 5 people, formerly unhappy customers you win back talk to 10.

So get out there and embrace the negativity. Start responding. Here are 10 steps you can take to stop the negative, earn new fans and generate a ton of respect.

10 Ways to Deal With Upset Customers Using Social Media | Social Media Examiner
By Andy Sernovitz

How To Use Pinterest - It's Simple!

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Anne Baker) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:47:00 +0000

Pinterest is gaining momentum among the twenty- and thirty-something crowd. Need a smiple guide to use it? Catch this article from USA Today, which I posted on Pinterest of course!

Source: usatoday.com via Mary on Pinterest

How To Get More Comments On Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Anne Baker) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 18:45:00 +0000

Many people who manage a Facebook Business Page tend to only think about posting news, press releases and blog posts to that page. These are of course important updates but it’s sometimes good to have a little fun with your fans too. This is a simple tip on how to get more comments on Facebook that anyone can apply to their page: How To Get More Comments On Facebook

7 Killer Apps For Building Custom Tabs On Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Anne Baker) — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 18:18:00 +0000

With such a great variety of Facebook page applications out there, it’s become even harder to find a suitable application that matches your business or personal goals.

Here’s a look at seven popular tools for adding miniature applications, or tabs, to pages on the social network, as reported on Mashable and written by their Guest writer Lynn Marie Hope runs Host FB.

Static HTML

Installation

1. Go to the Static FBML application.
2. Click the blue box labeled “Add Static HTML to a Page”
3. Choose the page the app to be added to and click “Add Static HTML: iframe tabs”
4. Once done, you will be taken to your Fan Page. Find new tab marked with a star, and click on it
5. Input content into fan and non-fan view using regular text or custom HTML (preferred)

Pros

- Recognizes HTML/CSS/Java Script and highlights the tags
- It’s good for pre-made coded templates

Cons

- Doesn’t host images, styles, media files (you’ll need to host supplementary files at your place)
- Requires HTML/CSS knowledge

Pricing

Free!

Summary

It took me few minutes to play around with the app and understand how it works. This is a nice freebie as long as you are pro in HTML/CSS or have a pre-made template. Is useless for a beginner.

TabFusion

Installation

1. Go to TabFusion‘s page and and click “Enter”
2. On the upper right, click “Sign in with Facebook”, Allow the app to communicate with your Facebook account
3. You’re on Dashboard: Click “Design” then “Website”
4. Choose tab icon, then go to TabMaker
5. Click “Enter TabMaker” and start editing my page
6. And now trouble begins… I’m lost and cannot publish my app. Need help!

Pros

I had no chance to see any. Share your experiences in the comments section, please.

Cons

- Process is too long and complicated
- Lack of editing tools and features

Pricing

Basic apps are free

Summary

Though the basic apps (such as website, music, etc) are free, the installation process os quite unfriendly. The price actually explains the quality. I couldn’t finish mine app.

TabSite

Installation

1. Go to the TabSite page and hit “Connect with Facebook”
2. Connect an app to Facebook by clicking Allow
3. Complete the registration form
4. Select Facebook Page and Level
5. Choose the name of the tab from the list and hit “Create Tab”
6. Click “Okay” to access page builder interface and start building the page

Pros

- Great number of add-ons such as forms, widgets
- Drag and drop management
- WYSIWYG text editor and custom HTML area

Cons

- Takes six steps to get to actual page builder
- Complicated and a bit unfriendly interface for a beginner
- Most features require Pro level

Pricing

Free: One page with branding
Bronze: $5 monthly, or $50 yearly
Silver: $10 monthly or $100 yearly
Gold: $15 monthly or $150 yearly

Summary

There are plenty of widgets available, but most are available with paid accounts only. The tab builder interface is equipped with a ruler grid, image library, pus layers and templates management. Unlike the usual click-to-upload feature, these guys a implemented drag-to-upload which made the editing process a bit busy and uncomfortable.

WelcomeTab

Installation

1. Go to the WelcomeTab page and hit “Activate this App”
2. Connect SocialAppsHQ to your Facebook account
3. Complete the registration form
4. Click “Connect with Facebook” and Allow the actual Welcome tab app to be connected
5. Choose a plan. Tried clicking “Free trial” few times with no luck? Basic plan costs $0.99.
6. Choose a page to connect app to. Again, this is where it keeps asking about payment, even if I choose Free

I guess it’s not my day, cause I’ve got no credit card with me to try this app. So, based on this two-minute overview, I can say the following.

Pros

I had no chance to test all handy features declared by developers. No free trial? I wasn’t prepared to pay (even 99 cents) for a try.

Cons

- Invalid free trial
- Takes 6 steps (at least) to get to actual builder
- The actual app page on Facebook looks unprofessional with 40% of the page being cut off

Pricing

Free trial (we’re not completely sure it’s working properly, however)
Starter: 99 cents a month
Standard: $9.99 monthly
Vertical: $29.99 monthly
White label: $99.99 monthly

Summary

The application developer has stuffed this app with Like Gate support, real-time analytics, css control, WYSIWYG editor, image hosting and an option to share content and invite friends.

IWipa

Installation

1. Go to iWipa‘s page on Facebook and click “Install”
2. Choose a page and connect an app (via normal Facebook app connection interface)
3. Click on new tab on your fan page and hit “Activate”
4. You’ll be taken to your account dashboard on Iwipa to start editing
5. Edit and publish

Pros

- WYSIWYG text editor and custom HTML area
- Fan-gating
- Google Analytics
- Appearance management

Cons

- Too busy and overloaded admin interface
- Broken links happen sometimes
- Most of the options require payments
- Uniform layout for all the pages

Pricing

Free level: pretty basic
Pro level: $9.97/mo & $99,97/yr

Summary

I lost myself few times before I built a simple page. I wish this interface was more friendly and could differentiate primary and secondary options to a user. As is, the app is too overloaded and busy for a regular user. Paying a free will give you quite good tool to build a tab for Facebook page. I wish the developers could fix the interface and make it more intuitive and friendly.

Lujure

Installation

1. Go to Lujure‘s official site and register for a free trial
2. Allow the app to connect to your Facebook account by clicking standard Allow box
3. Choose a page to add the app to & input the title for new tab
4. Edit the content via editor
5. Hit publish (that’s where you will have connect app to page by clicking “Add Lujure to my page”

Pros

- Very fast interface
- Free plan offers decent number of features
- Drag-and-drop management
- Community support forum

Cons

- Building process is not completely intuitive (some actions require you to hit “Done” or “OK” twice)
- Too expensive in case you want to use its advanced features
- Requires basic graphic application knowledge to customize the images

Pricing

Free: includes or one page with Lujure branding
Consultant: $30 per month
Business: $300 per month

Summary

Lujure is really great for beginners, and users with medium HTML knowledge. The paid seem a bit expensive in comparison to other apps. Despite its price, Lujure is a great alternative to build custom iframe tab for your Facebook page. Each box is edited in a separate popup block, and you can drag and drop the boxes. Measuring rulers help organize the design, which is cool. The ”like gate” and layout templates are useful, and the installation process is smooth and painless.

PageModo

Installation

1. Go to PageModo‘s website and click “Start Now”
2. Click “allow” to enable connection between app and your Facebook account
3. Select the page to add new app to
4. You’re on the dashboard: choose the theme for your tab
5. Start building the page via editor, and publish once done

Pros

- Intuitive interface
- A number of tab icons to choose from
- Variety of themes
- WYSIWYG text editor
- Ability to customize your tab label name

Cons

- Doesn’t have HTML editor
- Free plan requires to like the PageModo fan page

Pricing

Free: One page with PageModo branding
Basic: $6.25 monthly
Pro: $13.25 monthly
Agency: $33.25/mo

Summary

Pretty nice, useful and quick tool to build a custom tab. But to my opinion, for lack of an option to input custom HTML and JavaScript code this application might be useless for people with intermediate and advanced level of coding knowledge.

Conclusion

Hopefully you now have an idea about available do-it-yourself tools for building custom iFrame tabs on Facebook. Just know that none of this applications will be able to help you if you don’t have a basic sense of style and balance. Using pre-made layouts and templates will streamline your work, but knowing how to format images, code in HTML and JavaScript and set up cascading style sheets will enable you to do more with the tab applications.

Guest writer Lynn Marie Hope runs Host FB.

7 Killer Apps For Building Custom Tabs On Facebook

Who Is an Average Facebook User?

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Anne Baker) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 19:34:00 +0000

What does it mean to be average on Facebook? On a given day, 26% of users “Like” a friend’s status, 22% comment on a friend’s status and 15% update their own status.

This infographic created by JESS3, examines engagement statistics with the world’s most popular social network.

The average user has 229 friends, of which 22% are from high school, 12% are co-workers, 9% are from college and 3% they only met once. In 2008, the average user was 33. Two years later, the average user was 38, five years older.

Compared with other social networks, Facebook users are the most engaged. Fifty-two percent visit Facebook daily, beating out others for daily visitors, such as Twitter (36%), Myspace (7%) and LinkedIn (6%).

Take a look through the data and let us know how your daily Facebook use compares with the average user.

Who Is an Average Facebook User?
Aritcle by Zoe Fox

Google+ Launches Branded Pages

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Anne Baker) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 22:47:00 +0000

Google has finally unveiled brand pages for Google+, allowing businesses and brands to join Google’s social network.

“So far Google+ has focused on connecting people with other people,” Google SVP of Social Vic Gundotra said in a blog post. “But we want to make sure you can build relationships with all the things you care about—from local businesses to global brands—so today we’re rolling out Google+ Pages worldwide.”

The new Google+ brand pages look similar to Google+ Profiles, except for the little square icon that designates that it’s a Page rather than a Profile. Users can add brands such as Fox News, the Dallas Cowboys and Angry Birds to their circles, check out their information and browse their photos. When users add a brand to their circles, it increases that brand’s follower count.

Infographic: Generational Media Usage by Time of Day

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Anne Baker) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 16:37:00 +0000

A new study by Magid Generational Strategies breaks down who's using what media at what time of day. Check out the media usage by generation and day-part:

Created by: MBA Online

11 Freelancer and Virtual Assistant Outsourcing Sites

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Anne Baker) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 13:13:00 +0000

Ever since Tim Ferriss wrote The Four Hour Workweek, the small business owner market has been aware of outsourcing and its benefits. Find a virtual assistant or contractor of just about any flavor and your work life will be easier.

That’s the promise. The reality is a little different. Sometimes it takes a while to find the right person (as in regular employment), and it often takes more management than you expect, especially when the person is working from a remote location. However, I have used several of these services as a business owner and can attest to their value.

If you know you need help in marketing, in technology (think programming) or with administrative issues, but really don’t know how to get help, this review is for you. It is for small business owners that want to find contractors, not employees, who can work locally or remotely to get the job done.

For many jobs, you need a full-time employee, but for some projects and tasks you can get work done faster and more cost-effectively with an independent contractor. Each of these services offers a way to get a job done through a contract, and they often offer 1099 tax services, too. Unless otherwise noted, none of these sites charge a fee to list a job or project opportunity or to look for a freelancer.
Read More By TJ McCue : 11 Freelancer and Virtual Assistant Outsourcing Sites

17 Things Marketers Should Delete From Their Facebook Strategy NOW

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Anne Baker) — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 13:02:00 +0000

Now with over 750 million members, there's no doubt that Facebook should be a part of your business' social media marketing strategy. At this point, it's almost insane to think that your own prospects and customers aren't on Facebook, which is why many businesses are realizing they need to create an engaging and valuable Facebook presence for their fans that also serves as a viable channel for generating traffic and leads for their business.

But for every business that understands it needs a Facebook strategy, there are just as many businesses that are executing their strategy incorrectly. To make sure you're not falling into bad Facebook marketing practices, below is our definitive list of things businesses should delete from their Facebook strategy...immediately.

What to Axe From Your Facebook Marketing Strategy: 17 Things Marketers Should Delete From Their Facebook Strategy NOW

Posted by Pamela Vaughan

Fri, Aug 26, 2011 @ 10:59 AM

Managing an Online Reputation

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Anne Baker) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 12:23:00 +0000

Your customers are talking about you — and the whole world is listening.Local review sites are reshaping the world of small business by becoming the new Yellow Pages, one-stop platforms where customers can find a business — and also see independent critiques of its performance.
How do you manage your reputation when everybody is a critic?

For some business owners, this is a terrifying prospect that seems more like mob rule than the wisdom of crowds. Negative reviews can hang an albatross around your neck if they appear prominently in search results. Happily, there is a big upside: referrals from happy clients are traditionally the best source of new business — and online forums are powerful word-of-mouth. The review process has been democratized.

But managing your online reputation requires a whole new skill set, including monitoring the online conversation and engaging with customers and the tech-savvy to promote yourself in the best channels. These skills are becoming essential for mainstream businesses. According to a survey by the Opinion Research Corporation, 84 percent of Americans say online reviews influence their purchasing decisions.

Read more By KERMIT PATTISON, New York Times

Set up automatic alerts to notify you when your business is mentioned in a review or blog.
Local search sites are the new Yellow Pages -- make sure your business is listed. The more complete your listing, the more likely you are to get good search results.
Respond to reviews to show readers that you are listening and that you care about customer service.
Online reviews are a gold mine of business intelligence. Analyze metrics to get a better sense of your customer demographics.
Don’t write false reviews to puff your business or trash a competitor. You can severely damage your reputation...and look really silly.

Tips from Yelp on responding to positive or negative reviews.
A guide to Web tools to track your online reputation.

Most Facebook Fan Pages are Underperforming

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Anne Baker) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 21:33:00 +0000

SHOCKER: 3% To 7.5% Of Fans See Your Page’s Posts

Posted by Brian Carter

The chart above shows that fan page owners are grossly overestimating how many people they’re reaching through posts.
(Note: That chart based on pages that together represent more than 400 million fans; it was complied by PageLever, which is in beta and growing its data set. The PageLever charts rock (they’re much cooler than my lame MS Powerpoint table above), and if you want better Facebook Page insights, you should sign up for their beta. The “approximate % of fans seeing posts daily” and “total daily impressions per fan” columns are daily, so these numbers are affected by pages that are not posting daily.)
It’s more of a shocker than you thought, isn’t it? Among Facebook pages with a million likers or more, less than three percent of their fans are seeing their posts daily.

Most Fan Pages Are Under-Performing

I’ve been told that HubSpot recommends a 0.5 percent feedback rate as a goal. But I have seen pages up to several hundred thousand fans achieve feedback rates above one percent regularly when they post purposely to get likes and comments. It may be possible for multi-million fan pages as well.
If you aren’t thinking about how to get more likes and comments, you probably don’t understand how EdgeRank is reducing your visibility to your fans.
Keeping your fans engaged daily and arousing their desire for your offering must be part of your fan page strategy, or you’re wasting the opportunity to stay visible and get sales.
There may be cases where a one percent feedback rate is not possible, especially if your fans don’t have much in common that they’re passionate about. This is more likely the case for fan pages that prioritize high fan counts ahead of targeting good potential customers. But you can see from the numbers above that high fan counts are deceiving.

Many Are Under-Posting

A lot of experts recommend posting to your Facebook fan page daily. But many are not achieving that. This is a missed opportunity. It’s similar to how so many companies have email lists but no email marketing strategy beyond a monthly newsletter than no one cares about. You need a fan page posting plan.
Afraid to post daily? To give you a contrary example, one e-commerce website I know of has found their 90,000 fan Facebook page to be quite profitable, and they post five times per day and have done so for more than six months.
Four daily posts are engagement-oriented and one is sales-oriented. Not all the Facebook e-commerce efforts I’m aware of are making profits, so it’s interesting that this profitable one is posting so often. Perhaps by being so aggressive, they cultivate the most passionate fans and weed out the ones who are never going to buy.
Facebook fan quantity is overrated. You do need a lot of fans, but you need a lot of quality fans, and you need to keep them engaged. The best Facebook marketers are engaging their fans with a purpose while growing their fan base.

But Can Big Pages Stop Growing Fans?

An underestimated factor in EdgeRank is time decay. One of the reasons so many fans of the biggest pages are not engaged is because they became fans so long ago. Some huge fan pages were not started by the company, and the early fans may never have been engaged. If a fan hasn’t clicked on one of your posts for a year, there may be almost no chance they’ll ever see your posts again.
And if you continue to do a poor job with your post feedback rate, over time, your fans will continue decay. You’ll have to keep getting new fans, as they get more and more expensive (because of ad burnout, they always become more expensive).
Once the cost is prohibitive, you’ll have no choice but to pay for sponsored post story ads to your existing fan base to try to re-awaken them. If you have more than 100,000 fans, you should already be running sponsored post stories and other ads to your existing fan base to keep them engaged, especially if your feedback rate is below 0.5 percent.

Solutions: Here’s The Good News

I was very reluctant to put this post out — it’s cool that it has an attention-grabbing title and it’s based on real data, but it could be discouraging to many involved in Facebook marketing. There are many naysayers about this business, so why add fuel to the fire?
In my experience, the people who say Facebook doesn’t work for business have little experience and no training. I agree with them that not enough businesses are succeeding, but I see it as a function of companies not doing it well, not as a function of the social network itself.
Consider this a tough-love post. I want you to face the facts and change your tactics so you can get better results.
Here’s what you need to change:

Have a plan for engaging your fans: Who’s going to do the posting? Do they have any experience in this? How often will they post? Have you planned out 30 to 90 daily posts yet?
Go for likes and comments: Without them, you don’t get visibility. If you’re not getting a one percent feedback rate, have you been trained how to get more likes and comments from posts?
Grow targeted fans that are realistically good potential buyers for your company: Don’t just go for numbers. The businesses I’ve seen make money from Facebook grew all or most of their fans from Facebook advertising, which gives you powerful targeting options.

Brian Carter is the chief executive officer of the FanReach Facebook marketing training company, a social media trainer, and a Facebook and AdWords consultant.

Google+: The Complete Guide

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Anne Baker) — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 16:31:00 +0000

Google+: It’s the hot social network on the block. In just three weeks, Google’s competitor to Facebook and Twitter has amassed more than 10 million users, and its users are sharing more than 1 billion pieces of content daily. It’s become a hotbed for early adopters, tech luminaries, marketers and businesses around the world.

Google+ isn’t the easiest thing to understand, though. It has a lot of features that can confuse beginners. Even advanced users can miss a lot of the little gems and nuances that define Google+.

Read more from Mashable: Google+: The Complete Guide:

5 Steps to Establishing Yourself as an Expert Online and Off

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Anne Baker) — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 01:12:00 +0000

There’s a lot of talk in the marketing blogosphere about the importance of setting yourself apart from your competition–about how to be taken seriously, you must establish yourself as an expert in your field. And while that’s all well and good, no one ever really tells you how you’re supposed to establish yourself as an expert. What goes into becoming an “expert” and how do you know if you’re doing it right or you’re just spinning your wheels and getting no brand karma?

What should small business owners do to help brand themselves as authorities that users will trust? Below are five tips:

1. Start Small: I’m sure there are a number of things you want to brand yourself and your company as being an expert on. However, start by picking one and building your empire from there. What is the one thing that your company does better than anyone else? Or what would you like to be known for doing better than anyone else even if you don’t right now? Become the go-to person for that. Once you get that under your belt, you can expand upon it and add a lot of related services.

2. Learn Everything You Can: Once you know what your area of expertise is, dedicate yourself to becoming the master of it. Read blogs and forums to stay up to date on the latest news, read discussions to understand the different pain points, read print magazines and offline materials to hear from even more sources. In order to be an expert on something, you need to be able to speak intelligently on it, and that means understanding it as thoroughly as you can.

3. Create a Plan for Sharing Your Knowledge: Through blogs and social media, small business owners are able to easily share their knowledge with others and display their expertise for everyone to see. But have a plan for how you’ll do that and use multiple formats. Maybe you’ll blog, offer webinars or speak at local events. Or perhaps you’ll host a meet up in your area and write articles for popular industry sites. Ideally, you should be doing a number of these things and sharing information in all the satellite communities where your audience hangs out. It’s not enough to simply share the content; you have to share it where people are going to notice and consume it.

4. Share Opinions, Even Difficult Ones: To really develop your standing as an industry expert, you need to be comfortable sharing your opinion on what’s going on in your niche. Use your unique point of view and your way of seeing things to share your passion with the people you’re trying to reach. It can be hard to put yourself out there and show your vulnerabilities, but you need to if you want people to able to relate to what you’re telling them. Share opinions on your blog, through social media, at local networking events, and anywhere else you can!

5. Live What You Preach: People want to see that you’re not only preaching best practices, that you’re also living them. Make sure you’re implementing the same things you’re telling everyone else to implement and that you’re not doing what you’ve told them not to do. If you’re trying to sell yourself as an authentic social media marketer, people are going to get upset pretty quick if you start sending out automated DMs or spamming them on Facebook.

Above are five tips I’d recommend to put yourself on the path to becoming an expert in your field. What did I miss? What traits or actions make someone stand out as an expert in your eyes?

Read More By Lisa Barone : 5 Steps to Establishing Yourself as an Expert Online and Off:

How to Pick Up the Blogging Habit

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Anne Baker) — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 19:46:00 +0000

How to Pick Up the Blogging Habit,: "As people, we’re creatures of habit. Whether you’re trying to lose weight, start a blog or train for your first marathon, to be successful in that goal, you must develop the habit of actually doing it. The habit of running, of eating, of finding that time to write and publish blog posts. And that takes practice.

I write a lot – for multiple blogs, multiple times a week. And in order for me to get that blogging done and still be able to run a business and take care of everything else that needs to get done, I’ve had to adopt the blogging habit. If you’re having trouble committing to blogging, here are some tips and tricks that have worked for me. I’d love it if you’d share what works (or even what doesn’t work) for you.

1. Schedule time: One of the most common sources of pushback when I encourage small business owners to start blogging is that they don’t have the time. I understand that. But you have to schedule in the time, the same way you schedule in time to pay your vendors, to manage your online reviews or even to restock your inventory. Without scheduling those things, they probably wouldn’t get done either. But you do them because they’re important to your business.

Do the same with your blogging. Find an hour or two a week that you can dedicate to writing content. Maybe it’s in the morning before things get into full swing, maybe it’s on Sunday while you grab a coffee and catch up on the world. Schedule the time.

2. Keep an idea log: Get in the habit of recording ideas for blog posts, and you won’t believe how easily they come to you. Keep track of bloggable questions (as I discuss in my post on Outspoken Media), the conversations you have with customers, the issue that got you really worked up, the new use for that old medium you’re considering, etc. When you’re immersed in your business, your brain is constantly thinking, evaluating and trying things out. Jot down those ideas and write about them later. It’s when you don’t catch these thoughts in the moment that they’re lost forever when you sit down to face a blank screen.

3. Put a blogging structure in place:: Whether you think you are a professional writer or a complete hack, you probably have a writing system. You think of your topic, you do your research, you store the links you want to mention, you craft your headline, etc. Use this system to help keep you on track with what you’re supposed to be doing. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel each time you sit down to write. Know what you need to do and how you need to do it; then, just get it done. Streamline the process as much as possible.

4. Write in batches: If you’re feeling inspired and the juices are flowing, don’t just write one post, write an entire week’s worth or two week’s worth. Not only does this help you to plan out your content and schedule posts ahead of time, but it also lets you take advantage of those natural moments when you have something to say. Don’t stop writing until you’ve gotten it all out.

5. Use one piece of content many ways: Before you write a piece of content, think of all the different ways you can recycle that content. Maybe you can expand on that blog post and turn it into an article series. Maybe you can turn it into a presentation to give at your local chamber of commerce event. Maybe you can build an interview series off it. If time is sacred (and when isn’t it?), make sure you’re getting as much mileage out of each piece as you can.

6. Keep doing it: To build a habit, you need to live the habit. Keep following the rules above until you don’t even realize you’re following them anymore. Once blogging begins to feel like a natural part of your business, you’ve adopted the blogging habit. Congrats.

Above are a few tips to help you pick up the blogging habit and get yourself on a path to creating authoritative content for both users and the engines. What’s worked for you?

by Lisa Barone

5 Services For Building Websites on a Budget

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Anne Baker) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 01:33:00 +0000

There’s little doubt that a custom-designed and developed website is ideal for business. A trained professional can help you optimize your site for good search engine rankings, custom-tailor the look and feel to appeal to your target audience, reinforce your company’s image and ensure that your content is easily accessible and the user experience enjoyable. However, large web-development budgets often just aren’t possible, particularly for small businesses or entrepreneurs who are just getting started. In these cases, a number of web services exist to allow you to grow your company’s presence online, often in just minutes. We’ll take a look at five of them in this article:.5 Services For Building Websites on a Budget

LinkedIn Quickly Overtaking Twitter.com as a Traffic Driver

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Anne Baker) — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 19:03:00 +0000

By MG Siegler

If I asked you which of the major social sites you thought sent us the most traffic, you might think it was Twitter. After all, the TechCrunch Twitter account has over 1.7 million followers. When you compare this to the (just under) 250,000 fans our Facebook TechCrunch page has, it should be no contest, right? Wrong.

The truth is that if this were October of last year, you would have been right in thinking that Twitter was our top referrer in terms of social websites. But since that time, Facebook has far surpassed Twitter in terms of traffic coming our way each month. In fact, Facebook.com is now sends nearly double the traffic that Twitter.com does. This is probably due to the fact that last November, we added Elin, our excellent community manager, who curates and engages with people from our feed on Facebook. I also suspect it has to do with the rise of the Like button. Ever since it was released last year, Facebook has been steadily referring more readers our way.

But this info, while interesting, isn’t all that surprising. After all, Facebook is by far the largest social network in the world. With over 750 million active users, it still dwarfs Twitter. The really surprising thing is that Twitter isn’t even our number two social referrer in terms of websites anymore. As of this month, that distinction goes to LinkedIn (LNKD). And it’s not even close.

Yes, LinkedIn, the professional social network which just went public is now by far our second biggest referrer of social traffic. That’s crazy when you consider that just last month, it was around half the size of Twitter (in terms of referrals), and trailed sites like Hacker News. And two months ago, it was roughly 1/8th the size of Twitter, trailing Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and others in terms of referral traffic to TechCrunch. But the biggest stat of all is that a year ago, traffic coming from LinkedIn was 1/50th what it is today on a monthly basis.

So what changed? As far as we can tell, this is all about LinkedIn Today, the social news product the service launched back in March. It was around that time that was saw the first big bump in terms of traffic coming from LinkedIn. In March, it roughly doubled from February. Then April was pretty flat — it was still much higher than previously, but not growing. Then in May, traffic went up 5x. And in June, it more than doubled from that. The growth has been astounding.

Of course what’s perhaps most interesting about that is that LinkedIn Today is powered by Twitter. Twitter shared links determine what shows up on LinkedIn Today, but the traffic does not go back through Twitter.

Again, this is just traffic from LinkedIn to TechCrunch. And the truth is that with its cross between technology and business, LinkedIn may be the most perfect social network for regular TechCrunch readers. But talking with some other bloggers, they’ve been noticing the exact same thing. All of this is undoubtedly buoyed by the LinkedIn social buttons that have been appearing all over the web as well. recently (and on TechCrunch recently).

The bigger question in my mind is what this means for the future of Twitter’s website as a disseminator of news? While Twitter has attempted to help journalists and bloggers a bit with things like the recently-launched Twitter for Newsrooms tutorials, they haven’t had much in the way of new features to better surface information. Referral traffic from Twitter had been steadily rising over the years, but it was only as we gained more Twitter followers incrementally. And in the last year, that traffic has flattened completely. And now in just a couple of months, LinkedIn has shot by it when a hot new product.

Part of the explanations on Twitter’s side may be the increased use of HTTPS, which likely scrubs referrer information in traffic sent. But Facebook and LinkedIn both have HTTPS options as well, and again, those numbers are rising fast, Twitter is not. Also a part of this is the use of Twitter mobile clients. But again, Facebook has hugely popular mobile clients too (though, admittedly, LinkedIn’s mobile clients don’t appear to be as popular, so most of their traffic will likely be from linkedin.com).

If that trend is true on a larger scale, that’s not good news for Twitter. It’s substantial traffic that can’t be ignored, obviously, but the numbers point to it stalling out as others come along. In the same year timespan that Twitter referral traffic has flattened, Facebook referral traffic has gone up six-fold. Again, that doesn’t look good for Twitter. Digg was once the undisputed king of referrals as well. Last month, they were in 17th place in terms of referrals to TechCrunch.

Update: Twitter says the lack of growth on twitter.com is due to the soaring of Twitter mobile usage and says they will share some stats soon which I’ll post here. Though that would also suggest that people are turning away from the website in order to use mobile, which would be interesting. Either way, I altered the title to better reflect that Twitter.com is mainly what’s being discussed here.

Update 2: Twitter has pointed to these previously stated numbers to share in terms of mobile growth.

Read Full Article

How to Add Your Business to Facebook Places

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Anne Baker) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 14:18:00 +0000

Facebook Places is essentially free word-of-mouth advertising for your business. When customers check in, they’ll automatically be telling their Facebook friends about it. If you run a small business with a street entrance, there’s a good chance that it’s already a part of Facebook Places — with or without your input.

By claiming your Page, you have the opportunity to customize that free advertising. It also makes it easy to purchase pay-per-click advertising for your Places page.

Here’s how to get started.

1. Add Your Business To Facebook Places

Open the Facebook app on your mobile phone. Depending on which device you have, you'll either hit "Places" or "Check In" on the home screen of the app. Type the name of your business in the search bar. If there's no listing for your business, there will be an option in the search results menu to add it. You can do so by adding a description and selecting "add."

If your business has already been added to Facebook Places, you can skip this step.

2. Search For Your Business On Facebook

Open Facebook on your desktop and search for your business. Click on the Places result.

3. Claim Your Place

Beneath the image on the Places page there is a hyperlink that says, "Is this your business?" If it is, you can click it to start the verification process.

4. Verify Your Listing

Before Facebook will let you edit the page, they ask for either a business email address or a document that has your name and business' name on it. After you supply either, it can take as long as a week for Facebook to confirm your request.

Important Questions

§ Can I unmerge my Page from Place? As of December, yes.

§ Can I advertise my Place the same way I advertise my Page? Yes. Click “I want to advertise something I have on Facebook” in the ad creation flow and choose your Place from the drop-down menu.

§ Can I target ads to people who visit my place? Not yet.

Image courtesy of the University of Kentucky

Content by Mashable

The Best Times To Post To Twitter & Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Anne Baker) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 17:30:00 +0000

What is the best time to share content on social networks for maximum exposure? Should you post first thing in the morning? During lunch? At the end of the workday when people are getting ready to head home? And how do you account for the fact that you may have potential customers living in different time zones? A new infographic from KISSmetrics answers these questions and more with a new infographic called ‘The Science of Social Timing.’

Here are a few key takeaways from the Science of Social Timing infographic:

* The best day to share on Facebook is Saturday
* The best time to share on Facebook is Noon ET

Read More: Infographic Reveals The Best Times To Post To Twitter & Facebook - SocialTimes.com

A Portrait Of Who Uses Social Networks In The US

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Anne Baker) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 14:24:00 +0000

Did you know that out of all social networking users 92% partake in Facebook, 29% participate on MySpace, 18% are on LinkedIn and Twitter is the least utilized network with just 13% usage? Or that males on LinkedIn nearly double the number of females, yet female usage of Twitter almost doubles male usage? Read More: A Portrait Of Who Uses Social Networks In The US (And How Social Media Affects Our Lives)

3 New Facebook Changes that Benefit Marketers

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Anne Baker) — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 14:56:00 +0000

Facebook recently made some new changes that will benefit marketers and business owners. Read More:
3 New Facebook Changes that Benefit Marketers « Gloria Rand's Blog – SEO, Copywriting, Social Media Marketing:

Facebook exec says tools can promote small businesses - USATODAY.com

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Anne Baker) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 17:08:00 +0000

With more than 500 million members, Facebook is hugely attractive to small businesses as a place to market their wares. But tips on how small businesses can best work with Facebook tools are buried within the site, leaving many entrepreneurs puzzled about how to use the site to get new clients and strengthen the loyalty of existing customers.

How frequently should a business communicate with its customers? And what is the significance of that "Like" button anyway?

For answers to those questions and more, USA TODAY recently paid a visit to Emily White, Facebook's director of Local, who works with businesses on Facebook tools. White was interviewed in a conference room at Facebook headquarters here, where her shiny Apple MacBook laptop was adorned with a "Like Us on Facebook" sticker that the company gives to businesses. Read more: Facebook exec says tools can promote small businesses - USATODAY.com

10 Ways For Entrepreneurs To Build Brands Online

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Anne Baker) — Tue, 31 May 2011 03:15:00 +0000

Everybody needs to get their name out there on the social web. For entrepreneurs, however, it’s an even more critical aspect of the job. A social presence gives you the credibility to attract clients, partners and investors by making yourself available and demonstrating your personality and experience.

Building your online brand in a meaningful way is no easy task, and there are many tools available to get you on the right path. Below, we’ve picked 10 tested methods and highlighted some of the best web tools to help your brand gain momentum in a crowded online marketplace. Read More: 10 Ways For Entrepreneurs To Build Brands Online

Business Listing Management

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Anne Baker) — Thu, 05 May 2011 19:44:00 +0000

"There is one fundamental element that connects your ability to tap local, mobile, and social advertising: your business listing. That's right, the simple name, address, and telephone number information that you've had forever is key to ensuring customers and prospects can find you and learn what differentiates you from your competitors.

Seems simple, but inconsistent and inaccurate business listing information is a real problem for the local search business. In fact, the problem is so large in social media websites, that one in three abandoned their local search because they cannot find accurate information during the local search process

Read More: Business Listing Management | ClickZ:

5 Ways to Optimize Images on a Website or Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Anne Baker) — Tue, 03 May 2011 11:42:00 +0000

Here are 5 things to keep in mind when working with images on your website and blog.

1. Pick an Appropriate Image

When selecting an image for a website page or blog post make sure that your image relates to the content, topic and theme. An image can help to visually relay a message and at the same time draw in your readers. The image doesn't necessarily have to relate to the content literally, it can serve as a creative interpretation, a way to generate curiosity. So next time you add an image, give it some extra thought.

2. Name the File Appropriately

The 5 Qualities of Highly Effective Community Managers

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Anne Baker) — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 14:15:00 +0000

Less than three years ago, community managers were a rare group of employees most often found at technology startups. Today, the role of community manager is common at companies of all sizes — from startups to multinational corporations. Despite their ubiquity, there is still a lot of confusion around what a community manager actually does and what employers should look for when hiring one.

Read More: The 5 Qualities of Highly Effective Community Managers

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