The Small Business Facebook Marketing Quick Reference Sheet is intended to act as a guiding reference of all the things you should touch on to get started creating a strong presence on Facebook for your business. I have also made this reference sheet available for download.

Facebook Marketing is about your Page

• If you don’t have a Page on Facebook for your business. Make one. Pages on Facebook are Profiles for Business (or you can think of them as public profiles).
• Make sure people can find your Facebook Page by naming it something people will search for
• Your Page is where your brand lives, and what you will be branding.
• Your Page gives you access to your fan’s Live Feeds. The Live Feed is where all Facebook users see what’s being shared. So every time you share something, it shows up on their Live Feed when you share it. Remember. Facebook is real-time.
• The goal of your Page is for people who aren’t fans to become fans
• The goal of your Page for people who are fans is to become loyal advocates who buy

How To Brand Your Facebook Page

• Customize your Facebook Fan Page through the Custom Tabs that act as custom ads. There are plenty of resources online and people (like myself) who can assist with this
• Create a profile picture that is branded and sells your Page. Don’t just brand it with your logo. Put your URL and a reminder to your non-fans to become a fan. (How to do this)
• Write a snappy description that exudes your brands personality
• Add Applications to your Page to make it more sticky like YouTube, Promotions, or your own custom app
• Make your Page more interactive and engaging by having videos and pictures readily available for people to view

Facebook Marketing From your Page

• Marketing with your Page happens through posting updates on your Page via the “Share” button
• Make the content you share interesting and relevant to your fans
• Change up your content types. Don’t just share status updates or links. Make sure you’re sharing visually interesting content like images and videos
• Ask no-risk questions to spur interactivity and habit. Think: “What’s your favorite drink?” not “What do you think about the healthcare bill?”
• Make sure you share when people are listening/sharing most. Find your Facebook prime time.
• Post regularly
• Pay attention to your Page marketing Insights. It’s where you can do things like check your Page demographics and see if it’s what you expected for your brand.

How to Increase Your Fans on Facebook

• Buy them through Facebook Ads
• Buy them through give aways and sweepstakes: “Become A Fan and get a 20% off coupon”
• Earn them through helping them be more awesome (quality content)
• Get them by making your Facebook presence known in your other marketing such as TV, your website, e-mail marketing, and other messaging.
• Encourage users to become a fan for their benefit: “If you need any additional assistance and are on Facebook, you can always reach us there!”
• Create a simple viral marketing campaign/contest: “Tell us about your favorite product and the winner gets a gift certificate” (this will show up to the friends of fans)
• Spur virality by getting people to mention your Page  (by using the @ symbol in their posts) for rewards (like a ticket to your event)
• Create events, whether virtual or physical, and use Facebook’s Event system to invite people
• Tag users in photos when possible

While this may just be a brief rundown, if you follow all these points on creating a presence for your company on Facebook, I assure you that you’ll be well on your way to lots of fans and a successful page. Just remember that you have to stay active.

What are your thoughts?

Image credit goes to adesigna

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This post is part of my series, The Complete Guide on How To Use Facebook for Business.

In this video, I outline 2 quick and simple steps to help your Facebook Page get found by people who are looking for it within Facebook.

For example, you have the agencies that wear multiple hats. They’ll do your branding, your marketing, your PR, your web presence, and more if you ask them. I personally don’t see this as an agency (especially as they get into software). Their own marketability  seems to get diluted.

The flip side of this are the top-hat wearing specialists. They only do interface design, or  social media, or search engine optimization. I think there’s a strength in their focus. Look at other specialties, after all. You have electricians, specialized auto mechanics, foot doctors, and so forth. Not to mention the marketability increase dramatically – especially when starting out. Your “pitch” is quite nearly forced to become your elevator speech.

I bring this up because what kind of hat to wear, or how many hats to wear, has been a constant struggle of mine. The evidence of this should be blatantly obvious based on the content of my blog. Facebook and Business models aren’t exactly related — unless I’ve been talking about Facebook’s business model. Which I haven’t.

A convincing case for the top-hat mentality is that if you look at the companies that frequently get acquired, they tend to be top-hat toters. The irony, of course, is that they’re acquired by companies that wear multiple hats.

• Rotten Tomatoes only focused on movie reviews and was acquired
• YouTube only focused on user generated video content and was acquired by Google
• iLike which only focused on music for social networks initially was acquired by MySpace

Is there an answer to whether a top-hat is better than wearing multiple-hats? I think both can look fairly ridiculous. I am beginning to think that simply adhering to the business model that led to success in the first place should play a larger role. If you’re working to build that initial success, then the laser focus of a specialty may be the simplest way to get there.

What does that mean for me? It means I need to wear the hat that fits the best. Better question – what does that mean for you?

Hat tip to rattyfied for the only useful top-hat photo on flickr. Oh yes, pun totally intended.

The wedding was amazing. As everyone says, it goes by in a hurry. Thankfully, we had the whole live stream archived, and Stacy’s family has put the archived version to be viewable online until the edited version is finished. So if you’d like to see the archived live stream of our wedding – take a look!

The live stream was almost as important as updating our Facebook status (which we had to pay the hotel internet access to do). Yes, we’re that dorky : )

Yes. I am enough of a new media nerd and am thankful my in-laws are also nerdy enough to organize the live streaming of our wedding on Saturday at 4. More info on our wedding site: http://wedding.thesnell.com

A big thanks to Stacys family too (which comprises much of the Broadcast Group) for doing a masterful job with the event overall. They’ve really gone above and beyond and no doubt you’ll be able to tell.

As you might suspect. This also means I won’t be posting till next Tuesday (when our initial honeymoon is over – yes initial). Rest assured tho, I’ll be back with much to share. Both personally and about Facebook.

In this video I take you through the first stages of creating a Facebook Page for your company, the importance of choosing your categories, picking a name that people are looking for, and what account you should be creating a Page from.

If you have any further questions, feel free to let me know! Coming up will be more on customization!

This next line should wake you up like realizing you accidently hit “reply all” to that personal e-mail you meant to send to one specific person.

1. Most people will come to your Facebook Page just once.

Taking that into consideration, you have one opportunity to get the person to become a fan of your page. It also means the primary goal/strategy of every Facebook Page should be to convert as many users as possible to become a fan of your Page. You can see this in play by Mashable, as well as many others.

2. The value of your Facebook Page is in what you share, not in the Page itself.

After you get someone to become a fan of your page, your secondary strategy kicks in – sharing. This is also where the true value of your Facebook Page is.

When someone is a fan of your page it gives you the opportunity to share continual information with them that they will find interesting. It’s about them, not you. If you shoot wedding photography, share memories and stories. If you’re a real estate agent, share crime rates and ask questions like what the first thing people look for in a house is.

3. The success of your Page lies in its activity

If people are “liking” or commenting on what you’re posting on your Page, then there’s a pretty good chance they’re also clicking on your links and sharing what you post with their friends.

One important thing to note is the more activity your Page receives, the better chance you have at your Page showing up in the News Feed, where you get exponential marketing exposure. We want activity.

4. Your page isn’t for acquiring new customers.

The vast majority of the time, your Page will be best served as a customer retention tool not a customer acquisition tool. It’s unlikely someone who doesn’t have a pre-existing relationship with your company will fan your page, because being a fan can be a rather personal arrangement (depending on the Page).

That doesn’t mean there’s no point in having a Facebook Page or that you won’t get any new customers. It just means your strategy needs to be focused.

5. Timing is everything

I’ve said this again and again: Facebook is real-time. What you say at 11:00 am is only seen at 11:00 am (unless it gets a lot of activity). So use your Facebook analytics to understand your Page demographics. We’ll get into using your Page demographics later, but the idea is simple: are your demographics what you expected and are you sharing when said demographic is likely listening?

More Secrets?

What’s a Facebook Marketing Secret that has served you well?

Sweet looking photo credit goes to rpongsaj.

The opportunity Facebook brings to businesses should be obvious – there’s a lot of potential customers and eyeballs available. But getting access to the widely untapped population of hundreds of thousands of Facebook users can be a bit tricky.

That’s why with all of my recent Facebook research, writing, and presentations, I’ve decided to create the complete guide on how to use Facebook for business (free). I am going to be building this guide over the course of the next couple of weeks. Here’s some of what you can expect to learn:

• Fundamentals of a rockstar Facebook strategy
• How to create a Facebook Page for your company
• The secrets of getting your company found on Facebook
• How to make your Facebook Page grow like a weed
• Getting your Facebook updates into the News Feed
• How to write killer Facebook updates
• Linking your Facebook account with other social media

Posts Written

• 5 Facebook Page Secrets You need to Know
• [Video] How to create a Facebook Page for your business (getting started)
• 2 Simple steps to help your Facebook Page get found

Not Complete Enough For You?

If there are any immediate Facebook questions that you don’t see present in the list above, feel free to let me know and I would be more than willing to cover it and add it to what will be the growing list above!

Laughing Squid took the sweet photo. They’ve got an awesome site too, so check it out!

What’s really significant about Twitter’s lack of recent downtime is that they’re actually being reported as up more frequently than Facebook. I will save my “oohs” and “ahhhs”, however, for when Twitter sustain that up-time while having a userbase 2.5x the size of Japan. I have hope for the fail whale yet.

If the question “What was MySpace’s up-time?” is ringing in your head, then to you, I say, get a grip. MySpace was so last year. But really. MySpace? Who thinks about MySpace anymore? Or is the real question is, who is Captain Ahab? Seriously. I wiki’d him for an accurate reference, which makes me glad wikipedia just got its additional 7.5m in funding… otherwise I’d have to use Google legitimately.

Photo credit to Paul Rj Muller