Net Profits Media

Shortstack Custom Facebook Pages Tool

2014-05-05T13:29:00.004-07:00

If you’re like many businesses you’ve started a Facebook page at some point in the recent or not so recent past. You have a bunch of existing likes, get a handful of new likes every week, lose a fan or two but really are not doing anything to truly engage your fans. If that’s the case you’re beginning to see or maybe already are seeing less and less broadcast of your posts.

Due to how Facebook determines what gets presented in users feeds, your company may not even be showing up, and your “Talking About This” TATs is going down or practically non-existent.

A great online tool to change your Facebook business page from boring to extraordinary is ShortStack.

With ShortStack you can easily create:

Photo & Video Contests
Contests of all sorts
Sweepstakes
Coupons
Build your email lists
Add YouTube & Vimeo to your Facebook Pages
Integrate with Pinterest, Instagram, Foursquare & Twitter
Show your location with Google Maps
Google Analytics
Create “like-gates”

Did I mention you don’t need to know programming or coding? ShortStack comes complete with easily customizable templates and forms. Or, if you do have the skills or need the flexibility of full coding you have that option as well.

If you get stuck help is just a few clicks away. You Tube videos, Help Documents, ShortStack University and a Support Desk are there when you need it or are looking for new inspiration.

With ShortStack you can super-charge your business Facebook page and engage your fans which allows you back in the newsfeed and where you belong.

[X]PendaPalooza Results Are In

2014-05-01T10:00:00.000-07:00

[X]PendaPalooza, the Empire Avenue buy-a-thon designed to boots the Empire Avenue brand and shareholders value can have dramatic results on players stock prices.

The [X]PendaPalooza 14, which ran April 25-27, 2014 attracted over 1,000 participants according to Omar Habayeb (e)EDUPRENEUR.

The players in the recently concluded event included brand new Empire Avenue "newbies" along with highly-established "old-timers" and a wide range of folks in between.

Overall a sampling of 13 players after the event shows an overall stock price increase of 6.86%. The sampled participants did include a cross-section representative of the overall makeup of Empire Avenue players.

		Share Prices
Name		Change	Percentage
James Meyer	(e)JAMESMEYER	15.76	3.52%
Kita Champion	(e)KITA	27.79	2.55%
Lynn O'Connell	(e)OMDIRECT	25.78	4.39%
Bret Bumeter	(e)BRETTBUM	6.57	2.75%
Omar Habayeb	(e)EDUPRENEUR	43.99	12.57%
Road2Social	(e)ERINBOYKIN	27.54	46.99%
Dennis Coble	(e)DENNISCOBLE	24.16	3.56%
John Jeckmans	(e)JECKMANS	26.81	10.90%
James Campbell	(e)CHAOSCAT	13.82	6.52%
Martin Hojbjerg	(e)ZOSARIA	19.23	4.33%
Matthew Weber	(e)THEREALMATT	45.64	26.44%
Thor Henning Heland	(e)TOTTO	34.91	40.52%
Web Tools Wiki	(e)WEBTOOLSWIKI	17.35	9.25%
		Average	6.86%

Empire Avenue [X]PendaPalooze events are a great way to buy and sell stock in other players, building the value of your portfolio.

Hope you catch up to me on Empire Avenue at https://www.empireavenue.com?srefid=5097ce39751518.05821121

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NetProfitsMedia
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NetProfitsMedia
Google +: google.com/+JamesMeyer

Grow YOUR #socialmedia network, connect with leaders get great content- join me on #empireavenue for [X]PendaPalooza

Google

Net Effect of Empire Avenue Missions Detailed

2014-04-27T08:10:00.003-07:00

Empire Avenue can dramatically impact your business. It's a strong statement and one I don't make lightly. Let me illustrate actual results. Of course your results may vary, they may be worse, or they may be greater.

First, let's go back over what Empire Avenue is. Empire Avenue is an online "stock market" used by other businesses and more importantly, social media experts. If you would like a more detailed explanation see, When a Game is Really a Marketing Tool, Empire Avenue.

You can promote your business, venture, brand, blog post, YouTube channel or ??? Whatever online asset you have that could use more eyes, more engagement and more traffic, Empire Avenue Missions are designed generate traffic. For an overview on missions and creating them, including how-to video click here.

This balance of this post is focusing on results, showing the actual results of two missions I ran for this exact blog. On purpose I have not promoted this blog for the past several months. Any traffic I have been getting has been organic through my SEO efforts and really, I don't do much to promote this site organically being a free Blogger blog. But this does prove useful to establishing our beginning trend line as shown in orange in the image below.

I created Mission #1 to drive traffic and create engagement. The mission took me just a few minutes to create. You can see in the image below, traffic skyrocketed roughly 400% compared to the beginning trend line and prior traffic results.

After Mission #1 completed, residual traffic continued due to the sharing efforts of Empire Avenue members who completed the mission initially. Post mission daily traffic to this blog was roughly double compared to the beginning trend line.

Roughly one week later, I posted a second mission on Empire Avenue, Mission #2 to drive additional traffic. As you can see in the image below, once again traffic spiked. The spike is smaller than from Mission #1. Let me explain a possible reason for this. For Mission #2, I spent exact 1/2 the eaves I did for the first mission. Just a test to see what would happen. Would I get 1/2 the results, same, more? Mission #2 generated 22% less traffic with 50% less eaves budget. Its interesting to see value generated with ongoing missions, a sort of economy of scale if you will.

This suggests some exponential growth from Mission #1 to Mission #2.

So as you can see, Empire Avenue Missions are a great way to generate traffic to your online asset, whatever that may be. Check back soon, I'm putting together results of a Facebook "Like" Campaign using Empire Avenue missions.

Hope you catch up to me on Empire Avenue at https://www.empireavenue.com?srefid=5097ce39751518.05821121

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NetProfitsMedia
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NetProfitsMedia
Google +: google.com/+JamesMeyer

Grow YOUR #socialmedia network, connect with leaders get great content- join me on #empireavenue for [X]PendaPalooza

The Promotion Game - on Steroids

2014-04-26T13:38:00.001-07:00

[X]Pendapalooza is an opportunity for players, new and experienced to interact, buy shares, and grow their networks, brands, businesses. It's a 48-hour buy-a-thon designed to pump up both, the Empire Avenue brand, and the players that participate and maximize the opportunity [X]PendaPalooza brings.

In a previous post I highlighted Empire Avenue missions, and defined Empire Avenue as such:

Empire Avenue is an online "stock market" used by other businesses and more importantly, social media experts. To play the game you basically buy and sell other players stock and complete "Missions" to gain additional "eaves" (the virtual currency used in EA). At this point you may be asking yourself what this has to do with advertising and promoting your business. Simple... you create missions to reward other players (using the virtual currency "eaves") for promoting your business. Others promote your business, the very epitome of "social media" and social proof.

Empire Avenue themselves define Empire Avenue:

The Empire Avenue Social Market is a fun game built around social media using virtual currency. Individuals and Businesses can use the game to “invest” their currency in other profiles and create a connected Portfolio of profiles that span multiple networks from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr and more. The more people you invest in and the more you invest in each person, the deeper your connections. The following is what you can accomplish by playing the Social Market game on Empire Avenue:

So if you're getting the point of what Empire Avenue is, what happens when the users of Empire Avenue decide to kick it into high gear? You get [X]PendaPalooza

Years ago Ron Heigh (e)PWND and John Gushue (e)JOHNGUSHUE formed the 1st [X]Pendapalooza along with collaboration from (e)ADRIEL, (e)EDUPRENEUR (e)REIGN, (e)BEN, (e)ALLIE, (e)CLATKO (e)FEEDTHEWORLD and (e)NORTHLANDFOX. The first one was held in May 2011.

Cost: Nothing
You don't have to buy anything, you don't have to buy other players.

Ways to get eaves to play: You will need eaves to buy other players if you so choose. During the event, expect many missions to be promoted giving you eaves to spend for completing the mission (see missions).

Expected outcome: [X]Pendapalooza connects the social media expert, the business owner, the average and the great at what they do to form a collective and effective networking opportunity.

If you play and invest in others you will see your stock value and bank balance rise. That's an absolute. And this gives you more eaves, the virtual currency used on Empire Avenue, to fund more missions, to buy other players or to purchase upgrades.

Grow YOUR #socialmedia network, connect with leaders get great content- join me on #empireavenue for [X]PendaPalooza https://www.empireavenue.com?srefid=5097ce39751518.05821121

[X]PendaPalooza 14

The Promotion Game

2014-04-14T05:40:00.002-07:00

When a Game is really a marketing tool, Empire Avenue

Promote your brand, your business using the best in the business.

Have you ever thought just how much exposure you could get using the best in the business if money was no object? The best social media marketers are ready to promote your business and they don't accept cash for payment. They do however accept "virtual currency".

Empire Avenue is an online "stock market" used by other businesses and more importantly, social media experts. To play the game you basically buy and sell other players stock and complete "Missions" to gain additional "eaves" (the virtual currency used in EA). At this point you may be asking yourself what this has to do with advertising and promoting your business. Simple... you create missions to reward other players (using the virtual currency "eaves") for promoting your business. Others promote your business, the very epitome of "social media" and social proof.

How it works; to begin with you must have some social accounts. This can be Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google +, Instagram or whatever. You create posts using your social accounts and post "Missions" offering others "eaves" for promoting your posts. For example, you tweet (#Twitter) about a new product. You create a Mission offering 25,000 eaves (or more or less, it's up to you) to fellow EA members to retweet your post. You launch your mission and people start sharing your content and collecting their reward. It's really simple and takes just minutes. Your tweet gets retweeted to thousands, maybe tens or hundreds of thousands of people and it cost you nothing but "virtual" currency. Here's a video overview

Hope you catch up to me on Empire Avenue at https://www.empireavenue.com?srefid=5097ce39751518.05821121

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NetProfitsMedia
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NetProfitsMedia
Google +: google.com/+JamesMeyer

Don't Shake the Hook

2013-05-09T13:26:00.001-07:00

I have the great fortune and honor of working with a wide range of businesses and organizations. This privilege provides me with direct access to the great and not so great uses for social media and Web 2.0. This posting is going to focus on engaging your audience and not wasting the social capital you have cultivated.

What caused me to think about this as subject matter? A non-profit I volunteer with has a Facebook page. They created a secondary page for an event. They are now promoting the secondary page to the audience of the primary page with posts like:

Like our page XXX to stay up to date on RxxxTxxHxxxxx. (RTH is a one-time event).

What??? Why would they do this? I asked... and received no real answer. Why would someone that is already following them be asked to follow a separate page competing for space on their newsfeed? Why would the pull people from their main page to a one-time event page?

It seems they have many people, volunteers and paid employees that have admin access. This creates issues such as posts competing for audience attention, posts that lack consistency and overall planning and posts that simple are not worth posting because they do not follow any best practices or lack relevant information.

Wow.... No wonder their overall page and individual posts appears to engage very little of their audience.

Think about yourself for a moment. You find a product or service you like. You check them out online. Might be a blog, Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest page, or maybe Google+. Doesn't so much matter. What does matter is your found something that you identify with and "like", "follow" or "add". Whatever the correct action is for the particular page. You start receiving content and engage with the brand. The odds of you buying that product or service in the future is now sky-high. (much has been written on buying habits of fans so I won't go into that here.)

What if that brand, product or service suddenly changed their messaging, frequency or quite simply started putting out posts that didn't interest / engage you? Would your impression change? Would it change for the better or worse? Overall your feeling for the brand would change in a negative way and with it possibly any future purchasing decisions might not "automatically" be for that brand.

Stay consistent without becoming stale
Don't confusing your fan
Be original
Don't post long rambling posts or posts of irrelevant subject matter
and don't post with several distinctly different "voices"

If you find yourself turning off your fans you run the risk of losing them as customers. Chances are your competitors are more than happy to fill the void both in terms of social content which ultimately could turn into sales revenue and subsequent brand loyalty.

Designing and Executing Cross Promotions

2012-12-28T14:45:00.000-08:00

Cross promoting between five local retailers worked out great.

Use social media to attract, retain and gain customers. See results. I'll show you how, I'll explain it to you and you and your fellow local retailers will grow.

See two complimentary promotions that can be easily advertised on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and email that will produce immediate results.

Social Media Managers React to the New Facebook

2012-10-03T07:40:00.000-07:00

Lately Facebook has sent out some major signals on just how they are going to conduct business moving forward. Like Facebook or not, if you own, manage or have any interest in business you need to be aware of these changes and just what they mean.

Since the now famous Facebook IPO, there has been tremendous pressure on Facebook to provide more consistent value in the forms of revenue streams. Two things have happened in the last few weeks that should cause businesses and marketing managers either delight or fear.

1. Facebook announced Facebook Gifts.

Facebook users will be able to send birthday, holiday and other gifts. You know all those birthday reminders that pop up? Soon you will be able to click an icon or link next to the persons name and send a gift. A message can also be sent to the recipient’s Facebook Timeline or as a private message. The recipient of the gift enters his or her address, so the giver doesn’t have to worry about that.

A few thoughts on this. First WOW! - that could be supremely convenient for users. Two, what a powerful opportunity for Facebook to make huge amounts of money. Three, how impersonal. I want my friend to at least "think" I put some efforts into their gift. Four, out of my hundreds and hundreds of "friends" I only buy gifts for a few so frankly it's no big deal. Whatever your thoughts - this has potential to be huge and change the e-commerce landscape!

2. If your a Social Media Marketing Manager that pays any attention to stats you probably noticed post views declining in the last week or two. This seems to have happened the same time Facebook modified their Offers platform, eliminating the ability to post Offers for free. Also, this seems to have coincided with the whole "Fake Likes" "cleanup". I presume so that Facebook could basically explain to businesses the drop in post views has to do with many fake "likes" not that Facebook changed any algorithms or anything. Accessing the stats at Page Data, 14 of the top 30 brands and pages experienced negative growth in the past week.

It's clear that Facebook is reducing the ability to promote pages and brands on their platform without paying them to do so.

Where Facebook is going, how Facebook will look a year from now, and how businesses and consumers use and what they expect from Facebook will be completely different from today that much is clear. As a Social Media manager you need to think about your current strategy and how to adapt to maximize the new Facebook for your brand and business.

Time Your Tweets Terrifically Tomorrow

2012-07-24T18:56:00.000-07:00

Business is not about "doing", business is about "achieving". A simple statement that has no argument. When it comes to SMM you can tilt the playing field in your favor; knowing the "right way" to do things and knowing the "right time" to do things.

Let's focus on the "right time". When is the "right time" to "tweet" or share on Twitter? Earlier in the year bit.ly released their findings and I, along with many other people shared the news. Here is my original post: http://netprofitsmedia.blogspot.com/2012/05/best-time-to-post_4558.html.

To summarize, "According to the study and results published by bit.ly, the link shortening and tracking service, to get the most clicks to your link on Twitter post between 1:00pm - 3:00pm. Fewest clicks result from posting after 3:00pm on Friday and on weekends. Posting after 8:00pm should be avoided."

Additionally I urged readers to perform their own testing. I have for several months since the bit.ly report came out and here's what I found. For testing purpose I used two separate accounts, Stumble Upon and Crowdbooster.

Test Results

The stats for my Stumble Upon account indicate best times to post to Twitter are at 3:40am, 1:50pm and 3:15pm as shown in the graph. This is very similar to the bit.ly report but I would have totally missed the very early morning time period which appears to be quite significant to my particular followers.

However, based upon my Crowdbooster account the best time to post to Twitter is between 10-11am Central which would be 11am-12noon EST., see highlighted section.

Based on Crowdbooster I need to post to Twitter almost two full hours earlier than the Stumble Upon report and there is no indication of an early morning bump.

So now we have the bit.ly report, and my own findings using Stumble Upon and Crowdbooster. All times Eastern:

bit.ly Report: 1pm-3pm
Stumble Upon: 3:40am-6:00am, 1:50pm-3:15pm
Crowdbooster: 11:00am - 12:00pm

Summary

These findings illustrate that we can get close to finding the "right time" to post on Twitter and definitely maximize efforts but there is no simple one-size fits all answer. If you have not yet started your own testing I hope you see the importance of doing so and monitoring results for your firm or clients. Your results may duplicate these findings or you may find an entirely different "best time" for posting.

A Promotion Worth Repeating

2012-07-24T05:06:00.000-07:00

Just finished up with an interesting promotion for a client using Foursquare check-ins and a baseball ticket giveaway. Here is the concept, goal and results.

Background:

Basically, the client continually offers a Foursquare check-in. They give away a free margarita for every check in, are very happy with the results, and see the number of check-ins grow each month. They receive just about 5x’s more check-ins monthly than their competitors and promote check-ins online and in-house.

Concept:

The owner received four free baseball tickets from a supplier and wanted to use them to promote the business. I suggested having a contest using Foursquare, picking a date and rewarding the Mayor of Foursquare on that date with a pair of the tickets.

Goal:

Increase check-ins on Foursquare by adding a promotional element / contest. The Foursquare Mayor on a selected date would be given two baseball tickets as a thank you / reward.

Timeframe:

Promote contest for two weeks prior to promotion deadline.

Results:

Foursquare check-ins increased 40% during the two week promotion period. Additionally, check-ins maintained an 11% ongoing lift when compared to before the contest.

Additional brand impressions: 2700

Cost per each additional viral impression under $0.03 each

Assumptions, each customer that checked in has a modest viral reach of 130 friends.

Estimated cost per pair of tickets $100

Needless to say this client is very excited about these results and looks forward to additional promotions in the future.

How to Measure Your Facebook Reach Locally

2012-06-17T21:41:00.001-07:00

How many Facebook users does your business reach locally? How many total Facebook users are in the local market? Simple questions that are easily measured and tracked using existing information that is readily available. Most business owners I speak with don't have the first clue what these figure are.

If you own a retail store, restaurant, nightclub or other venue that generates a majority of its revenue on a local basis, measuring and growing your Facebook reach on a local basis may have a profound impact on the overall health of your business. Here's how.

Step 1. Determine quantity of Facebook users in local market.

Step 2. Determine quantity of Facebook users that "Like" your business.

Step 3. Determine baseline percent.

Step 4. Create your Smart Goal.

Step 5. Act and measure.

Step 1. To determine how many Facebook users are in the local market you have to look at Facebook "Ads". You don't have to actually create an ad but you do have to open the ad application and select the City in the Choose Your Audience section. Enter your City and the quantity of Facebook users will populate automatically. You can also specify by zip code.

In this example I would be targeting the zip code of 90210 which has over 323,000 Facebook users.

For full documentation and creating a Facebook ad see https://www.facebook.com/business

Step 2. To determine how many Facebook users "Like" your business, simply look at your Insights page, "Likes" selection. The section labelled "Cities" details "The number of people that liked your Page as of xx/xx/xxxx broken down by city. This is based on the users estimated home location.

Step 3. You now have the two figures necessary to determine your "Reach". This creates your baseline percentage.

Step 4. Determine what "Reach" goal is. Want to maintain the current percentage? Double it? Triple it? Remember to make your goal a SMART Goal for better results.

Your SMART Goal might read something like; the marketing department (or specific person) of Business X will increase local Facebook reach from X% to Y% of overall local Facebook users in the next X days.

So it might read something like; Mary will increase local Facebook reach from 15% to 25% of overall local Facebook users in the next 60 days.

If you need a refresher on SMART Goals I do into further detail in the article Ensure Your Social Media Efforts are Paying Off.

Step 5. Act on your new initiative and measure your results at the end of each month. Ask your customers to "Like" your business on Facebook. This can be done in your venue with signage, in print ads, using Facebook ads and landing pages, on radio, any number of ways that fit your budget and goals.

Measuring Engagement Levels in Social Media

2012-06-06T04:42:00.000-07:00

Social Media Marketing success is based almost entirely on how well you engage your customers. I qualify with "almost" because I believe if your efforts are not supporting a quality brand, product or service you could do most everything perfectly and still not get great results.

Social Media pros know they need to measure their efforts and adjust to consistently and systematically improve engagement with their audience. Here are a number of great tools that create visibility and allow you to monitor your effectiveness.

Measure Your Overall Effectiveness Across Multiple Channels

Klout http://klout.com

The Klout Score measures influence based on your ability to drive action. Every time you create content or engage you influence others. The Klout Score uses data from social networks in order to measure:

True Reach: How many people you influence
Amplification: How much you influence them
Network Impact: The influence of your network

Peer Index http://www.peerindex.com

Peer Index scores your online influence, rewarding for positive interactions and mitigating negative ones.

Crowdbooster https ://crowdbooster.com shows re-tweets stats and graphs plus Facebook impression counts and interactions

Crowdbooster helps you achieve an effective presence on Twitter and Facebook. We show you analytics that aren't based on abstract scores but numbers that are connected to your business and your social media strategies: impressions, total reach, engagement, and more. We then give you the tools and recommendations you need to take action and improve each one of these metrics.

Social Bakers http://www.socialbakers.com/

Socialbakers has developed an application that makes it easy for to get sophisticated metrics on our performance through Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube.

Facebook Specific

EdgeRank Checker http://edgerankchecker.com / (Ranking by day, time, post, all the details)

EdgeRank is an algorithm that ranks objects in the Facebook News Feed. Pages receiving high EdgeRank Scores will be more likely to show up in the fans news feed instead of Pages with low EdgeRank Scores.

Why is EdgeRank Important?

If a Brand generally has low EdgeRank objects, then the Brand’s updates will be seen by less people. This means that their Facebook marketing budget is being less effective than it could be. Brands that are succeeding with high EdgeRank objects are leveraging their Facebook budget by multitudes. The difference between leveraging and being punished by EdgeRank is substantial. The difference can result in a 5x difference in exposure.

0 – 10 is below average
11 – 20 is average
21 – 30 is above average
31+ is excellent

Facebook Insights

Facebook Insights provides Facebook Platform developers and Facebook Page owners with metrics around their content. By understanding and analyzing trends within user growth and demographics, consumption of content, and creation of content, Page owners and Platform developers are better equipped to improve their business and create better experiences on Facebook.

Talking About This: (TAT) This figure represents how many of your fans have interacted by any or all of the following; Liked your Page, Liked a Post Goals, Liked an Image, Shared or commented. Between 4% and 8% of followers engaging equals good results and are the most cited figures by industry experts.

Likes and Shares: When someone Likes or Shares content on your page

Check Ins: When someone Checks-In to your venue on Facebook.

Twitter Specific

Tweet Grader http://tweet.grader.com /

Twitter Grader is a free tool that allows you to check the power of your twitter profile compared to millions of other users that have been graded.

Just enter your twitter username (password not needed) and you'll get an instant grade and report. It's easy. Ratings are on a 1-100 scale

Retweets; if you get a lot of retweets from your followers you are doing a good job of providing them content they enjoy and want to share.
Clicks; if your followers are clicking and following your links you have established a positive relationship with your followers.

Stumble Upon URL Shortener su.pr shortens and provides Twitter click statistics when you create and post using their service. Also provides recommended times to post based upon previous results.

Su.pr is an URL shortening service for online publishers, bloggers and StumbleUpon members that allows you to simultaneously syndicate your content to multiple social media websites. With Su.pr you can now post your best content on Twitter and Facebook with one click.

Bitly URL Shortener bitly.com shortens and provides click statistics and graphs.

bitly is the easiest and most fun way to save, share and discover links from around the web. We call these links bitmarks, and you can use bitly to remember, curate and share them.

FourSquare Specific

Check-Ins; On Foursquare success is measured in number of check-ins
Tips (Recommendations); are great on Foursquare as Tips left about your venue are seen by everyone viewing your venue on Foursquare and may influence, positive or negative.

Get More Social Media Ideas and How To

Drive more business; How to Launch Facebook Offers, Brand Building on Facebook, Best Time to Post on Facebook and Twitter, How to Super Charge your Facebook, How to use Facebook and Linked In groups http://netprofitsmedia.blogspot.com/

Please share the tools you use by posting a comment below.

Tools for Measuring Social Media Marketing Results

2012-06-05T18:19:00.001-07:00

In the article, Ensure Your Social Media Efforts are Paying Off I detailed how to create Smart Goals to define expectations and realistic goals for your Social Media Marketing efforts. This post, Social Media Tools for Measuring Results is about creating those relationships between things that are measurable and you can qualify and those things that are not worth the resources to measure and instead are quantified.

If you have created a proper Smart Goal, your goal should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time Bound. So let's use the example in Ensure Your Social Media Efforts are Paying off and define a Smart Goal for measuring.

Smart Goal - Using Social Media increase revenues 10% within the next 60 days.

Specific - yes, increase revenue 10%
Measurable - yes, we can measure revenue
Attainable - yes, 10% is possible
Relevant - yes, we are using Social Media and I am the person to do this
Time Bound - yes, in the next 60 days

The most difficult part of this will be to determine how much revenue is based on social media marketing. Let's create a few "facts" for our example.

We will create a hypothetical restaurant names SoCal Steaks.

Current figures: (Using the same example we created in Ensure Your Social Media Efforts are Paying Off).

Weekly Sales = $50,000
Customers Served = 2000
Ave per Customer = $25

Social Media Networks Usage

SoCal Steaks has a Facebook fan page. Is listed on Foursquare but has not claimed the venue. SoCal also has a Twitter account that is not really used. The current stats are as follows:

Facebook Fans: 500

Check-Ins per day: 1
Check-Ins per week: 7
Check-Ins per fan: 0.2%
Current new Fan rate: 2 per week
Updates: 2 per week

Foursquare Check-Ins per day: 1

Check-Ins per week: 7 (To see how to claim a venue and create Foursquare Check-ins)

Twitter Followers: 50
Tweets: 2 per week (Twitter account is tied to Facebook account)

Stats and Figures

Using the current stats we know:

14 total Check-Ins per week (7 FB + 7 FS).
Check-Ins per Facebook Fan: 0.2%
Check In Revenue: $350 ($25 ave sale x 14 check-ins per week)
Check In Revenue as a % of Total Revenue: .7% (FB + FS combined)

We place a value of a Facebook fan to equal $0.10 cents revenue ($50,000 revenue / 500 Facebook Fans). We will adjust later as we learn more but let's say $0.10 to start. So, to increase revenues 10% which equals $5,000 per week we would need to add 50,000 fans at a value of $.10 each. That's not possible, realistic or feasible.

Let's look at this differently. We need to determine how many Facebook fans come into the restaurant and how often. We can do this by asking them on Facebook with a Poll. We can create a Check-In Special or Facebook offer, both of which are also a great tracking tools.

Creating A Check-In Special or Facebook Offer and Measuring

A Facebook Check In and Offer are two different things. Both are basically a special that will allow us to track how check-ins relate to fans and revenues. The added benefit of a check-in is they do it at the venue and every time a fan checks in they broadcast to their friends they are at SoCal Steaks. A great added bonus which should bring in more customers as well.

By the customer broadcasting the check-in to their friends we might also see an increase in our new fan rate. We determined our current rate to equal 2 new fans per week. If we see this increase to 10 per week and we previously determine each fan is worth $0.10, then we also realize a virtual worth of $1.00 that should be deducted from the cost of the Check-In.

Here's how to Create Facebook Offers in Minutes.

How Much Does a Check In or Offer Cost

There is no charge from Facebook to create either. There are different types of Check-Ins or Offers you can create. One that is a % off, one that is a free item, one that is a dollar value off. I prefer and recommend the free item. Why? The cost of the item is much less than the value. For example, a free dessert that sells for $7.00 will cost under $2.00 normally.

How Much Does a Check In or Offer Bring in Revenue

Calculate the revenue using the sale, less the cost of the dessert. You may find the average sale goes up. In the case of the free dessert, the customer may add a coffee to go with the dessert. The added profit from the coffee will partially offset the cost of the dessert making the cost minimal.

ROI per Check In Customer

Cost of Check-In: $1.00 (Food cost $2 - Fan increase $1(10 x .10))

Revenue: $25+ in revenue.
ROI: $24 per check in.

This would equate to running an a print ad for $500 and generating $12,000 in sales. Something any business owner would take every day of the week. Fantastic! Remember, when you run an ad with a coupon in the local newspaper or where ever you need to add the cost of the ad when determining ROI.

Print Ad Example:

Coupons redeemed: 100
Food cost: $2 per unit
Ad Cost: $300

Food Cost Total $200 (100 x $2) + Ad Cost ($300) = Total Cost $500 or $5 per customer.
ROI: $20

You can see the ROI for a Facebook check-in is $24 compared to a print at ROI of $20. Use this formula with your exact figures and see which is more profitable for your venue.

Quick Update

At this point it is important to note that we need to be seeing an overall increase of sales otherwise we are cannibalizing typical sales. We want to add sales, not see the same sales with the increased cost of the Check In Special or Offer.

Do a quick tally of Sales / customer = Ave sale per customer. This should be done weekly if not daily.

Progress with Facebook Check-Ins

Week 1: 10 Check-Ins
Week 2: 15 Check-Ins (50% increase)
Week 3: 22 Check-Ins (32% increase)
Week 4: 29 Check-Ins (32% increase)
Total after 4 weeks: 76 check-ins total, weekly change +32%

Total Facebook Fans

Week 1: 520; +20
Week 2: 555; +35
Week 3: 580; +25
Week 4: 610; +35

These figures are examples, track your actual figures and determine your rate and projections.

Let's remember our goal is to increase sales revenue $5000 per week which equals 200 new customers.

Projections at a sustained 32% increase in check-ins

Week 4: 38 (29 x 1.32 rate increase)
Week 5: 49 (38 x 1.32 rate increase)
Week 6: 64 (49 x 1.32 rate increase)
Week 7: 83 (64 x 1.32 rate increase)
Week 8: 108 (83 x 1.32 rate increase)

These figures are examples, track your actual figures and determine your rate and projections.

During our week 4 review we would determine that our efforts to add 200 more weekly customers using strictly Facebook Check-Ins and see at Week 8 we would have 108 customers and would fall short by 92 customers. We would need to modify our Smart Goals, or add more Social Media Marketing initiatives.

At this point the decision might be made to add Foursquare Check Ins. Foursquare Check Ins work the same as Facebook but potentially bring new customers into the venue. Remember, with Facebook Check-Ins and Offers you are primarily reaching fans that "Like" you. Foursquare opens up your Check-In to everyone using Foursquare. To start using Foursquare and create check-ins see How To Foursquare and Drive Business.

Measuring Tools - Part 3

Social Media pros know they need to measure their efforts and adjust to consistently and systematically improve engagement with their audience. Here are a number of great tools that create visibility and allow you to monitor your effectiveness.

http://netprofitsmedia.blogspot.com/2012/06/measuring-engagement-levels-in-social.html

I hope this 3 part article gives you some good ideas and provides a working framework to start, measure and succeed in your Social Media Marketing efforts.

Get More Social Media Ideas and How To

Drive more business; How to Launch Facebook Offers, Brand Building on Facebook, Best Time to Post on Facebook and Twitter, How to Super Charge your Facebook, How to use Facebook and Linked In groups http://netprofitsmedia.blogspot.com/

Ensure Your Social Media Efforts are Paying Off.

2012-06-05T16:15:00.000-07:00

Are your Social Media efforts paying off? Yes or No? How do you know? Define paying off? If you're a small business, a marketing professional, or trying to sell your services in Social Media you must to be able to provide simple answers to this direct, but complex question. So, the answer to the question, "What are the results of our Facebook spend" better not be, "We got a lot of likes." And it can't be, "things are going good." You need to specifically illustrate how your Social Media Marketing efforts are supporting business goals and paying off.

Every business needs to know the results from activities and use of resources. Nothing frustrates upper management and business owners more than guesses, hunches or evasive answers. The challenge becomes quantifying and qualifying your efforts and defining success. If you can do this you will win more business, or will become an indispensable superstar with a valued opinion well on your way to reaching your career goals.

Example in Action

Let's say you are responsible for the Marketing for a restaurant and you want to generate $260,000 more annually which equals $5000 more dollars in sales per week. $5000 dollars may be huge or small for your particular situation or venue so please replace this figure with something more relevant but let's use $5000 for this example.

You know or should know what each customer generates on average for revenue. In our example for nice round numbers lets say that each customer equals $25 in sales. How many new customers do you need in your restaurant to reach your goal? That's easy, $5000 (sales) / $25 (ave per customer) = 200 new customers. This is 200 more customers coming in each week. Is 200 new customers attainable and realistic? How much of an increase over existing customers is this? For example, if you're currently serving 2000 customers per week then a 10% increase seems attainable.

For the sake of this example let's assume you have the capacity and resources to serve 200 more customers and do it well. You have seating space is available, staffing is available, and the other intangibles that are required. Your first step to attaining 200 more weekly customers is to map out a plan starting with creating a Smart Goal.

Smart Goals

The first steps towards determining if Social Media efforts are successful is to define success. The most effective way to do this is with Smart Goals. (If you are not familiar with the Smart Goal concept, Google it. It's one of the basic fundamental tools used in successful business.) Follow the Smart Goal framework to create your Social Media Marketing goal.

Specific | Measurable | Attainable | Relevant | Time Bound

Specific - To make goals specific, they must tell a team exactly what is expected, why is it important, who’s involved, where is it going to happen and which attributes are important.
A specific goal will usually answer the five "W" questions:

What: What do I want to accomplish?
Why: Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal.
Who: Who is involved?
Where: Identify a location.
Which: Identify requirements and constraints.

Measurable - The thought behind this is that if a goal is not measurable, it is not possible to know whether a team is making progress toward successful completion. A measurable goal will usually answer questions such as:

How much?
How many?
How will I know when it is accomplished?

Attainable - While an attainable goal may stretch a team in order to achieve it, the goal is not extreme. That is, the goals are neither out of reach nor below standard performance, as these may be considered meaningless. An attainable goal will usually answer the question:

How: How can the goal be accomplished?

Relevant - The fourth term stresses the importance of choosing goals that matter. Relevant goals (when met) drive the team, department, and organization forward. A goal that supports or is in alignment with other goals would be considered a relevant goal. A relevant goal can answer yes to these questions:

Does this seem worthwhile?
Is this the right time?
Does this match our other efforts/needs?
Are you the right person?

Time Bound - This is a target date or set of dates and creates urgency. A time-bound goal will usually answer the question:

When?
What can I do 6 months from now?
What can I do 6 weeks from now?
What can I do today?

Complete step 1 by creating your Smart Goal.

Step 2, Once your goal is created... begin Step 2, Tools for Measuring Social Media Marketing Results.

Get More Social Media Ideas and How To
Drive more business; How to Launch Facebook Offers, Brand Building on Facebook, Best Time to Post on Facebook and Twitter, How to Super Charge your Facebook, How to use Facebook and Linked In groups http://netprofitsmedia.blogspot.com/

Custom Facebook Page Examples

2012-06-05T15:22:00.001-07:00

Looking to get more out of your Facebook fan page? How about more engagement and more growth for your business. In previous posts we talked about how much a Facebook fan is worth. Now, let's highlight elements of pages we've created for clients that have helped them engage their customers, develop fans and grow their businesses.

Testimony From Business Owners Shown in Video

Beanies has had a great working relationship with Net Profits for the past few months. James has increased our Facebook activity and has gotten us involved with other social media. I have been and will continue to recommend him to business associates. He has gone over and above what I hired him to do. I have seen an increase because of his efforts and plan continually working with James.
~ Marcia Endicott

James brought a lot of great ideas for my bussiness (sic). With his help, we increased our facebook activity and customers at the door. He is very knowledgeble (sic) with marketing tools and computer software. I would defenetely (sic) recommend him to anybody who want to increase their bussiness (sic).
~ Mike Tsirlin

Enjoy the video. Hope it gives you many great ideas.

I show you how to create custom Facebook pages and tabs in How to Super Charge your Facebook.

Get More Social Media Ideas and How To

Drive more business; How to Launch Facebook Offers, Brand Building on Facebook, Best Time to Post on Facebook and Twitter, How to Super Charge your Facebook, How to use Facebook and Linked In groups http://netprofitsmedia.blogspot.com/

Launch Facebook Promoted Posts in Minutes

2012-05-30T18:56:00.003-07:00

Facebook has made available Promoted Posts. The idea behind promoted posts is to get your posts into the News Feed of your fans and their friends.

All promoted posts will show in the news feeds of the people who like your Page and, when they interact with the post, to their friends. These posts will be labeled as "Sponsored" in the news feed. Promoted posts will not be shown in the right-hand column of Facebook as an ad normally would. Thus, other than the words "Sponsored" they appear as a normal post would

To create a Promoted post:

1. Go to the sharing tool to create a post you normally would.

2. Enter your post details. Create the eye-catching headline that will engage your fans.

3 Click on the Promote drop-down button and set your desired budget. The budget you set is a lifetime budget and not a daily budget.

4. Click Save

Note: that the budget you set for your promoted post is a lifetime budget that will run over the entire duration of your promoted post. Just like with ads, you may be billed daily to the primary funding source you’ve designated in your Ads Manager, and only for the amount that is used to run your campaign. You can view your primary funding source as well as access invoices from the gear drop-down in the "Promote" button, or from your Ads Manager.

Promote any post you've created in the last 3 days.

1. Go to any post you've created in the past 3 days on your Page timeline
2. At the bottom the post, just below where people can add a comment, you'll see the Promote button. Click on it.

Note: Pages need to have at least 400 likes before Promoted Post is available for that page.

Additional Help: facebook.com/help/promote

Get More Social Media Ideas and How To
Drive more business; How to Launch Facebook Offers, Brand Building on Facebook, Best Time to Post on Facebook and Twitter, How to Super Charge your Facebook, How to use Facebook and Linked In groups http://netprofitsmedia.blogspot.com/

Additional Resources:

Promoted Post Video distributed by Facebook

5 Easy Steps Turn Likes Into Results

2012-05-30T11:48:00.001-07:00

More is better. To be better is to have more. That’s what we’re typically told. With Facebook this same idea rings true more often than not. Survey the landscape on Facebook and see that most every page displays the Facebook iconic “thumbs up” and number of “Likes”, THE badge of “Social Proof”.

To be successful with digital marketing business owners and marketers need to approach each “Like” or “Follow” as a beginning rather than an end. Success using Web 2.0 tools should not be measured solely in the number of acquaintances we make. Focus must be on how deeply we engage and keep our business fresh in people’s minds while generating sales. While Web 2.0 is about “enable and facilitate”, growth, and sometimes even business survival depends on the “marketing” aspect of “Social Media Marketing.” Ultimately, marketing leading to sales are the results that matter.

The following can help you turn Facebook Likes into more results; and that more is better.

1. Start with a Compelling Offer

In Facebook Offers we detail how to create a compelling “Offer”. Design campaign offers with your customer in mind. Put yourself in their shoes. Read your offer out loud and see if it makes sense. Read it to a friend, spouse, and family member. Get their feedback. Sometimes we can become too familiar with our own work that things make sense to us because we’re subconsciously filling in blanks or interpreting our message. Don’t fall into that trap. I think we’ve all run across offers like that before. You probably tuned them out completely or maybe even stopped following that company figuring if they can’t craft a simple message how can they do anything right.

If your offer is customer centric, makes sense, gives value, easy to redeem / use your customers will respond and tell their friends about it. I created an offer for a client that went viral and 5x times the number of views as the client had “Likes”. This is the exact Offer I use as an example in Facebook Offers.

2. Build and Execute a Campaign Plan

The most successful campaigns aren’t single, one and done posts. They will generally span a few weeks as they build, peek and taper off. Your customers may need to see on offer a few times before they respond. That’s normal. Consider testing a measuring a few variations of your message during the build period. Stick with the message getting the best results.

3. Create a full Campaign and Promotion Plan

Promote your offer across your various channels. Use Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, Fousquare, Google +, email to get your message out. You will need to tailor your message for each platform. Keep the core message consistent. Make sure your customer that might see the promotion on different channels can tell it’s the same promotion, otherwise this may lead to confusion and confusion kills engagement and results.

4. Once Engaged Stay Engaged

Great marketers keep fans engaged once a campaign ends. It’s at this time you are fresh in their minds and they are most likely to respond. Now is the time to start a two way conversation. You’ll have a few days to get feedback more readily than at any other time. Ask questions, gather feedback and engage.

5. Keep Going with a Fresh Campaign

In step 2 we talked about a 2-3 week plan, in step 4 we talk about engaging and feedback. That translates into about a 4 week timeline for each campaign. Take your time to analyze the results, then, start a new campaign. Repeat successful results but not campaigns. Be careful and do not train your customers to come to think of your brand or business as a steady discounter. You want to use campaigns to engage fans and stimulate sales. Vary your campaign. You may not want to train your customers to put off buying from you at full price because you got into a predictable pattern.

Get More Social Media Ideas and How To

Drive more business; How to Launch Facebook Offers, Brand Building on Facebook, Best Time to Post on Facebook and Twitter, How to Super Charge your Facebook, How to use Facebook and Linked In groups http://netprofitsmedia.blogspot.com/

How To Foursquare and Drive Business

2012-05-21T10:26:00.001-07:00

Explore with Foursquare

Businesses are driving revenues using social media tools such as Foursquare, Facebook, Twitter and more. Today we’re focusing on Foursquare; what it is, why it’s popular, how it can drive customers into your business and the analytics available.

Foursquare it’s very social, very engaging and a very different experience from other social networks such as Facebook or Twitter. GPS functionality, ease of use and gaming attributes make discovering new places fun, rewarding and a quest on its own.

Foursquare

Foursquare is a leader in mobile social networking and local merchant services. Foursquare mobile applications leverage gaming dynamics to help users meet up with their friends on the go, discover what’s nearby, save money, unlock coupons and deals and post reviews of places they’ve been.

Foursquare Data (updated April 2012)
Users: 20+ million worldwide
Check-ins: 2+ billion, millions more each day

Foursquare Badges

Businesses using Foursquare: 750,000+

How Customers Use Foursquare

People use Foursquare on a local level to broadcast to their friends where they are. They also use Foursquare to find local deals and specials which may be the differentiators in deciding what restaurant to go to or what night spot to meet up with friends at.

When visiting new communities Foursquare has a “Search” feature that allows customer to discover places. These are categorized as Top Picks, Specials, Food, Coffee, Nightlife, Shops, Arts & Entertainment, and Outdoors. Top Pick and Specials categories are reserved for those businesses that are top choices or offer specials.

Activities on Foursquare have point values and it’s these point values that drive the gaming excitement and uniqueness of Foursquare. For example, a new check-in may be worth +3 points. Connected friends compete to see who can score the most points, collect the most badges or determine who the “Mayor” of a venue is.

Customers also leave “Tips” which are similar to reviews and their own images of the places they have been.

How Businesses Benefit

Foursquare allows you to find new customers and form deeper connections with your best ones. When people check in on Foursquare at your business they are broadcasting to their friends and their social networks that they are at your business. This is an endorsement and mention for your business, and we all know referrals are a great way to drive foot traffic.

New Customers & Traffic Generators

With Specials, businesses reward their customers and bring more attention to their venue and generate new business. When a businesses runs a special the listing gets highlighted and stands out considerably from those not running specials.

Specials

Swarm Special , Example, "If 30 people check in at once, get 25 cent wings"
Friend Special, Example, “Check in with 3 friends and get a free dessert”
Flash Special, Example, "The first 10 people that check in after 8pm get 25% off their order"
Newbie Special, Example, "Get a free cupcake on your first check-in"
Check-in Special, Example, "Get a free appetizer when you check in"

Reward Existing Customers

Loyalty Special, Example, "Get a free cookie every 3rd check-in"
Mayor Special, Example, "Mayor gets 20% off their entire bill"

Note: Specials are only for claimed venues. If you have not yet claimed your business on foursquare, click here to get started. You need a Foursquare user account to claim a venue. You do not have to have a smart phone to create an account, although it does make it easier to understand once you’ve used it on a smart phone. You can get started in just 90 seconds. I explain how here.

Once you’ve claimed your venue and started offering specials you will want to promote your special online and offline. Promote your specials online using Facebook, Twitter, your website, wherever you can. Offline use flyer's, window stickers, chalkboards, whatever and wherever you can to draw traffic. Read more including case studies and results achieved here.

In this video I show you step by step how to create a special in under 4 minutes.

Visibility: Your Customer & Stats

Once you’ve claimed your business on Foursquare, you get full access to real-time data about your customers, including:

Foursquare Stats

Total daily check-ins over time
Your most recent visitors
Your most frequent visitors
Gender breakdown of your customers
What time of day people check in
Portion of your venue’s foursquare check-ins that are broadcast to Twitter and Facebook

It’s super useful, and can be used to tailor your Specials (or even your business).

Get Started

You can get started in just 90 seconds. I explain how here. Remember, you need a Foursquare user account to claim a venue. You do not have to have a smart phone to create an account, although it does make it easier to understand once you’ve used it on a smart phone.

Claim your venue Head on over to this page to claim your listing and get full access to all of Foursquare’s free tools.

Create a Special After you’ve claimed your venue, start creating Specials (for free!) to get new customers and reward your loyal ones.

Grow your business Engage your customers, learn more about them, and help new ones find you. The foursquare Merchant Platform has all the tools you need.

Get More Social Media Ideas and How To

Drive more business with How to Launch Facebook Offers, Brand Building on Facebook, Best Time to Post on Facebook and Twitter, How to Super Charge your Facebook, How to use Facebook and Linked In groups http://netprofitsmedia.blogspot.com/

Facebook and Linked In Groups Drive Traffic

2012-05-14T07:46:00.006-07:00

Getting traffic to your website or blog can be tough,especially if you are a small business or an individual blogger. The good news is two of the biggest social media networks have tools to tap allowing instant access to targeted audiences. These tools are called Groups. Groups on Facebook and Linked In are exactly what a “group” sounds like. Like-minded people connected for the purpose of sharing resources, insights, best practices, getting advice, mentoring, etc.

Join Groups to post messages, either by starting a new message (conversation) or by responding to an existing thread. Include a link(s) to your website or blog. Many groups allow polls and have simple tools for creating and monitoring them.

When posting, be aware of the group rules which are usually linked for all to see. Be sensitive to the number of post you create and aware of how group members perceive the nature of your posts. You certainly don’t want to be seen as an intrusive spammer. Some Groups give warnings; some just kick out offending members. Each group has different rules.

Facebook Groups

According to Facebook, Groups are close circles of people that share and keep in touch on Facebook.

Find Groups on Facebook is using the Search tool.

Simply enter your keyword or term and click the search icon. Here’s an example using the term Blogging. Once the results are returned, click the link at the bottom that says see more results. You will then see “All Results”. From here you are able to filter. Simply select “Groups”.

Hover over the name of the group to get a short description of the group. Clicking on the group name will take you into the group page where you have read access. Join and you’ll be able to post and spread your messages to the group members.

Learn more about Facebook Groups

Linked In Groups

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 120 million members and growing rapidly. LinkedIn connects you to your trusted contacts and helps you exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals.

There are Groups useful for engaging your audience with practically any professional interest. In fact at the time of writing this article there are 1,294,632 Groups on Linked In. Narrow down and target relevant Groups by subject using the search tool.

Linked In also provides a valuable summary of each group:

Group name
Group description
Number of members
Quantity of discussions this month
Number of members from your network

Learn more about Linked In Groups

When to Post to Groups

Once you know the best time to post you can zero in and get the best results and most traction from your post. Armed with the day and time of when your fans most engage with your brand you are now able to post that awesome special or promotion that drives in business and rings the cash register. We previously covered this subject with study results and testing methods at Best Time to Post.

Summary

Groups are a great way to reach and engage a targeted group of people that have an interest in your product or service. Join a group today and drive traffic to your website or blog.

Regards,

James Meyer

Net Profits Media, LLC
Port Washington, WI 53074
e: netprofitsmedia@gmail.com
p: 414-687-7018
Twitter: @NetProfitsMedia
http://netprofitsmedia.blogspot.com/

Facebook Ad + Landing Page = More Likes

2012-05-10T11:45:00.000-07:00

Target new customers and gather more "likes" when you combine a Facebook ad with a landing page. Simply create an offer, target your prospect and direct them to your Facebook landing page to redeem your offer in exchange for their "like".

Example Business Owner

Let’s say you are a Pet Store owner / dog groomer. You want to get more traffic into your store and have a small budget. TV and even 15 second radio ads are out. Print ads might work but you don’t really have any print ads material made and don’t know any graphics people that work real cheap. But you really want pet owners within walking distance of your store that your place is awesome. You can.

10,000 Foot View

The concept is to run an ad using Facebook with an offer that a prospect responds to by clicking the ad. The prospect lands on your "Welcome" page. They likes your page in exchange for the discount or incentive you are offering for their "like". The prospect brings the coupon they just got from your Facebook page into your store, tries your service or product, loves it, loves you and is a customer for life. They are now a fan, see your branding, posts, offers and come in over and over to buy from you. Basically it’s an introductory offer to get the customer in the door, a concept that’s been around forever with a new twist, the "Like" for branding purposes and ongoing engagement.

Facebook Ads Budget Friendly

Small Budget Friendly. Start with just a few bucks a day. Technically, the minimum daily budget for any campaign is $1.00. Let’s say you set your daily budget at $10. That doesn’t automatically mean you will spend $10 per day, just that you will spend no more than $10 per day. You set your daily budget for whatever works for you. Run your ad for a day, a week, a month, whatever you like. You're in total control of your ad and can change it whenever and as often as you like. For full documentation and creating a Facebook ad see https://www.facebook.com/business

Landing Page

When your prospects click your ad they will go to your landing page on Facebook to accept your offer in exchange for their “like”. If you missed how to make landing pages I go over how to create custom pages including landing pages plus give you access to free tools to do it at How To and Tools to Engage Facebook Fans.

Go get them new fans and grow!

James Meyer

Net Profits Media, LLC
Port Washington, WI 53074
e: netprofitsmedia@gmail.com
p: 414-687-7018
Twitter: @NetProfitsMedia
http://netprofitsmedia.blogspot.com/

Facebook Announces an App Center

2012-05-09T16:27:00.000-07:00

In what signals another step forward for the Facebook mobile platform, Facebook today announced that for the over 900 million people that use Facebook, the App Center will become the new, central place to find great apps like Draw Something, Pinterest, Spotify, Battle Pirates, Viddy, and Bubble Witch Saga.

App Center

A new place for people to find social apps. The App Center gives developers an additional way to grow their apps and creates opportunities for more types of apps to be successful

In the coming weeks, people will be able to access the App Center on the web and in the iOS and Android Facebook apps. All canvas, mobile and web apps that follow the guidelines can be listed. All developers should start preparing today to make sure their app is included for the launch.

Drive Mobile Apps

The App Center is designed to grow mobile apps that use Facebook – whether they’re on iOS, Android or the mobile web. From the mobile App Center, users can browse apps that are compatible with their device, and if a mobile app requires installation, they will be sent to download the app from the App Store or Google Play.
To grow your mobile app through the App Center, your app needs to use Facebook Login.

Quality Ratings

Based upon feedback ratings from users, apps will have a rating applied. Higher quality apps will receive prominent display while those receiving poor rating or don't meet quality guidelines will not be displayed.

Developers

You can create an app detail page in the App Center section of the Developer App. There you can upload images, provide additional details, and configure the permissions your app requires. Learn more about setting up your app.

Before creating your app detail page, read the guidelines to ensure your page does not get removed. App detail pages that are eligible for the App Center will be reviewed prior to being listed and priority will be given to those apps that submit before May 18.

Regards,

James Meyer

Net Profits Media, LLC
Port Washington, WI 53074
e: netprofitsmedia@gmail.com
p: 414-687-7018
Twitter: @NetProfitsMedia
http://netprofitsmedia.blogspot.com/

Foursquare Launches $10 Instant Verifications

2012-05-09T07:47:00.000-07:00

This Just Announced

Foursquare has just introduced a new instant verification
for merchants. In just 90 seconds the merchant will be able to use all of Foursquare's tools:

A discount with purchase
Something for free
Special treatment offers
Reward your best customers with check in specials
Mayor special offers
and more

Foursquare says that as of today, over 750,000 business have signed up to reach the company’s 20 million users via the free merchant tools provided. The new verification feature is U.S.-only for now.

To get started go to Foursquare

https://foursquare.com/

Click on Business Attract and Retain Customers or just click the button right here.

To your success!

More ideas including how to Launch Facebook Offers, How to Super Charge your Facebook site and engage customers and more is at http://netprofitsmedia.blogspot.com/

Regards,

James Meyer

Net Profits Media, LLC
Port Washington, WI 53074
e: netprofitsmedia@gmail.com
p: 414-687-7018
Twitter: @NetProfitsMedia
http://netprofitsmedia.blogspot.com/

How To and Tools to Engage Facebook Fans

2012-05-08T09:57:00.002-07:00

Tools for Growth

Stand Out on Facebook

In Facebook Brand Building we detailed what gets the most impressions on Facebook, and impressions drive results. Get more results from your Facebook fan page. What kind of results?

Start with more engagement which leads to more growth. Facebook sites can be so much more than just a few boring, do nothing tabs and posts. Without any technical mumbo-jumbo you can create an engaging experience to delight your customers, generate Likes and create lifelong fans.

Today we are going to show you how to super charge your
Facebook Page and engage your Fans.

Custom Pages / Tabs

“Like Us” incentives (Welcome Page). Create a Like Us / Welcome Page In the Value of a Fan we learned how valuable Likes are. A Like Us / Welcome page is great for offering an incentive for well, Liking. You may also use your custom Like Us / Welcome page as a Landing Page. Landing Pages, in conjunction with Facebook Ads generate a huge amount of new fans when running a “Like Us” promotion. I’ll cover “Like Us” promotions in a later post.

Instant Coupons Page. Nothing gets feet in the door better than a coupon. Create and post online coupons right on Facebook. Use tracking codes, expiration dates, all the good stuff.

Newsletter Sign Up Form (Page). Integrate with another awesome free email tool that I will cover in a later post. You do publish a Newsletter don't you?

Events Page. Not the wimpy do nothing version Facebook gives you. This one is actually great. Promote events with video, a countdown calendar, text, a Friend Invite tool and more!

Contests Page. With no limits what could you do with a Contest Page?

Videos (Watch Tab/Page) What is better to show off your business, location, venue, product or service than video. With smart phones that outpu HD video you can for practically nothing. How cool is that?

Mobile Text Sign Up Page. Offer your Facebook fans a way to sign up for mobile coupons. I recommend to clients to start Mobile Text Marketing this way to create a database of prospects BEFORE they even spend a penny on a mobile text service. This really allows them to maximize their Text Marketing ROI.

Menu Page - that's a no-brainer

Daily Specials Page - again it's so simple. Give your fans a reason to check your page daily.

Reviews - these are your fans not some random folks off the street stopping in for the first time. Your fans are your fans because they love what you do. Encourage them to give reviews - then use the reviews to get new customers.

Help Wanted - Making a Help Wanted page takes the same time as calling an ad into the local paper but you don't have to pay to run the ad. It's ultimately cheaper and probably more effective than the local paper.

These are just a few quick examples of what you can do. I’m sure you can come up with your own list of awesome ideas of how you could promote your business better on Facebook.

So, Go Beyond Plain

The plain and boring you see to the below is what you get and what you probably have on your page right now. Go way beyond the standard Photos, Likes and Map that Facebook gave you to start out with. It’s easy to customize and arrange.

Standard, plain and boring tabs

In fact, you may have noticed in an earlier image, I spell out the word WIN on my Net Profits Media Facebook page with the row of 4 visible tabs (and 11 more using the drop down arrow) from the home page tabs. Facebook does not allow the Photos image and tab to be moved. These images can be anything you want them to be. You just need an easy to use tool to create the pages.


Engaging Tabs on a Facebook Site

These are all 15 tabs (pages) at Net Profits Media's Facebook site. So you can see, you can really do whatever you want to connect with your fans and get them in your door or on your e-commerce site.

Here is the FREE Tool to Transform Your Facebook Site

Customize your site and your customers will thank you. Short Stack is an awesome, FREE tool that allows the DIY, non-techy person a simple and quick way to really maximize and leverage the fan experience on Facebook. Short Stack’s free plan is for pages up to 2,000 Likes.

Short Stack has awesome help pages, help videos, and even a Short Stack University for those that really want to go head first and create more elaborate pages so go ahead and check it out.

Want More Ideas? Video Ideas

Video examples of Facebook sites created for clients. I also include testimony from clients on just how this has helped their business. Check it out at http://netprofitsmedia.blogspot.com/p/custom-facebook-page-examples.html

How to Make Custom Tabs Video

Even More Free Tools and Ideas
See my blog; click FREE Business Building Tools for 25 more free tools that you can use right now.

To your success!

James Meyer

Net Profits Media, LLC
Port Washington, WI 53074
e: netprofitsmedia@gmail.com
p: 414-687-7018
Twitter: @NetProfitsMedia
http://netprofitsmedia.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/NetProfitsMedia

Launch Facebook Offers in Minutes

2012-05-04T19:45:00.001-07:00

One of the most powerful tools you can use to promote your business is Facebook Offers. That's the good news. The even better news is that it takes just minutes to create an offer. Here we will go step by step from idea to redemption. I will make some simple assumptions as skip a few steps such as "Log into your Facebook account."

Step by Step

1. On your page, at the top of your timeline on the left hand side you will see an image listing: Status, Photo/Video, Offer, Event +

2. Click Offer, Event +

3. A dialog box will open. Click Offer. (This area also has other tools such as Event, Milestone, Question aka Polls).

4. A new dialog box will open and here's where we start to get down to business.

Make the Offer

Upload an Image - the image should be clean and uncluttered. A simple close up of the item is all that's needed.

Write a Headline - keep it simple and strong. This is the call to action and what will get people in your door.

Limit the Number of Offers People Can Claim - two thoughts here; create a large number. This leads people to believe you need a large amount to meet demand or use a small number to create scarcity and urgency. You decide.

Set an Expiration Date for your offer - simple enough

Add your Terms and Conditions - 1 per person, 1 per day, 1 per table, cannot be combined with other offers. Whatever is appropriate for your situation.

Example Offer

4a. Here is one I made for a clients. It contains a simple image, a strong headline. I like to start my headline with FREE when I can. I also like my headlines to be as simple as possible for clarity. I listed the number of free items, when the offer expires and the term.

At this stage if everything looks OK click the preview button.

Post the Offer

Your offer is now ready to post. Click the Post button.

The offer gets posted to your timeline for your fans to see.

Fans Redeem the Offer

When your fans click on "Get Offer" and redeem your fantastic offer they will receive a message and an email. They then have the option to print the email or take their smart phone into your venue and show the staff the redemption message.

Where to Promote

Where should you promote your offer?

Facebook

Email Newsletter

At the venue; that being the store, restaurant wherever the business operates.

Promotion Ideas and Creating Likes

Facebook and Foursquare Check In Flyer Offer Example

In an earlier post, Facebook Brand Building, we learned that combination text and image posts get more attention and traction. So coincidence that the Facebook template to create an offer is a combination text and image? Nope.

Taking that one step further, create some POP, flyer's, ads, whatever you want to call it for your store front windows, restaurant tables, bathroom walls, wherever you can put up a compelling reason for customers to visit your Facebook page.

Value of a Like

It may sound strange to offer a special once the customer is in the store but just because they are in the store doesn't necessarily mean they Like you on Facebook. On the flyer add a message to "Like Us on Facebook" and you may get a new fan. We detail that the value of a fan is $137 in the post "Value of a Fan". If you haven't seen that post you might take a look. Check back shortly. I am working on a new article that details exactly how to turn fan building opportunities into growth for your business.

Net Profits Media, LLC
Port Washington, WI 53074
e: netprofitsmedia@gmail.com
p: 414-687-7018
Twitter: @NetProfitsMedia
http://netprofitsmedia.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/NetProfitsMedia

Post Story Results

It appears Facebook is giving the new Offers priority and pushing direct to fans News Feeds. The margarita offer I created in the example received 4x's more "Reach" than any other post I have done for that client. The "Engaged" and "Talking About This" figures are 2x's greater. Wow!

Brand Building On Facebook

2012-05-04T06:55:00.001-07:00

Facebook Brand Building

Once you have created your incentives for fans to "Like" your page you must deliver engaging content to keep them coming back and building your brand. This is defined in your Facebook Insight Analytics as "Reach". Today we will show what gets the most views on Facebook and compare text, images and combined text + images.

First let me point out that I search the internet high and low trying to find information on this subject. I am already familiar with eye mapping and eye tracking testing and subsequent results. While those tests are certainly valuable I have not seen information that puts a figure to the value. Well now we know.

Content View Study Method

I conducted a study of four of my clients Facebook accounts for the month of April 2012; April 08 - April 26 2012, more specifically. A tally and comparison was created using the actual post views per account or more specifically as Facebook terms it "Reach".

Facebook Reach

Reach defined by Facebook: The number of unique people who have seen your post. Figures are for the first 28 days after a post's publication only.

Reach is a critical measure on Facebook and one that should be reviewed often. This is raw data that shows exactly what posts your fans are finding interesting as well as when and how you need to deliver it to them for maximum results.

Study Results

Using plain text messages as the baseline, images receive 7.8% more views and posts that are a combination of an image plus text get 12.3% more views.

Conclusion

To receive the greatest amount of post views (Reach) on Facebook use a combination of imaging and text to engage your Fans and create more value for your brand. To add even more engagement to your Facebook fan site please see Custom Facebook Pages Examples for ideas and a quick video with actual active pages and happy business owners just like you.