According to a post today on the Lujure blog, and at Hubz, Facebook will announce they are dropping some older ad formats and adding some new premium features as of February 29th. The ads will be larger, have more engagement options such as comments and likes directly on the ad, and include video or photos. Basically anything you post on a page can be marketed as an ad.  A complete slide show of the Facebook presentation is available here.  According to Facebook’s presentation, people are four times more likely to make a purchase when they see their friends interacting with a brand. So Facebook is set to release upgraded premium ads that are heavily weighted to interaction with the comments box, like option and perhaps even the share button under the ads.

Facebook is set to launch six new premium ad options on February 29, 2012.

The new suite of premium ads includes an option to create an ad out of a “Post Like Story,” which is nothing new.  But Facebook says brands will now be able to choose to run ads that appear to be posts to their wall, but will only appear as ads and not as wall posts.

Why is this interesting and potentially useful to a brand? Say you’re launching a new product, having a sale or desire to hammer home your biggest brand promise and you want to target only people who are not yet your fans because those folks are already aware of your offer.  In the past, your brand would have had to post the special offer to your page wall several days in a row so that the Post Like story would continue to run that offer.  Basically, you’d have to spam your own wall to keep the offer as the ad image and message.  This new options will allow brands to create a Page Post Story that never runs on their page and is only served up to non-Fans or whomever the brand chooses at set up.

The upgraded ad units are called photo, video, questions, status, events, links, which are all types of posts a brand currently can make to their page. Currently these new ad options may only be offered to premium advertisers who already have, or will have, a Facebook advertising account rep.  But rumors persist that these options will be offered to everyone soon.

Along with the expected announcement that Facebook fan pages will migrate to the Timeline design, and these new ad options, administrators and brand managers are scrambling to prepare their clients for change.

So what do you think? Will your brand or business try the new ads when they’re available?

UPublishU, an educational arm of BookExpo America, will host a keynote presentation by Brand New Brand You President, Cindy Ratzlaff on Sunday, June 7th as part of their educational outreach to self-published and self-publishing authors.

Ratzlaff’s presentation at the first ever BEA sponsored UPublishU is entitled “Do This, Not That: The Social Media Roadmap for Authors.” Ratzlaff will share the “must do’s” versus the “nice to do’s” to helped authors save time, money and frustration as they build a platform to promote their book.

Infographics are hot. They appeal to visual learners, they grab great Edgerank on Facebook, they rule Pinterest and they demand to be shared. Creating an infographic for your business or brand that provides top notch visual entertainment while driving home a point, teaching something or laying out a concept in an easy to understand way can give your business or brand that viral buzz you’re longing to create.

Here’s what I learned from infographics today. Over 80% of Americans use at least one social network. That’s 245 million people.

An infographic can:

• Tell a story
• Provide a road map
• Present statistics in a surprising or powerful way
• Make us laugh

WIX, is a free website builder offering entrepreneurs and small businesses a quick and free way to create a professional looking website. They put together a terrific example of a statistics graphic that’s really a subtle and clever promotion. Chock full of interesting, retweetable factoids about the reasons every business needs to “go social,” this infographic has all the right stuff to drive viewers to post, share, pin and tweet about it. Things like “Facebook users share over 4 billion items per day” is social sharing gold and is also good for presentations to potential clients who don’t yet believe in the power of social media in a marketing campaign.  By positioning themselves as a company who understands the social web, they’re providing value to their ideal customer, giving that customer something to share on his or her pages and attaching their brand to a visual that will be widely shared; basically putting their calling card out to a potentially massive audience who are willing to pass it along.

Do you have other examples of great infographics that cast their creators in a positive light and add to their brand credibility?  Please feel free to share them here.

You may know Moll Anderson from her award-winning  entertainment reporting or appearances on national television programs such as “Good Morning America,” “The Today Show,” HGTV and E! Entertainment’s Style Network.  An accomplished interior designer, and lifestyle expert, Moll Anderson’s celebrity and private clients are drawn to her “seductive living” brand.  She’s also an author, now on tour promoting her newest book, The Seductive Home.

Moll’s expanding digital footprint helps her share her brand message with a whole new audience.

Moll Anderson

I spoke with Moll recently about the process of expanding her personal brand, and asked her to share some of the things she has learned in the process.

Cindy Ratzlaff: Is there one lesson or takeaway that you’d share with first year entrepreneurs who are transitioning from corporate life to running their own businesses?

Moll Anderson: Hire a great Business consultant! If I leaned anything in business so far it’s that you need to know what your strong suits are! I am a total visual, creative and positive person. I’m smart enough to know that because I did not go to business school that I needed to hire someone that could guide me and challenge me continually. Most importantly help me to make a strong business plan. Always surround yourself with a strong and positive team.

Cindy Ratzlaff: How do you determine which new projects are right for your brand?

Moll Anderson: Continually ask yourself, “Does this help the brand?” For me, I am the brand so it’s quite simple. If it’s not good for the brand then we have our answer. Choose ventures that will aid you in advancing your brand in the direction you are pursuing. Set a path and follow it. Whenever I speak to marketing classes, I  tell them that my company and brand are unique. Why? I am the thing that my little company sells and it’s different for each and every company. For example, if you’re a company that sells cups, then you can hire salesman to go out and travel around to sell cups. When you think of my company, I am the cup. No one can sell me like I can; If I get sick or I don’t look good or I need to take time off, it affects the company. It’s just not the same for anyone else to show up.  I am the brand and the business.

Cindy Ratzlaff: Promotion is always challenging for entrepreneurs.  Any advice for entrepreneurs on what works best?  Advertising, publicity, social media?  What works for you and your brand?

Moll Anderson: The challenging part of promotion is the financial commitment. Print media is great but costly. However, in social media you can reach a lot of people quickly at a much more cost-effective rate. There comes a time in business, and with entrepreneurs, when you need to  say “Go big or go home.” Do it, do it right, or don’t do it at all. It will serve you well.

Cindy Ratzlaff: You’re a designer and you are very visual.  Where should start-ups focus their attention when developing their own visual identity for their brands?

Moll Anderson: Nothing should begin visually without first creating a strategic brand statement. You must know your brand and who your audience is before you can begin to start any visual. When you have your statement in place, you’ll find the visual easily follows because it speaks for the brand.

Cindy Ratzlaff: As a business owner or entrepreneur begins to grow and branch out with new brand extensions, they face challenges about how the new products fit their current brand. You’ve done a fabulous job of staying true to your core brand by adding new touch points for fans with video, television, books, and live events.  How do you determine what’s a good fit for “Brand Moll,” and do you have any guidelines you’d recommend to others facing expansion?

Moll Anderson: I’m very lucky in that, once again, I am the brand so for me it has to make sense. If you are authentic to what you sell and you believe with all your heart that what you are selling is important and needed then the doors open that are part of your path and doors close that are not. My favorite saying is “That’s mans rejection, is God’s protection”

Cindy Ratzlaff: What’s next? Tell us a little about where you see your brand going in the coming year.

Moll Anderson: Wow! I’m really excited about this year. We finally have turned a very important corner in gaining traction in media awareness. We still have a long way to go, but what I am experiencing is very positive. We are launching a new book this month, and are developing products that compliment our brand messaging.

Moll’s digital footprint includes a Facebook page, Twitter, YouTube Channel, Pinterest, a recurring guest column at Magazines.com and her own MollAnderson.com website.  She’s currently traveling to promote her newest book, The Seductive Home.

As entrepreneurs, we are all our own brands and everything we do or offer as products or services are our brand extensions. Asking ourselves the question “does this represent my brand” will help guide the development of brand you.

What are your biggest concerns, questions, or challenges in developing and delivering your brand message? Let me know and I’ll find the experts to answer your questions.

Large companies pay consulting firms big bucks for this information and Facebook gives it to entrepreneurs free of charge.

For newbies, you’ll find your Facebook Insights on the left hand side of your business or fan page under your avatar. Click on the Insights link and for the purpose of this tutorial, scroll down the page until you see a grid of your most recent posts called “page posts.”  We’ll be discussing the fourth column called “Engaged Users.”

Facebook Insights are a suite of information tools built into the Facebook platform to help you test and refine your marketing and branding strategy.  Understanding each of those metrics or insights is powerful information about your current communications style, the tribe you’ve gathered and whether or not your current messaging is hitting home or falling flat.

Engaged Users, according to Facebook, is a measurement applied to individual posts. It is the number of unique people who have clicked on a individual post. The data reflects actions taken on that post in a 28 day period.  There are several key pieces of information attached to this insight.

• Total Engaged Users: This overall number is interesting in and of itself and your insights can be sorted, high to low, to see which posts are garnering the most clicks. You can look for patterns, tone, and content to see which types of posts are most interesting to your current tribe. As a percentage of your total fans, this number also gives you an idea of the reach of your posts. If you have 20,000 fans and 12 engaged readers, it’s time to evaluate your conversation.
• Pie Chart: When you click on the Engaged Users number, you’ll see a pie chart to give you even more details about user behavior.  You’ll see metrics for photo views, other clicks and stories generated.
• Photo Views: The first number you’ll see tells you if users viewed your photos at full size.  This means they clicked on your photo to make it larger. This means they were highly motivated to interact with, spend time with, and look over your visual content.  This is an indication of how strongly Facebook values photos in their algorithm. Using photos in your posts will increase your likelihood of being served up in the news stream of your fans and Facebook believes (and I agree) that Facebook has evolved into a much more visual platform. Photos add value and appeal and attract more eyeballs to your content.
• Other Clicks: Other clicks is the measurement of additional actions your viewers took, within a post, such as clicking on the number of likes to see who else liked your post, people’s names, or the timestamp. Facebook says this is a strong indicator of the attention viewers are paying to your content. They’re digging deep, looking for more information, interacting with the content longer.
• Stories Generated: A story is generated when a fan likes, comments on, shares your post with his or her friends, answers a question or responds to an event. This is an important number because it reflects the ability of your content to cause a second action. Your fans actually read what you wrote, they were compelled to share, like or otherwise amplify your content, creating a story or action in their own news stream that subtly tells their friends they “endorse” you or at least found what you wrote to be engaging enough to make them take an action.
• Negative Feedback: This number tells you how many people hid your content in the newsfeed or otherwise gave it negative feedback, perhaps by blocking you or reducing the number of posts they see from you by choosing “only important.”  Again, this is great information and if this number begins to climb over time, you’ll know that some of the people you’ve gathered to your tribe are not resonating with your message. Do an audit of your posts and decided whether you want to adjust the message or gather a different tribe.  Both are valid choices.

Information gathered from insights is just that; information. What you do with that information is up to you. These insights can help you understand if you’re communicating to a receptive crowd or shouting into the dark. They can help you find “hot” topics that are important to your crowd so you can hit those more often. They can show you what doesn’t interest your readers and if what doesn’t interest them is what you care about most, then you’ll know you’ve got some work to do either on the message or on building a new, more diverse tribe.

Take a look at your fan page insights, and please let me know if you have questions.

Willie Jolley, courtesy of the author

In his State of the Union address on Tuesday evening, President Obama declared keeping the “American Dream” alive to be “the defining issue of our time.” At a time when a large percentage of the working population finds itself questioning whether if it will ever recoup the lost income, property, earning potential and savings lost in the aftermath of the greatest recession of that last 75 years, I talked with one man who says we need to create our own opportunities and stop waiting for  our ships to come in.

Don’t just look for a job; make a job! Financial success is linked to thought, so get creative. – Willie Jolley

Willie Jolley, host of the Sirius XM talk show, The Willie Jolley Wealthy Ways Radio Show and author of Turn Setbacks into Greenbacks (Wiley, Hardcover, 2010) has been dubbed “America’s Comback King” by Success Magazine.  I asked Willie to share his formula for jumpstarting the American Dream.  Warning: His irrepressible positive outlook is infectious.

Cindy Ratzlaff: I’m noticing a lot of fear in the entrepreneurial world. Financing is tight, spending is weak and people are saying this isn’t a good time to start a new business. How can we keep the American Dream alive in that kind of climate?

Willie Jolley: People are still spending money on things that provide value and that make them feel good.  Movie tickets are at an all time high, but people are still going to the movies because they make them feel better. Apple just released their earnings statements for 2011 and they had a banner year. People are buying ipads and Macs because they provide value and they make them feel good. Warren Buffet said that tough times are the greatest times to start a new business and I agree.  There are two kinds of animals in the dessert; vultures and humming birds. Vultures focus on dead things and hummingbirds focus on life. Focus on it and you’ll find it.

Cindy Ratzlaff: The press has talked about the “uncounted underemployed,” those people who have simply given up looking because they can’t find a job that pays what they are used to earning and they just can’t let themselves take a job that’s beneath their previous positions for fear of stepping down the ladder permanently. If we stop progressing in our earning potential, how can we continue to uphold that American dream?

Willie Jolley: Don’t let your pride poison your prosperity. Stop trying to put up a façade of success and get real.  Any work that is moral and legal is honorable. I knew a man who built an IT firm from the ground up. He had 600 of the brightest IT employees and he was doing great. But hard times hit and he had a choice to make. So he took the money he paid himself as CEO and he paid his employees salaries to keep the company going with the talent it needed.  He worked a full day at his own business and at night he drove a trash truck.  And he kept those employees and because of that he kept that company afloat and later sold it for $600 million.  Here’s what you have to remember.  It’s not personal.  It’s not permanent.  Get over it and do what you need to do.  Don’t just think about today or tomorrow.  Think about the tomorrows down the road and get over it.  Do what has to be done.

Cindy Ratzlaff: Close friends and family might logically tell you that this is not a good time to start a new business. What do you say to people with a vision and a dream but no idea how to make it happen?

Willie Jolley: Stop commiserating!  People who sit around and commiserate are the people who would rather complain about problems than do anything to fix them.  Stay away from negative people.  Sometimes those people are right in your inner circle. Read and listen to something positive every day. The news will tell you the economy is down, gas is up, terrorism is here.  It’s all doom and gloom. Turn it off.  Surround yourself with people who believe in your dreams and turn the rest off.

Cindy Ratzlaff: If you could give one last piece of advice to a new business owner or entreprenueur what would that be?

Willie Jolley: Stop waiting for your ship to come in.  Financial success is a choice you must make happen, not a chance that you sit around and wait for.  There’s nothing stopping you. People have lots of excuses like “I only have a GED.” I say so what. Lots of people only have their GED’s. That can’t stop you from success. They say, “I have an idea but all my friends and family think it’s crazy.” I say “stop talking to them about your idea. Talk to people who share your vision and encourage you.” People have “possibility blindness.” If you spend all your time talking about your goals with them, all you’ll get is discouragement. Don’t just go through tough times. Grow through them. Take control of your ideas and dream.  Think like the CEO of Y.O.U.  Figure out how what you know can fill a need for others. And get yourself into the right frame of mind to believe you can succeed.

Have you started a new business during a down economy?  I’d love to hear your experiences, lessons learned and ideas for beating the odds as an entrepreneur in a down market.

Facebook’s new Insights have many people scratching their heads, trying to understand how these social media metrics can help their marketing and branding efforts, how best to use the information available and exact what it all means. This is the first in a series of articles on Facebook Insights. Here we’ll talk about the “Talking About This” metric.

Want to make sure everyone is Talking About This?

Talking About This: What does that mean?

Talking About This is a consumer facing number. It appears on your Facebook fan page directly below your number of fans and is visible to everyone who visits your page. This number is most likely a very small percentage of your overall fan base. In fact, recent studies show this number is likely to be 4-6% of your fan base. This number represents the unique users who have created stories about your page in their stream or the ticker by liking, commenting, sharing or tagging your page, post or photo during the 7 preceding days. This number changes daily because it is measuring a different set of days each day.

Talking About This: How can this number help me?

The rise and fall of your “Talking About This” number indicates the level of engagement your current fans have with you page and posts. If this engagement is falling, look at the content of your posts and ask yourself the following questions:

1. Is the content of my posts valuable to my ideal customer?
2. Does the post clearly present a call to action asking my readers to comment, like, share or tag?
3. Am I asking questions at the end of the posts that require a reader response?
4. Could I offer the reader a “bonus” for responding; i.e. “Go ahead and post your website link here and I’ll be happy to look at your landing page and give you feedback.”
5. Have I tried asking my readership how I can best serve them?

You will always have readers who simply read and move on, enriched by what you write but not motivated to leave a comment.  But, increasing your Talking About This number means increased visibility for you in the streams and tickers of your fans.  This ambient and real awareness can be considered as valuable as an endorsement or referral, so it’s worth your time and a little extra effort in the crafting of your posts to solicit a response.  Remember, 90% of your fans never return to your page after liking it.  They only see and interact with your content in their news stream or ticker.  They are only served your content in their stream IF you’ve enticed them to interact with your page recently.  Creating content that demands, elicits or excites a response is the Facebook marketing holy grail of visibility.

If you’ve noticed that your fan engagement has fallen, doesn’t respond to any of your new posting strategies and seems stagnant, you might consider a quick, creative and inexpensive Page Post Like Story Ad Campaign targeted to current fans.  We’ll talk about that in an upcoming post.

Now, here’s where we put these strategies to work.  Are you noticing a change in your Talking About This number?  If you try one of the strategies above and have success, I’d love to hear from you and perhaps highlight you in a future post.

Most new businesses fail in the first five years. Let’s beat the odds together.

I usually write about more complex tools and strategies, but in speaking to new entrepreneurs or small business owners this past year, the questions I most often get are:

• How can I add social media to my marketing without adding additional employees?
• How can I do everything you suggest and still have time to work on my products?

Lack of time and money are the #1 and #2 saboteurs of start-ups.  So to everyone who has not yet jumped into the social fray to promote their business or service, here’s my simple beginner’s guide to using social media for business.

I believe most businesses can benefit from a simple, straightforward social media strategy that includes:

• A Facebook profile for the “face” of the business; the owner or spokesperson
• A Facebook fan page for the business itself
• A Twitter Account
• A YouTube Account
• A Blog

With these five social media basics, even the most cash strapped and time deprived entrepreneur can begin to create digital footprints that lead back to their business.

Setting up the accounts is easy and entrepreneurs should not become distracted by the bells and whistles and they wish list that comes with fully tricked out Facebook pages or beautifully designed Twitter accounts.  When you’re swamped, stick to the basics and don’t let “ideal” stop you from starting with “good enough.”

Here’s a simple beginners guide to a social media marketing strategy map anyone can use.

• Blog 2-3 times per week and keep posts to 250-300 words. Make them keyword rich (words you would enter into Google Search to find YOU). Make sure each post gives one interesting or useful piece of information to the reader about your area of expertise.

• The same day you blog, post a link to that blog on your Facebook Fan Page, adding an invitation to join you on the blog for more posts on your subject matter.

• Allow this post to auto-post to your Twitter account by linking your Twitter account to your Facebook fan page through this Facebook app link: http://Facebook.com/Twitter.

• The next day press the share button under your Fan Page post and share it to your personal profile.  Your friends are your closest supporters.  Ask them to share your post with their friends, leave you comments and let you know if you can help them with your area of expertise.

• Two days later, turn your blog post into a simple, how-to video by reading it into your web cam. Put the “script” up on your screen so you can look directly at the camera.  Speak as though you’re explaining the concepts in your blog to just one person.  Post the video to YouTube and tag the video with your keywords.

This is an over simplified map, designed to get you thinking about sharing content throughout social media.  There are many, many subtle and more complicated nuances and strategies to increase your visibility, but this is a start.  If you’re a new business owner or entrepreneur who has not yet begun to use social media in your business marketing, begin here and add new strategies as you get comfortable.

I’d love to see your first efforts and answer your questions.  Feel free to post your links below and I’ll take a look at your new social media platforms.  Here’s to a year of action and success, to us all.

Soon Facebook Business page admins could be saying, please send us a private message using the message button at the top of this page.

While this feature does not yet seem to be available in the U.S., Canada or Europe, it is worth keeping an eye on as it represents a significant new opportunity for businesses to interact more efficiently with customers than previously on Facebook.  For now the experiment seems to be live only in Asia.

Immediacy

The benefits of being able to communicate back and forth, privately, with a fan who is experiencing difficulty with an order, asking for complex pricing information, or needing to exchange confidential information is obvious. Another benefit could be taking an angry customer to a private one on one conversation to get to the bottom of their problem without airing the entire chain of comments publicly.  Imagine being able to say “please send us a private message with your account name, a description of the issue and a phone number where we might reach you and we’ll make sure someone contacts you asap.”

Of course, customer service teams can do that now by asking fans to contact them at an e-mail address.  But social media has trained consumers to demand and expect instant assistance.  So even though telling them to send you a private message via Facebook is similar to instructing them to e-mail you, it feels more immediate.  It signals to the consumer that you are there, right now, answering or at least looking into their questions; not eventually when someone reads the e-mail, but NOW.

Choice

Since the fan must initiate the private conversation, the single act of agreeing to communicate on Facebook through a private message means that the customer wants a deeper relationship.  They want resolution and not just a forum to complain.  This is a big percentage of the emotional battle in customer service.  And, the opportunity to repair, enhance and soothe a disappointed customer is now increased simply because they had the opportunity and the choice to communicate directly and privately with a person at your company.

Social Interactions

Because Likes and Comments are so important to a Fan Page’s Edge Rank on Facebook, some may worry that taking a specific customer service issue off the page and into a private message forum might negatively affect the page stats.  Fan page administrators will want to continue to engage with every comment, encourage more likes and comments and post updates when issues are resolved or information delivered via private message.  An admin might reply to a comment with a short message like: “Bob, we were so glad you gave us the opportunity to work directly with you to resolve your issue.  We stand behind our product 100%.  We value customers who believe in our promise and allow us to make good on that promise, even if we needed a second try.  Thank you Bob!”

Special Offers

The private messaging function could also be used to deliver special offers to select customers in the Facebook community who comment, like, interact and engage often.  Admins could invite those fans to message them for a thank you offer.

How might your team use the new Facebook Business Page private messaging feature once it rolls out?