Pacific Ridge Media

3 Cool Tools for Creating a Facebook Store

Patrice-Anne Rutledge — Wed, 28 May 2014 07:07:34 +0000

With hundreds of millions of active users, Facebook is a great place to showcase your company’s products. By adding a store to your Facebook page, not only can you sell your products, but you can also encourage other Facebook users to share your products with their friends. Here are three cool tools that will get you up and running with a Facebook store quickly and inexpensively.

1. Ecwid

Ecwid (short for e-commerce widget) offers a free Facebook store app that supports up to 10 products including digital downloads. Optionally, you can upgrade to paid plan starting at $ 15 per month if you have more products. Ecwid also enables you to create an online store on your website, which you can sync with your Facebook store.

2. ShopTab

ShopTab offers three plans, ranging in price from $10 to $20 per month. The ShopTab Facebook page serves as a demo for its own Facebook store application. All plans include a free seven-day trial and enable you to either connect to an existing store or sell via PayPal.

3. Storefront Social

Storefront Social is a full-featured Facebook store solution that offers four plans ranging from $4.95 to $29.95 per month. All plans offer a free trial that doesn’t require a credit card. Storefront Social works with your existing online store and directs Facebook users to that site to complete their purchase. If you don’t have an existing store, you can use PayPal or Google Checkout to create your store.

If you already have an online store, see if your vendor offers a Facebook app. For example, Shopify and Bigcommerce both offer free apps for creating a Facebook store.

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3 Cool Tools for Content Curation

Patrice-Anne Rutledge — Thu, 03 Apr 2014 00:25:33 +0000

The idea that “content is king” is as true today as it was in the early days of the Web, but no one ever said that you have to create all that content by yourself. With content curation, you can achieve many of the same benefits of content creation—but in a fraction of the time. Here are three content curation tools that can help you to maximize your online visibility and build thought leadership.

No, I didn’t forget the “big daddy” of all content curation tools: Pinterest. Look for my favorite Pinterest resources in an upcoming 3 Cool Tools post.

1. Scoop.it

With Scoop.it, you can create a magazine-style page dedicated to a specific topic, curated from a variety of content sources on the Web including blogs. Instead of displaying your content chronologically, as on a typical blog, you can arrange the content you curate into blocks on the page. To make curation easier, Scoop.it suggests content related to your target keywords from a variety of sources, including Google News, Digg, Twitter, and YouTube.

Another way to add content to your page is to install the Scoop.it bookmarklet. Drag the button to your browser’s bookmark bar; then just click it when you want to add interesting content you discover as you surf the Web. As with most content-curation tools, Scoop.it lets you connect with and follow other users and integrates with your existing accounts on other social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Tumblr.

2. Storify

Storify is designed to help you create stories by using social media. Storify offers several built-in sources for content, including Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Google, SlideShare, and Audioboo. You can also import an RSS feed or use the Storify bookmarklet to add other content quickly from around the Web. Your stories display on your Storify site, but you can also publish them to Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, Tumblr, Drupal, and MailChimp (to publish via an email newsletter).

3. Curate.us

If you would rather curate content on your own blog or website, consider using Curate.us. With this useful tool, you can embed clips of images and text from other sites into your own site, where you can add your own analysis and commentary. Each clip includes built-in attribution to the source site. Curate.us lets you format and customize the appearance of your clips, adding to their visual appeal. Other features include a bookmarklet for your browser, a clip history for easy reference, and social sharing on sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

Have you had success using these content-curation tools? Do you have other personal favorites? Share your stories below.

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3 Reasons Why You Aren’t Getting the Results You Want on LinkedIn

Patrice-Anne Rutledge — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 21:45:09 +0000

With more than 200 million members worldwide, LinkedIn is the premier destination for online professional networking. If you aren’t getting the results you want when you use LinkedIn for business, however, one of these three common problems could be the reason why. The good news: They’re all easy problems to fix.

1. Your LinkedIn profile is boring. Either your profile isn’t complete or it just doesn’t stand out from the competition. LinkedIn’s research indicates that members are 40 percent more likely to get results with a complete profile. So complete yours. LinkedIn helps you complete your profile by recommending sections you should add. But there’s more to a complete profile than just entering data in fields. When creating your profile, you need to really think about who you want to reach and what profile content will attract your audience. Be clear, concise, and use appropriate keywords that your targets might search for. Also, give your profile some pizzazz by adding media links to images, videos, documents, or presentations.

2. You’ve become a pushy salesperson. I hate when I connect with someone new on LinkedIn and am immediately bombarded with sales messages, pleas for jobs, and so forth. You probably do too, so don’t do it others. Instead, focus on engaging with people, providing value, and demonstrating expertise. Sure, it’s fine to mention what you offer or what you’re looking for on your profile or in your updates, but don’t overdo it.

3. You’re sitting back, waiting for great things to happen. There’s so much more to LinkedIn than just creating a profile and adding connections. Start looking at everything else LinkedIn has to offer. Join groups and participate in the conversation. Update your status regularly. Become an active participant, not a quiet bystander. Create an action plan with specific activities you can do in 10 minutes a day.

Although using your profile is the best way to connect with other people on LinkedIn, don’t forget to create a LinkedIn Company Page for your business. More tips on Company Pages are coming in a future post.

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