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The Ultimate Google+ Success Maker eCourse will consist of video training and PDF workbooks that you can take at your own pace. When you complete the eCourse, you will receive a free, private, and invite-only membership into the Ultimate Google+ Success Maker Community. Once you’re in — you’re in for LIFE!

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In preparation for my ‘Google+ for Small Businesses’ book launch, I used tactics such as Facebook Promoted Posts and Twitter Ads to help gain exposure to my message. I also used this to push signups for my email newsletter subscription (which I also use to promote myself professionally as well as projects I work on). While this is far from a comprehensive test of the results gained from using paid advertising on social media platforms, it can help give you an understanding of what you need to prepare for to get results. To be honest, I didn’t create an entire tactical outreach plan for this, I just did it. Of course I have tracking, reporting, and analytics set up to measure results. Going back and looking at the numbers, it is still up to me if the the ads were worth the spend. I’ll go over my thoughts on this at the end of the article.

This is not my first forte into advertising on social media networks (I’ve been providing consulting and tactical on this for years for my clients), but it is the first time I have used them for myself. Since I am more free to discuss my own results as opposed to that of clients, I though I would make a perfect mini case study. With that said, my cumulative experience heavily influenced what I did my first time diving into paid social media ads.

Facebook Promoted Posts

As a starting point, I performed this Facebook Promoted Post from my personal Facebook account (and not a Facebook Page) with over 1,040 friends and nearly 800 subscribers in order to promote the book launch I was hosting for the release of my first book. Although officially EdgeRank is in effect for Facebook pages and isn’t associated with personal profiles, we can assume the algorithms work in a similar manner. My potential “first level” reach is about 1,800 people with a potential ”total” reach of is 646,200 (using the average number of Facebook friends of 359). Facebook’s EdgeRank reduces your posts impressions/views to about 14% of all possible people you are connected with. (This depends a lot on the holy trinity of EdgeRank - Affinity, Weight, and Time). Using a similar back of the envelope calculation, I can assume any one Facebook status update I make reaches approximately 240 people when posted publicly (1,800 times 0.14.)

Bit.ly has run some reports that suggest a Facebook post ‘lives’ on average for 5.5 hours after you post it. According to the wording on Facebook about Promoted Posts, your status update will be available to view by more people, but it says nothing about extending the amount of time until the post drops off the stream. I assume then that my $7US is amplifying my reach, not my time to live (TTL – time to live).

In this screen cap, you can see that the very limited analytics given to me on the results of my paid promotion got me 1.8x the amount of views as this post would have received if I didn’t pay $7US to promote. Because this is a personal account and not a Facebook Page, this is the best set of analytics I’m going to have to work from. If I assume 240 people at any one time will see my public posts, then I can calculate that 192 additional people saw my post (my estimated reach of 240 times 0.8 increase in impressions).

End result is that I got no more shares on the content than I might have if I shared this type of content (self promotion and not ‘personal’) on Facebook without paying $7US. Two of the commenters and sharers were not Facebook friends of  mine but do subscribe to my public content. There is no telling if they would have normally seen this post and commented, or if if it was the Promoted Post at work.

Notice I didn’t provide an external link or design a really strong call to action in my post, but instead called attention to my guests on the book launch ‘show’ I was hosting. My philosophy on using social media to drive business is as easy as ABC - always be counting.

What I Would Do Differently Next Time

Looking back, I would most certainly attach a large custom graphic instead of a generic link (this one pointed to my YouTube channel). Graphics are a surefire way to get more views on a post in Facebook and I could still hand type in a link for people to click. This allows me to grab more ‘real estate’ on a person’s Facebook stream and gain a few more seconds to make an impression.

I would use a link shortner to point to information on my own website and use it to track only Facebook clicks rather than push clicks to a site I don’t own or control. It makes tracking much harder when I don’t use trackable links or I can sort this out on the back end of my analytics (I use both Google Analytics and Piwik - I don’t ever trust one set of numbers). Also using a ?source=PurpleStripe attribute on my links just helps sort through it quicker (thanks to Christopher Penn for that tip).

Based on friends recommendations I would promote a post the day before an event, not a few hours before an event. Even though my post TTL is about 5.5 hours on Facebook, giving people more time to respond to a call to action that has a deadline is a better approach. With a Facebook Promoted Post that is built as part of an ongoing and planned strategic outreach, my timing and content would be much different. (This is more in line of what I work with clients on.)

Disappointments with Facebook Promoted Posts

The one thing that I am most disappointed in is that when paying for a Facebook Promoted Post, you don’t have unlimited access to the statistics. I have to do screen captures to document my results because after a period of time (I assume when your post is no longer eligible for promotion) you can no longer view the information. Being able to better estimate when the best time to post on my timeline would be helpful to get the most juice out of the Facebook Promoted Post, but there are many resources already available to make this determination on your own. (Analysis showed that it was best to post during times when fans were not at work and between the hours of 8pm and 7am on Wednesdays and Saturdays.)

Facebook Promoted Post Conclusion

In the end I do feel it was a good $7US spent. To me, gaining 192 views (estimated) for $7US comes out to $0.036 a view. If I had more friends or subscribers the number per estimated view would decrease. Using this tactic on a Facebook Page with a decent following would most likely result in even better results. So, yes 3 1/2 cents per view is totally worth the budget and results for me and my needs for the project.

I intend to repost this article in Facebook about a week after I publish it to promote the long tail reads and get additional exposure outside of the initial subscribers. Be on the lookout for an update when I have results.

Google+ for Small Businesses is specifically written for the needs, resources and capabilities of solo and small business owners wanting to take advantage of the huge reach of Google+.

• DATE/TIME: Oct 24 2012 – 7:00pm – 8:30pm
• LOCATION: 2nd Floor Fireplace
• More details at the Princeton Public Library site.

My goals for this weekend are to refocus on the parts of myself and my business that I love and that I am great at. I’m looking forward to meeting other forward-thinking, entrepreneurial women. I’m excited about seeing speakers I have not heard before and exposing myself to topics I normally would shy away from. I’m looking forward to expanding my circle of influential friends and business contacts. And, yes, I’m hoping to meet a few new coaching clients as well.

For example, I hope to attend Dr. Nicole Cutts‘ session “How to Use a Vision Board to Create Personal and Career Success”. I am so hardwired to be analytical and non-fluffy in my professional life. A “vision board” – belch, that sounds so Oprah-rah-rah. Not for me normally, but this weekend I will listen and learn. I feel at this point in my life, business and career I need something else. Maybe trying something like a vision board is what I need to kick up out of a boredom rut?

Another session I’m very much looking forward to is Kacy Paide‘s session “5 Steps to Creating a Beautiful, Functional Office”. Having recently built a new home office for the use of a video studio, I’m stuck on ideas. I know that by purposefully designing my working space I’m more creative and productive, but other than cruising Pinterest for ideas I’ll never implement, I don’t know where to start. Maybe Kacy has the solution for me?

Outside of the official Power Up Weekend 2012 agenda, it’s the “hallway conversations”, new faces and some red wine that I hope to inspire me above all else.

Interested in attending? I know you want to! Visit the Power Up Weekend 2012 website for ticking information, Like Power Up on Facebook, and follow Power Up on Twitter.

• Location: Podcamp East at Delaware Technical & Community College in Wilmington Delaware
• Date: Saturday September 29, 2012
• Time: 1:30pm – 2:20pm
• Room: Large Auditorium

A basic understanding of Google+ as well as general online publishing tools such as blogging and podcasting/video will help you get the most out of the session. For ‘getting up to speed’ sessions on Google+, be sure to attend Jeffery Salvitti’s Google+ Basics (10:30am Room 1) and How To Produce An Awesome Hangout: Promotion, Production, Presentation (12:30pm Room 1). If you have never used the Google+ platform I highly recommend attending Jeff’s sessions before mine!

According to a Sterling Research and SmithGeiger studies released this morning and discussed on +Forbes (journalist +Robert Hof):

- Two-thirds of smartphone users say a mobile-friendly site makes them more likely to buy a company’s product or service, and 74% say they’re more likely to return to the site later.

- 61% says that if they don’t find what they’re looking for (probably within about five seconds), they’ll click away to another site.

- Half say that even if they like a business, they’ll use its site less often if it doesn’t work well on their smartphone.

I know that I as well as many of my friends and family check out websites for anyplace we are thinking of spending money. If the website doesn't load on my iPhone 4 and look decent enough to read or interact with (I'm looking at you restaurants with Flash websites) we don't go. Yes, if I can't get the information on your business from a mobile device at my time of need then I just don't go and spend money.

How many customers are you loosing this way? You have no idea….

#blog  

Embedded Link

Google Research: No Mobile Site = Lost Customers – Forbes
Google has increasingly pushed its advertising customers to create special mobile websites because, as we know all too well, most conventional websites look awful on a smartphone. Now, Google's provid…

Google+: View post on Google+

Bold items below are Hubspot's, text description that follows are my commentary…

1) Creating fake pages. And by 'fake' they mean hijacking the name of a brand, product, service, etc. of something owned by another. As more vanity URLs roll out, there will be (professional guess here) a bigger crackdown on fake pages.

2) Running contests. Oh, I hear the collective sigh on this one all the time. Workaround? You can run a contest on your own site and just talk about it on Google+. So long as the actual mechanics of entering a contest aren't conducted IN Google+ you should be okay.

3) Aggressive Circling. For a spamming deterrent most likely. If you go to circle too many people (for me it shows up as more than 200 people at once, but your results may vary) you will receive an error. This is nothing new, Twitter has had stop gates in place like this for years.

4) Altering or adding +1 buttons where they don't belong. Google has been doing a really great job at finding and disabling the 'black hat' tactics shadier people try – including putting a +1 button on unrelated content. You think you are +1ing a cute kitten picture when in fact the code has been changed and you are +1ing a cruddy link-baiting site. So, don't do it.

5) Keyword stuffing. Save the stuffing for Thanksgiving or 2002. It just does not work on the Internet and it doesn't work inside Google's own house of Google+.

6) Marketing regulated products. I live in New Jersey, home to "finance and pharma". Both heavily regulated industries and have extremely limited to non-existant social media abilities. Trust me, it's greatly limited my backyard client prospects…. (any non finance or pharma leads greatly appreciated).

7) Letting your page go dormant. Use it or lose it. Twitter also has a similar policy. I've 'squatted' a few names on Twitter for clients and lost them. Pay close attention to this one especially if you have managed to snag yourself a vanity URL. This seems to only apply to a Google+ page and assets, not your Google account / Gmail in general.

#blog  Original post by +Lynette Young 

Reshared post from +HubSpot

Have you unwittingly broken any of these social media rules?

Embedded Link

40 Ways to Get Banned From the Top 5 Social Networks
Learn about the policies on the most popular social networks marketers should understand.

Google+: View post on Google+

Lynette will give actionable and tactical examples and tips of how to get started using Google+ for your company or brand and discussing best practices she’s learned to date. Featured brands will also be available to showcase their own case studies of what works for them in Google+

Join social media power influencer Lynette Young for a look at ways your business can kick start its presence on Google+. Hear best-in-class examples of businesses embracing Google+ and learn about the features you can use to engage with customers.

To watch the Hangout live, go to the Google+ Your Business page and click the play icon on the top post.

RSVP via Google+ on the Google+ Events page or tune into the Google+ Your Business page at 1pm Eastern on August 23, 2012 for a live video stream.