Introduction To Zukul

Here is a fantastic way to learn how to and build an online business. Have you heard of Empower Network, My Lead System Pro, Click Bank, Aweber. Chances are you have. Well, Zukul has taken all the best bits from these great companies, enhanced them and put them all in one place.

Even if you already have a successful online or offline business Zukul can help you achieve more. Would you like to get loads of FREE TRAFFIC to your website of offer. Zukul can do that for you.



Like what you see in the introduction, then check it out here http://tell.me.more.365.pm/

Until next time,

10 Social Media Tips for Bloggers

Here are 10 tips to help bloggers navigate the increasingly complex world of social media — while still making time to write content.

1. Display your social media icons prominently toward the top of your website.

Make it as simple as possible for your blog readers to connect with you on various social media platforms. They shouldn’t have to hunt around to find your Twitter handle, but should be able to click on a button and be taken right to your profile. Bonus points if your social media icons reflect the overall design or feel of your blog.

2. Every blog should have its own Facebook Page.

Even with Facebook’s new subscription feature, there’s still merit to giving your blog its own space on Facebook. It’s nice to be able to post a link every time you publish something new, and not have to worry about annoying your friends. Plus, readers who don’t your name but know the name of your blog can search for it on Facebook. Show your fans some love on your blog by using the Facebook social plugin, which makes it easy to convert readers to fans.

3. Generate traffic with StumbleUpon.

This “recommendation engine” serves as an alternate browser where users click through pages that their SU friends and SU itself have recommended. You can submit your own blog posts into the system, but it works best if you also share them with your SU friends and accept their shares back. Like most social platforms, you need to have a strong following to get good results. While people are still trying to figure out what makes SU content go viral, many bloggers have seen terrific, albeit fleeting, traffic spikes through the service. 

4. Import your RSS feed onto your LinkedIn profile using its Blog Link application.

As long as your blog somewhat pertains to your professional goals, you should be showcasing it on LinkedIn. List it as one of your three websites in your profile, where it will be labeled “Blog.” However, by using the Blog Link application, your most recent posts will display right on your profile. 

5. Pinterest is the hot new frontier for bloggers.

Pinterest is the cool new kid, and all of the bloggers are scrambling to establish a presence there. Pin your best photos onto themed boards with links to a relevant blog post. Blogs with strong visual content, like fashion, food, design, crafts and travel, are a natural fit. Infographics will also do quite well. Don’t forget to add a Pinterest plugin (like the Pinterest "Pin It" Button for WordPress users) to make it easy for your readers to share your content on their Pinterest boards.

6. Use link shorteners even when you don’t have to.

Twitter will now shorten your link for you, and the length of your link doesn’t matter on Facebook and Google+. But by using a link shortener like bit.ly, you will gain access to metrics, so you'll know how many people clicked and at what time. With this essential data, you can experiment with different ways to tease your content and different times to post it.

7. Use your blog name as your username whenever possible.

Promote your personal brand by consistently using your blog’s name for your Twitter handle, StumbleUpon name, Pinterest name and so on. Then, people don’t have to wonder about your blog’s name — it’s right there. Also, people will remember you easily across platforms, which is key as you develop up your online community.

8. Join blogger groups on Facebook.

There are some very active groups on Facebook that are terrific resources for any blogging issues you encounter. Look for groups like “Travel Bloggers” or “Global Bloggers Network.” WordPress geeks have “Advanced WordPress” and Central Florida residents have “Central Florida Bloggers.” Not only are blogger groups good for problem-solving, but it’s well-known that bloggers like to read other blogs. Do some searching and find a bloggers group that’s suited to you, or start your own!

9. Be generous with other bloggers.

Promote other bloggers' content, and hopefully they’ll return the favor. You can’t simply blast your own content anyway — you need some variety in every social media stream. So why not check out what your fellow bloggers are posting and give them a retweet, a share or a repin whenever you can. And don’t forget to reciprocate and share content from bloggers who share yours.

10. Be on social media — even when it's not driving traffic.

It can be frustrating when you feel that you’re doing everything right (posting good content on the appropriate platforms in the best way possible) and you’re still not getting many clicks. But console yourself by thinking about all of the links that you see throughout the day that you don’t click on. Just spending time on social media platforms is great way to forge relationships, keep up on industry news and find inspiration for that next blog post.

Images courtesy of iStockphoto, ardaguldogan.

Article Source  http://mashable.com/2012/02/17/social-media-bloggers-tips/

10 STRATEGIES ON HOW TO INCREASE ADSENSE REVENUE

AdSense is increasingly growing as a method of making quick money over the internet. As a blogger, you have probably dabbled with Google AdSense, generated some of the ad units and placed them on your blog or website to make profits from this strategy. Google AdSense may seem so simple to use but like any cash-generating program, you can make a tremendous improvement and earn highly. Ideally, it is the simplest optimizations and polishing of ads that that will earn you more clicks and ultimately more money. Consider the following 10 strategies on how to increase AdSense revenue: 

 1. Use ads where they are more likely to be seen Do you know when or where your ads are more likely to be seen and eventually earn more clicks? The secret is placing them adjacent to something that the user is more likely to click on. A user’s eyes mostly follows the mouse and if they spot an attractive ad close to what they are about to open, it increases their likelihood of clicking on your ad. Whether it is a share button or a social link button, find out what your users like and place your ads next to such. 

 2. Generate a good list of highly paying keywords and use them wisely Keywords are still essential when working online because they will be used from time to time to find content over the internet. Generate a good list by using the savviest tools available or by simply observing and accurately speculating what users are likely to look for. Once you have such keywords, never use them the spam way. Spread them naturally and reasonably as though you are a skilled writer trying to share meaningful content relating to that particular subject. For an article that has 500 words, using the keywords at least 4 or 5 times will be reasonable. Be careful to spread them evenly such that your writing looks natural. 

 3. Reconcile the colors to match with your design Visual appeal is an important factor if you desire to make more money online. To attract more visitors and solicit them to click on your ads, therefore, the adverts must blend with the entire content to appear as though it was designed by some expert. However, you have to be careful not to make the advertisement awfully similar to the content because you would have violated Google AdSense policies. On the other hand, however, they don’t have to sound like advertisements by looking so odd. To strike a reasonable balance, make strategic plans such as matching the color of your ad text with that of your content (which is usually black). 

 4. Make you website dynamic If you offer quality and genuine content, there are users who will visit your website from time to time. With this trust comes a negative virtue if you don’t shake up your website from time to time. Users will be so familiar with where and how you place your ads and with time they will start avoiding them. To avoid this, shake your website often and change the position of your ads. As you test different locations and watch your ad ratings, pause to look at you tests and implement the strategies that earned the highest rating. 

 5. Use ad analytics If you only use ad reporting tools to know how much money you are owed, perhaps it is time you made more use of this goldmine. There are tonnes of information in ad tools that will significantly hike your revenue. For instance, the tools can help you determine the effect of changing ad sizes on your website. Similarly, you can study the effect it will have on your rating if you change the website content and layout. 

 6. Aim at being a resource and not a destination While using ads is the only viable strategy at the moment, you should understand that every single ad has a fair share in driving people away from your website. If you desire to build a blog with regular readers, therefore, placing an ad after every paragraph is not a reasonable idea. Placing ads between your texts will obviously earn more clicks compared to ads that are placed independently on one of the corners but you will obviously lose some of your visitors. As such, it is important to understand that you will earn more money with AdSense if you receive more visitors from search engines. If you offer your visitors the exact content that they are looking for, this increases your trust and will ultimately give you a higher rating. Be smart and avoid placing every valuable resource on your site. Instead, create the kind of resource that will compel users to move ahead in order to find more information on the topic that they love. With time, this gives you an opportunity to sneak in the ads without losing the regular visitors. 

 7. Promote your pages with a lot of vigor If you desire to receive increased organic traffic from search engines, creating highly compelling content is just a fraction of what you need to do. It also includes creating backlinks and promoting the pages like someone who means it. Besides leveraging on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, guest posting is another strategy you can use to promote your pages. If there are any meaningful online forums, participate too and you will significantly popularize your pages to increase the amount that you make from AdSense. 

 8. Use multiple ad networks If you entrust your entire ad inventory to one ad network, it means they will pay whatever amount they wish for a particular inventory. To avoid this, work with several ad networks and choose those with varying industries, geographic locations, strengths and campaigns. But how will you allocate inventories to all these ad networks? Other than weighing which ad network you prefer on the basis of the amount that they pay, the most reasonable strategy is to auction your inventories and surrender to one who pays highest. This way, you get to make more money with several options at hand in case one turns unreliable. 

 9. Play honest and remain real A number of people may settle on a cheap trick of asking their friends and relatives to click on their ads. However, Google is smart and will soon realize this trick. Once you lose your AdSense account, be sure that you will never have it back. Rather than settling for such a simple fraud, therefore, remain simple and real. Work your way up the ladder by posting regularly and engaging with your audience to earn the trust that will genuinely double your income. 

10. Try out different ad sizes Available information indicates that a wider ad is likely to earn more clicks than a taller one. Wider ads are easy to read because the visitor will not be forced to skip lines and will therefore lead to more clicks. However, you need to experiment regularly with various ad sizes to determine the most appropriate for your site. This where analytical tools come in handy. Even so, don’t waste too much time testing ads and ad sizes until you forget that you are supposed to offer quality content. 

In summary, AdSense is not so hard a puzzle that you cannot solve. On the contrary, it is a good resource to play around with and earn more money. Don’t be afraid to mix things up until you get a blend of designs and strategies that will assure you of the biggest earnings.

Article Source Social Media How To

http://allfacebook.com/stolen-passwords_b135400

Facebook continued to mark National Cyber Security Awareness Month with content aimed at explaining the measures it takes to keep its users safe, and the latest addition is a note on the Protect the Graph page from security engineer Chris Long explaining how the social network reacts to the sharing of stolen passwords on public sites.

Long wrote:

The Facebook Security team has always kept a close eye on data breach announcements from other organizations. Theft of personal data like email addresses and passwords can have larger consequences because people often use the same password on multiple websites. Unfortunately, it’s common for attackers to publicly post the email addresses and passwords they steal on public “paste” sites. Lots of household company names have experienced the unpleasant phenomenon of seeing account data for their sites show up in these public lists, and responding to these situations is time-consuming and challenging.

Our team wanted to do something to improve this situation, so we built a system dedicated to further securing people’s Facebook accounts by actively looking for these public postings, analyzing them and then notifying people when we discover that their credentials have shown up elsewhere on the Internet. To do this, we monitor a selection of different paste sites for stolen credentials and watch for reports of large-scale data breaches. We collect the stolen credentials that have been publicly posted and check them to see if the stolen email and password combination matches the same email and password being used on Facebook. This is a completely automated process that doesn’t require us to know or store your actual Facebook password in an unhashed form. In other words, no one here has your plain text password. To check for matches, we take the email address and password and run them through the same code that we use to check your password at login time. If we find a match, we’ll notify you the next time you log in and guide you through a process to change your password.

Long also offered the following tips for users to more strongly secure their passwords and other personal data:

• Enable login approvals, our two-factor authentication solution, to add an extra layer of security for your account. You’ll enter a security code from your phone when logging in from a new browser.
• Use Facebook Login when you need to sign into other websites. You won’t have to create (or remember) a user name or password, and the service won’t be able to post on your behalf unless you let it. Even if the website you are logging into ever gets compromised, the attacker won’t have a copy of your password.

Readers: Have any of your passwords ever been stolen?

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Article Source http://allfacebook.com/stolen-passwords_b135400

Have I Shared Too Much? This Is Funny

Hashtags Across Platforms

Hashtags are one of the greatest tools social media has to offer, but also one of the most challenging to use correctly. Similar to most social media platforms, balance is key both in quantity and quality.

Marketers are fans of repetition, but using the same self-promotional hashtag in every single tweet might not be the very best strategy. At the same time, connecting with like-minded individuals, potential employees, and promoting your brand to the best of your ability often includes a strategy using hashtags and catchy phrases that could potentially go viral.

Early adopters are more likely to be familiar with how to use hashtags well than those just beginning to use social media as a tool. Even after spending a few months or years on Twitter, people still aren’t quite sure what hashtags are for or why they see them everywhere. And with the advent of Facebook hashtags and Instagram hashtags and yes, even Pinterest hashtags, there are plenty of places to be confused by them! 

Ready for a bold statement? Twitter is kind of like life—it all comes down to relationships with other human beings. The goal of social media is to build relationships in some capacity, and hopefully those relationships lead to something even more valuable in the future. The essence of hashtags is giants like Twitter and Facebook trying to help users create relationships and engage in conversation with people you know (and those you don’t). As long as your brand understands that hashtags are about more than feeding clicks or hoping for retweets, you’re using them well. They are the key to having more permanent experiences and listening to what the world is saying with the click of a button, which is actually an incredibly lovely concept.

So here’s how to use these challenging, rewarding little friends. First of all, Twitter recommendsno more than two hashtagged words or phrases per tweet. This might not seem like many, but it’s very true to Twitter’s central strategy– choose your words wisely, because you don’t have many. Additionally, don’t feel compelled to add a hashtag to every single tweet you write. If you tweet something only vaguely related to interior design, it truly does nobody any good to add the hashtag just in case.

And finally, check hashtags that you frequently use to find out what others are saying and how your brand can be a part of that. Hopefully as you use hashtags, related businesses and people will discover you and you’ll discover others as well. Twitter is the new word of mouth—the only difference being that the words are lined up nicely in your newsfeed.

To learn more, read our recent post about the #icebucketchallenge and how charities are benefiting from the use of hashtags. And look for future posts on hashtags in Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram– that’s right, it’s one big, complex conversational world! 

Maggie has a love-hate relationship with hashtags. She’s a writer at Social Media Contractors.
Aticle Source http://www.socialmediacontractors.com/hashtags-across-platforms/

Strategy Breakdown: Developing Your Platform Strategies

The strategy development process is by far, the most important element of the social media planning process. In fact, it may be the most important element of your social media presence in general. Without a strategy–and without regularly checking in to make sure you're staying on strategy–your social media presence will often end up as a decentralized, off-message, resource-sucking mess.

But it's not just as easy as developing an overarching strategy and calling it good. You need to take that general strategy you just developed and turn it into real, actionable guidelines. That means adapting it to each platform you hope to be on, and figuring out how your messages will best translate on all of them.

That can be a chore, but it's certainly not impossible–not when you take the right steps, at least.

Have a look below for some tips on developing your platform strategies, as well as some examples to help you get started:

Facebook

Facebook is great for images, emotion-driven content, videos, and other content that may be a little less serious than the rest of what you curate. The great thing about Facebook is that more than any other platform, you can use analytics to see very clearly who's viewing your page and interacting with you. Use this to your advantage in crafting your content, and even individual posts. Our best practices show that posting no more than twice a day is best, spread out at different times throughout the day. Blogs are good here, as are images from curated articles. Don't count on organic reach being super high, but do at least practice posting regularly and making sure you stay involved.

Example: Segment: People who want to work at SMC; potential clients vetting our SM presence. Purpose: Recruiting. Content: Videos and vlogs, photos, stories from around the office, and content that's on-message but doesn't necessarily fit our Twitter stream.

Twitter

Twitter is far and away my favorite platform, and it's also the dominant publishing source for most of our clients. On Twitter, you can post frequently and with a wide variety of content, making it an ideal stream for your efforts relating to thought leadership and brand awareness. Off-the-record, professionals tend to be more sophisticated here than they do on Facebook (Twitter is more rational in our experience), but don't fall into the trap of posting content that's only for folks in your industry. Remember: you are trying to market your business to clients, not to fans in your space.

Most, if not all, of your primary messages from your strategy will appear here, and this may very well be your most developed target market. If you're going to spend time in one place besides your blog, do it here. Count on posting anywhere from six to twenty times a day. The sweet spot is right in between.

Example: Segment: Decision influencers in marketing departments. Purpose: Thought leadership and brand awareness. Content: Psychology of marketing, sophisticated marketing content, data from our own observations, blogs, stories of culture change, branding successes, etc.

Google+

Our professional opinion? Don't spend too much time developing a strategy for Google+. For most companies, replicating (yes, cross-posting, even though we don't usually recommend it) Facebook is a good strategy. Be sure to post your blogs with Google authorship. Otherwise, this is a back door to SEO, and not much more. The big exception would be tech companies, though even their presences are often underutilized. A good thing to have, but not a great platform to spend too much time on.

Example: Segment: The gods of SEO. Purpose: Paying homage to Google gods. Content: Blogs and duplicates from Facebook.

LinkedIn

Ah, LinkedIn–the professional network that's trying to be a publisher. Count on using this primarily as a recruiting tool, but don't count out its utility as a platform for showing off to potential clients who bias towards the professional side. We like to publish long-form content and job openings on Twitter. (You can use it as a publishing platform, too.) Remember, however, that LinkedIn users have a low tolerance for bullshit. If you post too often or spam conversations, you'll quickly find yourself in a race towards the bottom.

Example: Segment: People who want to work at SMC; decision influencers in marketing departments. Purpose: Recruiting, thought leadership, and brand awareness. Content: Recruiting-related posts, job openings, and long-form content that fits our overall marketing strategy.

YouTube

YouTube is a bit of a crapshoot for most businesses. If you have unique content–webinars, vlogs, event recaps, etc.–to show, then give it a shot and try updating it once a month or so. But don't just transcribe text to video and expect it to do well–videos are most effective in short, easily digestible bursts. Remember, too, not to half ass your presence. If you can't do it well, stay off. But again, if you do have the capacity for it, YouTube can be a great value add when executed correctly.

Example: Segment: Same as Facebook. Purpose: Recruiting and brand awareness. Content: Vlogs, videos of events, short content summaries, sales videos, and webinars.

Instagram

Instagram should probably not be your primary platform (unless you're a cupcake shop, maybe), but it should be used as a supplement to your broader story. Remember, pictures are very impactful, and you'd be wise to use them. Demographics are somewhere between Facebook and Twitter. Use Instagram to show your lighter side and contribute visually interesting content to the rest of the text to which you've grown so attached.

Example: Segment: People who want to work at SMC; potential clients vetting our SM presence (though not as much of a concern as elsewhere). Purpose: Recruiting, brand awareness as it relates to culture. Content: Photos that show we have personality while also showing we're professional. Everything from company outings to service events.

Blog

Count on your blog being the source whence all your thought leadership comes. Your social media pages are an opportunity for you to showcase your knowledge of your industry and your clients; your blog is your opportunity to really show your stuff and contribute your own facts and opinions to the broader picture you're painting. Ideally, you'll have a mix of content here that adds value across the board. This is the one place where all of your messaging and target audience should roll into one. Don't leave anyone out. If you can swing five posts a week, do it. Otherwise, two or three should do.

Example: Segment: Decision influencers in marketing departments. Purpose: Thought leadership and brand awareness. Content: Case studies, data and observations, article commentary, news, stories about culture change, stories of branding successes, etc.

All Others

The platforms you see above are more than enough to get started, but it never hurts to at least be aware of other platforms out there. If you're a restaurant, you'll probably want to check out Yelp. Eventbrite and company are good to be on for larger companies that put on a lot of conferences. And don't discount that up-and-coming platform, either. Stay aware of the space to make sure you're not missing anything big.

Example: None for now. Address as needed.

While your overarching strategy should inform your strategy on each social media platform, it shouldn't necessarily be the same across the board. Twitter is different than Facebook is different than the blog, and you'd be missing out if you weren't catering to the unique audiences of each. 

Developing your platform strategies and making sure all of your platforms tell different sides of the same story will make your social media presence richer, and it will also help ensure that you take full advantage of the unique opportunities presented on each platform. If you post the same things the same ways regardless of platform, your story will tire quickly and you'll lose the attention of those you're trying to get in front of.

Does each platform have to be 100% unique? No–absolutely not. But a little bit of distinction will go a long ways towards making sure you hit your targets and, above all, stay interesting and fresh in the minds of your target audience.

John's favorite platform is Twitter, by a long shot. He's Managing Editor at Social Media Contractors.
Article Source http://www.socialmediacontractors.com/category/smc-blog/how-to/

What can marketers learn from Facebook’s Audience Insights?

The value of social has always been reaching consumers in a unique environment where they are deeply engaged and generating a meaningful conversation between those engagers and a brand. To do this well, we have to deeply understand the passions, preferences and interests of the brand’s audience and how these affinities relate to the brand itself.

Major opportunity lies in making sense of the social data created by the billions of consumers who willingly broadcast their affinities and brand connections daily across social channels such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram.  These social channels account for the planet’s largest and least biased focus group ever created. Affinity data holds the secret to how consumers want to be engaged, leading not only to better social media marketing, but a more engaged consumer across all channels.

A Giant Affirms Affinity

It is in this vein of thinking that Facebook recently launched its Audience Insights tool for advertisers, which was “designed to help marketers learn more about their target audiences.” To see the largest player in social bring forward a product aimed at better harnessing social media audience data is exciting and reaffirms what my company has already found to be true: social data, when harnessed correctly, is the most valuable source for consumer insight across any channel.

So, what can Audience Insights help marketers learn? Some highlights include:

• Understanding what demographic traits index highest for your page audience vs. the entire Facebook population
• Identifying the other pages liked most often by the audience that has liked your page
• Viewing the Personicx lifestyle categories that index highest for your brand page audience

General feedback on Audience Insights seems positive, and shows the hunger for a better understanding of what social data tells brands about their customers.

Next Steps

Facebook Audience Insights is a great first step for brands who want to understand their customers better through social data.  Social intelligence tools exist today that allow brands to take an even greater step forward in their social data strategy by adding value in five key areas:

1. Data Scope: Facebook is a large slice of the social media pie, but it isn’t the whole thing.  In order to have the most accurate picture of your customers, you need to look at the data they are generating across multiple social networks while being able to differentiate the affinity connections to your brand within each social network separately.  This latter part becomes increasingly important when using the data to better target marketing within each social network.
2. Data Depth:  It’s becoming more important that you look for and work with platforms that are founded in data science. “Page likes” are a weak signal for predicting future engagement and action.  People who have actively engaged with a brand socially via sharing, commenting, retweeting etc. are the best predictor for future social action and lead to the highest ROI. If a platform provider is offering you page likes in their affinity lift scores, ask for more specifics around what other metrics they employ to prove that lift.
3. Action: Data without action is like a light bulb with no switch –completely useless.  Search out a platform that identifies a brand’s top affinities and easily applies those targets to social ads across Facebook and Twitter in minutes, leading to more effective social media targeting and campaign results.
4. Competition: It’s great to understand how your brand’s affinities compare to the general population, but it is even more powerful to know how they compare to your competitors.  By better understanding the motivations of your competitors’ most engaged customers, you can more effectively grow your own audience and increase category market share.
5. Offline application: Social media has become an always-on companion that mirrors offline media consumption, especially in TV.  A huge opportunity exists in utilizing social affinity data to better understand the strongest connections between your brand’s audience and specific TV elements (shows, networks, genres, actors). Using this data allows advertisers to make smarter offline media buying choices while strengthening their social buys via alignment based on brand affinity.

The market is just scratching the surface of using social data for more effective brand advertising within social media and across offline channels.  Facebook’s new Audience Insights tool offers a great first step toward this opportunity, but more work needs to be done and platform providers are available today that can help. Look for partners that canshowcase the additional scope, depth, action, competition, and offline application and you’ll be prepared to take advantage of the power social data can bring to your marketing activities.

Grant Parker is the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at 4C. 4C is powered by over 27 years of university research in big data science and predictive algorithms to help companies understand and use social data and connections. Grant’s previous experience includes positions with Ziff Davis, inPowered, NetShelter Technology Media and Resolution Media. Learn more at http://4cinsights.com/. 

Article Source http://www.insidefacebook.com/2014/09/11/what-can-marketers-learn-from-facebooks-audience-insights/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+InsideFacebook+%28Inside+Facebook%29&utm_content=FaceBook

How Not to use Your Facebook Page

Don’t use your Facebook page as your website; it screams amateur.  Everybody has a website these days, even if it’s only on WordPress.  Not just for bloggers anymore, WordPress sites can be made to look like topnotch professional websites through the use of fabulous and highly versatile  WordPress themes  that can be purchased quite reasonably.  Purchase your own domain name as well and no one will ever call your website a blog. But there is a place for blogging… enter, Facebook!

Save the Blogging for Facebook

Your professional website site is where you will have all the slick ad copy, graphics and cool themes.  Your Facebook page is where you want to do your blogging, post news happenings and so forth.  This is your friendly page, hence the term social networking.

That said, do actually blog on Facebook.  Nothing is more of a turnoff than to visit a company’s Facebook page and see that it hasn’t been updated in months, or years even.  Some companies create a Facebook page with minimal information and then forget about it.  Why even bother?  They are losing out on the opportunity of a lifetime.

Post a really good bargain on your Facebook page and encourage your customers to share it with their friends.  You’ll get new customers without having to pay for any advertising.  And since you’re not paying for the advertising, you can afford to make it a really enticing bargain.

Don’t Spam Your Customers

If you post too often on Facebook, friends and customers may not go so far as to unfriend you, but they will turn off your posts, which is like unfriending you without you knowing it.  We all have friends who seem to have nothing better to do than update their status on Facebook, and they’re just plain annoying.  When a business does it, we have no compunction with turning them off.

Every other day is about the most frequently a business should post updates to Facebook.  Posts should be interesting and of real value, as well as short and to the point.  Some good topics for Facebook updates are significant discount offers, brand new products available, expanded business hours, addition of a new employees, as in a new hairdresser at a salon or masseuse at a spa, or anything else that might be of actual interest to the customers.

Social Media is a Two-Way Street

The great thing about Facebook and other social media sites is that your customers can give you feedback.  Be sure to respond to customer comments right away.  This shows that you’re active on your site and that you care.  And don’t delete the occasional negative comment.  Customers hate that; it’s like hanging up on them.  Instead, respond as reasonably and politely as you can.  Remember, the customer is always right, even when they’re wrong.  Other customers will see crabby remarks for what they are and admire your tactfulness and restraint.

 Don’t Make it All About You

Your Facebook page is not your website, it’s a forum.  It’s a place where you can engage your customers in interesting, relevant discussions.  Bring in fresh content from other sites, the news, wherever you can find it.  Let your customers get to know you, by showing them what you’re interested in.  They don’t need your curriculum vitae, although you can put relevant qualifications on your information page, once.

Mind Your P’s and Q’s

We’re not talking about please and thank you here, but punctuation errors and questionable grammar.  Rather than typing your blog posts straight into the Facebook page, try composing them in a word processing document, one with some form of spell check.  This will allow you to come up with a thoughtful, well composed post and make sure that it’s grammatically correct at the same time.  Cut and paste your finished post into your Facebook page.  Save a document with all your posts for your own records.

Facebook and other social networking sites are a great tool to develop a successful relationship with your customers, but like any other tool, it needs to be used the right way and for the right purpose!

Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stoneysteiner/5713704415/

Article Source http://wearesocialpeople.com/how-not-to-use-your-facebook-page/ 

Tips for successful marketing through Facebook

To market your business successfully on Facebook, you need to understand Facebook's unique opportunities, and how it differs from other media. Just as you wouldn't run a radio ad on television, you shouldn't market on Facebook the way you'd market in a magazine or on your website.

Don't use Facebook for the 'hard sell'

People regard Facebook as a fun social space where they chat to friends, check out photos and videos, and relax. You need to join conversations and become part of a community, rather than being a business 'outsider' who tries to sell aggressively.

Hard-sell tactics - such as using advertising slogans, posting repeatedly about a particular product or service, or providing lists of products and prices in isolation from any related conversation - will result in other users 'unfollowing' you. They may even post negative comments about your business.

Have a clear goal and strategy

It's important to have a clear goal for using Facebook, and a strategy to achieve that goal. For example, a coffee shop might decide that its goal is to increase sales generated by Facebook by 10% in the next 6 months. Their strategy could include:

• creating a post every morning featuring a special of the day, using a coupon code so that the sale can be tracked to Facebook
• posting a daily photo featuring a customer who is its 'Coffee King or Queen' of the day
• encouraging users to post their own photos of them enjoying a coffee.

Setting a goal and strategy gives you direction for your Facebook marketing and a way to measure your success.

Create a human voice for your business

Facebook users like to talk to other people - not to an impersonal business. Whoever manages your Facebook page must be able to write in a voice that sounds real and likeable, using a style that suits your business. They also need permission to express things in their own words, not in the company's jargon or 'official line'.

Post regularly

Unlike traditional media (such as magazines or television), or other online media (such as web pages), social media are built around frequent updates.

Statistics show that around 50% of all Facebook users check their page at least once a day, and they need to see that you are regularly posting new material. Some guides recommend posting at least once a day, but the core principles are to post when you have interesting content, and to judge how often your audience wants to hear from you.

Encourage comments and reply quickly

Encourage other Facebook users to respond to your posts or to post their own comments about your business or a topic that's of interest to them and you. When they do post, respond quickly - within 24 hours is best. Failing to respond will weaken your Facebook friends' willingness to engage with you, and they will gradually drift away.

Use pictures and videos

Pictures and videos are a major element of Facebook's appeal. Use them frequently to keep your friends engaged and entertained. For example:

• a clothing retailer could post photos of new stock as it arrives
• an architect or builder could post day-by-day pictures of a house under renovation
• a personal trainer could post an instructional video of how to do a particular exercise.

Get interactive with offers, contests, games, surveys, etc. People like it when Facebook is fun, and when it delivers something that they can't get any other way.

Research shows that discounts and giveaways are the most popular reason for a customer to follow a business's Facebook page. Likewise, contests and games can be used to liven up your page.

Facebook can also be used to distribute customer surveys. If you do this, make sure that you keep surveys short, and provide a survey link that users can easily click, ignore or share with their friends.

Nurture your relationships

It takes time to build good relationships with other Facebook users, so be patient. Engage sincerely in conversations, provide useful content, and develop rewards for loyal customers to help foster positive relationships.

Promote your Facebook page

If you have a Facebook page, promote it throughout your business so that your social media works hand-in-hand with more traditional marketing methods. Provide your Facebook address on your letterhead, business card and website, in store, in advertisements, and in your email signature.

Use Facebook Insights to learn more about your customers

Facebook Insights can tell you more about the people who choose to like your page. Once you know your Facebook friends' characteristics, you can tailor your posts and offers to meet their needs and interests.

For example, if you're a book store that caters to customers of all ages, but most of your Facebook friends are aged 18-25 years, your Facebook offers might concentrate on books suitable for that age group (while your in-store offers are broader). Or, if you're an online seller who never meets your customers, you might be able to get a clearer picture of what they think and feel by reviewing their interests, ages and locations on Facebook.

Learn more about Facebook Insights.

Related links

• Watch introduction to Facebook webisode recordings to find out more about using Facebook pages for your business.
• Watch recorded webinars to learn about using Facebook for your business and advanced Facebook strategies for your business.
• Find out how to create a digital strategy for your business.
• Find out how Sarah Timmerman used social media to give Beginning Boutique a real personality that customers can relate to and engage with.
• Article Source http://www.business.qld.gov.au/business/running/marketing/online-marketing/using-facebook-to-market-your-business/tips-for-successful-marketing-through-facebook

Social Media Marketing - WordPress Tutorial

6 Backstage Social Media Platforms Every Marketer Should Be Using

By now, most marketers understand the importance of social media marketing; not only is it an inexpensive way to build a following and promote your brand’s content, but participation in social media could also become a major factor in the ranking algorithm for search engines like Google. If you’re like most marketers, you’ve focused on the “big three”: Facebook for the biggest audience, Twitter for the fastest updates and public profiles, and LinkedIn for the B2B business professionals.

In addition to the big three, there are a number of other social platforms that have gotten attention: YouTube is the biggest and most popular platform for any video-based marketing, and Google+ is used often because—let’s face it—it’s a Google product, and they reward its users with better rankings according to correlation studies by Moz and SearchMetrics. But there are countless platforms beyond the most popular options, with hundreds of millions of users between them, that most marketers aren’t taking advantage of yet.

Let’s take a look at some of the powerful social media platforms you can use for your brand beyond the major players:

 1.Pinterest. As I wrote in The Top 7 Social Media Marketing Trends That Will Dominate 2014, the popularity of image-based platforms is on the rise, and Pinterest is one of the best and most popular image-based platforms around. Pinterest’s format allows viral content to spread quickly, since its share feature “re-pinning” encourages fast travel from user to user, and there are no signs of the social powerhouse’s momentum slowing down anytime soon.

If your business has products that can be shown off with well-taken photos, Pinterest is perfect for you. Create boards revolving around your main product categories and promote your material in new, creative, or artistic ways. You can also create infographics or share pictures of your company if you don’t have tangible products in your business model. No matter what you do, keep your brand voice consistent andwork Pinterest into a rhythm with your other social media profiles by cross-posting your images. The more consistent you are and the more visually appealing your images are, the better you’ll fare.

2. Instagram. Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms around, with 200 million active users and an average of 60 million photos shared every day. Since Instagram is mostly populated with individual users sharing photos with their close friends and family, marketers have overlooked it as a viable social media option. However, the sheer number of users alone makes it worth exploring.

Create an Instagram account for your business and connect it to your company’s Facebook and/or Twitter account. Instead of using the Pinterest strategy of showcasing highlights of your products and services, use Instagram to demonstrate the personal side of your brand. Take pictures of your office and coworkers, and of any events you are attending. Use hashtags wherever it’s appropriate (just don’t overdo it) and engage with other users on a regular basis by commenting on their photos and responding to their comments on yours.

3. Tumblr. With over 130 million blogs, Tumblr is a blogging powerhouse, yet it’s still overlooked by most marketers. Tumblr used to be a semi-underground refuge for teens and young adults looking for a new way to express themselves, but since Yahoo purchased the platform for $1.1 billion in 2003, its “hotness” factor has started to wane.

That doesn’t mean it’s no longer useful. Think of Tumblr as a social version of a traditional blog. It’s a new outlet for you to publish and distribute your content, and since other users can connect to your blog with ease, it’s easier to build long-term connections. The best way to use Tumblr is as a niche division of your brand—for example, Target uses Tumblr to advertise and promote different fashions associated with the brand. Tumblr users do tend to prefer images and videos over written content, but it’s a good idea to use both if you want to attract the largest possible audience.

4. Sulia. Sulia is a relatively new platform that’s attempting to segment and filter the endless stream of content that social media users tolerate. Twitter feeds and Facebook feeds in particular tend to be filled with unnecessary updates and pooled results, forcing users to embark on a hunt to find the content that’s relevant to them. Twitter lists attempt to control this by allowing users to segment who they follow, but Sulia is an entire platform dedicated to a more refined experience.

Sulia is a content platform like a communal blog, but it allows users to categorize their content and search based on user-tailored “suggested posts” and posts that are trending within the community. With Sulia, you can write to a focused section of your audience and build a more relevant readership. You might get fewer readers with Sulia compared to a mainstream publisher, but the types of readers you get will be more relevant for your brand and therefore, will be more likely to convert.

5. Bubblews. If nothing else, Bubblews is a great business idea. Instead of posting all its own content or relying on its users to generate free content it can leverage, Bubblews shares all its ad revenue with its contributors. Right now, there aren’t that many people using Bubblews, so the revenue being shared is miniscule and the readership is limited. However, as it grows, there is a key opportunity for brand promotion.

Think of Bubblews as a guest blogging platform that can generate a separate stream of revenue. Write, post, and syndicate your content regularly on Bubblews and you’ll get the benefits of greater visibility and more possibilities for links and external brand mentions. Plus, if your content is catchy and starts to become popular, you’ll receive a share of all the ad revenue it helps to generate. Again, right now you can’t count on much revenue to come in, but over time, Bubblews could evolve to become a formidable platform in the social media world.

6. Snapchat. Snapchat started back in 2011, but because it’s been used mostly for personal exchanges, it’s slipped by the eyes of most marketers. However, as I mentioned in my article Your Guide to Using Snapchat for Marketing, about 400 million snaps are sent each day by about 26 million users in the United States. Pictures and videos sent via this app are self-destructing as a privacy measure. That means your target audience will only have a few seconds to read and remember your message. In a way, that’s advantageous considering the painfully low attention span of your average user—it’s a way of almost guaranteeing their attention for those few seconds. But at the same time, you need to compress your messaging to ensure it is memorable.

Compared to other image-based apps, Snapchat is somewhat less efficient. It takes more time to follow and get to know your potential users, and it takes significant effort to create an image or message that will only last for a few seconds. Still, it’s worth considering as part of your broader strategy.

You certainly don’t need a presence on every one of these platforms in order to run a successful social media campaign, but if you want the most relevant audience and the best potential results, it’s important to think outside the “Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn” box.

ArticleSource  http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/08/26/6-backstage-social-media-platforms-every-marketer-should-be-using/