Social Media Tips

How to direct visitors to your Facebook tabs eg offers

Despite the loss of the default landing page, with the introduction of Timeline for business pages there’s still a great opportunity to use tabs (aka application pages) for features such as newsletter signups and to display competitions and money off coupons. Any functionality or features found on a website can be replicated on tabs so you can be as creative as you like. Tabs are a great opportunity to create engagement with your fans.

Icons for tabs are now more visible and are displayed top right below the cover photos. See Machester United’s Page below:

As well as being larger and in a more prominent position than previously you’ll note that custom images have been used for Videos and Sign for United (newsletter sign up). To add custom images: select the down arrow to the right of the icons, then select the pencil icon on top right of the custom image then Edit Settings and finally select Change to the right of Custom Tab Image. Your image should be 110 x 74 pixels.

To further boost visitors you can use Facebook Ads to direct people straight to the the tab of your choice. When setting up your Ad select your choice using the Destination tab drop down.

For more tips on using Facebook Timeline and to learn how to make the best use of Facebook for your business you might like to attend one of my regular Facebook workshops in Cheltenham.

Improve your SEO by sharing to Google+

Here’s how you can move your website higher up the Google Search results by encouraging your readers to share to Google+. The following works when people in the Circles of those who’ve shared on Google+, perform a search using Google. Or to put it another way, when you share a website on Google+ those your connected to on Google will see your website displayed higher in the results. Hopefully, you’re still with me.

Once Google plus Your World launches sharing onto Google+ will almost certainly improve your website ranking for everyone who performs a search. What’s certain is that having a Google+ profile will make your brand more visible. So here’s the 4 step process:

1. Set up a Google+ personal profile
2. Build your audience by adding people to your Circles and promoting your profile
3. Add Google+ share buttons to your website (work best on news articles and blog articles)
4. Encourage sharing of your content to Google+

The above even works if you share an article or blog post yourself. You can see how this works by doing the following:

• Connect with me +Jonathan Pollinger on Google+
• Go to google.co.uk and search for ‘Abel and Cole’ (whilst logged into Google)

You’ll probably find that my blog post on Abel and Cole’s Facebook Page is displayed in 3rd or 4th position. So even though the search term contains no reference to Intranet Future or social media you can see that the blog post, because I’ve shared it, appears near the top. Powerful stuff.

To learn more about Google+ and search engine optimisation (SEO) and to learn about how Google+ can help your business in other ways, please attend my next Google+ Masterclass on Wednesday 11 April.

Three Facebook tagging tips

Tagging has been a feature on Facebook since 2009 and whilst popular on personal profiles there are not too many business or brand Pages that take advantage.

You can tag in both photos and in posts/updates and it’s the latter I’ll focus on. Tagging has two main characteristics. Firstly, a tag is hyperlinked making it easy for readers to click and visit the entity eg page or person that you’ve tagged and secondly your post is displayed onto the Wall or Timeline of the Page or friend that you’ve tagged.

To make a tag, you can sometimes just start typing the name of the Page or friend and a selection of choices will appear in a dropdown list. Just select the Page or person you want to tag. To ‘force’ the tag you can type an @ symbol before the name although for reasons only known to Facebook, it doesn’t work at all!

The name will then appeared greyed out until you’re published the post. PRO-TIP: You can edit the name when its greyed out so for example you might want to just use a friend’s first name to make it more personal. Once you’ve shared your post the name of friend turns into a hyperlink and the friend is notified.

Here are three great ways you can using tagging in posts:

1. In conversation with your customers/clients - for example, if you would like to thank a client for their business then you could tag them on your Page. This has a number of advantages; your client will receive a notification that they’ve been tagged, visitors to your Page will see you engaging with your customers and your Page name will appear on your customers’ Timeline thereby raising the awareness of your Page.
2. Cross promotion - work with your suppliers, advisers and contacts on cross promotion if your product of service appeals to their customers and vice versa. So for example you could tag an advisers’ event on your Wall and a few week’s later they could do the same for you. On each occasion your Page and that of your advisers will be promoted on both Pages.
3. Facebook ‘retweeting’ - Tagging is a great way to acknowledge the author/originator of content that you’ve shared; just like retweeting. So if you find an interesting article that you share on your Wall/Timeline you can credit the originator alongside the link. You could use the Share button under the post but then the originator may not ever know that you’ve shared their content.

Used appropriately tagging in posts is a great way to thanks, promote and credit. Don’t overdo tagging or use it to spam Pages and Profiles. If you have any examples of how tagging being used effectively please let me know.

They’ll be more on tagging and how you can use other Facebook Page functions at my Facebook workshop on 29 February in Cheltenham.

Two tips for using Twitter favourites

Unlike web browser favouriting or bookmarking where you can set up folders and save your favourite web pages by category or subject, Twitter favourites (or favorites to use the US spelling) have limited functionality. When you favourite a tweet it basically goes into a ‘giant bucket’ to join previous tweets you’ve favourited.

It’s not surprising that compared to their web counterparts this feature on Twitter is not widely used but here are couple of ideas you might find useful:

1. Use the favouriting feature as a ‘read later’ function. Simply save your tweets that you want to read another time. Handy if you’re busy and don’t have the time to read a useful article that has been posted.
2. Use to record testimonial tweets. You can build up an authentic record of testimonials favourite tweets that recommend your goods or services by favouriting them. This might seem a bit egotistical particularly if you’re a freelancer. However, if your clients or customers are saying good things about you and your products/services, why not use them to help promote your business?

Here’s an example of how you can use the testimonial tweet approach from my @intranetfuture account. I couldn’t find anyone else using favourites in this way…honest.

If you have any other tips on using Twitter favourites please let me know.

A guide to Facebook Groups

Facebook Groups are not as well known as the more popular Profiles and Pages but there are good reasons for using them. So called ‘new’ Facebook Groups were launched back in October 2010 with the intention of replacing ‘old’ Groups. However, this process has taken some time and the process of migrating old Groups to the new style is still underway. If you have an old Group (setup before October 2010) you should make a manual note of your members so you can re-invite them. Whilst photos, discussion threads and Group descriptions will remain, members in the Group network will not.

The new Groups have some great features and the emphasis is now very much on communication, sharing and collaboration amongst members. They are therefore ideal for Groups of people with a shared interest such as networking groups.

They could play a part within large companies as an internal communications tool which is an area I’ve been consulting on lately. Facebook Groups are a lightweight easy to use alternative to Socialcast and Yammer and the product shares similar objectives.

There are three types of Groups:

• Open - Anyone can see the group, who’s in it and what members post
• Closed - Anyone can see the group and who’s in it. Only members see posts
• Secret - Only members see the group, who’s in it and what members post

Facebook Groups are ideal for people that share similar goals and interests and need a central hub to share ideas, obtain feedback, ask questions to like minded people or perhaps just chat. Such groups of people could include:

• network members
• hobbyists
• fans of a sport or celebrity
• charities
• sports teams
• clubs
• classmates
• event organisers

For example, the organising team for Digitalks Cheltenham (Closed Group) use a Facebook Group to plan and manage this regular event. We have our own mini social network and a storage area for agendas, meeting notes and templates all in one place. The Glosbiz - Gloucestershire Business Network (over 300 members) and Local Business Network (approaching 300 members) are two examples of Open Groups where business people in Gloucestershire can meet new contacts and network with existing ones.

With Ning now charging for their product it’s hard to think of a free tool that provides the same features as Facebook Groups - please let me know if you are aware of any by commenting below.

Here are some of those great features:

• Easy wall updates - no need to select a Share button;  just tap the enter key
• Page rendering - the latest Wall Posts rise to the top of the Page
• Navigation/menu - easy access to all the main actions at top of page - Posts, Photos, Videos, Questions and Docs
• Docs - Create notes and short docs; ideal for agendas and minutes
• Group chat - ability to chat with ALL members of the Group at the same time
• Update via email - send and receive updates using the Group email address

Groups are quick and easy to set up so if you’re one of a group of people who want to communicate, share or collaborate go to http://facebook.com/groups where you can set one up and invite your Facebook friends to join.

Have you tried Google+ hangouts?

Hangouts on Google+ are a great alternative to face to face meetings and I suggest you give them a try. If you are struggling to get delegates together due to time and distance then this video conferencing tool could be the answer. There is no costs involved - each participant just needs to be on Google+ and have a PC/laptop with a webcam or a phone/tablet with a front facing camera.

The time and the costs of a face to face meeting which can involve room hire, travel, utilities, refreshments can be quite substantial and Hangouts provides a realistic alternative. Features such as ‘face switching technology’ where the person speaking is displayed in the main part of the screen work really well and add to the experience.

Hangouts support meeting of up to 10 people and are nicely integrated with Google Docs and YouTube. So for example you could collaborate on a document or show a client a training film and take questions. There are many possible uses supported by this technology. Please let me know your own ideas.

To learn more about Hangouts and making the most of other Google+ features please book onto my Google+ Masterclass on Wednesday 15 February.

How to reduce emails from LinkedIn

Is your inbox getting swamped with emails from LinkedIn? There are numerous email notifications you can received from LinkedIn and the default settings mean that once you get active on LinkedIn you can end up receiving lots of email.

The good news is that you can choose exactly what type of emails your receive and how often. After you’ve logged in select our name on the top right and then Settings. At the bottom of the page select Email Preferences and you’ll see the following under Email:

• Select the types of messages you’re willing to receive
• Set the frequency of emails
• Select who can send you invitations
• Set the frequency of group digest emails

…and the following under LinkedIn Communications:

• Turn on/off LinkedIn announcements
• Turn on/off invitations to participate in research
• Turn on/off partner InMail

If you’ve joined a lot of LinkedIn Groups then by default you’ll be getting daily email notifications which can soon swamp your inbox. To change the frequency of these emails or to stop them altogether select Set the frequency of group digest emails and make your required changes.

I provide training on LinkedIn through regular workshops in Cheltenham. The next LinkedIn Masterclass is on Thursday 29 March.

How to get more clicks on Twitter [INFOGRAPHIC]

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Claim your name on social networks

NameChk is a quick and easy way to check if you’re company or brand name is already claimed across a wide range of social networks; 159 to be precise.

If you find that that your desired name is available you may wish to register an account to claim it in case you decide to in future. For example, you may not be uploading photos and videos right now but perhaps you may be in future. In this case you should look at opening accounts at the following:

• Flickr
• YouTube
• Vimeo
• Ustream
• Yfrog
• Twitpic

Have you checked out Twitter chats?

If you want to demonstrate your expertise and knowledge or perhaps need some expertise then you could do worse than check out Twitter chats. It’s a great way to get noticed so whether your asking or answering questions you’re likely to pick up retweets and new followers.

Twitter chats are meetings held at a set time on Twitter that use a hashtag to describe the subject and co-ordinate the conversation. For example, #CommsChat is a UK based weekly discussion about communications, PR and digital marketing that takes place at 8pm every Monday. You can follow or join in the conversation at www.commschat.com, twitter.com or your usual Twitter client.

There are over 500 regular Twitter chats so you can sure you’ll find a topic you’re interested in that you can discuss with like minded Tweeters.