Recently a client asked what I thought about the businesses on Facebook who seem to be obsessed with boosting the number of “likes” of their business page… and here’s my two-cents:

Boosting your numbers and trying to prove how popular you are is just like old-school “blast and pray” advertising. You blast as much “stuff” into the universe as possible and pray something sticks and someone will buy. And we all know where old-school tactics got us; broke and customer-less, right?

So here’s the thing: like ANY marketing, our goal is to attract the right people – people who are potential clients or can refer them, right? We don’t market to just anybody any more, we’re way beyond that. We’re smarter and have better tools. Do you want a million ‘anybodies’ to “like”, “follow”, “add” or “friend” you? Or fewer  people who are genuine prospects who might actually buy from you?

Think about it: If you’re a company that sells Social Media Services to small business owners do you really want grandmas, teenagers and die-hard 9-5ers as your “fans”? Sure, a few of them may know “someone”… but is that really where you want to spend your time and resources? And do these people really want to read what you have to post? Probably not – and 99% of them will end up blocking or ignoring you. So why in the world would you want to campaign to attract a gazillion of the “wrong” people?

As with most things in life – and especially marketing – I’ll take quality over quantity any day. I want fans, friends, and followers who are actually interested in the content I post, and will engage with me – and maybe even buy something or refer someone to me some day – not block or ignore me.

So instead of measuring your success by the number of “likes” your page has, I’d measure engagement. How often do people comment on your posts? How many different people comment? Are they the types of people you’d like to do business with?  If not, then it might be more worthwhile to focus on attracting and recruiting those you want to do business with, rather than just “anybody who.”

Do you have a Facebook story or tip you’d like to share?  We’d love to hear them!

If you’ve got a Facebook page for your business, you’re probably aware of the big change that’s coming on March 30, when all Facebook pages will switch over to the new Timeline design.

The change will make your Facebook page a more visual representation of your brand. It will also allow you to tell your company story by creating a narrative that shows visitors what you’re all about. Take some time now to set up your page, and you’ll create a rich, rewarding experience for your fans.

So what do you need to know or do?

1) Choose a cover photo.

Each page will be divided into two columns, with a cover photo taking up the width of both across the top of the screen. This is going to be the first thing every visitor to your page sees, so make it count.

2) Resize your images.

The new page layout comes with a new, 810-pixel width (up from the previous 520-pixel limit). Visitors might be turned off by your page if it’s not optimized for the new layout, so at the very least, make sure your images display well.

3) Pick the stories you want to tell.

The next section is like your current wall, and will highlight your memorable posts or photos. The change here is that you can pick which posts appear. So think about what’s most important for your visitors to know about you (and what you’d rather hide from view). One cool new feature here is the ability to “pin” a post  to keep it at the top of your timeline for as long you want.

4) No more left-side links.

All those links you might have had to various pages within your Facebook page aren’t going to be there anymore. They’re going to be replaced with three tabs that will display just beneath your cover photo. They’ll get better visibility than the previous layout links, but since they’re limited in number, you’ll have to give some thought to what you want to show there. You might want to play around with different arrangements (if you had lots of links) to find out what your visitors really want to engage with, and make sure it’s easily accessible to them.

5) Flesh out your Milestones.

Coca Cola is getting a lot of rave reviews for the way they’ve handled the transition to Timeline. One thing that they’ve done is fill in company Milestones dating back to 1886. Visitors can scroll down the page to essentially go back in time or they can click the Timeline to jump right to specific years. You can go as far back as is appropriate for your company, include photos to illustrate milestones, and more. If you’ve been in business for a while, or have a compelling story that leads up to where you are now, milestones gives you a chance to share that backstory with your visitors and fans.

Today’s guest post is from Brook Hays of Hy.ly – the customizable Facebook tab-building app. 

Hy.ly is running a contest where the winner will get a free design consult and Facebook page makeover! For more information on their contest and to enter to win, go here.

By nature, small businesses (as well as big corporations) are always anxious for immediate results. Fast results are the hopes of all entrepreneurs, not to mention an expectation that’s been subconsciously engrained by the fast pace nature of our modern world.

Social media marketing is no different: the need for speed remains.

But just like size isn’t everything (good things can come in small packages), speed and stats aren’t everything.

Yes, “Likes” and positive reaction to your Facebook and social media output are good, but they won’t immediately result in an influx of sales and cash. But that’s okay.

Small businesses should be using social media to engage: to create social relationships that keep current customers captivated and encouraged to re-buy/revisit, and that draw in new visitors with valuable content, increasing the chance they will become paying customers down the line.

When creating your business’s social media presence on Facebook, you should certainly set metrics goals and monitor your progress. But you should not let the expectation of quick results or immediate sales spikes distract you from what’s important:

• Bridging new relationships by growing your Fan-base
• And offering valuable content and features that keeps your contacts engaged

You can do that be designing an elegant Facebook page that’s organized by specific call-to-action Tabs, enhanced by useful promotions, contests, coupons, and features, and populated by valuable content not sales-speak.

About the Author: Brooks Hays is a freelance writer and the resident content creator for Hy.ly: sharing helpful social media marketing advice with Hy.ly customers and attempting to spread the good news about Hy.ly Tabs to would-be users

Image by Cherrysweetdeal via Flickr

Oops, they did it again!

These days it seems like it’s all anyone can do to keep up with the hustle that Facebook has going. I mean, just when you get used to one new thing, they announce something different altogether. I know, it’s frustrating… even for people, like me, who LOVE this stuff. But, if you’re NOT a social media rock star and don’t play one on TV, here’s the skinny on the latest – brand tagging.

Facebook added a new functionality to their photo tagging system. In addition to tagging your friends (and pets!), you can also tag brands. You read that right – you can now tag that can of Pepsi sitting next to you in that pic.

When I first heard about this, I immediately went over to HonestlyNow.com to ask how many people would actually tag a brand in their Facebook photo. 75% of those who voted said, “No way, and I’d be helping huge companies promote their wares…why??” The other 25% were willing to play ball.

Interesting (it always is at HonestlyNow.com).

IMHO, there’s an opportunity and a challenge… both are opportunities if you ask me. The up-spin is both large AND small brands can tag their wares. So, that means Grown Up Soda can be tagged right along with Pepsi. There’s an opportunity for smaller brands to make a come up, if they play their cards right. Tagging contests and all sorts of jolly good times can be had by all. It only takes one SMART marketer to color outside the lines.

Which leads me to what I believe to be the down-spin: it only takes one SMART marketer to color outside the lines. What’s to stop someone with a vendetta against Starbucks, from tagging Starbucks cups as Dunkin Donuts? Or Domino’s Pizza as Papa John’s? Or a McDonald’s bag as a Wendy’s bag?

I’m not trying to throw any one brand under the bus here, but I’m just wondering if ANYONE at Facebook thought about the long-term implications of their new brand tagging feature.
The crowd is fickle, dear Facebook and oops, you did it again.

(Sung to the tune of the old blues song, God Bless the Child (That’s Got His Own))

It’s a simple concept, really: own your own content. It’s like owning your own home. In web terms, that’s owning your own domain. My thanks to Liz Strauss for this back-to-basics common-sense reminder, posted yesterday, called Why It’s Smart to Own Your Content URL, Publish at Home First, and Only Share on Facebook, Flickr, YouTube . The key:

If you’re going to build and share online content, own the url where you house it. Put the link on Facebook, but the content on your own URL.

She quotes the New York Times on Blogs Wane as the Young Drift to Sites Like Twitter. It’s about this:

“I don’t use my blog anymore,” said Mr. McDonald, who lives in San Francisco. “All the people I’m trying to reach are on Facebook.”

Liz points out two problems with that.

First, “we don’t own the keys.” She recalls a painful moment when her site on blogger went down:

I woke up one morning years ago unable to reach my “free” blog because Google owned the server. I wasn’t paying them to serve me. My content was at the mercy of their willingness to keep their tool working and accessible to my readers.

Second, “we give up rights to what we own.” Facebook the like have to cut into your content copyright and ownership with terms of service; they can’t operate without it. So you don’t own them.

Of course, every online tool has to have it’s own rules to protect itself and to maintain its identity. Some of those rules make it deliciously easy to do it their way rather than put in the work to build a “home” of our own. Even the power of their longevity can make the Search Engine listings seem stronger to stay with them.

But the pride and power of ownership allows us to tell our own story in our own way. We can use those other tools to support us in building a powerful presence that is truly our own. But relying on them alone they can become less support and more “just an easy way.”

Liz puts the nugget right into her title: own the content, publish at home first, then link out. That’s good advice.

(Image: Haywiremedia/Shutterstock)

When it comes to social media, many business people are overworked, overloaded and just plain over it.

I get that and I feel their pain.

Social media has a lot of moving parts and it’s very easy to become confused. That’s why I always try to provide actionable suggestions that are straight-forward, easy-to-implement and easy-to-digest. I mean, it’s great to read a blog post like this with loads of high-falutin’ ideas only to find yourself lost in technology soup when it comes to actually actioning any of the ideas.

So, let’s keep it simple, shall we? Here are three things you can do in three days to expand your social media influence:

1. Offer to write a blog post for another blogger. For right now, they don’t have to be the most “popular” blogger in the world, the main thing is to take yourself out of your comfort zone.  Sometimes when we’re writing for someone else, we have a different feeling of purpose and duty and that’s when our best work bubbles forth.

When you write that post, make sure you Tweet the link a few times the week that it goes live and once the week after.  Remember, not everyone reads everything you write all the time. If you spread your Tweets across the week, more people will be able to see the link. Don’t overdo it though; you don’t want Tweet spam.

2. Make a concerted effort to reach out via Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, to someone whom you’ve always wanted to meet. And, not the easy person, either. You know that person I’m talking about…the person who makes you a little nervous? Actually take the time to read their Tweets and blog posts and when the time is right, contribute. Give them a digital high-five by retweeting them. Heck, send a smoke signal, just DO something (sane) to get on their radar.  So many people don’t want to be perceived as a “stalker” so they don’t do this. Here’s the deal, if you were a stalker, you’d know it, so stop making excuses and take action.

3. Interview someone. If you have a telephone or a pen, you can interview someone.  Here’s the trick, take the time to think of a REALLY cool interview angle for them. Make it an offer they can’t refuse. Show them that you’re smart and that you don’t want to interview them about the same old topic.

The same thing you did in tip #1, do the same thing here. Tweet it and make sure you include the interview in your newsletter, too. And, guess what your interview subject is going to do? You guessed it…they’re going to Tweet and Facebook it, too.

BONUS TIP:  Get the interview transcribed, edit it a bit, add a cover and bundle it together with the audio and you’ve got a GREAT lead generation tool!

All three of these things are totally do-able. So, get going and come back and let me know how they worked for ya!

Lena L. West is an award-winning social media consultant, blogger, speaker, journalist, technologist and the Founder of the Authentic Influencer Braintrust, a high-level, social media marketing membership program for business owners and Real Women Do Social Media, the only social media training initiative created exclusively for women business owners.

I had something else planned for this blog today, but the White House Startup America Partnership makes anything else trivial.

OK, yes, it’s government, federal government no less, and it’s political by definition. I was raised to question authority and mistrust the official story. But even so, here’s why I’m optimistic about this one:

1. They have real entrepreneurs involved. AOL co-founder Steve Case is the chairman. Innovative venture capitalist Brad Feld was also featured in the opening ceremony.
2. They’re working with real small business information. Kauffman Foundation CEO Carl Schramm is a founding board member. The Small Business Administration (SBA) administrator Karen Mills spoke at the opening. Kauffman and the SBA are definitive information sources on small business in this country.
3. Real money is involved: Intel has committed $200 million of “new investment in U.S. companies.” IBM will invest $150 million this year “to fund programs that promote entrepreneurs and new business opportunities in the United States.” HP is committing $4 million for a learning initiative for entrepreneurs, and Facebook is launching Startup Days, a series of 12 to 15 events across the country. (Although to be fair, whether this is new money, that would have been invested regardless, is hard to tell.) The website has a collage of some very impressive logos; they include more than a dozen companies and organizations that have committed to help.

So maybe this time they’ll be able to overcome partisan politics and do something that matters. More capital, better information, more learning, and more support for entrepreneurship. After all, entrepreneurship is contagious, so spreading the “infection” could help. I hope so.

I posted here yesterday something that worries me about social media marketing, those fake word of mouth tactics. Writing that reminded me about the good and a little bit bad in the sweeping change of the new business landscape that social media represents.

I’ve been in the expert business for 40 years. I was a journalist, then a business journalist, then a consultant, a software developer and publisher, and now a blogger.

Today if you’re smart you can establish yourself in the expert business by publishing what you know and marketing it yourself. You write your blog, you get active in Twitter and Facebook, you join blog chats, and if you really do know your stuff it’s entirely possible that you’ll emerge above the noise, and make a good living.

It used to be that establishing expertise took dealing with gatekeepers. When I got started you had to write books or magazine articles and get them published, which meant you had to convince editors. Or you could rise above the crowd by getting speaking engagements at trade shows. Maybe you could do some workshops or seminars, if you had the marketing know-how and resources to bring in the people. The world was full of gatekeepers.

I have mixed feelings. Gatekeepers worked for me and my career; I got the degrees, wrote the books, got them published, got the speaking gigs. In the new world I see smart hard-working people rising fast without having to wait for grey hair and gatekeepers. That’s wonderful. I also see the good ones competing in a world of sharks, fakes, and charlatans, with most of the gatekeepers’ influence gone, so it gets harder and harder to tell who is for real and who isn’t.

What do you think?

With so much buzz about social media marketing these days I can’t help but wonder how many people think manufacturing fake word of mouth is a good marketing technique.

I’m referring to people who get onto sites like Quora, a collection of good questions and answers, and recommend their own stuff without saying it’s their own stuff.

One thing is answering a question by linking to your own website, book or blog post. I’ve done that myself, in Quora — but only sparingly, when the link directly answers the question, and never without disclosing my bias.

It’s quite another thing to troll the web looking for places to recommend your own stuff as if you were an objective third-party person recommending it. People trust objective recommendations, so maybe this works. But does it work over the long term, when they do it as a marketing method? Wouldn’t that kind of marketing cut into long-term business health by killing your credibility?

In Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook we at least have the on/off function, like channels, follow or not, friend or not, which helps somewhat. But in Quora, it’s question by question, and if this continues, eventually we’ll have to wade through the fake answers to find the real ones.

John Jantsch summarizes marketing as getting people to know, like, and trust you. If your introduction starts with something fake, can you gain credibility later?

And meanwhile, this kind of fake word-of-mouth or stealth marketing in social media sites threatens the value of the sites. I’ve been spending a lot of time in Quora lately, and I think I’m starting to see it more and more. It seems like a damned shame, really, because Quora has started out as an excellent collection of really good answers to really interesting questions. The more it gets polluted by fake recommendations, the less valuable it will be.

I hate to say that spam obviously works because it keeps coming. And some other unpleasant tactics that show up in social media must work, because they keep coming. But are we too dumb to see through these fake recommendations? Does that work too?

I picked this up from the Business Insider Chart of the Day email list from last week. I like the detail here. As Facebook grew, founder Mark Zuckerberg traded share of ownership for investment money.

You’ve probably seen a lot of discussion lately about Facebook’s $50 billion value. It’s not a theoretical value of an expert’s guess, it’s a simple math calculation from the last real transaction. Goldman Sachs paid $400 million for 8/10 of one percent (.008 of the company, also called 0.8%). You can do the math here: divide 400 million by .008 and you’ll get 50 billion. And that most recent transaction is what tax code sets as the value.

The debate about real value is all guesswork. Did Goldman Sachs pay too much? Is Facebook really worth $50 billion? Will the investors who bought in at the Goldman Sachs $50 billion price make money? Time will tell. And sometimes these valuations are a bit like musical chairs. Investors can make money if later investors pay a higher price, whether or not the company is really worth it. Worth, called valuation when we talk about startups, is what somebody will pay for something.

You’ve seen ups and downs in major stocks and house prices, and in those markets it’s obvious. Will Facebook’s value increase? Microsoft and Google are each valued at several hundred billion.

This chart shows how founders’ ownership gets diluted as a successful startup collects investment through various rounds. Mark Zuckerberg now owns 24 percent of Facebook. Another 30 percent is set aside for other employees. Similarly, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page own between them about 20 percent of Google. Bill Gates owns about 40 percent of Microsoft. And these are enormously successful companies with brilliant founders. A lot of founders end up with single digit percent ownership, after all the investment dilution.

Another interesting note is that the owners shown here can’t trade that ownership for real money yet. That happens only after the stocks are registered and set to be traded on a public stock market. Until then, the holders live with a lot of legal restrictions. Option holders often sign agreements limiting their ability to trade stocks. And the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has some serious restrictions on selling this stock.

And my last thought on this subject: everybody involved in this has a big win right now. Mark Zuckerberg can’t just walk away with $12 billion dollars, but he’s already shown he can have his cake and eat it too, living very well without converting any more than tiny pieces of his ownership. If you followed the detail presented in the The Social Network movie, Eduardo Saverin has five percent ownership, so he’s okay. And those twins? They’re complaining about $60 million. It’s hard to feel sorry for any of them.