Traction Group just completed a Facebook webinar on Friday to nearly 150 franchise owners and, in doing so, we uncovered a few common errors and misconceptions about setting up and managing a Facebook Page for small business.  So we thought we’d clarify a few of these and give you our recommendations for Facebook Page best practices.

1.  USE A FACEBOOK PAGE NOT A PROFILE: First, please use a Facebook Page and not a Facebook Profile for your business.  It is unbelievable how many credible businesses we see out there who are still using a profile for their business, which is a direct violation of Facebook’s Terms of Use.  Also, be sure to use the correct category when setting up your page, such as “Local Business,” and subcategory of “Home Business” or “Professional Service.”  You cannot change the category or subcategory once you set up your page.  To set up your Page, simply log in to your personal profile account and search for “Create New Facebook Page.”

2.  HOW TO PROPERLY NAME YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE: Be sure to correctly name your Facebook Page and to keep it succinct.  It is next to impossible if not impossible to ever change it.  We recommend keeping it as short as possible.  If you are a franchise owner and you are setting up a Facebook page for your individual franchise territory, we recommend that you localize it.  If you serve Richmond, Virginia, for example, then using “[Franchise Name] Richmond VA” would be appropriate.  In addition, keeping it short will make it look better on Facebook Ads when you are advertising your business Page.  Unfortunately, Facebook will not let you change the ad’s title when you’re promoting your Page with their ads, although you CAN change the Facebook ad title when you’re advertising something other than your Page.  Just keep this in mind as your ad title may get cut off if the name of your page is too long.

3.  FINDING YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE: It seems that new Facebook Page owners have a difficult time finding their Page after they create it.  The easiest way to find your Page is to log in to your personal profile account, go to “Account” at the top right-hand corner, and then go to “Manage Pages.”  Any “Pages You Manage” will show up there.  Find the one you want and just click on “Go To Page.”  While that’s our recommendation, you can also access your Page by typing your Page name into the search bar in the top right corner of the any Facebook page and selecting it from the drop-down that appears – just be sure to type it in exactly as you’ve set it up as it may not pop up otherwise.

4.  FACEBOOK PAGE ADMIN RIGHTS: There seems to be confusion from small business owners about Facebook administrative rights for Business Pages.  It’s rather simple now with the recent Facebook changes.  If you create a Page, you are automatically the Admin.  It used to be that you were the permanent Admin but that has now changed, which means that if someone set up the page and left your company’s employ, you can remove them as an admin (as long as they had/have given you Admin rights if you’re the business owner).  As the Admin, you can click on ”Edit Page” which appears at the top left-hand corner of your Page under the main Profile Picture (assuming you’ve added one).  There’s a box on the right sidebar that will allow you to add or delete Admins.  Please note that they must have a Facebook Profile account in order to have administrative rights to your Page.

5.  FACEBOOK PAGE USER NAME: Another frequent question we receive is how do you set up a user name, otherwise called a vanity URL.  When you create a business Page, Facebook assigns a very long URL which isn’t very conducive to branding your business, garnering SEO value, or promoting your Page.  First, you’ll need to have a minimum of 25 Fans or people “liking” your page before Facebook will allow you to create a user name.  Second, if you haven’t already created a user name for your personal Profile account, please do that first (so that you don’t inadvertently assign your business name to the URL of your personal profile account – ugh, we’ve had a client do that and it’s nearly impossible to undo).  Third, before you create your Page’s user name, be sure you and your business partners or business team agree on what the name should be because it is permanent and you will not be allowed to change it.  Once you’re ready, you can follow these instructions about creating a user name for your Facebook Page.

6.  FACEBOOK PAGE USER ANALYTICS:  So, you want Analytics on your Facebook Page?  As an Admin, you have full access to the Facebook-provided analytics.  First, you’ll receive a weekly email (to the email address you use for your personal profile account) that will include the weekly stats for number of Fans (or “likes”) that have been added or removed and how many visits were made to your Page.  You will also be able to view the “Insights” on the left-hand sidebar of your Page – simply click on “See all” and it will take you to a full insights page to show you activity for the week including demographics of your Fan base and all the “likes” and “shares” for the week.

7.  PROMOTE YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE: Promoting your Page is just as important as creating it and adding content in the form of photos, status updates, blog posts, links, etc.  There are many ways to promote your page – too numerous to mention here — but some simple ideas are to make sure the link or a widget is added to your email signature, customer or prospect email newsletters (if you use Constant Contact for example), invoices, direct mail postcards or letters, TV ads, website and blog.  For your website and blog, you can create a Facebook Badge and use that as a widget.  Of course, you can also promote your business Page with Facebook Ads, which can be bought as pay-per-click or pay-per-impression.

We hope these best practices are beneficial to you as a franchise owner or small business owner.  If you have any further questions about how to best create and set up a Facebook Fan Page for your franchise or local small business, please call Traction Group, your social media marketing agency, at 804.777.9940.  We’re located in Richmond,Virginia, but serve clients nationally.  We specialize in helping small businesses which are franchises or part of larger dealer retail networks, including those which have co-branding challenges and opportunities.

Correct Set-up of your Twitter Account can translate into effective followership, and better relationships.

I recently completed three back-to-back social networking presentations for small business owners and one of the most burning questions coming from the audience always surrounds how to set up an effective Twitter account.

This blog post isn’t designed to give you step-by-step instructions – you can get that from a number of places – including the Twitter 101 Guide for businesses.  But we wanted to share our ”traction tips” on what we believe to be the most critical things to think about when setting up a Twitter account for your personal brand or your small business.

Listed below are the 7 most important steps to gain social traction for your Twitter account:

1. TWITTER HANDLE.  Be sure that the Twitter handle you choose is both memorable, it serves you well and is as short as possible.  Keep in mind that people connect with people which means ideally we like to see Twitter handles in the name of the person.  Often that becomes a challenge because your name may already be taken, it’s too long or you’d prefer to use your company name which we’ll address in a moment.  While we don’t recommend using all caps for sure, we do recommend using initial caps where it makes obvious sense.  For example, @guykawasaki can be (and is) @GuyKawasaki.
2. MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS: For those of you who have personal brands as well as businesses, you can (and should) set up two accounts:  one in your personal name and one in your business name.  That way, you get the benefit of both.  Your personal account should be bringing your listeners value based on your own knowledge and building of one-on-one relationships with others, and can and should include some of your own personality and humor.  Your business or company account can be more focused on helping people strictly as it relates to the company and what value the company brings and shares to others.  You don’t need both necessarily; take a look at your own situation and figure out which is best.  You certainly can have an account that has your business name as your handle with your photo and name.  Or vice-versa.  Weigh the pros and cons and figure out what is best for your individual situation.
3. PHOTO CRITICAL.  For your personal brand account, your photo or avatar should be a photo of yourself.  For goodness sakes, don’t use a photo of your dog or kid, or a photo of you as a kid — unless you really are a kid (and then perhaps Twitter should be used only with some adult supervision).  And it’s probably not a good idea to put up just any photo of yourself.  Your photo — whether on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook — is a reflection of you and your personal brand.  Make it count. Invest in a decent photographer, pay attention to your wardrobe — even hire an image consultant if you feel it necessary.  People will see your Twitter photo each and every time you send a tweet or post – adding up to thousands of times.  Think of tweets as your own branding campaign – like your target audience seeing mini TV spots of you over and over again.  If this is your business account, then your company logo — or a very memorable graphic representation of it — should be used. Traction tip:  remember that Twitter (as well as LinkedIn) only allows for a square photo less than 700kb in size.  Make it bold and impactful in that small space.
4. FILL THE BIO.  Many people don’t take the time to write a good bio and so they get in a hurry and just write something lame. Irrelevant. Meaningless.  Your Twitter bio, while short, says a lot about you. In fact, it says everything about you.  Aside from your avatar, it is your image to the world.  Pay attention.  It’s like your resume only short.  Very short.  But just like a tweet, you’d be surprised what you can say in a few words.  Or what your bio says about you.  One of my favorite lines is one from Mark Twain or perhaps attributed to T.S. Eliot, who said “If I had more time, I’d write a shorter letter.”  The point is, take the time.  Write pithy. Edit. Review. Edit again.  Get not only to the heart of who you are but, most importantly, who you serve.  To whom do you bring value to?  Be sure they are mentioned.  Business owners? Moms? Kids?  Runners? When people read your bio, your “story,” they need to see a bit of themselves in it.  They need to relate to you.  While you don’t have to take up the entire character space, we don’t want you to sell yourself short — but we also don’t want you to sell in this space.  Just keep it simple and don’t try to do too much: simply get the person to the next step and the next step is to follow you or, if they’re already following you, to connect or converse or contact you. 
5. LOCATION.  So we have some pet peeves about this.  People don’t realize how important it is to not only use the location field but also to use it correctly if you expect people to find you and follow you.  If someone leaves this field blank, then it says they were either lazy or don’t want anyone to know where they’re from.  I’d rather see something in this field, than nothing.  Geez, at least let us know what country or state you’re from.  But some people use UberTwitter and then have their UberTwitter code in the field, which is meaningless if I’m looking for location to be a connection with the person.  What’s worse, is that their Twitter handle won’t be picked up in Twitter directories such as Twitterholic or Twellow.  Which means, if I’m looking to find people close to me, I won’t find that person.  So adding the proper location is important if you want more people to find you — and particularly important for local businesses, sales professionals or freelancers.  Traction tip:  use the main metropolitan area closest to you. For example, I live in Chesterfield, VA but in the Richmond, VA area so I use Richmond VA.  Most people won’t be looking through all the suburbs to find people.  And best to use that City, ST format as well.
6. FILL IN THE URL.  Sometimes people leave the URL field blank but don’t do that.  If you don’t have a website you can find a URL to put there.  You can use the link to your LinkedIn or your multi-media VisualCV profile, particularly if you’re looking for a job or building your personal brand. Or you can set up a PeoplePond page with your social profile and use that.  Or a simple Google personal profile.  Even your YouTube channel if you work with a lot of video.  Traction tip:  we want this URL is an active, engaging place — either a blog or a site that not only has further contact information for you but also has further content — content that is relevant to what you do, who you are and, most importantly, who you help.
7. TWITTER BACKGROUND.  Ideally, you want to design a custom background for you or your business that is branded to you.  Not a designer?  That’s fine.  You can use the Twitter backgrounds and colors to at least match your brand temporarily, until you get started.  There are also a number of free Twitter backgound services you can use.  But, just like your photo, your Twitter page is a reflection of who you are and your company so don’t leave it to chance.  Just like anything else, sometimes you only have one chance to make a great impression.  So find a designer who will create a Twitter background page for you — budget of $100-$200 will usually more than suffice, depending on how much graphics you need created.  If you can’t find someone, call us and we’ll create one for you.

So those are what we believe are the 7 most important set-up steps to creating an impressive and effective Twitter account — one that will get you the most traction from a branding standpoint.  If you still need help, no worries.  Just contact the Traction Group, the social marketing agency for small business owners, and we’ll be glad to answer any questions you may have.  Remember, WHAT YOU TWEET is just as important, if not even much more so.  We’ll share some traction tips for that as well — in a future post.

Photo Credit: rocky stream photo courtesy of FreeFoto.com

Here are our top 10 best ways for you to get more mileage out of your small business blog:

1. Write an effective blog title. Your blog’s title is its billboard. It is what piques peoples interest enough to stop and read it. Don’t be vague – blog titles are no place for story lines. If it takes people more than a glance to figure out if it has any relevance to them, then you’ll lose your target audience. Quick.
2. Write with enough substance but not too long. Ideal blog posts are 350-500 words in length. They can be shorter or longer. If shorter, be sure you’re covering your subject with enough detail. Sometimes posts that include photos or videos can be shorter as far as number of words is concerned. If longer, be sure you’re making enough new points within the article that you won’t lose your reader, or graphically break up the copy with photos, bullet points or numbers as we’ve done here.
3. Add a call-to-action. We usually prefer that the post is closed in some way, either with contact info to get more information or a next step for your reader. Don’t just leave ‘em hanging, as if the post writer was lazy and left an unfinished piece. Your readers are looking for you to sum up your points in some way or lead them to the next step so they don’t have to guess at your intention.
4. Review your keyword list. All blog owners should be working with a keyword list that includes 5 main key words or phrases that you want to really own in the search engines, along with other keywords that are relevant to your content and what your target audience is searching for. Revising your blog posts to ensure a proper density of your main key words as well as any ancillary key words or phrases is critical to your blog’s success.  Tip: If you do not have a keyword / keyphrase list, don’t write another post until you create one!  This is critical to your blogging success!
5. Ping your blog. Be sure to ping your blog each time you post new content. This helps the search engines to know to look for updated content on your blog. Technorati, the search engine designed for searching blogs, is still valuable as is using Weblogs.com.
6. Blog Communities. Taking the time to list your blog in popular blog directories not only helps you gain new followers by making your content appear elsewhere but increases your search engine rankings because these sites have more SEO power than your site by itself. One of my favorites is NetworkedBlogs, which integrates directly with Facebook. NetworkedBlogs keeps a ranking of the top blogs in each city based on local followers so it is particularly important for local businesses. Other blog directories we feel are a must are BlogCatalog, Blogged and MyBlogLog.
7. Blog post sharing.  It is critical to make it easy not only for your readers to comment on your blog but also for them to share it. Popular sharing services such as ShareThis, which also provides results tracking, and TweetMeme make it very easy for others to share your posts with their audiences.
8. Outbound links. Can’t tell you how many blog posts we see that utilize zero outbound links. Blog posts aren’t book pages so don’t treat them that way. The whole idea is that your post provides an interactive experience and a way for people to learn more about a company, product or service that you mention in your post. Plus, it’s just common courtesy to refer out because that is exactly what you want others to do for you.
9. Write well and often. Ideally, you should be posting two to three times per week on your blog. More often if possible. Google, Yahoo and Bing tend to find your blog easier and more often when there is fresh content posted that includes your blog’s main key words and phrases. Building repetitive use of keywords and phrases over several entries, plus creating a history or backlog of posts (duration length) aids your overall ranking. Always add relevant photos, YouTube videos, SlideShare presentations or other graphics to make your posts more visually appealing.
10. Tag you’re it. Don’t forget to take the time to include your category and post tags for each and every entry and be consistent with matching the tags to the post itself.  This includes the custom title tags, meta description and meta keywords.

Effective blogging can take time but it’s worth doing if you’ve made the commitment to your blog. If you have created guidelines for your blog’s content, including your keyword list, then you can have guest bloggers add content if frequency of writing is a problem for you. If you own a small business, appoint several people to be part of a blogging team so that you as the business owner don’t have to be responsible for creating all the content. Or sometimes you can find a virtual assistant or intern to help write and/or edit and post with the proper tagging sequences.

If you’d like to know how to get more steam out of blogging for your small business, please tweet us @TractionGroup or call 804.402.0804.

Photo courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg tells Bloomberg that he plans to take advantage of the surplus of engineers by increasing his workforce by 50%, from the current 1,000 employees to 1,500 in the next year.  They also plan to have revenue of $500 million this year through advertising from companies such as Nike and J.C. Penneys.

Quantcast is a great site for getting up-to-date stats for traffic, demographics and lifestyle information on the web users audience for any website that has enough traffic to warrant measurement.

The growth of Twitter has been phenomonal this year.  Quantcast states that Twitter.com is a top 50 site (current rank 24) that reaches an estimated 28 million U.S. people monthly.  That’s projected up from about 7 million in February 2009, nearly 400% increase.

While the rate of growth is staggering for Twitter, Facebook still has the motherload of eyeballs.  Quantcast lists Facebook.com as a top 10 site (current rank 3)  that reaches an estimated 94 million U.S. people monthly .  That’s up from about 54 million in February, nearly doubling the readership in just the last 6 months alone.

LinkedIn.com has quantified their numbers with Quantcast so rather than estimated, these numbers are being pulled directly from their site.  LinkedIn.com ranks in the top 100 sites (currently ranked 63) and connects marketers with over 40 million more affluent professionals.  Over 11 million U.S. people visit monthly and over 21 million globally.  Unlike Twitter and Facebook, LinkedIn’s growth remains rather flat but demographics are higher in terms of college grads and income, and skews a bit more male than Twitter and Facebook.