Some really straight forward tips on how to utilise all of Facebook's features for your Company/Brand.

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Often times it’s a challenge to convince small business that starting a blog can significantly help their marketing and increase their sales. We feel this problem stems from the lack of being able to see the “big picture” of small business blogging. Here is an infographic to illustrate how small business blogs increase sales and why every small business should be blogging.

If you've not seen Pinterest yet...WARNING...set aside some time (with a cup of tea) and enjoy. The challenge is to have a sneak peek!!

With this new (for the UK)  visually exciting social platform...how do the Brits use it compared to those in the US...aparently the differences are massize, as you will see...

Courtesy of Mashable

Blogging is one of the top sources of online content creation for many companies. Blogs are a great vehicle for interacting and engaging with current and prospective clients.  Blogs are also an effective way for prospects to associate stories, anecdotes, and personalities with a company or brand.

Taking on a blog can be a large undertaking.  There are many things that should be considered including cost, availability of resources, strategy creation, time commitment, and measurement. Simply creating content and expecting instant success is not realistic.  If you have recently decided that you would like to start a business blog, or have started a blog and are not seeing the success you had anticipated then the tips below are for you.

1 | Become a Blog Follower

Starting in the mindset of a consumer is key in determining need.  I recommend you take a look at the list of blogs that you read and ask yourself some questions about why you read them.  If you aren’t currently following any blogs I suggest that you see if some of the newsletters, magazines, or newspapers that you are already reading have a blog.  This will help you kill a couple birds with one stone.  You are still consuming the information that you already enjoy but you are also doing some research for your own blog.  Some questions you should ask if you are looking to start a blog?

• What blogs do you follow?
• Why do you enjoy them?
• Do you believe they help solve a problem for you as an end user?
• Does the blog have one or multiple voices?
• How often do you read these blogs?

2 | Work Smarter Not Harder

In a tough economy marketers are being forced to do more with less.  The same strategy can be applied to business blogging.  If you have an understanding of content that works well and the mindset of your target audience you can easily create different forms of blog content to keep information updated regularly and efficiently.

Newsworthy items can be a great source of blog content.  You are presenting your audience with information that is important to their business while utilizing statistics and content that has already been created.  Reviewing current business blogs is also a great vehicle for creating content.  This allows you to create a scoring criteria and share with readers what you like and dislike about the blogs that are being reviewed.  Interviews and guest posts can also be a source of content curation for your blog. If you can convince others within your industry to participate in your blog they will be likely to share it with their audience as well.  Guest blogs also add some additional creativity and voice to a business blog.

3 | Tap Into Available Resources

There may be members of your team that could be a great addition to your company blog. Contributors from different departments can position themselves subject matter experts and your readers may look forward to the variety that is being provided in the blog content.  While the overall responsibility of the blog may fall on the shoulders of one person or department, that doesn’t mean that other team members cannot contribute.  Multiple authors allows you to tap into multiple networks and is much more sustainable from a content creation perspective in the long run.

While business blogging is not always easy it can be a great project to inspire creativity, teamwork, engage your audience, and improve your brand visibility.  If you are interested in more tips on business blogging please contact us or keep reading our blog!

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From our American cousins! Straightforward thinking. Enjoy.

According to this infographic by HireRabbit, 48% of all job seekers (and 63% of those with a profile) did social media job hunting on Facebook in the past year. That’s a lot of eyes searching for opportunities, and if your brand is already active on the network, it could be worth engaging power users to recommend applicable candidates.

Are you using Facebook to promote a business or a cause? Then you need to make sure you’re using a Facebook Page rather than a Facebook profile. The good news is that Facebook allows you to easily migrate your personal profile into a Facebook Page.

Fan Pages are different since they are run by organisations, businesses and public figures and they use the ‘Like’ option to gather their followers because they are not allowed to befriend personal users and send them personal messages. They can talk to their fans, but have a limited access to their personal data. These distinctions were intentionally created to differentiate the public and private spheres on Facebook. However, fan Pages also have great benefits for businesses and organisations:

• They’re allowed to have limitless fans (personal profiles are restricted to 5,000 friends)
• Can be redesigned to your own needs
• Offer a wealth of analytics and stats

Here are the easy steps to migrate your Facebook profile to a Facebook Page:

1. First thing to do is backup your current profile.  This is very important!  Facebook will download all your wall posts, friends, pictures, events, profile info, etc. and zip it up into a large file.  The process takes Facebook about 1 hour to run, depending on the wealth of data you have stored on your Facebook account.  To run a backup, click on account -> settings -> download your information
2. Once you have received an email from Facebook with your .zip file of stored information, follow this link to the migration page
3. Select your business type from the six possible options and fill out the short information prompts and hit “Get Started”
4. You will then be directed to your new business Page.  You will notice that your profile image will be imported from your previous profile but your fan total will be listed as “0”.  Don’t worry, when you refresh your Page, you will see the number quickly rise to your pre-existing fan/friend base

For all the details on how to switch your profile, check out the Facebook Help Center. We highly recommend that you read the details carefully because once you convert you can’t reverse the process.

Building a community around your company can be one of the cheapest ways to create momentum for your product. A community is much more than a one-time marketing campaign, and can help you throughout your company’s life cycle if you take the time to grow it right.

Here are some tips for getting started.

Look before you leap.

First, take stock of who is already talking about your product or industry and where they’re doing it. Seek out pockets of users who are excited about your product or service. If users are already talking about your product on Twitter, for instance, that’s a good place to start building.

It’s best to focus on one to two communities to begin with, and really focus your efforts to grow a community one at a time. Take stock of where your efforts will be most useful and narrow in on those areas.

Know your followers.

Use Twitter search to see who is posting about your company, competitor or about a topic that is relevant to your company. You can use that to follow people, start a conversation and engage with them. This way you can start to build a relevant following from the ground up.

Startups are always in a rush to build a community as big as possible, as quickly as possible. Slow down. Get to know all of your users one at a time. This will give you the foundation you need to eventually scale and grow your community.

Use ALL connections at your disposal.

Use your own friends and connections to start the community- they are truely valuable. Ask them to be a part of your community and to help you grow it. Email lists are often overlooked as a chance to ask your existing community to follow you elsewhere. Find success by building partnerships with conferences and leveraging their audiences. Think about any partners or deals you can make to help build your base.

Build your social network.

If you want people to share, make it really easy for them. When they sign up, give them a checkbox to sign up for your newsletter. Ask them to follow you on Twitter and like you on Facebook as part of your onboarding process. Suggest opportunities for them to tweet or share with their friends. You’ll be amazed how many people will take the step to follow or share just because you took the time to ask.

Don't just think numbers.

Getting fifty more followers (or even 5,000) doesn’t mean much in itself. Think about building a quality follower and fan base that is engaging with and sharing your content. According to a 2009 Nielsen study, 90% of consumers trust peer recommendations, while only 33% trust online ads. Your goal should be to turn your user base into advocates who help spread the word about your startup in a way you could never do on your own.

Be patient.

Real community doesn’t happen overnight. Every community will go through an ‘awkward phase’ where conversations feel a little forced and people aren’t initiating conversations on their own. It will pass. Keep building your community one person at a time, and it will eventually begin to flow naturally. The returns on your effort increase exponentially as you grow a real community. Don’t give up when your account doesn’t “go viral” immediately, because unless you’re the Old Spice guy, it’s probably not going to happen.

Encourage your community to communicate

Focus on building a place where community members talk to each other, not just you, and you’re on the way to building a scalable community that can sustain itself. Make sure your community finds value from their involvement — focus on building that value and your community will not only stick around, but become a huge supporter of your company.

A vibrant community helps you attract new users, keep current users engaged, and provide valuable feedback to help improve your product. At the beginning, getting any retweet or share will be a victory. If done right, however, you’ll find yourself quickly and exponentially growing past those initial milestones.

From Mashable

You might have written your best post ever — but without a call to action, it’s not going to get you the results you’re hoping for.

A “call to action” is a copywriting term. It simply means asking or telling the reader to take a specific action. That might be:

• Subscribing to your blog or newsletter
• Sharing the post on Twitter or Facebook
• Downloading a free report
• Trying out a particular technique or idea

… or almost anything that will benefit you and/or the reader.

Your call to action should be clear and specific. Don’t simply link to a post and assume that readers will get the message: tell them “click here to read…” or “find out more by clicking this link” or similar. If you’re asking for comments, give them a specific question to think about.

There are two places to put your calls to action:

At the End of Your Post

The final line of your post is a natural and effective place for a call to action: you’re helping the reader decide what to do next. It’s crucial you don’t leave this to chance. After reading a post, the reader has lots of options open — including leaving your site altogether.

Some great closing lines are:

• What do you think about [topic]? Let us know in the comments below.
• If you enjoyed this post, please share it on Twitter by clicking on the “Tweet” button to the right.
• To find out more about this, read [link to another post on your blog]

Throughout Your Post

You don’t just have to put calls to action at the end of your post. By including them earlier, you prime readers to take action, and get them thinking.

For instance, to introduce a list post: See what you think of these ten ideas (and add your own in the comments).

Now, it’s your turn. Think about your blogging goals (e.g. growing your subscriber base or your newsletter list) and come up with a call to action for your next post.

Contact us to get help with using the internet to your advantage.