Social Media « Zenworkz Blog

Social Media

SEO or Google AdWords? Plus 8 Tips to Promote your Website Effectively

Let me first start by explaining that SEO (search engine optimisation) is the process of improving the ranking of your website in search engines via the ‘organic’ (unpaid) listings. The principle of SEO is to ensure your website ranks highly for keywords that people are likely to type into search engines when looking for a business like yours.

Optimising your website content and design helps to drive qualified traffic (what they are searching for you offer) to your web pages and ensures that people interested in your products and services can find your business online.

With Google AdWords (paid) listings, you are simply buying traffic to to your website, either through pay-per-click or other forms of advertising. But it’s expensive, and getting more so every day for the competitive keywords. It’s also complex and whole books have been written about how to manage the intricacies of Google AdWords. The bottom line is, before you even think about paying for AdWords, you need to ensure that your website is inviting to the people who are interested in your product or service.

Tip 1. The first place to start if you are just creating a website is to make sure that you have a keyword in your Domain Name – either the name of your Business or as a description.

Tip 2. Find a way to get a dot com (.com) domain and if your business name is not available, be creative rather than grabbing the dot net (.net) and then competing for ranking against a dot com with the same name.

Not sure what your keywords are?

Tip 3. A good place to start your keyword research is with the Google Keyword tool. Designed for AdWords advertisers to find keywords, you can also use it for your own research. Keyword research is the foundation of your website’s on page SEO.

Steps for finding keywords:

Brainstorm a list of possible combinations of words people might use to look for your type of business, product or service, including brand names, generic names, geographic location, service descriptions or area of expertise.
Go to the Google Keyword Tool and enter these, choosing Australia as the country and both Broad and Exact as the search results.
The Keyword Tool will give you lots of suggestions based on your seed keywords.

Tip 4. Once you have your keywords, what do you do with them on your website?

Think about your site content – use authentic and original content, use key search words in the text and make sure you have H1 headings and preferably H2 sub headings as well, all containing keywords.
Pay attention to keyword density, and keep it low. It can be irresistible to stuff your keywords in wherever possible but with semantic search (Google now tries to figure out the meaning of your site when it spiders it), keyword stuffing will do you more harm than good.
Internal links – when you write a related post or article on your site, link your keyword back to another article on your site. Building internal links helps Google find other areas of your site and reinforces you as an authority on the topic.

Tip 5. Create a strategy for your site design which includes creating a sitemap – a page that includes links to every area of your site. This helps the search engines find every area of your site.

Tip 6. Think about the customer who will use your website and what will be easiest for them to buy your products or services. Make a ‘call to action’ and relevant conversion for every page – don’t force your potential customers to make extra clicks.

Tip 7. Leverage your strengths – if writing is one of your strengths, then make sure you have a blog on your website. Remember blogs don’t just have to be just written words, showing your pictures or artwork can still tell a story on your blog. If you are a photographer or artist, make sure you have a Pinterest account linked to your pictures and ensure that all your social media platforms are updated for the audiences they serve.

Tip 8. Always check the ranking of your site as you continue on your journey. You should rank No 1 for your business name and possibly, your name (especially if it’s unique). But the important goal is to rank on the first page for key search terms in your business category, because that is where you will be competing for potential customers attention. If you want to rank well on your own name (because your name is the business), then make sure there are multiple platform link opportunities for people to see your name; like Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Youtube, Twitter and multiple online directories entries – it all helps.

Finally, after following all these tips, sign up and use Webmaster Tools to verify ownership of your website. This tells Google about your website. Sign up for Google Analytics and include the code in your website, even when there’s no traffic, there are many opportunities for education by using these tools.

Google is such a wonderful resource, if you are thinking of building a website or you want to know how to rank well on Google – you only have to seek their advice and the best part – it’s free.

Love to know whether this is helpful or if you have other tips that are working for you?

About the author: Teresa Bassham is the boss lady of Zenworkz Authentic Marketing and educates businesses to think, create, engage and optimise their marketing effort. She coaches customers in strategies for traditional and online marketing; and implementation. If you would like free how-to-do-it-yourself marketing resources or to subscribe to free e-news about all things marketing, please visit the website:

http://www.zenworkz.com/

For daily marketing tips and references, connect to our fabulous community on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/Zenworkz.Authentic.Marketing

Authentic Message Creation / Branding / Social Media / Trust — No Comments
10
Apr 13

How to craft the right brand message on social media

In your marketing journey to attract and keep new customers, unique and authentic brand messages work best on social media.

Technology is moving so fast, you must understand and optimise every interaction with potential customers in a way that establishes positive, emotional responses to form meaningful relationships with your business, brand and message.

Getting the brand message right for what your business offers is vitally important. Not only does it provide the basis for your personal relationship with your customers; it answers the question foremost in every potential customer’s mind: Why should I buy from you? Over time, these customers can become your best marketing advocates and promoters.

How do you create the right brand message? The focus is “social” and where you can, to project your fabulous personality into your brand message. Any unique and authentic brand message must be simple. If you can’t explain it simply, then you don’t know enough about what motivates your customer to buy. The step then must be to research your ideal customer, create a profile of who they are and write specifically to them.

As I have said many times before, ‘benefits’ and not features will always grab your target audiences attention. Your brand message should demonstrate that you understand your customers situation, either the problem they need to solve or a want they must have, – the “benefit’ to them. You can then construct an offer that helps them to address their situation. Approaching it in this way could be the single deciding factor for them choosing your business offer over someone else.

Finally, without trying to sound like a broken record, people like to buy from people they know, like, and trust. Building trust begins with sharing your story, and showing your values, so you attract prospective customers who can relate to you. Explaining why you do what you do, helps them understand what it’s like to deal with you and trust you.

In today’s crowded marketplace, with new competitors emerging from around the world, distracted audiences, and almost saturation marketing of products and services; it is more important than ever to ensure that when you have the attention of a potential customer, you are able to offer a compelling and authentic reason for them doing business with you.

I’d love to hear your thoughts? Please feel free to leave a comment or question below.

About the author: Teresa Bassham is the Boss Lady and Chief Coach of Zenworkz Authentic Marketing, and is passionate about educating small and medium business professionals to create their authentic marketing and brand message, attract more ideal customers and create a marketing plan to achieve success. Please contact me if you’d like help creating your brand message on social media. Visit my website for free resources and subscribe to weekly e-News updates on all topics related marketing.

For daily Authentic Marketing updates visit and “like” my Facebook page.

Advertising / Marketing 101 / Marketing Law / Social Media — No Comments
15
Dec 12

Update: Australian Marketing Law for Small Business

Here’s a quick summary of changes in marketing law and what it will mean for your small business.

Advertising and Consumer Protect Laws

The Australian Federal Court and Advertising Standards Bureau have determined that businesses are responsible for third-party comments posted on Facebook and Twitter. In a nutshell this means anything that could be deemed discriminatory, derogatory or degrading to women, homosexuals, or ethnic minorities; including strong or obscene language or inappropriate references to sexual activity.

The Australian Consumer Law covers many aspects of business activity, but advertising is perhaps the area where small businesses can most easily stray onto the wrong side of the law. The principle is the obvious one that businesses should not mislead or deceive through advertising. When you have a business page through social media, under consumer protection laws you could be held liable for misleading or deceptive conduct by a third party.

What this means for you is that you must regularly monitor posts from third parties and remove anything which may contravene any of these laws or standards within 24 hours of posting.

The Spam Act and Privacy Legislation

Recently two Australian businesses were formally warned about not providing an opt-out for their email marketing. The Spam Act 2003 requires that if you engage in email marketing you must have consent to the message being sent. You must have your contact information in the message. You must have an unsubscribe action to allow the recipient to opt-out. Failure to do so, may prompt warnings by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

As a very brief summary, Privacy Legislation revolves around asking people for permission to collect and use their information, and obligations to disclose what information is being kept and for what purpose, and obligations relating to the correction of inaccurate or disputed information. What this means for you is you need to provide a statement on your website that explains your privacy policy to users.

Intellectual Property and Copyright

Many small businesses use no forms of intellectual property protection and often breech other rights through copying pictures without permission to do so, especially via social media platforms.

What this means for you:

You need to consider what confidential information is used in your business and add security to protect it.
Ensure that you have the right to use any material (such as copyright material) in your marketing, both offline and online.
Always register trademarks used in your business.
Ensure there is adequate document recording the right and restriction of use for your own Intellectual Property.

The bottom line is advice should always be sought whenever material that may be the subject of copyright is proposed to be used in the course of your business marketing.

Its always a good option to consider these laws before unknowingly contravening them, creating heartache and potentially expense for your small business.

For more information there a comprehensive list of Legal Topics for Small business on this website:

http://www.innovation.gov.au/SmallBusiness/LegalHelp/LegalTopics/Pages/default.aspx

About the author: Teresa Bassham is the principle of Zenworkz Authentic Marketing, and is passionate about educating small and medium business professionals to create their differential advantage, attract more ideal customers and create a marketing plan to achieve success. She coaches customers online and by phone – if you would like to request coaching – please contact me.

Branding / Content / Engaging customers / Niche Marketing / Online Marketing / Social Media — No Comments
29
Aug 12

Social Media Etiquette for Business (updated)

The rules for engagement or etiquette, may not change significantly but social media has changed markedly since I last blogged about this subject.

I thought it was time for an update, because I still hear customers say that they are unsure of the rules, which leads to inaction, and undercapitalising social media’s power. Here are some basic do’s and don’ts for engaging with social media to help grow your business:

Have a clear purpose. Think about why you want to use social media for your business and state that clearly in your tag line and general page information. This means when potential customers come across your business, they are clear that you have something to offer them. This clear purpose also helps to give you guidance for the criteria of content that you post. But … don’t treat all social networks the same because each has a different approach and audience. As a general rule of thumb:

Facebook is like being at a party of your friend, with their friends;
LinkedIn is like being at a business networking event;
Twitter is like a magazine front page – short bylines to entice you to read more; and
A blog is like business conference.
Pinterest is like a picture magazine – that entices you to buy, like and follow people you connect with visually.
You-Tube is like a 1- 3 minute advert, that can be both informative and entertaining.

Build your online brand. Establish a strong brand online so when people browse your social media business pages, they will get an immediate sense of your business offer. In other words, don’t try to cover everything that is topical; keep your posts and sharing closely aligned to what is relevant to your brand. Figure out what business niche you want to occupy and build your brand around that. Want to know more about defining a niche market, download a free guide here?

Set guidelines for your use of personal and professional. It’s ok to overlap personal and professional in social media today, especially for a services business because our person and professional lives entwine significantly, but it’s important to demonstrate difference that leverages and enhances your brand. You should ensure that whatever personal elements you blend into your business profile supports your business goals and doesn’t damage the perception of your business brand.

Create content that others can forward, share, repost, and retweet. This is even more important today. The core of your strategy should be creating meaningful, interesting content that potential customers will want to read and share.

Use your common sense. Think before you post, put yourself in your customers shoes – what will they think about this. This also applies to your personal profile, if your business pages are linked. As an example, the personal profile of a wellness practitioner needs to fit the image that may be expected by your potential fans and customers – unfair perhaps but true. When you are your business, you are your business all the time, especially in online media.

Don’t neglect replies. Social media’s big difference from traditional broadcast media is just that: it’s not about one-way broadcasting – it’s about discussion and engagement. Connecting on an engaged level to make your brand feel personal and relate-able is what the social media audience is looking for.

Don’t claim to be an expert. In Australia, small poppy syndrome dictates that there’s nothing more off putting than someone who boasts about themselves. Instead, be humble and demonstrate your expertise with that very authentic knowledge and insight that only you can share.

I’d love to hear your thought’s? Please feel free to leave a comment or question below.

About the author: Teresa Bassham is the principle of Zenworkz Authentic Marketing, and is passionate about educating small and medium business professionals to create their authentic marketing message, attract more ideal customers and create a marketing plan to achieve success. She runs local workshops in Northern NSW and coach customers online and by phone – if you would like to attend the next scheduled workshops or request distance coaching online – please contact me.

For more regular Authentic Marketing updates visit and “like” my facebook page:http://www.facebook.com/Zenworkz.Authentic.Marketing

Advertising / Attracting Customers / Engaging customers / Integrated Marketing Strategy / Marketing Analysis Tools / Social Media / Uncategorized — No Comments
12
Jun 12

Shaping Social Media Strategy with Tradition Marketing Models – AIDA

The acronym AIDA stands for Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action. This is the most simple and rudimentary of marketing models and is still relevant today when it comes to social media and internet marketing strategies.

Each level of AIDA can help you set your marketing and sales objectives, decide what to measure, and create relationships between each level of the model. Understanding the flow of activities through each level will help you align your measurements and analytics with your marketing and sales objectives.

Here’s some tips on how to apply this model to your social media and internet strategy, and how the model and measurements are evolving in the social media age.

Awareness: Awareness is social media’s greatest benefit. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and other networks are built for generating awareness. These networks are not going to be your point of sale. Instead, they are your communications portal, and lead potential customers back to your sales landing page, blog, and website, where you will be making your sales conversions. The goal of generating awareness, is letting people know about your business products or services; and that you can solve a problem or satisfy a need they may have. At the awareness level, comments, conversations, interaction and valuable content to share, are key measures.

Interest: Now that you have their attention, you need to get customers interested in your product or service. You can improve interest with special offers; compelling reasons why you can satisfy their needs better than the competition; or how you can solve customers’ problems. Benefits (and not features) weigh greater at this level, and social media can help you amplify customer interest. Following a strategy of linking social media posts to targeted landing pages will provide you with metrics, such as CTR (click through rate), retweets (of content, promotions and links), and comment about your specific products or services, that you will help you refine your promotions.

Desire: Social media can help improve desire through engagement, but to facilitate someone’s desire to buy, you need to have a website that makes purchase easy. Potential new customers will give up if your process has too many steps, despite a great offer. The user interface must be built with the customer in mind. Your website makes a huge impression, people will judge your business by it, so take the time to go through your site – improve the presentation and the shopping cart experience. Take the customer from interest to desire with a clean, easy to navigate, information rich, and functional site. Metrics that matter at this level are bounce rate, time on site, pages viewed and incoming links.

Action: Now that your customers are ready to buy your product or service, you need to complete the transaction. While it is possible to purchase from Facebook, if you have several products or services, having a website will be your best option; and while social media can influence the action through the previous levels, it’s not going to have the same influence as your own website. You need to make it easy and obvious for your customer to complete your desired action (purchase, sign up, lead form, etc.). The action is also where you can calculate some of your final metrics, like sales conversion rate and return on investment. This is where you can see how your strategies are performing and the final impacts of your social media promotions.

AIDA’s Flaws: AIDA is only a rudimentary representation of a marketing and sales process and it’s not a perfect model. Keep AIDA in mind as you shape your social marketing strategy. It will help you focus and prioritise your marketing and sales objectives for success.

I would love to know if AIDA works for you? Please leave a comment below.

About the Author: Teresa Bassham of Zenworkz Authentic Marketing inspires small businesses to develop and use an empowering Marketing and Communications Plan for Business Profitability … see my full services at www.zenworkz.com

While you are visiting my website – subscribe for weekly e-News updates on all topics related to authentic marketing.

For daily Authentic Marketing updates visit and “like” my facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/Zenworkz.Authentic.Marketing

Attracting Customers / Developing Resourceful People / Mindset / Relationship Marketing / Social Media — No Comments
27
May 12

7 Zenworkz Habits of Highly Effective Minds

Each day I invite you to work on a habit, a simple business habit that will have the potential to radically alter the effectiveness of your mind and the potential of your business.

No 1 Learn new skills and challenge your mind every single day! Neuroscience has now proven the old saying “use it or lose it?” – use your mind productively to learn new skills. The benefits of increased mind function is an elevation in feelings of positivity, that more things are achievable or possible.

“Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.” ~ Leo Burnett

What new skill or information are you going to learn today?

No 2 Positive thinking is at the forefront of every great success story! The mind must believe it can do something before it is capable of actually doing it. Be aware of your mental self-talk.

“The way to overcome negative thoughts and destructive emotions is to develop opposing, positive emotions that are stronger and more powerful.” Dalai Lama

What are the positive emotions you will use to replace your negative self-talk today?

No 3 Acts of gratitude are highly contagious on social networks! Human beings are social creatures. On a day you deliver one powerful thank you …

Your gratitude spreads to 6 people you know. (+6)
Then it spreads to 6 people they each know. (+36)
Then it spreads to 6 people they each know. (+216)
6 + 36 + 216 = 258 people who feel more grateful – just from one thank you!

When the human mind is happy, it is less stressed. And a less stressed mind is a more efficient mind.

How will you show your gratitude today?

No 4 Reflection is the key to changing mindset! Find some quiet each day for reflecting on any personal negative responses that came up, and look for habitual patterns that you need to change.

“The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” ~ Sylvia Plath

Learn from your daily reflection. Work on a positive mindset every day because it will be 80% of your success in business!

What is the positive mindset you need to apply today?

No 5 Your mind is part of your body! It just makes sense to fuel your body with healthy food and keep your blood oxygen levels high with regular exercise. Simply fuel, exercise and rest your body properly. A tired mind is rarely productive – ask any working Mum!

To begin the change today – what will you be doing differently?

No 6 Begin with the end in Mind! To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination or purpose. To know where you are headed, is to better understand where you are right now and what steps will be needed to continue in the direction for positive results. Foster a mindset of outcome focus and extreme optimism that will help you create solutions, and not keep you stuck in the problems of your business.

What clear outcomes do you need to create today to achieve your purpose and goals?

No 7 Develop the habit of Listening! Many of us today have such busy lives, that we often don’t take in the messages that we hear from potential customers, friends and family members. The best clue that you are not listening, is when you hear yourself asking why a customer doesn’t like this or that; or why you can’t seem to reach people? Giving a person your full attention, and showing them that what they say matters, will have a long-lasting impact on them and your relationship, and provide you with information to change your approach.

How will you listen effectively today?

Each one of the seven habits above has the ability to make your mindset more effective and change your business. But when you combine them together their beneficial effects increase exponentially.

I would love to know what works for you?

About the Author: Zenworkz Authentic Marketing inspires small businesses to foster a Positive Mindset – Develop and use an empowering Marketing and Communications Plan for Business Profitability … see my full services at www.zenworkz.com

Authentic Marketing / Engaging customers / Online Marketing / Relationship Marketing / Social Media — No Comments
6
May 12

10 Tips for a Facebook Page Engagement Party

Increasing Business Page engagement can be compared to networking at a business function with customers; where you may know some well and others you would like to know better. To increase your engagement carry out the same tips on your Facebook Business Page, as you would at a business function.

Introduce yourself to someone new and listen actively to what they tell you.
Ask questions about what that person says to look for shared interests and opportunities to deepen the relationship.
Tell a funny or light hearted story that relates to their area of interest but check for responses to what you say.
Acknowledge the other person’s point of view and encourage more comment.
Provide some insights of value by listening to their interests and begin with them in mind.
Be entertaining, educational or inspirational depending on what you are able to find out about the other person.
Be true to yourself and authentic, don’t try to be an expert in someone else’s field.
Don’t dominate the conversation or try to sell yourself or your business.
Have a range of engaging tools in your kit bag – quotes, pictures, video, audio, and questions.
Show that your care about others, like and respond to what they say.

When you have done all that, invite others to join in the conversation, introduce your new friends, identify other influencers and move through your engagement cycle again.

If you like what you find in this list, please share it with your friends to help us all have a better engagement party.

Are these tips working for you? Leave your comments below?

About the author: Teresa Bassham is the principle of Zenworkz Authentic Marketing, and is passionate about educating small and medium business professionals to research their customer market; create their authentic marketing message; attract more ideal customers; and create a marketing plan to achieve success in 2012/2013. She runs local workshops in Northern NSW and coaches customers online and by phone – if you would like to attend the next scheduled workshops on 6^th & 7^th June, 2012 or request distance coaching online –please contact me. While you are visiting my website – subscribe for weekly e-News updates on all topics related marketing.

For daily Authentic Marketing updates visit and “like” my facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/Zenworkz.Authentic.Marketing

Authentic Marketing / Authentic Message Creation / Authentic Values / Branding / Online Marketing / Social Media / Trends / Uncategorized — No Comments
15
Apr 12

Authentic Branding – the Future of Marketing?

As a forward thinking business, I consider what a marketing business might look like in the future? How to provide marketing services to smaller business in a fast moving technological marketplace.

I know that my customers are often overwhelmed by the choices available; the fear of missing out by not jumping on the “next new media thing”; and often lose sight of return on investment, whether it’s time or money.

Psychologist, Abraham Maslow formulated the “Hierarchy of Needs”, where he mapped human needs in a hierarchy; starting at the bottom with basic physiological needs of food, shelter, water and safety, and at the top with esteem, belonging and self-actualisation. This remains the strongest model we have for understanding what has meaning for customers and explaining what they do and why.

Today brands can no longer tap into satisfying basic needs without considering the higher needs of belonging and esteem. Customers respond to brands which match their values, aspirations and esteem. This is the future of marketing – it is about authentic communication and engagement; and this is where customers are now driving brands via social media platforms. Today it is the customer who will figure out what your business does and how they will let the world know about you!

Future Authentic Brand Marketing will utilise effective marketing psychology to create brand messages which begins with what you do that effortlessly connects with your customer. Authentic means not hiding from the customer or the public – it means being open and human; something that smaller business often excel in over their larger competitors.

Authentic brands that tap into satisfying basic and higher needs together, including elements of relationship, respect, support, and even happiness, will hook us because they will help to feed our social selves, the part that seeks connection and belonging as Maslow suggested.

Do you think that your brand meets these broad range of “needs” or do you love a brand that does? Please share your comments below?

About the author: Teresa Bassham is the owner of Zenworkz Authentic Marketing and educates businesses to think, create, engage and optimise their marketing effort. She coaches customers in Marketing Strategy, both off and online; and implementation. If you would like some free how-to marketing resources or to subscribe to free e-news about authentic marketing, please visit the website:

http://www.zenworkz.com/

For daily marketing tips and references, connect to the community on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/Zenworkz.Authentic.Marketing

Advertising / Attracting Customers / Authentic Values / Relationship Marketing / Social Media — No Comments
25
Mar 12

How to Promote through an Authentic Story

As a marketing services provider, I know the benefits of promoting myself and my business, but that doesn’t make it any easier to step out of my comfort zone and actually do it. Culturally in Australia, we do tend to be a teeny bit critical about those who enthusiastically share their awesomeness; but we can learn to authentically self promote through telling a story about what we do, and why we do it and gain the benefits of self promotion.

The most compelling reason to try is that customers are going to be more motivated to buy from people they know, like, and trust. Building trust can begin with sharing the story of your business and the people behind it. The imminent change to Facebook Timeline will provide businesses with an improved platform for authentic story telling.

Telling your authentic story can help both you and your prospective customers by:

Demonstrating your values, so you naturally attract customers who relate to you,
Explaining why you do what you do, which helps prospective customers understand you and trust you,
Sharing your unique persona, enabling customers to understand what you’ll be like to work or deal with,
Clearly identifying your ideal customer, encouraging those that don’t fit to look elsewhere and those that do, to make contact.

As business owners, we owe it to ourselves to become better at communicating our story. We are all passionate about our business. We express love for our new project or idea or product. An authentic story simply links this passion with our unique persona to what we love doing, and a genuine joy becomes evident when we share our story.

Promoting yourself and sharing your story won’t always feel comfortable but to develop and grow, you won’t ever be comfortable. With a bit of practise, you’ll find your story telling skills starting to improve. Given the rapid changes happening with online video and social media, great story tellers will have a seriously big advantage over those that hide behind their computer screens.

If you are shy but have learned how to promote yourself with your story, please share your experiences below. Feel free to give yourself a bit of gratuitous self-promotion at the same time!

About the author: Teresa Bassham is the owner of Zenworkz Authentic Marketing and educates businesses to think, create, engage and optimise their marketing effort. She coaches customers in Social Media Strategy and implementation. If you would like some assistance changing to Timeline for Facebook Pages, please contact her through her website: http://www.zenworkz.com/

Zenworkz Authentic Marketing publishes a weekly blog on small business marketing: http://www.zenworkz.com/blog/

For daily marketing tips and references, connect on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Zenworkz.Authentic.Marketing

Authentic Marketing / Online Marketing / Social Media — No Comments
17
Mar 12

Are you ready for 30th March, 2012?

If you have a Facebook page for your business or a personal page, like it or not, the format will change to Timeline by March 30th 2012.

The major benefit for a smaller business is that this format moves from a seemingly random flow of information to an opportunity to tell the real story of your business. And that will be a good thing! Changes will occur to the Facebook Banner, About, Applications, Milestones, Highlights and Posts.

Milestones, when done well, will dramatically improve the value your page provides to fans and increase their interest in your brand.

Time is running out to make this transition smoothly – in a way that takes your fans on the journey with you and enhances your online reputation. It’s very important for you to think about and plan this transition and not just deal with when it arrives. Why? Because many of the format elements that you know now are changing and with a little bit of work – you can be prepared, so that the transition enhances their experience rather than frustrate fans.

The first important step is to select a Banner or a image based metaphor, that taps into the emotional and cognitive associations you want your fans to relate to your brand. This banner provides you with the perfect opportunity to create that unique look and emotionally compelling visual that “sells” your business and brand.

The next major change is to Applications tab, which have moved to the top of the page under the banner, right next to “About”. The first tab is photo’s and is the only tab that can not be moved from this position but all other tab boxes can now be moved in their order of preference. It’s wise to leave “Likes” on the top line because it does enhance your pages credibility. This gives you two more tab boxes get creative in your call to action – either “free stuff”; or subscribe to e-news; or your existing Welcome tab – which will not be lost in the change over. Importantly, you can no longer direct new fans to this Welcome tab from Facebook, but you can direct them to the tab from your website.

The next important change it to “About”, where you have an opportunity to create a short promotion about your business benefit and your link to your website or other marketing/sales channels. It needs to 90 characters long including your web link – now’s the time to be crystal clear about your offer and customer benefit. Note: if you have listed your business category as local, it will default to address and phone number, so you may need to change your category to create your fabulous “About” promotional statement.

Timeline provides you with the opportunity to create “milestones” in your business history and this enhances your authentic story, will dramatically improve content value for fans and gives fans more reasons to keep connecting with your page. You can tell fans Why and How you started your business, which can be forgotten down the track; but is a compelling reason to support you and your business growth.

There are two other changes to get used to: Highlight and Pin. Highlight enables you to expand a post to a whole page view which makes it great for posts with video and pictures. Pin enables you to “pin” a post to the top of your page for seven days, which is great for events, where you want the post to be prominent.

One change that is least liked, is that posts by your fans appear in a box, called “recent posts by others” but you can easily “share” the important posts, so that they will appear more prominently on your timeline.

One last tip, when you are building your new storyline and milestones, be careful of doing it all at once and spamming your fans with the changes. Most don’t like spamming and you could lose fans.

Have you changed to timeline for pages? Did you discover any useful tips not covered here – please share below.

About the author: Teresa Bassham is the owner of Zenworkz Authentic Marketing and educates businesses to think, create, engage and optimise their marketing effort. She coaches customers in Social Media Strategy and implementation. If you would like some assistance changing to Timeline for Facebook Pages, please contact her through her website: http://www.zenworkz.com/

Zenworkz Authentic Marketing publishes a weekly blog on small business marketing: http://www.zenworkz.com/blog/

For daily marketing tips and references, connect on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Zenworkz.Authentic.Marketing

Zenworkz BlogAuthentic Marketing Coaching

Social Media

Categories

Archives

Zenworkz Twitter

Zenworkz BlogAuthentic Marketing Coaching

Social Media

Categories

Archives

Zenworkz Twitter

Tags