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I am huge proponent of posting and monitoring all your social media manually, but there are lots of tools out there that enhance the analytics and abilities provided by the social networks themselves. They also streamline the process significantly. It is especially necessarily if you have multiple team members accessing one account. With new offerings coming out from oneforty and Wildfire, the social media management tools just keep on coming. Here are a few we particularly like:

• HootSuite
• CoTweet
• SocialOomph
• SocialBase (from oneforty)
• Argyle Social
• Social Marketing Suite (new from Wildfire)

Which of these tools does your team use? Is there another social media management tool we missed? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Happy Canada Day to all of our Canadian readers and a Happy 4th of July Weekend to all our friends here in the States!

Post written by Biana Bakman aka @bianalog. To learn more from fbadz.com, become a fan!

No we’re not talking about produce! The fbadz.com Facebook page is nearing 700 fans and surprisingly, despite the name of this blog, most of that growth has been organic. What do I mean by organic growth on Facebook? Well “growth” refers to the steady increase of the number of people that like the fbadz.com page on Facebook and “organic” means that we’re not paying for those likes by running ads. Today I wanted to discuss some ways that people can discover and like your page “organically.” Some of these are direct actions you can take and others simply involve creating content that people will want to share.

1. Publicize your page

Between your email signature, business cards, brochures, print and broadcast ads, e-newsletters, storefront and numerous other outlets you already have plenty of low to no-cost ways to promote your Facebook page. Please, for the love of social media, make sure to actually include the URL of your Facebook page and not just a Facebook badge or call to action telling fans to “Find us on Facebook.” You can tell them to find you until you’re blue in the face, but unless you tell them exactly where to find you chances are they’ll get lost. Your existing customers are always the most likely to connect with you so these are some great places to inform and remind them that you’re on “that Facebook thing” where they already spend hours upon hours of their day.

2. Like Buttons & Boxes

If you have a website, you should have a like box and if you produce content (a blog, press releases, company news) on your website then you should install like and/or send buttons. The like box, which should go on the front page of your website, allows visitors to like your Facebook page directly from your website with just one click of a button. But wait, there’s more! Depending on the settings you choose, the box can also show the stream from your page’s wall and the faces/profile photos of others who like your page. If the site visitor is also logged into Facebook at the time, the featured faces they see will be those of their friends that have also liked the page, playing into the bandwagon effect.

The like button allows users to share your page/content on their wall and the send button allows them to literally send information to their Facebook friends, groups or even an email address. You can even link the like button to your Facebook page. Both the like box and button only takes a few lines of code that your webmaster should be able to easily integrate into your site. (See the Facebook Developers site about social plugins for more info: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins.) The easier you make it for people to connect with your page and share your content, the more likely they’ll be to do it and their friends will too.

3. Use Facebook as your page

Facebook added this feature fairly recently, which allows page managers to use Facebook as their page. Essentially, you can comment, post and like things as “Mom and Pop’s Barber Shop” instead of “Jane Doe.” This is a wonderful feature that allows you to take proactive action to gain exposure for your page on Facebook, but it has quickly turned into a tool for spamming. Please refrain from spamming other pages with irrelevant updates such as “Like our page for Company X because we’re awesome and have nothing to do with this page for Company Y!” If you want to show your support for other businesses by “liking” one of their wall posts or saying something useful and relevant though, then by all means take advantage of this new feature.

4. Featured Like by other pages

Featured likes is sort of similar to link sharing. It is a simple way to give a “shout out” to another page that your company partners with or supports. By showcasing other pages and having them showcase your page as a “featured like” it allows their fans to discover your page and vice versa. Make sure to do this with brands that have a similar audience as yours, but aren’t in direct competition with you.

5. Mentions

Facebook’s tagging feature is a wonderful tool. This allows Facebook users and page managers to create a hyperlink to a personal profile or page on Facebook in the text of the wall post. You do this by simply typing their name and clicking the page/personal profile from the drop down box. Tagging “John’s Coffee Shop” in a wall post allows your viewers to easily click through to their Facebook page. It also means that the wall post will show up on the wall of John’s Coffee Shop page on Facebook garnering more exposure for your page.

Those are just a few of the ways that people can discover and connect with your Facebook page; there are many more. There are also a couple of ways to determine how people discovered your page. First, you can look at Facebook Insights, specifically the “Like Sources” chart under “Users.” Second, just ask! Simply publish a wall post on your page asking fans how they discovered your page. You’ll learn some very interesting and useful information about your fans’ web habits and you’ll also know where to put your time and effort for continuing the “organic growth” of your page. Now go out there and spread some all-natural social media fertilizer.

Post written by Biana Bakman aka @bianalog. To learn more from fbadz.com, become a fan!

Now with Memorial Day Weekend behind us summer has officially begun here in the US. A lot of companies undo their proverbial ties a bit during summer and let the fun in. Does your office host happy hours? Do you have half day Fridays? Do you take field trips or host field days to give your employees a break from the daily grind and boost morale?

Whether you are running a very conservative business or a scrappy start-up, most companies find time to take a break from work and let loose. The content on your Facebook page should follow suit. It’s okay and even encouraged to let down the fourth wall every once in a while and allow folks to see the fun that is had behind the scenes.

The people that like your page aren’t just customers; they are also potential employees, investors, friends and family of employees. They understand and appreciate that taking breaks and having fun is a necessary part of running a business. Chances are that they will gain even more respect for your company as one that treats employees well.

This can be something as simple as sharing a photo from the office happy hour or posting a video of some of the quirky office rituals. You can even get your Facebook audience in on the fun. Ask them for their favorite recipes for the company picnic. Have them choose the winner of the office Halloween costume party. Just because the summer ends doesn’t mean the fun must too.

I encourage sharing useful and relevant content with your audience on a regular basis, but another major purpose of your Facebook page is to show the human face behind the business. People relate to other people more than logos, so show your customers the faces behind your logo.

Post written by Biana Bakman aka @bianalog. To learn more from fbadz.com, become a fan!

With the addition of several new Facebook features lately and the simultaneous spread of spam offering the ability to see who views your profile or enable a dislike button, I decided to review some features that Facebook will never add and why.

1. Dislike Button

No amount of Facebook Pages requesting this feature will ever bring it to fruition. A like button is quite straight forward. It is a positive action that 99.9% of the time does not require clarification. A negative action, such as a dislike button, without context and explanation would cause far too much confusion and anger. It’s hard enough to figure out when someone is being sarcastic in online conversation. As my friend Damien often says, commenting is the dislike button on Facebook.

2. The ability to see who views your profile

Though Facebook has received some criticism in the past regarding their pushing the boundaries of privacy, this is one line Facebook will not be crossing. Facebook is successful not only because of the number of active users, but also because users spend so much time on the site. Facebook would never jeopardize user engagement.

3. Auto-friending

Again, a major factor in Facebook’s success is that users have control over who sees which part of their personal profile. The act of giving someone access to your personal profile will always require mutual approval. The friending process on Facebook will always be two steps, request and approval.

4. Use of aliases

It clearly states in Facebook’s terms of service, “Facebook users provide their real names and information, and we need your help to keep it that way.” In essence, Facebook is not MySpace and they need to ensure that Facebook does not become overrun with spam accounts which was a major cause of MySpace’s demise.

5. Friending Businesses

The act of friending will always involve two personal profiles and regardless of what Facebook decides to change “Like” to in a year from now, connecting with a business on Facebook will always be a different action. Facebook will continue to add features that help businesses connect with their audience on Facebook, but there will always be a distinction between a personal account/profile/page on Facebook and a business entity.

Are there any features you think Facebook would or would not add? What would your dream Facebook feature be? Share your thoughts as a comment below.

Post written by Biana Bakman aka @bianalog. To learn more from fbadz.com, become a fan!

Earlier this week Facebook introduced a small change to ads that will have a huge impact. For all advertisements that link offsite Facebook now provides a short preview of the URL you will be sent to when clicking on the ad. For example, an ad for an Invisalign consultation sends you to this website http://www.marquisdentalspa.com/invisalign.html?utm_campaign=invisalign&utm_medium=525_99Month_V1A&utm_source=Female_20_29&utm_keyword=blank&utm_content=646-583-3989–a customized landing tab created specifically for the ad targeting )or so I assume from the content of the page and the “female 20 29″ in the URL). The ad shows you the “marquisdental.com” portion of the URL.

What implications does this have for advertisers? Well our friend, Nick O’Neill of All Facebook did a great job explaining the impact of this change in his post “Facebook Ads Become Dramatically More Transparent.”

This change doesn’t affect the Facebook Ads dashboard used to create advertisements, but it does change the way ads are seen by users. I’m going to break down the three types of ads that now exist. (NOTE: I did my best to give these descriptive names so they’re not official terminology.)

1. Links to Content on Facebook

These ads link to content anywhere on the Facebook platform, but don’t allow for action directly within the ad. This ad allows you to create a custom title and won’t show a preview URL. If you want to send viewers to a Facebook Note, specific tab, group etc. these are the types of ads you would create. The ad below, for example, links to

3. Direct Action Ads

These ads link directly to a Facebook Page, Application or Event. They allow the viewer to take direct action right from the ad whether it be to “like” a Page or RSVP to an Event. In the case of the newly reformatted ads for Applications, viewers can see which of their friends used the application over the past 30 days. The title of these ads are automatically set to the name of the Page/Application/Event.

3. Ads Linking Offsite

These ads link offsite to a non-Facebook URL. These ads allow you to create a custom title and will show a shortened version of the URL that the ad links to. This helps ensure advertisers are honest about where they send viewers who click on the ad. This will hopefully reduce ad spam and increase trust among users, which would increase CTR.

This change is a huge step in the right direction to clear up confusion regarding the look and functionality of Facebook Ads. Are there any other changes you’d like to see made to the Facebook Ads platform? Leave us a comment and let us know what you’d like to see changed.

Post written by Biana Bakman aka @bianalog. To learn more from fbadz.com, connect with us on Facebook!

Ok, small business owners. You’ve taken care of the who, what, and when. Now it’s time to address the where in your social media strategy. Location-based applications/sites are becoming more and more popular, and it’s important to make sure that your company is on the map. Here’s the run-down on a few of the most popular, and the best part is–they’re all free!

Facebook Places allows users to post where they are at any given moment from their mobile devices and PCs. It’s word-of-mouth marketing at the touch of a button and a great way for small businesses to extend their brand.

Your business may already have a Place listing, but it’s up to you to claim your place. This ensures that you control the pertinent information regarding your business, like directions, phone numbers, and hours (there’s nothing worse than going out of your way to find a cool spot, only to find it’s closed!). You can also use this opportunity to link users to your website, Facebook Page, Yelp reviews, etc. It’s all about staying connected and making sure that you’re visible wherever the consumer is.

Facebook has put together a very easy-to-follow guide for businesses on how to go about finding and claiming your Place; it also gives you step-by-step instructions on how to merge your Facebook Page with your Facebook Place. It’s a great tool for small business owners, and we love that Facebook uses a secure system to verify ownership—you’ll get a pin that allows you to continuously log in and update/modify information.

Keep in mind that Facebook uses Bing Maps to pinpoint location when users check in, so you’ll want to make sure that you’re listed (accurately, of course) on Bing Maps. You can add your listing here and provide basic information for your business.

Similarly, utilizing Google Places ensures that you’re more than just a dot on the map: you’re a dot filled with useful information that lets you “be found, stand out, and get insight.” Google uses a cluster of information sourced from Yellow Pages and similar sites to put together your business profile, but by making the effort to claim it you (again) take control over the information. Log into Places using your Google account (or create one, if you haven’t already—just be sure to use an account name you don’t mind sharing), and Google will walk you through the steps to build your profile through a verification process. You can then use the dashboard to add video, photos, coupons, reviews, and even real-time information like weekly specials and events.

Yahoo! Local is also a great way to make sure that your small business is on the map. Yahoo! Local uses a Yellow Book-like approach to its listings, and users can rate and review local businesses, upload their own photos, and get directions via Yahoo! Maps. At the very least, you should make sure that your business has a Basic listing, which you can get for free. A basic account lets you list your phone number, address, hours, products/services, and URL. You can also choose to upgrade to an Enhanced account, which lets you add your logo and tagline, upload up to ten photos, and provide a more detailed business description. It’s only $9.95 a month (and if you sign up by September 30^th you can get 30% off your first three months). All you need to start is a Yahoo! account.

While you’re at it, don’t forget about Yelp. Yelp is a rapidly expanding community and a powerful tool to help you build exposure and monitor public opinion of your business. (And they recently added a check-in feature as well.) If you haven’t already claimed your business on Yelp, go to Yelp.com and start building your profile. Once you’ve ensured that your Yelp listing has the most up-to-date information possible, don’t forget to check back—and often. Social networking sites give you the opportunity to listen and participate in an ongoing conversation.

So what are you waiting for? And if you’re already using these platforms, let us know how it’s going!

Everyday we log on to Facebook, Twitter and other social platforms that we as social media marketers have come to depend on. Most days you log on and go about your work without a hitch. Internet based services, though remarkable, are not perfect. As a matter of fact, we make sure to inform clients that these social platforms exist on an as is basis and do on occasion falter. Sometimes sites go down and there is nothing to be done, but wait for them to be fixed. Today Facebook has been down for a good portion of the day and they’ve taken to Twitter to keep customers informed.

So what is a Facebook marketer to do on a day like today? Take a lesson from Facebook and utilize one of the many other social networking platforms out there. It’s also a great opportunity to plan future content. Take this time to make an editorial calendar of updates for the next week, month, season. Why not even step away from your computer and have a brainstorming session. Sometimes the best ideas come when you’re totally disconnected. Just because the technology is down, doesn’t mean you have to be.

What are you doing to pass the time while Facebook is down? What other outlets are you using to communicate with your customers? Leave us a comment and let us know!

Post written by Biana Bakman aka @bianalog. To learn more from fbadz.com, connect with us on Facebook!

Earlier this week I attended a Meetup in New York that was the first of its kind in the US, the Community Managers Meetup. The companies that the attendees managed communities for ranged from online and print publications to social networks and various brands. One thing that each attendee shared was the need to manage communities across platform types and sites. A typical day for a community manager involves a lot of bouncing between the company website, Twitter, Facebook, forums and countless other networking platforms. Each platform has its own culture, language, etiquette and terms of service.

It is important when creating a community across platforms to be as clear as possible with community members regarding how they are expected to conduct themselves. You can do this by creating a set of community guidelines, which can be as simple or complicated as you, your community managers and legal team see fit. You may not think this is necessary for a small business, but it allows you to establish a clear set of rules for how posts and comments will be moderated across platforms for both your community members and community managers. Keep in mind that not everyone who signs up for a site actually reads through the terms of service. You may want to reiterate some key points of the TOS in your community guidelines.

Some outstanding examples of community guidelines being utilized on Facebook Pages include “The Rulebook” on ESPN and Dove’s “Guidelines.”

Have you seen other examples of community guidelines? Have you established guidelines for your Page? Leave us a comment and let us know!

Post written by Biana Bakman aka @bianalog. To learn more from fbadz.com, connect with us on Facebook!

In a previous post we covered the top 10 most critical steps for creating a Facebook Page for your business. However, there are some integral steps that should occur even before you sit down to create your Facebook Page.

1. Conduct your research.

Chances are, in this day and age, you’re not the first one in your industry to create a presence on Facebook. As with any other marketing endeavor, you want to conduct a competitor analysis to see how other like companies are using the Facebook platform. If you’re a local business, it is a good idea to also check up on other businesses in your surrounding area even if they are in a completely different industry. Remember although you should only be creating an Official Page for your business, your competitors incorrectly be using groups or Community Pages so be sure to do a thorough search.

There are a few different items you want to look for and these may vary based on your industry. How are they communicating on the Page? Does their stream consist of engaging posts and useful info or are they simply posting product pitches every day? How often are they posting to the Page? Are they using a custom landing tab? What is the voice and tone of the Page? Figure out what they are doing well that you can adapt and what they are doing poorly that you can address.

2. Determine who will manage the Page.

Unlike an entry in the Yellow Pages, your Facebook Page needs to be monitored, managed and updated regularly. You should be posting interesting content and replying to customer inquiries. As your Page grows and connections become more active, this time commitment will increase. It is imperative to determine ahead of time who on your staff will be managing the Page on a day-to-day basis. This can even be an entire department of people as long as the voice of the Page stays consistent. In fact, it is imperative that more than one staff member has admin status on the Page so you don’t risk losing all your hard work if one staff member moves on.

A great way to maintain organization when multiple people are managing the Page is with an editorial calendar. You can preplan most updates ahead of time and then schedule them to be posted by staff when appropriate. Here is a sample editorial calendar you can model yours off of: .

3. Establish goals for and purpose of the Page.

There are a lot of different reasons a company would create a Facebook Page. What’s yours? Do you simply want to build brand awareness? Are you going to share sales and coupons with customers? Will your Facebook Page serve as a customer service tool? It is perfectly alright to do all or one of these with your Page, but it is important to decide what the purpose is. Keep in mind your connections will also play a role in what your Facebook Page is utilized for, so remain flexible. Eventually you may even want to create multiple Pages for different aspects of your business. For example, Dell has several Facebook Pages including their main “Dell” Page, “Dell Lounge” focused on the college market, and “Social Media for Small Business – Powered by Dell as a resource for small businesses.”

What is the target audience you hope to reach with the Page? How many likes do you plan on reaching in one month, six months, a year? How do you plan on growing users and interactions on the Page? You may have X number of existing and potential customers, which could be vastly different from your competitors’ numbers so be sure to set realistic goals for YOUR business.

4. Create a policy for Page management.

Your company should have a consistent voice regardless of who is managing your Page at any given time. You can ensure consistency by establishing a policy for how to manage the Page. You want to set clear parameters for how often the Page is updated, what type of content is posted, what voice you will speak in as the Page. How often should you check the Page to see if new comments were posted? How long should you wait before responding to a customer’s question? How do you respond to a question if you don’t know the answer? Should the Page admin identify themselves when posting updates or commenting? Make sure everyone involved in managing the Facebook Page is on the same page.

Post written by Biana Bakman aka @bianalog. To learn more from fbadz.com, connect with us on Facebook!

You may have noticed recently that the Insights box on Facebook Pages was updated a couple days ago and this leads to a whole new Insights Dashboard. Well actually the new Facebook Insights was made live shortly after the f8 conference, but was just recently replaced as the default view for Page admins. You still have access to the old Insights though we’re not sure if that will be available indefinitely. We wanted to review some pros and cons of the new Insights with you.

Pros
-Pretty: Yes that’s right! The new visualizations are a data nerds dream come true. Even if you don’t dream in numbers, this certainly makes the information much easier to digest.
-Like sources: You can see where you are acquiring new connections from such as the Page, stream and search.
-Tab views: Chances are the Wall tab of your Page sees the most action, but now you can see what other tabs viewers are spending time on.
-External Referrers: Similar to Google Analytics, you can see what sites are bringing in viewers to your Page.
-Save Images: The days of grabbing screen shots and cropping graphs are behind us. Facebook now allows you to save an image of each graph right from the dashboard. You can also print the graph directly and view it full screen, which is great for those with poor vision and/or tiny netbooks like me. You can access these functions by hovering your cursor in the upper right hand corner of a graph.
-Impressions and Feedback: Pages can now see a list of their recent posts with impression figures and feedback percentages right from the dashboard.

Cons
-Percentages vs. Numbers: Rather than giving you the straight digits on geographic data of connections, Facebook now posts in by percentage, which means you may have to break out the calculator and 5th grade math skills to determine just how many of your fans reside in Kuala Lumpur.
-Data Export: For all the Excel spreadsheet based report lovers out there the new Insights make it more difficult for you to export the data. Your options are to use the old insights dashboard or add the “Insights Data Exporter Application.”
-Post Quality: Say goodbye to the mysterious metric that was “Post Quality.” Facebook explained the metric as “an algorithm that takes into account your number of posts, total fan interactions received, number of fans, as well as other factors.” All of these data points they mention are still presented to you, but now it’s up to you as a Page admin to gauge how compelling your content is.

As with any change on Facebook the new Insights Dashboard will take some getting used to, but it seems the pros outweigh the cons on this one. Have you found the new dashboard useful? Confusing? Interesting? Frustrating? Leave us a comment and let us know what you think!

Post written by Biana Bakman aka @bianalog. To learn more from fbadz.com, connect with us on Facebook!