Using Facebook for Business? Hubspot.com has 9 Tips on What Not to Do

No one is denying that Facebook has become a viable business tool. People are coming up with new marketing methods for Facebook literally every day.

However, there are also things you shouldn’t do with Twitter – which is what Diana Freedman writes about at hubspot.com: “The 9 Worst Ways to Use Facebook for Business.” They are:

1. Duplicating your Twitter Strategy on Facebook. Twitter and Facebook are two different platforms, and you need to use them differently. While it’s good to Tweet two or three times a day so that your customers (hopefully) see you, too many Facebook updates could lead to people dropping you. When you do post on Facebook, take advantage of the extended number of characters you have to get your point across.

2. Posting plain-text entries exclusively. People like variety. Post relevant videos or links to interesting articles. Involve your readers.

3. Not Allowing Fans to Share Content. If you don’t let your fans post on your wall, what’s the purpose of having a Facebook page? If you sell a product, for example, don’t you want pictures of your fans using that product to put on your wall?

4. Not Responding to Fans’ Comments. Facebook is a social medium, so be social. Respond to comments and questions. If you don’t have time, make time.

5. Ignoring Fans’ Comments and Content. Those very contributions to your site can be shared with others when they’re beneficial to promoting your product or service. They can also be great content additions when you’re short on time. So use them!

6. Not using Facebook Questions. This new Facebook service, allows anyone to ask and answer questions to and from Facebook users. It’s a great way to get customer opinion on your product ideas, service changes, etc.

7. Using a Profile Image with a poor thumbnail. When you upload your logo or brand image, Facebook cuts it down to make it fit in the little thumbnail on the profile. As a result, many logos get cut in half or rendered totally unrecognizable. Create a 200px-wide image of your logo and use it.

8. Not Linking to your Facebook Page from your Website. Stop keeping your page a secret! Put a Facebook link box on your web page and start drawing traffic to your Facebook page.

9. Putting Up a Page with No Personality. If your page is stuffy, you won’t get many fans. Facebook users want to connect with friends, not with a sales pitch. Freedman provides several examples of companies who are doing this correctly.

Karlie Justus at SocialMediaB2b Discusses Pros and Cons of Blocking Social Media at Work

Can your employees access popular social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter? Karlie Justus, in her article “Pros and Cons of Blocking Social Media at Your B2B Company,” at SocialMediaB2B.com, cites a new report from Purdue University that says more than 80% of the businesses surveyed restrict the use of at least one social media site, while another 13% restrict all such sites.

The concern, said the survey, wasn’t so much that people were using their social media presence to socialize, but that classified information was being entered into the public record, at an average cost of $2 million per incident.

However, another report from McAfee, which also commissioned the Purdue report, says that 40% of businesses that allow their employees to use social media in the workplace have seen a measurable increase in productivity.

So what exactly are the pros and cons of blocking social media at work? Justus sheds some light on both sides.

Pros:

1. Your business needs a singular tone and voice for its perceived image. Many B2B companies use a singular image and voice to represent their businesses. In order to maintain the image and feel you want throughout your communications, you can’t have more than one or two people writing what you release to the public. Too many voices muddy the waters.

2. There may be industry specific concerns about social media. For example, if your company makes helicopters for the military, and their current project with you is top secret, you probably don’t want somebody accidentally spilling this information out on the internet. Justus says marketers in these areas should ask their customers whether social media is a part of their marketing plan before planning to use it yourself.

Cons:

1. It silences your biggest fans – your employees. Who knows your products better then the people who make them, sell them and want you to be successful, so that they can be successful too? If your employees can’t talk about your product, what better forms of free advertising do you have in mind?

2. Justus says that few companies tend to stretch the boundaries of how social sites can be used in the office beyond the marketing department. She questions why more companies don’t use Twitter, for example, to provide public relations opportunities for their sales teams. She asks why more companies don’t allow Facebook to be used by Human Resources to help fill a position. And LinkedIn is a proven source for leads. If your employees can’t access all this, however, these are all moot points.

3. A company that can’t access social media is a company that continues to live under the idea that social media is a waste of time, Justus says. If your company uses social media to attract new accounts, but you don’t let your own employees use it, how does that look to your customers?

Google’s Eric Schmidt Hints Announces Fall Debut of “Google Me” during Google Zeitgeist Conference Speech

On the heels of finding out that Facebook had finally surpassed Google in total visits in August, Google CEO Eric Schmidt bared his teeth a bit at the recent Google Zeitgeist Conference in Scottsdale. According to John Brownlee, writing for Geek.com, Schmidt confirmed what most people suspected – “Google Me,” the company’s latest attempt at taking some of the social marketing energy that Facebook has all but snapped up , will debut this fall.

However, Schmidt was equally as adamant at insisting that Google Me was not going to be a hub for social networking. Rather, he sees the service as adding social networking capabilities to existing Google services, such as YouTube (you’d be notified if a lot of your friends were watching the same video, for example).

Brownlee says the industry is taking a “wait and see” attitude to see exactly what Schmidt and Google are up to. “Let’s just hope it’s not another ‘Buzz’ fiasco,” Brownlee says, referring to Google’s ill-fated Google Buzz project, which users never really accepted.

Meanwhile, other commentators see Schmidt’s comments as being much more mercenary, using such terminology as “Facebook-scraping,” and saying that Google is willing to take as much info from Facebook by any means possible. For example, Schmidt also announced that Google had recently invested over $100 million in the Zynga Company, developers of Facebook’s popular Farmville and Mafia Wars games.

Then, says Seth Weintraub at Fortune Magazine, there’s this quote from Schmidt’s Google Zeitgeist speech:

"The best thing that would happen is for Facebook to open up its data. Failing that, there are other ways to get that information."

What are those ways, Weintraub asks? He envisions someone creating a cartoon of Schmidt saying, “We have ways of making you talk. Mwahahahahah…”

B2B Companies: Be more social now with these 11 tips from Hubspot.com

B2B businesses are traditionally slow to adapt to new changes. This is particularly true when it comes to social media. Many companies are still having trouble understanding that they need a social media program. Sure, there are a lot of technical things to worry about that are best left to the folks in your IT department. However, Kipp Bodnar, writing for Hubspot .com, says there are “11 Simple Ways B2B Companies Can Be More Social Today.” They are smaller steps that any B2B employee can not only implement easily, but also actually understand.


Socialize your documents: Chances are you’ve written white papers and speeches that contain valuable information that your potential customers can use. Post them on the web.

Social Media Icons: Make sure you have company logos that conform to the sizing requirements of various websites.

Set up social media accounts now, even if your company won’t be using them for a month or two.

Create a profile for your company at LinkedIn.com. It’s a good way to start connecting with other people in your business as well as potential customers.

Write blog posts. Even if you don’t have a live blog yet, create content that you can post when you go live.

Make sure your staff is equipped to go social. Make sure they have the right tools to create the media you’ll need to create when you go live.

Start to understand the tools of social media conversations such as Twitter Search, Alerts Grader and Boardreader. Use them to monitor the search terms of your business.

Determine who in your company will handle your social media content. Go over how they will represent the company in their posts and blogs.
Set up a Bit.ly account. This service shortens URLs to give you more room on limited-character sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

Add social media browser extensions that can help make your browser more social-friendly.

Install Analytics. As you start getting new visitors from your social efforts, you’ll want to know exactly where they’re coming from Analytics tools can help you do just that.

Wake Up and Smell the Tweets: Writer Sounds Death Knell for Traditional Marketing

Old marketing habits die hard. But Abigail Rossbach, writing at FathomSeo.com, says that to make your marketing efforts work for you, the time has come to forget everything you learned about marketing in a pre-Facebook, what’s-a-Twitter world. Content marketing, Rossbach says, is where it's at and where it’s going to stay.

"Traditional marketing methods have officially lost their influence," Rossbach writes, adding that in a marketing world filled with blog posts, video portals, tweets, etc., businesses need to take an entirely different look at how they conduct business online. In short, they need to commit themselves to content marketing. This means producing and distributing, entertaining, relevant and informative content on a regular basis.

This content will attract potential customers and provide them with something of value. In so doing, it will also provide a constant boost to your link building efforts. Rossbach stresses that this new approach can mean resisting the urge to push for the immediate sale. This can be hard for many marketers to grasp but it’s the way of the world now. Educate the buyers about your product first, she says, and they will look to you as a trusted source when
they’re ready to buy.

If you’re wondering what general topics to write about, Rossbach suggests starting with a recent article by Rand Fishkin at SEOmoz.org for ideas.

Reputation Management a Staple of Any Link Building Service, Expert Says

Tom Leung of Marchex, a guest commentator on SearchEngineLand.com, says that reputation management is one of the most important strategies offered by link building services to companies today. In his article “My Business Got a Bad Review. Now What?” Leung writes that in today’s social media climate, everyone’s a critic, so It’s more important than ever to monitor how your business is being discussed on places like Twitter, Yelp, Citysearch, Facebook, etc. He says that while larger companies have entire departments dedicated to monitor consumer comments and react to both positive and negative feedback, middle-sized and small businesses have their work cut out for them.

However, rather than take up a lot of time you don’t have monitoring the internet, Leung suggests four steps that can lessen your need for reputation management in the long run.

• First, make sure that all of your online listings are up to date.


• Second, take note of what your customers are saying about you online – both negatives and positives.


• Third, get involved in the online communities where your customers make comments about you.


• Finally, use customer feedback to improve your business.

Leung sites a restaurant example. If you see many comments that lunchtime service is too slow, hire another server. This analogy can be used to determine trends in virtually any type of business.