Social Media - Versatile Marketing | Digital Marketing Consultancy

Why Every Facebook Page Owner Should Understand Newsfeed Optimisation…

September 29, 2011 By Sam Cannell

There have been countless posts from business pages since Facebook rolled out the new ‘ticker’ and newsfeed like this:

Facebook now controls what shows up on your newsfeed via their algorithm formula. This means if you post comments or ‘like’ our posts regularly then you will most likely see future posts. However, if you are a silent reader and do not comment or like any of our posts you will no longer see ‘name of page’ and our new product updates in your newsfeed If you want to keep in touch please “Like” this post & also remember to pass this message on to spread the word.

My concern over posts like this is that the algorithm formula Facebook uses is nothing new… in fact it even has a snappy name ‘Edgerank’ and Facebook experts like Mari Smith have been talking about the importance of ‘newsfeed optimisation’ for quite some time. It is too early to say whether Facebook has adjusted the algorithm formula since the recent changes, however the types of interactions that appear in the newsfeed have certainly changed (for example ‘liking’ a page now only appears in the real-time ticker and not the newsfeed like it did previously).

So why is newsfeed optimisation so important??

Approximately 90% of people who visit your fanpage never return again… they keep in touch with your updates only via their newsfeed. So if your updates aren’t ranked well according to Facebook’s algorithm formula then you’ll find your rates of interaction with fans will be very low and you’ll be left wondering whether you are wasting your time with Facebook Marketing.

How does ‘EdgeRank’ work?

Well only Facebook employees truly know the answer to that question but it has been determined by leading Social Media Experts that Facebook are ranking certain elements and there are certainly tips that Page owners can use to help them rank in their fans newsfeeds.

Affinity relates to your interactions with the Page – if you like, comment or share content from a Page Facebook naturally assumes that you are interested in that Page’s content. This is why posting quality content that is relevant for your fans is so important in the long-term. One ‘like’ on a status update may not be enough and it certainly won’t guarantee long term appearance of your Page updates in the newsfeed. Affinity is also influenced by the amount of interaction that an update receives – an update with many comments will appear higher in the newsfeed than one with a couple of ‘likes’.

The weighting or score component relates to the type of update – if your updates contain a photograph or video then it will rank higher than a plain text update. Interestingly many Page owners report that they always have more interaction from fans if they post with a photo or video, it’s a catch-22 situtation – the rich media helps you be seen in the newsfeed and then the popularity of the post by fans interacting with it helps to keep it in the newsfeed for even more fans to see.

The final considerations are recency and relevancy. A recent post is much more likely to appear in the newsfeed however relevancy is also incredibly important. My personal view is that Facebook will continue to grow in sophistication with how it ranks relevancy (and I’m sure that’s already taking place)… which means all of your data, your status updates, comments you make on friends/pages – everything can be considered in delivering you with the most relevant content. This is why Page owners should always be mindful of what interests their fans, what are their likes/dislikes… what do they want to hear about?

But what does this mean for Page owners?

Don’t believe that because you have 1,000 fans that 1,000 people see your status updates… you’ll probably be horrified to discover only very small portion of your fans are seeing your content at the moment. The key point is to make your updates interesting and engaging, update your Page regularly (and at times when your fans will be online) and take the time to learn about how you can get better results by crafting your updates so that fans actually see them in their newsfeed.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: facebook, facebook edgerank, facebook newsfeed optimisation

Love the visual, need to organise ideas… enter Pinterest

September 12, 2011 By Sam Cannell

I have a new favourite place to hang out online and it’s called ‘Pinterest’. According to the Pinterest about page…

Pinterest is a virtual pinboard. Pinterest allows you to organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. You can browse pinboards created by other people to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.

A ‘pin’ is an image added to Pinterest and it can be added from a website or your computer. Now this is where it gets clever… each pin added to Pinterest using the ‘Pin It’ button (a button installed on your web browser) links back to the site it came from. I spend so much time online and love the use of graphics but it’s one area that is so hard to keep organised with traditional browser bookmarks. The linking back to the original website means you can always credit the original site (which you should do if you use anyone else’s images!) if you use the image in your blog.

It’s simple to organise your interests with different boards you can set up and name, people share their ‘pins’ by liking or repinning. The potential of Pinterest for business use is slowly being discovered and like any new platform it will take a while for people to work out how they can utilise it. It may be just as an organisational tool or for those working in creative fields like design, photography or fashion it truly could become a fantastic way of generating traffic back to your website.

You can even link your Pinterest account with Twitter and Facebook and share your pins on those networks. At the moment I am using Pinterest for a combination of work and play, I love the idea of ‘pinning’ home decor ideas yet it will also come in very handy when I am sourcing images for web projects. Here is my Pinterest profile:

Are you using Pinterest? I’d love to hear if you are using it for your business and if you have noticed an increase in traffic back to your website or blog?

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: pinterest, social media, social sharing

Follow Versatile Marketing on Foursquare

September 5, 2011 By Sam Cannell

After writing a blog post on Foursquare pages for business a few weeks ago I decided to set one up for Versatile Marketing. The set-up is relatively straight forward, you will need a separate Twitter account for your brand which is one of the main downfalls if you prefer to maintain only one Twitter profile. Once you link your Twitter account Foursquare automatically uses your Twitter handle as the URL and also imports the Twitter profile picture.

The next step is to add at least 5 tips… I got a little carried away in the first few days and now have 51 tips added on Foursquare venues in South Australia. You should continue to add tips as you discover venues worth adding to.

Now that your tips are added you can add a customised banner to ‘brand’ your Foursquare page.

Foursquare users can follow you (similar to Twitter) and your tips will pop up if they check into locations where you have left a tip nearby. Other Foursquare users will be able to view your tips when the check into a venue you’ve left a tip for. To gain followers your Foursquare page will need some promotion, if you have a blog put a link in the sidebar and it’s worthwhile promoting your Foursquare page on Facebook and Twitter if you use those platforms. You can also check-in as your page but this is the main downfall I have found with Foursquare pages, at the moment the smartphone app cannot be used as a page and this is how I do all my check-ins. It is possible to access your Foursquare page via the mobile webpage, then switch profiles and check-in but I personally found this process tedious. Other than that downside I believe that there is huge potential for particular business categories (eg tour operators, wholesale products, interior designers and many more) and it is worthwhile establishing a Foursquare Page for your business if you have helpful tips you can contribute to the Foursquare community.

You can find Versatile Marketing on Foursquare at http://foursquare.com/versatile_m

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: foursquare, geolocation marketing, social media

Foursquare introduces self-serve Pages for Businesses

August 11, 2011 By Sam Cannell

Foursquare has opened the door to self-service ‘Pages’ for business/brands making the process much more streamlined and user friendly.

In order to create your Foursquare page you need to have an individual Foursquare account and also a Twitter profile for your organisation. Your Foursquare page name will be the same as the organisation’s Twitter profile. Now this is the main criticism of Foursquare’s page service – many small businesses only have one Twitter account which links through to their individual Foursquare account. If you are interested in setting up a Foursquare page then you need to have a second Twitter account you can link which should have a branded Twitter handle as Foursquare automatically picks up the Twitter handle and creates the Foursquare page URL from it.

To create a Foursquare page visit http://foursquare.com/create_page. Foursquare have set up a fantastic FAQ section to answer any questions which are bound to come up. Foursquare pages can also be linked with your Facebook page so the integration with other social media channels is good.

Why should your brand consider setting up a Foursquare page??

Foursquare recommends ‘Pages’ for brands which are not tied to a particular physical location. Your Foursquare page becomes the customised homepage for your brand – people can ‘follow’ your page like they do on Twitter, it can be branded with a banner, include links to your website, and it will have a custom URL foursquare.com/yourbrand.

Once your page is created you can then leave tips for venues. This is where the power of Foursquare can be leveraged by brands, your tips are the way of communicating with your followers. When one of your followers checks in nearby your tip is shown. Foursquare recommends that tips should be interesting and contain worthwhile pieces of information.

Image source: foursquare.com adding Tips for Pages.

The power of Foursquare pages for business marketing is now open to business owners and marketing managers to set-up themselves. Examples of some businesses that could leverage Foursquare pages successfully with helpful tips include:

- Tour guides… leaving tips for best places to visit in a particular area

- Local Tourism Authorities… tips at locations to visit, ideas for activities to do.

- Wine/beer label… tips at venues that stock your product.

- Fashion labels… tips at stockists of your products.

- Media publications/outlets… ‘around town’ tips and ideas of great things to do.

- Interior designers… best places to source products.

- Landscape gardeners… best venues to buy plants, public gardens to visit and related trade venues.

Now this may leave you wondering where is the return on investment in spending all this time leaving tips and spreading your local knowledge? Foursquare pages are embracing one of the fundamental changes in marketing – the focus on relationships. Building relationships takes time, don’t expect a quick fix but if you are offering great tips and keeping your brand in the front of your followers minds you will inevitably see results from your hard work.

We’d love to hear if you’ve set up a Foursquare page for your business since the self-service changes rolled out and how you are finding the experience.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: foursquare, foursquare marketing, geolocation marketing, social media

Facebook Marketing for Business – No Personal Profiles

July 29, 2011 By Sam Cannell

The number 1 mistake I’ve been seeing a lot of recently is businesses using Facebook Profiles to promote their businesses instead of ‘Pages’. I’m sure the majority of these business owners have no idea that they are breaking Facebook’s rules and are actually at risk of having their account removed from Facebook.

A lot of small business owners decide they will promote their business on Facebook because it’s the ‘in’ thing to do or someone has said ‘you have to get your business on Facebook’ but they have very little understanding of the platform and how it works.

Facebook has three categories – Profiles, Pages and Groups. Profiles are designed for individuals to use for personal use, pages and designed for business/community use for genuine organisations and groups are best suited to smaller groups which may need to keep content private or restrict membership.

If you have already set up your business as a ‘profile’ and you have a friend base you are probably wondering how on earth you go about correcting this. As a business a ‘page’ offers you far more functionality so yes it’s definitely worth making the transition. It also means you aren’t breaking Facebook’s rules and won’t be deleted!

Firstly before you rush off to transfer your Profile to a Page you need to back up your content as the data transferred by Facebook is limited. When you convert your profile to a Facebook Page, Facebook will transfer profile pictures and your ‘friends’ will become ‘likers’ of your new page.

To avoid losing important content, Facebook recommends taking these steps before you convert your profile:

Download your profile information. You can download a file that contains all of your sent and received messages and all of the photos and videos you’ve uploaded to Facebook.
Appoint a new group admin or a new Facebook Page admin to any groups or pages that you manage. The account you’re converting will lose these admin rights during the conversion process.

The full process is detailed on the Facebook Help Centre. Once your profile has been converted to a ‘page’ you will have access to the many features available to businesses using Facebook marketing.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: facebook marketing, facebook marketing for business, social media, social media marketing

Digital Marketing and Social Media Workshop dates launched

July 27, 2011 By Sam Cannell

We are delighted to announce the launch of our Digital Marketing Workshops commencing in September 2011 in Adelaide. The Workshops are designed for small business owners, marketing managers and entrepreneurs. Workshops will be held at the Comfort Inn Haven Marina, Glenelg North – just off the end of Anzac Highway and there is plenty of free parking for participants. Of course our love of everything digital means you can register and pay for the Workshops online!

Our upcoming workshops will help you make sense of Digital Marketing and give you the knowledge you need to create a successful online marketing strategy.

Workshop 1: Creating the Ultimate Digital Marketing Strategy – How To Embrace Digital Marketing and Build Your Brand Online

Workshop 2: Create a Stunning Facebook Business Page and Engage Your Facebook Fans

Workshop 3: Twitter for Business: How build your brand and reputation successfully in 140 characters (or less!)

All workshops are three hour duration and prices include GST.

About the presenter: Sam Cannell

Sam Cannell has over four years experience as a small business consultant and from the beginning of her self-employment she embraced online marketing recognising the importance of this ever-changing medium. Her marketing experience has been gained through developing her own business online and working for a diverse range of clients on marketing and online projects. Sam is also a qualified Workplace Trainer and Assessor having spent two years in the corporate world as a Trainer in the Direct Sales Division of a major Bank. The Digital Workshop sessions with Sam promise to be incredibly insightful and participants will walk away with the enthusiasm and knowledge required to achieve success with their Digital Marketing efforts. You will see from the Workshop Outlines that Strategy and Planning is a key focus of each workshop – Sam believes when it comes to digital marketing that planning is the most important element – as they say ‘Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail!’