{"id":565,"date":"2010-12-06T21:08:30","date_gmt":"2010-12-07T02:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/steveholt.com\/home\/?p=565"},"modified":"2019-05-06T13:07:58","modified_gmt":"2019-05-06T18:07:58","slug":"10-things-your-business-needs-to-do-on-facebook-right-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steveholt.com\/home\/?p=565","title":{"rendered":"10 Things Your Business Needs To Do On Facebook Right Now"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>NOTE: the information in this post is accurate as of 12\/6\/2010.  But since Facebook keeps changing things so fast, when you read this it might be inaccurate.  Thanks.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Have you watched any TV commercials lately?\u00a0 I know, with TIVO and DVRs becoming commonplace, you might not have.\u00a0 But if you watch TV commercials you will notice a visible trend lately.\u00a0 It seems not many companies are advertising 800 numbers anymore, or even their websites.\u00a0 They are advertising their Facebook pages.\u00a0 And who can blame them?\u00a0 When Facebook passed the 500 million user mark they essentially became the 3rd largest &#8216;community&#8217; of people in the world, right behind China and India.<\/p>\n<p>Listed here are the 10 things that your business needs to do right now on Facebook.\u00a0 Some of these things take some time, and some will take the services of a geek.\u00a0 So find a geek to help you, and bribe them with something they will want&#8230; like iTunes gift cards or chocolate.\u00a0 Here we go&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>1.\u00a0 <strong>Create your &#8216;like&#8217; page <\/strong>&#8211; If you haven&#8217;t already you need to create a &#8216;page formerly known as fan&#8217;.\u00a0 Just log into Facebook with your personal account, then go here:\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\" target=\"_blank\">www.facebook.com\/pages<\/a> Create your page by following the instructions.\u00a0 Once that is done, you will see a menu item on the left side of your personal account &#8216;home&#8217; screen called &#8220;Ads and pages&#8221;.\u00a0 Click that link to get access to the pages you have created so you can edit them.\u00a0 And yes, you can create multiple pages if you want!<\/p>\n<p>2.\u00a0 <strong>Pick your page apps<\/strong> &#8211; you get some standard apps with your &#8216;like&#8217; page when it gets created, such as events, photos, links, and discussions.\u00a0 Those will show up as tabs across the top of your page.\u00a0 If you don&#8217;t want any of those you can get rid of them when you edit your page, but I also suggest adding some other apps to give more interactivity and interest.\u00a0 Here are some apps that I recommend:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/apps.facebook.com\/involver_appjgeph\/facebook_pages\/edit?fb_page_id=25536791579\" target=\"_blank\"><em><strong>YouTube (by Involver)<\/strong><\/em><\/a> &#8211; this is a great way to bring your YouTube channel into your Facebook page.\u00a0 If you don&#8217;t have a Youtube channel, well of course you need to get one and start making videos!\u00a0 Then use this app to let your visitors watch all your YouTube videos right on your Facebook page.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/apps\/application.php?id=20678178440&amp;ref=appd\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Poll (by Kremsa)<\/strong><\/a> &#8211; a free poll generator that allows you to create interest on your page by asking for your visitors to vote on this or that.\u00a0 It also keeps track of who voted and only allows them to vote once.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/apps\/application.php?id=4949752878&amp;ref=appd\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Static FBML<\/strong><\/a> &#8211; the letters stand for &#8216;Facebook Markup Language&#8217;.\u00a0 It basically puts a blank tab at the top of your page that you can do anything with.\u00a0 It does require a little bit of HTML coding knowledge though (that&#8217;s where the geek comes in).\u00a0 You simply paste your HTML code into the Static FBML box, give the tab its name, and you are done.\u00a0 You now have a new tab across the top of your page.\u00a0 The possibilities are really endless when it comes to this app, so everyone needs it.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/payvment\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Payvment <\/strong><\/a>&#8211; I use this app to sell items on my Facebook page.\u00a0 There are other full-featured apps that are really quite good, but this app is free to use, which is why I like it.\u00a0 It requires a Paypal account though, so you&#8217;ll need one of those.\u00a0 You create your products, set your shipping info, set taxes, and so on.\u00a0 The cool thing about this app is that you can set it so that it gives an immediate discount in the shopping cart for those people who &#8216;like&#8217; your page.\u00a0 This is a great incentive to get them to buy.\u00a0 Everyone loves a sale, right?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>3.\u00a0 <strong>Get your Facebook username<\/strong> &#8211; after you get 25 &#8216;likes&#8217; you can set up your vanity username.\u00a0 Mine is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/steveholtconsulting\" target=\"_blank\">www.facebook.com\/steveholtconsulting<\/a>.\u00a0 You need this because this is what you need to advertise your Facebook page and make it easy for people to remember the link.\u00a0 To grab yours (cross your fingers it isn&#8217;t taken) go here:\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/username\" target=\"_blank\">www.facebook.com\/username<\/a><\/p>\n<p>4.\u00a0 <strong>Add a &#8216;like&#8217; button to your company website<\/strong> &#8211; You have seen those &#8216;like&#8217; buttons.\u00a0 They are everywhere.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/mashable.com\/2010\/09\/29\/facebook-like-stats\/\" target=\"_blank\">According to Mashable<\/a>, there are over 2 million websites so far that use them, and that number is ballooning every week.\u00a0 To do that, simply go here to create your &#8216;like&#8217; button:\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/mashable.com\/2010\/09\/29\/facebook-like-stats\/\" target=\"_blank\">www.facebook.com\/share<\/a> Then get that geek to come back and integrate it with your website.\u00a0 When you are ready to see some statistics about your &#8216;like&#8217; button, go here:\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/insights\" target=\"_blank\">www.facebook.com\/insights<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>5.\u00a0 <strong>Publicize your Facebook page<\/strong> &#8211; I have seen too many companies fall down on this one.\u00a0 You spend hours and hours of your time trying to build up your Facebook fans, but you forget about advertising the page in your traditional outlets.\u00a0 Don&#8217;t forget to include your Facebook URL (what you created in step #3 above) on your business front door, your letterhead, your company website, your shopping bags, your receipts, your email signatures, your business cards, on your local Chamber&#8217;s website, etc!!\u00a0 They can&#8217;t &#8216;like&#8217; you unless they know you are there.<\/p>\n<p>6.\u00a0 <strong>Monitor your page every day<\/strong> &#8211; one of the things that really annoys me with Facebook is that they give you a ton of options on your personal page for getting notifications for just about everything regarding your Facebook account.\u00a0 But they give you no options for notifications about your Facebook &#8216;like&#8217; page.\u00a0 So that means you must monitor your Facebook page every day to make sure you don&#8217;t miss any posts that people make on your wall.\u00a0 That takes alot of time, but you don&#8217;t have any other choice.\u00a0 Surely Facebook will fix this.<\/p>\n<p>7.\u00a0 <strong>Pay attention to your impressions<\/strong>&#8211; Facebook implemented something really cool for &#8216;like&#8217; pages.\u00a0 For every post that you make on your &#8216;like&#8217; wall, you will see statistics for it right below the post.\u00a0 It is called &#8216;impressions&#8217;.\u00a0 An impression is when your post appears on someone&#8217;s wall.\u00a0 It takes a few days for the impressions to start showing up, but when they do you will see how many people actually saw your post.\u00a0 Also, right beside that you&#8217;ll see the % of &#8216;feedback&#8217; about how many people actually responded to it by making a comment, clicking the &#8216;like&#8217; button, or &#8216;sharing&#8217; it on their Facebook wall.\u00a0 There is debate about how valuable this actually is, but it does at least provide you some feedback about the types of posts that get the most interaction from your fans.<\/p>\n<p>8.\u00a0 <strong>Claim your &#8216;Place&#8217; page &amp; offer Place &#8216;Deals&#8217; <\/strong>&#8211; In direct response to the popularity of location-based check-in services such as Foursquare and Gowalla, Facebook launched what they call &#8216;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/places\/\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook Places<\/a>&#8216;.\u00a0 This enables your fans to use their mobile phones to&#8217;check in&#8217; on Facebook when they show up at your actual business.\u00a0 Then all their friends on Facebook will see it!\u00a0 Make sure you &#8216;claim&#8217; your page and hang in there during the claim process, which can at times be a hassle.\u00a0 But you need to claim your &#8216;Place&#8217; page so you can control it.\u00a0 After you have claimed your Facebook Place page, you can begin to offer &#8216;deals&#8217; to those who check-in to your Facebook Place using their phone.\u00a0 You can offer them something of value when they &#8216;check in&#8217;, like a free gift, a % discount on their purchase, or whatever you want.\u00a0 This rewards loyalty and provides you free promotion as those check-ins are showing up on people&#8217;s walls!\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/help\/?page=18846\" target=\"_blank\">You can get all your questions answered here<\/a>, and then you can <a href=\"https:\/\/www.box.net\/shared\/static\/i4i9aqk0yz.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">click here for the business guide to Facebook Deals<\/a> (PDF).\u00a0 <em>(UPDATE:\u00a0 Facebook has provided the ability to merge your &#8216;like&#8217; and your &#8216;place&#8217; pages.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/help\/?page=1154\/\" target=\"_blank\">Read the instructions careful here<\/a>.  And <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marismith.com\/facebook-users-merge-facebook-place-business-page\/\" target=\"_blank\">then read this<\/a> so you understand what happens when you merge them.)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>9.\u00a0 <strong>Offer helpful &amp; valuable information<\/strong> &#8211; Don&#8217;t you just love it when a friend helps you discover something of value that you didn&#8217;t know about?\u00a0 Of course, we all do.\u00a0 Well, do that on your &#8216;like&#8217; page.\u00a0 In whatever business you are in, give them things that help them.\u00a0 Give them links to go learn something.\u00a0 Recommend things to them that can make their life easier, their day a little brighter, and make them laugh.\u00a0 That will make them come back to your page to see what you have to say.<\/p>\n<p>10.\u00a0 <strong>Get personal<\/strong> &#8211; one of the biggest mistakes that businesses make is that they turn their Facebook &#8216;like&#8217; page into a continuous stream of &#8216;buy this&#8217;, &#8216;buy that&#8217; posts.\u00a0 Everyone loves to buy, but noone wants to be sold to.\u00a0 And everyone likes to buy from someone they know.\u00a0 As I always say, &#8220;people don&#8217;t like to do business with business, they like to do business with people.&#8221;\u00a0 So get personal. &#8220;Get Social&#8221;.\u00a0 Put your face on your Facebook page.\u00a0 Talk about your personal life.\u00a0 Share pictures of your family.\u00a0 Share your vacation photos.\u00a0 Tell them what your dog chewed up last night.\u00a0 It&#8217;s true, they want to hear it.\u00a0 Connect with your supporters on a personal level and they are more likely to do business with you.<\/p>\n<p>So there you have it.\u00a0 That should be enough to keep you busy for at least 10 minutes, right?\u00a0 Oh, and by the way, make sure you click my &#8216;like&#8217; button below. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fsteveholt.com%2Fhome%2F2010%2F12%2F06%2F10-things-your-business-needs-to-do-on-facebook-right-now%2F&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=true&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;height=80\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height:80px;\" allowTransparency=\"true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NOTE: the information in this post is accurate as of 12\/6\/2010. But since Facebook keeps changing things so fast, when you read this it might be inaccurate. Thanks. Have you watched any TV commercials lately?\u00a0 I know, with TIVO and DVRs becoming commonplace, you might not have.\u00a0 But if you watch TV commercials you will [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[16,32,39,38,37,31],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steveholt.com\/home\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steveholt.com\/home\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steveholt.com\/home\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steveholt.com\/home\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steveholt.com\/home\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=565"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/steveholt.com\/home\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3028,"href":"https:\/\/steveholt.com\/home\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565\/revisions\/3028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steveholt.com\/home\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steveholt.com\/home\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steveholt.com\/home\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}