fan page — Lauren MacEwen

Google+ for Business….well almost

11/07/2011 by Lauren MacEwen

Goolgle+ announced today that they are offering pages for business. This is answering a long standing question, when with Google+ be business friendly. Well, they had been promising the eventual advent of their business Pages, and the day has finally come!…well kind of.

The pages roll out is just that, a roll out. So not everyone can make a page yet. When will everyone be allowed? Good question. Unfortunately I don’t have the answer to that. So though they are not focusing on the exclusivity of the original “invite only” launch, they are likely only giving the “star players” the first shot at the new Page.

As a user of Google+ you will be able to to add pages to you circles. It seems that the pages will be much like the Facebook Pages we are all accustomed to. But one distinct edge the pages have will be the indexing. Google will be immediately indexing any business page. This means that when you create a page you are immediately getting an SEO boost to your page. Additionally when you type in a business name, if you add a + sign before the name it will pull of the Plus page for that business. So type in + SM Cubed Consulting and you will find my business page.

Is the + search a step forward in the next generation of SEO? Maybe it is. It does make me wonder if this will be a change in the Boolean search that traditional search engine algorithm have been rooted in. (In my mind I see lovers of Library Science heads exploding)

The questions that arise are based in the experience from pages on Facebook. Will you be able to pursue fans or are we reliant on fans finding pages, like in Facebook? Will this essentially be simply duplicate content? Is there a point to have both?

Filed Under: SM3 Tagged With: business pages, facebook, fan page, google, google plus, search engine optimization

Google+ for Business….well almost

11/07/2011 by Lauren MacEwen

Filed Under: Google+, Social Media Tagged With: business, business pages, facebook, fan page, google, google plus, launch, new page, search engine optimization

Will Fan Pages Get the Timeline Update?

10/12/2011 by Lauren MacEwen

Facebook has been rolling out the “timeline” update on the newsfeed and on profiles. Will fan pages be the next update? It is the logical progression. Since the fan page update at the beginning of 2011, Facebook has been updating the layout of the fan page in conjunction with the profiles. The main goal being consistency in the user experience.

The latest update for the profiles was not only a dramatic visual change but also a UI (user interface) change. It is changing how users are using Facebook. In fact, the new timeline profile is deepening the emotional connection between Facebook and its user. If Facebook updates fan pages as well, it has the potential to have a similar emotional effect.

The cover image will be a great opportunity for branding, with the profile image being the “face” of your engagement. The more graphic display will really encourage fan pages to post more dynamically using significantly more photos. Beyond using more photos, it will encourage businesses to use a more cohesive and truely graphic based brand strategy. The page itself will be like an interactive page from a magazine. It has the potentially to be incredible.

No profiles have gone public yet. Below is a mock up by the New York Agency Skinny of a potential fan page. The branding opportunity is incredible! Of course this means that people will need to strategically implement their fan page design, which means that marketing firms need to embrace social media design. The game is changing…and getting more aesthetically pleasing!

A mockup of the Burberry Fan Page by New York Agency Skinny. Click the image to see more mockups.

Filed Under: Facebook, SM3 Tagged With: branding, facebook, fan page, fan pages, profiles, timeline, timeline profile

Facebook Helping Fan Pages…No, Really!

10/05/2011 by Lauren MacEwen

There have been a lot of updates on Facebook fan pages over the past year. Some of these helped us out and some did not. One feature that was removed was the ability to suggest your page. But that is now changing, well kind of. Just like anything Facebook does, the update is not putting things back the way they were, rather it is improving on the original idea. Or at least trying to.

Recommendations

It use to be that you could suggest your page to your friends. It was a button at the bottom of your left nav menu. You clicked “suggest page” and you could send suggestions to all your friends. At one point this was a great way to spread the word very quickly about your page. If you were able to get someone who was influential on Twitter to suggest your page you could get literally hundreds of new fans over night! But then Facebook changed their notification system. So instead of seeing your page suggestions, they were buried in the Facebook matrix. This essentially left page suggestions completely impotent.

From that point the only way you could suggest a page was to post on your fan page and ask your friends to spread the word about you. Does this work? Yes, well sometimes. A lot of people don’t know how to “share” a post, or they are just not interested in doing PR for your fan page. Though the suggest a page is not being brought back, Facebook mainframe is now going to actually help fan pages network with each other.

When you use facebook as your page you will now see 2 rows of recommended pages. The first row are generally recommended pages, based off of other pages you like. Then below that is another set of recommendations. These show pages that your fans like. Giving you the opportunity for your page to like pages that your fans like. This can be a big boost for engagement. By helping you find other pages that your fans like you can then like that page. It is safe to assume that if a lot of your fans like the same page that there might be other fans of that page that have not discovered you. So if you go on there and engage with posts, you might be able to capture some of their targeted audience.

Filed Under: Facebook, SM3 Tagged With: facebook, facebook features, fan page, recommendations, suggestions

Facebook Updates Become Nodates

09/30/2011 by Lauren MacEwen

Though most of you won’t ever notice, but Facebook is removing yet another feature from Fan Pages. You will no longer have the ability to update your fans via email. I am sure many of you are saying, wait! I had the ability to email my fans? Well, yes you did. It was possible to send an email updating all of your fans about events or happenings on the page. You could even target these updates based on location or gender.

But you are probably asking yourself why you have never received one of these updates? Well, it is likely that you have and did not know it. When Facebook updated their email service, they created their version of a spam box. It is a file on your email called “Other” this is where Facebook puts any email that it thinks is likely spam or unwanted. Of course this means any email from a fan page. They only way around emails not being filtered into this other box was to go into your email, open up a message and then move it to your “messages” box. Of course non of us ever did that. In fact, most of us never even go into the other box. Writing this post promoted me to go into it for the first time in over 6 months.

Since all fan page emails get shoved into other as soon as it is sent, Facebook has decided to remove the option entirely. Often times when a big update goes through, like Facebook email, certain things don’t function the way they were anticipated. Though Facebook wants people to use their network as a primary email address, most people are not. Very few people look at Facebook as a way to communicate with people not on the social network, and they definitely do not view it as a replacement for their primary email address. So the spam filter is under utilized and generally ignored.

They will be removing the update fan option on September 30th. So there is still time to send emails that no one will see.

Filed Under: Facebook, SM3 Tagged With: criticism of facebook, e mail spam, facebook, facebook features, fan page, fans, updates

This is no time to tag…on Facebook

07/12/2011 by Lauren MacEwen

Friends don't tag friends on Facebook- oh yes, it was time for some bad photoshop work

Feeling that it had been a little while since Facebook made a change to how you use it? Yeah, we did too. Thankfully they did not let us down and changed something else on Facebook engagement. You can no longer tag people on your fan page.

Many of you might be saying, “Wait, I could never tag people. Pages can’t tag people.” Well, you are not entirely wrong. A page cannot tag a person. However there was a loophole. If your personal profile was “friends” with someone, then you could tag them on your fan page as long as you were posting as admin.

Many people used this loop hole to use both their fan page and profile to promote their business. They would do massive networking through their profile to meet people. Then they would post on their fan page and tag people in their posts. This form of tag spam has not been well received. The problem of course is that people don’t generally know who owns a page, so they don’t know who tagged them.

Facebook has been trying to balance the functionality of its business sector with the privacy of it s private sector. Ultimately the private sector must come first, as it is the bread and butter of Facebook. 750 million members are a lot of people, and Facebook wants to make sure that their needs are kept priority. Though many pages ill be upset about this change, this will keep business to fan pages and personal to personal pages. Well, for the most part. At the very least it will create a clean line between the two.

Filed Under: Facebook, SM3 Tagged With: facebook, facebook features, fan page, personal profile, tag, tags, tags friend

5 Tips for Boosting Facebook SEO

06/13/2011 by Lauren MacEwen

Is your Facebook Fan Page helping your SEO?

SEO (search engine optimization) is not just for websites. You can also optimize your Facebook Fan Page for better search results. Not only will this help your searches inside Facebook, but it will also help with traditional search engines like Google and Bing. Plus, you’ll increase brand visibility for your Facebook Fan Page and the total visibility of your brand.

70% of brands have not optimized their Fan Pages and are missing out on some great search engine ranking opportunities.

How to boost your Facebook SEO

Get a vanity URL
The number one thing you need to do is get a vanity URL. This means that your URL is www.facebook.com/brand instead of, for instance, www.facebook.com/page/brand=87465249. >Tech Tip: If you can’t get your actual brand name, get a vanity URL with your most used search term.
Link to your Facebook Fan Page
Linking to your Fan Page from your website will let you capitalize on the SEO done on your website. It gives you an inbound link which will help boost your FB SEO. In fact, link from all your pages. The more links, the better the SEO boost. >Tech Tip: Make sure your anchor text is something like “Brand Name on Facebook” and link it to your vanity URL, e.g. www.facebook.com/brandname – not www.facebook.com/brandname=sk?872635
Use your brand name in your post
Search engines scan the content of your page. If you use your brand name it will help boost the SEO for name recognition. >Tech Tip: Now you can tag the text in your posts for added SEO boost.
Get links to your posts
Get people to Like your posts. The more people share and Like your posts, the better the SEO value – Likes count as links! >Tech Tip: Post things that ask for social engagement; comments, sharing and Likes. This will drive up your engagement and thus your FB SEO
Use Fan Boxes
Facebook lets you put Fan Boxes on your website that can show your fans and feature your recent posts. This is a good way to build engagement and drive more fans to your site. >Tech Tip: If you don’t have many fans yet, set your fan box to show recent posts until you get more than 25 fans.

Filed Under: Facebook, SM3, Technology Tagged With: facebook, fan page, fans, google search, search engine optimization, search engines, SEO, seo rank, tech tips, tips

5 Ways to Breathe Life into your Facebook Fan Page

06/03/2011 by Lauren MacEwen

Show off your Peeps!
A great way to get people interested in your page and in what you are doing is to include them. Pictures of abstract things, pretty landscapes or funny cats are great, but to get people involved with your page, post things that are relevant to them. And what is more relevant to them than, well, them? Post pictures of your fans at events and in your store. Post pictures of your staff or of people using your product. People love to see pics they can relate to.
Be funny!
Everyone loves humor – it shows off your less serious side. It shows that you are not all about business and sometimes you like to cut loose. Social media is powerful because it allows people to get past the company front. It allows businesses the opportunity to become more human to their customers. Humor is the perfect way to break through that 4th wall. Of course, be sure to keep it light and within appropriate boundaries.
Be interesting
Are your posts thought-provoking, do they spark debate or are they fun? Etsy does a great job on their fan page by sharing some of their quirkier items. Their fans have a high likelihood of commenting on the product and sharing it on their fan page. Ultimately you want to share things that will engage your audience.
Ask questions
Asking for your fans’ thoughts or opinions is a great way to engage them. It encourages their involvement, which means they will be more invested in the issue. They will be interested in what other people say in response, and more likely to interact further. Once you get someone commenting on and participating with your page, they will be more likely to do it again. So ask your fans what they think; you might get some interesting and valuable feedback.
Behind the Scenes
We all want to see the man behind the curtain, just ask the Wizard of Oz. Show pictures and share stories about things that happen behind the scenes. Social media shares the personality of your business, and people like to see what happens behind the public front – it makes them feel more involved and in the know!

Filed Under: Facebook, SM3 Tagged With: engage, etsy, facebook, fan page, fans, tips

Facebook: Becoming a Blog?

06/01/2011 by Lauren MacEwen

Facebook is always trying to find new and interesting ways to promote content and make it more easily accessible. Social share features have increased the reach of Facebook, by integrating them with websites and encouraging people to share sites on their wall and on their friends’ walls. To further increase their reach, Facebook has announced that they are adding a new feature: RSS feeds for fan pages.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It is usually reserved for blog posts. It’s what allows you to receive updates in blog readers like Google Reader, where you can easily see all posts by their headlines. Many people use RSS readers for their favorite blogs, so they can keep up with them without having to go to the blogsites. Some readers allow you to receive blog posts in your email, sending you the contents of the posts. But why does Facebook want to add an RSS feed to fan pages?

In theory this will let someone essentially subscribe to a fan page. Not only will you be able to see updates in your news feed, you will also be able to receive posts in your RSS reader. This is good for people who need to monitor certain pages, like politicians or large corporations. If you are closely watching what a competitor is doing with their social media, this creates an easy venue in which to do it. However, the RSS feature is not likely to be valuable to people who are not using Facebook for professional reasons.

Some of you may be thinking: Facebook had an RSS feed for pages already, so why is this news? You are right, they did. But recently Twitter and Facebook quietly removed their RSS feeds. Now Facebook has added it back in, along with a link on fan pages to subscribe. Will Twitter follow suit and bring their feed back? Good question. I think they will. An RSS feed provides another way for people to consume content, and ultimately that is key to social media social media success.

Filed Under: Facebook, SM3 Tagged With: blog, blog post, criticism of facebook, facebook features, fan page, google reader, rss, rss feeds, rss readers

Is your community page stealing your network?

12/02/2010 by Lauren MacEwen

As I am sure many of you have noticed, Facebook has community pages. These are pages that have been created because the Facebook bot has noticed that your page, website or company name has been mentioned repeatedly in people’s posts. When I first discovered the community page for SM Cubed, I was pretty excited. I felt like it was a nod from Facebook. Since then I have changed my mind. Now it often seems like a community page is stealing the network from your actual fan page.

Think of Facebook’s community page for your business as a duplicate page. Now when someone searches for you, they will see your page and another page. Your page may have your logo, but so might the other one. The other one will also have “company” written underneath it as a subheading that seemingly gives it authority. The problem is that it is not the page created by you, it is the page created by Facebook.

Sometimes this will cause enough confusion that people interested in fanning your page will actually fan the community page. This means that your custom landing page and communications are not being seen by any of the people who “liked” the other page instead.

The social path gives some great examples of community pages and search suggestions with auto-populating causing huge confusion. They focus on JC Penney, which also has some variations if the spelling. If you look at the above image, note that none of these suggested pages are the real JCPenney Fan Page.

Some primary pages aren’t even showing up in searches, only the community page. This means that when people search for your page they may only be presented with the option of going to the community page. If this is happening to your page you can remedy this situation by making sure you have claimed the vanity URL for your page and that you have done some SEO to help your Facebook search results.

The best thing to do is to claim your community page. This is a process that will allow you to establish yourself as the “owner” of the page and it will be merged with your Facebook fan page. This puts the control back in your hands.

Do you have a community page? If so, what have you done about it?

Filed Under: On the DL (down-low), SM3 Tagged With: business presence, community page, community pages, criticism of facebook, facebook, facebook features, fan page, fans, online social networking, web 2.0