Facebook Pages - Doing it Right

If you're anything like me, you want to have a Facebook page that is successful. Not because you are hungry for popularity or you want to 'sell something' to every 'friend' per say - but because social media is an important part of company branding and image. I recently read a fabulous article about companies that are doing Facebook and doing it well:

http://www.inc.com/ss/20-best-company-facebook-pages#1

The list includes:
Bare Escentuals
Bonobos
Brendan's Irish Pub
Burt's Bees
Candles Off Main
Clarisonic
Community Coffee
eCycler
Fresh Brothers
Johnny Cupcakes
Mabel's Labels
Old Spice
Red Mango
Skullcandy
SmartPak
Stella & Dot
Steve Spangler Science
Threadless
Tiny Prints
Zappos

Don't reinvent the wheel - if you are looking for your Facebook page to be successful, read through what's working for these companies and see what you can put to work for you. Thanks Inc.com for another great article filled with value and insight! Hopefully you'll see Relax Consulting on this list - but in the meantime, I'm sure you'll agree that these 20 companies deserve the spotlight!

Social Media and Friends

A personal and professional friend recently posted the following on Facebook:

How to start an argument on facebook:
1. Post your opinion....on anything.
2. Wait
3. Stir
4. Start typing in all CAPS to raise your voice.

This got me thinking...and I replied with the following:

Doesn't it make you wonder about the level of friendship you have with your Facebook friends? Do you know what I mean? If you were at lunch with a group of friends (which is how people once exchanged ideas before social media, right?) and you expressed an opinion about something, there would be chit chat and friendly conversing and it was unusual for anyone to get bent out of shape, raise their voice, or get offended. I don't know if social media makes it that difficult to communicate, or if we are simply extending our circle of friends to include so many people that we have confused the definition of a friend. friend (frnd)
n.
1. A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts.
2. A person whom one knows; an acquaintance.
3. A person with whom one is allied in a struggle or cause; a comrade.
4. One who supports, sympathizes with, or patronizes a group, cause, or movement: friends of the clean air movement.

What are your thoughts? Are we going to far to be people pleasers? Do we accept friend requests because we want to have as many (or more) friends as some of the people in our 'circle'? Are we afraid to post what's on our mind because we don't want to offend someone?

Weigh in...there's no right or wrong answers - how are you feeling about social media and your circle of friends? Where do you see things five years from now?

~Crystal

Fabulous Friday includes Fabulous Recipes Now!

Last Fabulous Friday was a bust (no submissions), so this Friday we will include recipe ideas and here's the first one:

Apple Pear Poppyseed Salad!

Salad Ingredients:
16oz lettuce (spinach or romaine)
6oz cheese - shredded (we like swiss)
1c roasted cashews (salted)
1/2c craisins or dried cranberries (if in door county, substitute with dried cherries)
1 large apple thinly sliced (we like keeping the peeling on)
1 large pear thinly sliced (same as above - we like the peeling)

Dressing Ingredients:
2/3c light olive oil (extra virgin)
1/2c sugar
1/3c lemon juice
2T poppy seeds
2t chopped onions (the finer the better)
1t dijon mustard
1/2t salt (sea salt is best)

Directions:

combine salad ingredients in a bowl

combine dressing ingredients in a separate bowl

toss salad and dressing together just before serving (chilled plates are a nice touch)

Summer 2012 Relax Consulting Newsletter - Released Today!

The Summer 2012 Relax Consulting Newsletter is now available on our website. If you prefer a printed version, please let us know and we can mail you a hard copy.








Here is a link right to the newsletter: http://www.relaxconsulting.com/Relax_Newsletter_6-20-2012.pdf

This month, we are featuring Olivia Brey of Oh Photography and her submission as part of our Fabulous Friday project on Facebook. Congratulations Olivia and thank you for 'liking' us!

Playing With New Facebook Features

Who doesn't like to try something new every now and again? Admit it, it's more fun to use the brand new tube of lipstick even though there's a few days left on the old one...and for you men, same thing with the bar of soap in the shower. New usually means exciting...UNLESS...you don't have clear instructions or previous knowledge to help guide you.

Facebook changes quickly. They have to, because in the world of technology, if you aren't changing you are falling behind. Take some time this week to play with some of the new Facebook Features. To get you started, here are some step by step instructions how you can use your Facebook business page to help highlight other businesses in your network, add information about the key players of the business, and limit administrator privileges.

To Work With Administrator Privileges, follow the instructions below:

From the Home Screen, Click "Edit Page" (screen shot below)

Choose Admin Roles from the drop down (screen shot below)

The next screen allows you to add managers, creators, and different levels of administrators and then give them the appropriate title and abilities (screen shot below)

For an explanation of the different roles - see this link: https://www.facebook.com/help/?page=394501407235259

Now...to use your page to highlight other business pages, follow the instructions below:

From the Home Screen, Click "Edit Page" (screen shot below)

Click "Update Info" which will bring you to the following screen (on the left hand side):

Choose the option titled "Featured". This will bring you to an editable screen including all of the pages you have liked (see example below).

In the example above, I chose "Fallier Automotive" and 4 others, so now my Featured Likes list, looks like this:

When you go to the Relax Consulting main Facebook page, you'll see these pages being featured. This is a great way to help other businesses get the word out about their Facebook pages.

To Learn how to Feature a Page Owner on the Left Side of Your Business Page, see instructions below:

From the screen you were just on to choose Featured Likes, there is an area directly beneath it that allows you to choose who the Featured Page Owner is. You can only choose one and their information will be highlighted on the left side of the page. This can be changed as often as you wish (ie: you have 2 owners, you may want to alternate weeks or whatever fits with your marketing agenda)

Hope this was helpful & here's the finished product: http://www.facebook.com/successwithrelax

Your Business Funnel

Whether you design, monitor, and maintain your marketing, website and social media yourself or someone does it for you, it's important to monitor how the process is working for you and your business. You likely had a goal in mind when you set up the process (ie: We want x number of subscribers by this date, we want to increase client satisfaction by x% by this date, or we want to increase referrals by x% or x#, etc...). When you set that goal, you should have had known how you were going to measure the results. Social media is just like any other sustainable project. Yes, there will be changes along the way, but knowing where your going and how you're going to get there is the key to a truly successful program.

We encourage our clients to think about social media as a funnel. Your Twitter account should not be at the base of the funnel, your Twitter account should give customers/clients and potential customers/clients a preview of your offerings and should drive them somewhere else. Only you can determine where that somewhere else is, but below is an example to give you an idea of a social media funnel.

What this funnel shows if the various ways that a particular company drives interest in their company. Their YouTube videos contain information or links to their company website, their Twitter posts may link to an article, but ultimately they are driving potential customers/clients to their company website. Just driving someone to your Twitter account isn't going to give them enough information about your business to keep their interest. Make sure that posts are keeping this in mind. It's okay to encourage 1,000 facebook "likes", but once they are 'liking' you, it's important to provide them with value added information that takes them the step further to your website. I can "like" Menards, but if I never step foot in the store, I'm not a customer and therefore not creating revenue.

You or someone in your organization (or contracted by the organization) needs to track the traffic at the base of the funnel. It's not important how many Twitter followers you have, or how many Facebook "likers", it's important how many people are checking out what it is you want to check out. In the example above, they are driving people to their company website. So, using the analytics behind the scenes on their website gives the company a good idea of what referral source is giving them the biggest 'bang' for their buck (see below)

Referrer Types	Visits	Percentage
Direct Traffic	337	56.90%
Social Network	128	21.60%
External URL	67	11.30%
Search Engine	58	9.80%
News Message	2	0.30%

Then they can dig one step further and analyze which types of social media are working hardest for them.

Social Network	Visits	Percentage
Facebook	115	90%
Linkedin	10	8%
Twitter	3	2%

In this particular example, the focus should not be on Tweeting, it should be on improving the number of people they are reaching on Facebook. They may not want to discount Twitter completely, but may want to analyze what they are Tweeting, are they using hashtags? is their information interesting? They should ask others for advice, see what's trending, etc... and make their decision from there.

It's never a good idea in marketing to continue blindly - make sure you have a schedule to analyze what is and isn't working and ask for fresh and edgy ideas to stay ahead of the competition. Things move fast in this technological world and being prepared is important, but being creative and opportunistic is even more important!

If you have any questions or aren't sure about any of the information contained in this post, let us know and we would be glad to clarify.

Sincerely,
Relax Consulting - where we do the work so you can RELAX!