What the New Facebook Means for Businesses

Everyone that uses the "almighty" Facebook has definitely noticed their big changes that they implemented last week. And as many of you know, not very many people are happy about them. You are just worried about that business Facebook page that they've spent hundred of hours on building, maintaining and expanding. So what do all of these changes mean for you and your business page?

There are two major underlying changes that business owners need to be aware of when it comes to posting on their Facebook wall. Oversharing and overloading. They sound like one in the same, right? Not really. As always, being a business owner on Facebook is a challenging task. You must interact with customers on a personal and positive level, but you have to make sure that you don't over do it. Just like any other type of marketing material, people don't want to be flooded with hundreds of ads continuously. I always tell people, "Effective marketing messages with minimal contact." Make what you put out there such high quality that you don't need to contact potential customers 100 times to have them get the point. This goes the same for Facebook posts. Make your posts valuable and effective so you don't have to post every single day.

On the other hand, overloading is loading up your page with so many applications that when people come to your page, they are distracted by all the bright shiny lights, applications and games that have nothing to do with your products and services. Games and applications are great ways to get people to your page, don't get me wrong. But if you have so many that people have no idea what your products and services are, what's the point? My suggestion is to stick to the basics, be personable and give people quality.

The less you waste people's time and the more you seem like an actual person instead of a business, the more interaction you will receive. And interaction leads to relationships, and better relationships, lead to sales.

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Facebook Edgerank: How to Get Your Posts to Appear More Often on Your Fan's News Feeds

You make interesting posts and you try to be as personable as possible, but it just seems like your posts aren't popping up on your fan's feeds very often. What is it that determines which posts appear more often and higher on news feeds? It's called Facebook Edgerank and the higher you can make your rank, the more exposure you'll get to your fans. It's a win/win. Edgerank is a complicated algorithm seen below, so what the heck does it mean to you?

Huh? You're still lost? Yeah, so are we.

Ue= affinity score between viewing user and edge creator

We= weight of this edge type (create, comment, like, tag, etc.) Essentially it means, how popular is the post

De= time decay factor based on how long ago the edge was created

Affinity

This is a score based on the proximity or how friendly you are with someone. You've probably noticed this before; checking out someone's page a few times within an hour and all of a sudden they are in your news feed more often

Edge (Post) Weight

This is a basic formula which determines the importance of a post. Pictures are more important than text posts, videos are more important than someone "liking" a page, etc. There's no set-in-stone hierarchy to certain types of posts, but there are certain types of posts that clearly do have higher Edgerank than others.

Recency

The final element of this equation is related to frequency, also known as time decay.  The longer a post has been up, the more it has "decayed." Newer posts have higher edgerank because of the fact that they're news! People want recent information, not something from two days ago.

Don't worry about the math, just do the following to up the "weight" of your edgerank and effectively increase your prominence on fan's feeds.

There are a few distinct post types you can use to raise your Edgerank and increase your visibility to your fans:

1. Videos Posting videos are seen as an action of high value and importance. People would rather watch videos than read long posts about your products. Let's face it...people like information to come easy.

2. Links Links automatically generate a short summary and picture from the page you're linking to, which makes your post stick out a ton more than a typical text post.

3. Encourage Interaction Asking for input, suggestions, or opinions is a great way to get your fans to interact with your page and company. Making sure people understand that you value their input is a huge part in the success of your business.

4. Be Personable It doesn't always have to be business! Wishing your fans a happy holiday or to have a nice weekend goes a long way to get people to value your company and it's products and services. Be a friend before you try selling them something and your sales pitches will go a lot further.

5. Post During the Social Media Rush Hour There have been thousands of studies on when the best time to post is, but in our experience, posting between 3 and 5 pm is by far the best time. We think this is true because people are getting done with work and logging into Facebook to check on what is going on. Numbers have shown that Facebook traffic almost doubles between these hours.

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New .xxx domain names- How will they effect my business or trade mark?

ICANN (The domain name governing body) has recently announced the release of .xxx domain extensions. Members of the adult entertainment industry are now submitting registration requests for domain names with the new .XXX extension which correspond to their existing domain names and trademarks.

Many of our clients have received solicitations from domain registrars encouraging them to file an application to block their domain from the .xxx extension with costs for this service between $200-$1,000 per year.

I'm not a lawyer but here is my opinion on this:

As the Internet grows ICANN is going to keep coming out with extensions (.biz. net .xxx).  I feel that it's a waste of time and money to keep buying up extensions just to protect your brand. People looking for a legit product or service won't be typing in yourdomain.xxx they Google you or use the domain printed on your marketing materials.

At Foremost Media, we own the .com, .net and .biz extensions and we use them for different purposes like a support site, email and server routing. I wont be blocking ForemostMedia.xxx. In my opinion this is a tactic by domain registrars to get you to spend money. I would also believe that .xxx sites would be the subject of heavy filtering on search engines so unless your looking for porn they I just don't see .xxx domains popping up on a Foremost Media searches.

If you do decide to pass on blocking your the .xxx version of your trademark or domain ICANN also provides opportunities to challenge trade mark violations in domains down the road via their Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy ("UDRP").

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When to Tweet

I read a great article about when to tweet by Andrew Phelps who was basically reaping a presentation from Dan Zarrella so for those of you with  a short attention span like me here is my summary of Andrew's article that summarizes Dan's presentation.

When and how often to tweet - A few key takeaways:

• If your goal is more followers Tweet More: Twitter’s A-listers — those with the most followers — tweet an average of 22 times a day
• If your goal is more visitors to your site tweet less - accounts that share two or more links an hour show a dramatically lower clickthrough rate than those who share no more than one
• The trick is to reach people when the noise of the crowd has died down. - That time is the afternoon when news sites are slower and on the weekend
• Retweet activity is highest late in the work day, between 2 and 5 p.m.
• Check out TweetWhen to find out what time of day is the best time to tweet for you. Turns out my prime time is Thursdays at 10PM- I guess I have some late night followers @jonballard
• It's ok to tweet the same links two or three times a day- change up the verbiage and let it rip.

Here are Dan's Power Point Slides: The Science of Timing

 

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Facebook Losing Millions of Users

Over the past month, there have been several national publications that have been reporting on the decline in user on the infamous social networking site Facebook. In response to the growing reports, Facebook released the following statement.

"From time to time, we see stories about Facebook losing users in some regions. Some of these reports use data extracted from our advertising tool, which provides broad estimates on the reach of Facebook ads and isn't designed to be a source of tracking the overall growth of Facebook. "

Recently, CNN interviewed social media expert and author Paul Gillin about the sudden decline in the social media outlet that has changed our lives more than we know. Gillin doesn't agree with Facebook's claim that these reports are inaccurate based off of their methodology stating, 

"Facebook has never criticized the methodology before. The fact is that the methodology that was used to determine these numbers has been consistent and has shown about a 4% decline in U.S. membership over the last month."

So if not for the inaccurate methodology, and Facebook really is losing ground, what could be the possible factors? 

College Graduates: Originally, Facebook was actually limited to college students.  You needed an active college email address to become a member. College age students also now make up a vast majority of the active users on Facebook. So why would they delete their accounts? Graduation! Each year, Facebook experiences a loss of users due to the fact that students who are graduating college are on the job hunt, and don't want potential employers seeing pictures of them doing keg stands on the internet.

Privacy and Bullying Concerns: There is a growing number of parents that are concerned with their children being on the internet and having pictures and tons of information about them out there for anyone to see. The trend has been parents refusing to let their children even be part of Facebook until they are of legal age. Bullying online has also become a growing concern for children and parents alike. Access to a child's interests and every move is perfect ammunition for bullies to hound and badger fellow classmates online.

Law of Diminishing Returns: Facebook has reached every nook and cranny of the world, especially the United States.  Over half of the U.S. population has a Facebook account currently, meaning the room for growth has started to hit it's sealing meaning Facebook has had to focus on expanding overseas to other markets.

Spam: We all have experienced this in some way or another on Facebook. We don't want to see our friends high scores on Farmville or Mafia Wars 30 times in an hour. Facebook has started to implement privacy and publishing restrictions customizable by individual users as to what is posted on their wall or Status Feed to help reduce this, but it's inevitable to continue.

So our fellow Facebook junkies, what do you credit for the diminishing users on the world's #1 social media site? 

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How much traffic do you need to make money with Google AdSense?

Recently we have built quite a few sites that offer freeware software or free content on a subject matter with an advertiser monetized publishing model and the majority of these clients are looking to AdSense as their revenue source.  For those of you that don't know Google AdSense is:

"Google Ad Sense As defined by Google- An ad serving application run by Google Inc. Website owners can enroll in this program to enable text, image, and video advertisements on their websites. These advertisements are administered by Google and generate revenue on either a per-click or per-impression basis"

One question I often here is:

How much money will I make with AdSense?

With our clients permission we took a look at the Click Through Rates and the Cost Per Click on 3 different sites (Golf, Health and Wellness and Hunting) going back to 2007.  We averaged the Cost per click and the Click Through Rates across the three sites.  It is important to note that the placement of the ads and the color of the ads is different on each site but all 3 sites have ads on all the pages in very visible areas.

Year	Click Through Rate (CTR)	Clicks/ 20,000 Page Views	Cost Per Click	Earnings/20,000 Page Views
2011	1.13%	226	.30	$67.80
2010	1.58%	316	.32	$101.12
2009	1.22%	244	.28	$68.32
2008	1.93%	386	.21	$81.06
2007	3.00%	600	.18	$108.00

So what is this chart telling us?  For one thing people are clicking on far less ads today then they were in 2007.  The second big thing that jumped out to me is that cost per click is way up from .18 cents in 2007 to .30 cents in the first quarter of 2011 (Across these three sites anyway).

So back to the original question (How much money can I make with AdSense?)-  The three sites we looked at average around 3 pages per visit so it takes around 6,666 people to the site to generate 20,000 page views.  In 2011 that is about a penny per visitor.

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Why Facebook Fans are Valuable and How to Properly Supply Them with Marketing

They are as common in every day life now as eating, sleeping, and breathing. They are in magazines, on commercials, in stores; literally, everywhere we go. They are the begs and pleas from companies of all types to become a fan or "like" their Facebook page. Most people just tend to think, "What are we in high school again where everything is a popularity contest and the more people you know the better?" Well, in a way, yeah.

What good can having more Facebook "likes" do for you business? So, someone takes a mere 2 seconds out of their day to click "Like" on your page. Big deal, right? It is a big deal! These people are voluntarily electing to opt-in to your future posts.  This means they are subjecting themselves to your marketing efforts at your will. So every time you make a post or an update on a special, all of your fans are given the opportunity to see the special, and then they can easily, with just a few clicks, post it for their friends to see as well.

"Expand the reach of your business beyond the reaches of you location and much further than traditional advertising could ever take you with a Facebook Fan Campaign from Foremost Media"

If their friends like the deal that means a few things:
1) They'll more than likely participate in the deal and spend money with you
2) They'll "like" your page on Facebook, further expanding the reach of future posts
3) They'll share future deals or news with their friends, and the cycle continues.

• -On average, fans spend an extra $71.84 they would not otherwise spend on products they describe themselves fans of
• -Fans are 28% more likely than non-fans to continue using a specific brand
• -Fans are 41% more likely than non-fans to recommend a product they are a fan of to their friends

Keep Fans Interested!
Now that we know why these fans and likes are important to your online success, what are the best practices to continue to keep fans interested and entice other people to become fans.

1) Be Personable: You're running a business, but you're on Facebook, a SOCIAL network.  Make posts like you would on your own personal Facebook page. Make posts that aren't always about business.  Wish them a good weekend or a Happy Holiday! Be funny (without being offensive), be inviting, and most of all, just talk like you're a human and NOT marketing verbiage read off of a piece of paper.

For Example:
-Don't: "Our 3400 Series of Swing Sets are built with durable wood and quality metal parts. Visit our website to purchase today!"
-Do: "The weather this weekend is supposed to be sunny and warm!  Get your kids out of the house and try out our 3400 Series of Swing Sets. 10% this week only! Now that's what we call a great family weekend!"

2) Be Professional: After all, you are running a business. Make sure your spelling is accurate and you always present yourself as a high quality company. If I'm someone who's never heard of your company, what am I going to think the very first time I visit your page and read your posts?

3) Entice Interaction: The most successful Facebook campaigns are those that get fans to interact with the page. Ask questions about things having to do with your company, or be personable (again) and ask questions like "It's going to be a gorgeous weekend! What does everyone have planned?"  The more you can entice readers to respond and interact with you on a positive note, the more likely they'll remember you when they need your goods and services.

4) Be Interesting: Don't post things that don't make any sense to anyone that isn't in your industry.  Speak to people using the most understandable terms. Use things that are unique and interesting to catch their attention and again entice them to interact. Your company is special, make sure people can see why you're different than the rest.

5) Do NOT Overdo It:  People have chosen to be submitted to your marketing and thoughts at YOUR will. But this doesn't mean you want to flood their Facebook Pages with updates from your company. Making a schedule or at least a pattern of releasing posts or updates is very important.  Give people what they want, but don't force feed them. Making a schedule to post something new 2-3 times every week is good for some companies, but once a day may be more appropriate for others.  Getting a feel for the type of information people want and the frequency they want to receive it is essential.

Interested in Starting a Facebook Fan Campaign with us and Igniting your Facebook Page? Click Below!

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