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Facebook right now is like the Wild West. There are people eagerly staking claims and moving from their traditional “homes”. Some people are even striking it rich. You might even see “gurus” who are selling snake oil promising that it will keep you safe. Don’t bet on that remedy as you go across the Oregon Trail yet as they haven’t even blazed the path themselves.
How are you supposed to dominate this great new territory? You have seen articles, blog posts, and been told at different conferences that it is the “place to be”. This land of 500+ million people where over a ¼ of a billion people are active daily is supposedly a land of opportunity. This massive network, which seems to be the Google killer, surely has business for you, right?
There is business to be had on Facebook, when you know the rules. A massive flood of sales awaits the business owner who tackles Facebook with the right methods. Dive into this social network without a plan of attack and you could end up like the Donner party.
With the right methods, powerful strategies, and efficient action items you can end up like Levi Straus. You will take away more gold than the best miner. Be warned, you can’t take 5 minutes of planning and expect to dominate. Don’t be concerned that it will take weeks either.
In this article I invite you to consider putting a strategy into action that will bring you new fans, leads, and business. Whether you have a physical store or you sell online, putting the following methods into action will give you the opportunity to tap into 100′s of millions of conversations.
How is your Business Different?
Before diving on to Facebook, write down how your business is different from your competition. What would compel someone to connect with what you are offering? Whether you call this a unique selling proposition or a marketing message, having an aspect that uniquely separates your business from the millions of other businesses is essential.
You may have to alter your traditional message that you use on your sales letters. Even the messages on your other marketing pieces won’t work directly when applied to Facebook. Facebook is about conversation. When people connect with your business they are raising their hand that they want to be in a conversation with your business.
More than offering simple sales, or new product releases, consider what makes people talk about your business. What will make someone want to take an extra few moments and suggest your business to their “friends”? When you can answer these questions effectively you will be able to tap into conversations. Tap into the right conversations and you will generate business.
How Can You Flood Your Facebook Presence with Traffic Like a Los Angeles Freeway During Rush Hour?
When many business owners jump onto Facebook they feel like they are limited to how many friends they have in their personal network. Some don’t even start because they feel trapped by having just a few friends!
Facebook allows you different methods of bringing traffic. Most people focus on one source of traffic. Counting on once source leads to frustration and disappointment. To achieve massive success, I invite you to consider having at least four methods of bringing new prospects directly to you. With each method of traffic you have an opportunity to reach a different type of customer.
Facebook Advertising
Facebook advertising lets you target prospects by geography, demographically, and even by what they are already fans of. It has limitless opportunities. The amount of people that you can bring directly to you is only limited by the amount of money you can invest on your credit card.
Facebook Ads are one of the most direct and immediate methods of bringing traffic on a daily basis. As people browse through Facebook you get the opportunity to grab their attention with a tiny ad! Put the right ads in place and watch your business grow.
Direct Fan Invites
There are a number of companies that offer the service of targeting specific groups of people. They take your desired target market and invite them to your fan page. With the right service and the right “fan” criteria you can bring a few thousand people to your business in just a couple of weeks. Be careful on the service you choose as you don’t want to get banned from Facebook.
Cross-Marketing
It is likely that you already have a powerful online presence. Leverage the power of your existing website or blog to get more people to join you on Facebook. With free tools, like Social Plugins, you can tap into the traffic that is already on your website.
Email Marketing
Email isn’t dead! Break through the maze of email and invite your existing customers to join you in the conversation that is occurring on Facebook. With a few targeted emails you can quickly jump to a few thousand raving fans that already know you and will keep the conversation going.
There are at least a dozen different methods of bringing traffic to you from within Facebook. The key is to put a minimum of four into action. Four sources of traffic will keep your business growing and eliminate your competition.
Transforming Traffic into Leads and Business
Traffic is great, but traffic that doesn’t convert into leads and sales is a waste of money. Some traffic can be quite expensive. Wasting that investment will hurt your bottom line quickly. In order to maximize your traffic, I invite you to consider two stages of conversion. Get these two elements of conversion correct and you will have powerful ways to grab the interest of your prospects.
Get People to Click “Like”
The first goal of your traffic is to get people to click “like” on your Facebook fan page. With less than 10 seconds to grab a prospects attention, your fan page needs to quickly pique interest. When you have their attention you can compel them to move their mouse and click that tiny little “like” button.
Grabbing their attention quickly requires rich graphics, possibly incorporating video, and ensuring that your marketing message is obvious. When your fan page is graphically rich, extends the brand of your existing business and compels the prospect to take action you will get people to quickly click “like”, giving you the opportunity to market to them in the news feed.
Building Your Email List
After you get people to click “like” I invite you to consider offering prospects an opportunity to optin to your email list. You can offer them your email newsletter, a special report, or create something entirely new. Just give them an opportunity to give you their name and email.
When you have their attention in their email and the news feed, you will be maximizing each traffic source.
By differentiating your business, bringing a flood of traffic, and converting that traffic into “fans” you will have a Facebook marketing strategy that would have made Levi Straus jealous.
You can like us here at Facebook.com/jackietulos. If you would like more help with some of these strategies contact me at 888-479-8540 or go to TargetedLocal.com for more info.
Welcome guest writer CLAIRE CAIN MILLER
Here is an article that she published on July 22, 2009. I think that it will enlighten you on how social media and Twitter is not just for fun anymore. See how small business are driving customers to their stores.
Enjoy, Jackie
SAN FRANCISCO — Three weeks after Curtis Kimball opened his crème brûlée cart in San Francisco, he noticed a stranger among the friends in line for his desserts. How had the man discovered the cart? He had read about it on
Twitter.For Mr. Kimball, who conceded that he “hadn’t really understood the purpose of Twitter,” the beauty of digital word-of-mouth marketing was immediately clear. He signed up for
an account and has more than 5,400 followers who wait for him to post the current location of his itinerant cart and list the flavors of the day, like lavender and orange creamsicle.
“I would love to say that I just had a really good idea and strategy, but Twitter has been pretty essential to my success,” he said. He has quit his day job as a carpenter to keep up with the demand.
Much has been made of how big companies like Dell, Starbucks and Comcast use Twitter to promote their products and answer customers’ questions. But today, small businesses outnumber the big ones on the free microblogging service, and in many ways, Twitter is an even more useful tool for them.
For many mom-and-pop shops with no ad budget, Twitter has become their sole means of marketing. It is far easier to set up and update a Twitter account than to maintain a Web page. And because small-business owners tend to work at the cash register, not in a cubicle in the marketing department, Twitter’s intimacy suits them well.
“We think of these social media tools as being in the realm of the sophisticated, multiplatform marketers like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s, but a lot of these supersmall businesses are gravitating toward them because they are accessible, free and very simple,” said Greg Sterling, an analyst who studies the Internet’s influence on shopping and local businesses.
Small businesses typically get more than half of their customers through word of mouth, he said, and Twitter is the digital manifestation of that. Twitter users broadcast messages of up to 140 characters in length, and the culture of the service encourages people to spread news to friends in their own network.
Umi, a sushi restaurant in San Francisco, sometimes gets five new customers a night who learned about it on Twitter, said Shamus Booth, a co-owner.
He twitters about the fresh fish of the night — “The O-Toro (bluefin tuna belly) tonight is some of the most rich and buttery tuna I’ve had,” he recently wrote — and offers free seaweed salads to people who mention Twitter.
Twitter is not just for businesses that want to lure customers with mouth-watering descriptions of food. For Cynthia Sutton-Stolle, the co-owner of Silver Barn Antiques in tiny Columbus, Tex., Twitter has been a way to find both suppliers and customers nationwide.
Since she joined Twitter in February, she has connected with people making lamps and candles that she subsequently ordered for her shop and has sold a few thousand dollars of merchandise to people outside Columbus, including to a woman in New Jersey shopping for graduation gifts.
“We don’t even have our Web site done, and we weren’t even trying to start an e-commerce business,” Ms. Sutton-Stolle said. “Twitter has been a real valuable tool because it’s made us national instead of a little-bitty store in a little-bitty town.”
Scott Seaman of Blowing Rock, N.C., also uses Twitter to expand his customer base beyond his town of about 1,500 residents. Mr. Seaman is a partner at Christopher’s Wine and Cheese shop and owns a bed and breakfast in town. He sets up searches on TweetDeck, a Web application that helps people manage their Twitter messages, to start conversations with people talking about his town or the mountain nearby. One person he met on Twitter booked a room at his inn, and a woman in Dallas ordered sake from his shop.
The extra traffic has come despite his rarely pitching his own businesses on Twitter. “To me, that’s a turn-off,” he said. Instead of marketing to customers, small-business owners should use the same persona they have offline, he advised. “Be the small shopkeeper down the street that everyone knows by name.”
Chris Mann, the owner of Woodhouse Day Spa in Cincinnati, twitters about discounts for massages and manicures every Tuesday. Twitter beats e-mail promotions because he can send tweets from his phone in a meeting and “every single business sends out an e-mail,” he said.
Even if a shop’s customers are not on Twitter, the service can be useful for entrepreneurs, said Becky McCray, who runs a liquor store and cattle ranch in Oklahoma and publishes a blog called Small Biz Survival.
In towns like hers, with only 5,000 people, small-business owners can feel isolated, she said. But on Twitter, she has learned business tax tips from an accountant, marketing tips from a consultant in Tennessee and start-up tips from the founder of several tech companies.
Anamitra Banerji, who manages commercial products at Twitter, said that when he joined the company from Yahoo in March, “I thought this was a place where large businesses were. What I’m finding more and more, to my surprise every single day, is business of all kinds.”
Twitter, which does not yet make money, is now concentrating on teaching businesses how they can join and use it, Mr. Banerji said, and the company plans to publish case studies. He is also developing products that Twitter can sell to businesses of all sizes this year, including features to verify businesses’ accounts and analyze traffic to their Twitter profiles.
According to Mr. Banerji, small-business owners like Twitter because they can talk directly to customers in a way that they were able to do only in person before. “We’re finding the emotional distance between businesses and their customers is shortening quite a bit,” he said.
More Articles in Business » A version of this article appeared in print on July 23, 2009, on page B6 of the New York edition.
With the 4th of July weekend just hours away, it’s time to wish our US readers a Happy Independence Day!
Hopefully you’ll be spending at least some of your weekend away from your computer and enjoying the festivities, but for those who have difficulty leaving the laptop at home, here’s a quick list of resources to help you spend less time online while getting more done.
1. A Guide to Better Web-Working From Your iPhone – One way to spend less time in front of a computer screen is to get more efficient at working from your phone. Elliott Kosmicki looks at applications to do more work on your phone, so you can do less when you get home.
2. HOW TO: Live Inside Twitter and Still Stay Productive – Addicted to Twitter (
)? While the service is often thought of as a timewaster, this post explains numerous ways to get more done while you Tweet.
3. HOW TO: Make Firefox Your Productivity Machine – Firefox () users have access to a wealth of add-ons that help you get more done during your time online. This article recommends the best picks.
4. 7 Productivity Tips, Plus Tools for Freelancers and Web Workers – So you want to get more work done on the web? You’ve come to the right place! This post provides top tips for freelancers and those who have made the web their workplace.
5. Top 30 iPhone Apps for Organization and Productivity – In this one-stop shop for iPhone productivity, Jennifer Van Grove tests 30 of the top iPhone apps to help you get more done on the go.
6. 9 Must-Try Adobe AIR Apps for Better Productivity – Adobe Air is known for running some of the most visually appealing apps on your desktop, but did you know some of these apps can make you more productive? We look into the unlikely candidates.
Happy 4th of July!
Jackie Tulos
[Image from Bitstrips via CenterNetworks]
It may seem like an impossible task to keep up with all the Twitter apps that have come to market as of late. Even though you have plenty of directories to help with the process, we noticed that it’s still difficult to ascertain which apps support multiple accounts.
As more and more people are using Twitter 
for personal and professional reasons, the demand for a Twitter client to match those multifaceted needs is rising. Here are several options to help you tweet now or later from different accounts on your desktop, via the Web, and while on the run. We’ve also included a few browser add-ons and business-specific clients to help you find the right application to suit your Twittering needs.
Desktop
Nambu: A great single or mutli-column app for multiple Twitter, Identi.ca, and Laconi.ca account management. Nambu also includes Twitter trends, saved searches, filters, link aggregation, and groups. Plus, if you have a Nambu account you can use tr.im to shorten URLs, and pic.im for better Twitter photo tools than Twitpic 
.
Seesmic Desktop: A viable threat to TweetDeck, DesktopSeesmic has no limitations on the number of accounts you can manage. Plus, since it fully integrates with Facebook, and also allows for unlimited columns, it’s a fantastic way to engage with Twitter from your desktop.
Twhirl: Even though Seesmic Desktop is the replacement desktop application for Twhirl , it still continues to dominate the TwitStat Twitter client leader board (currently in the number 5 slot). Users love having multiple account support and a single column view of tweets. Also of note is cross-posting to Ping.fm, and the ability to record and follow Seesmic videos.
Tweetie for Mac: This single column gem launched with a bang, thanks the popularity of their mobile app. We’re mad about Tweetie for Mac’s sleek design, which does an amazing job at multiple account management while respecting our screen real-estate. Power users will enjoy the keyboard shortcuts, conversations, and threaded direct messages.
Twibble Desktop: Twibble allows users to manage up to 3 different Twitter accounts, and includes keyboard shortcuts, location awareness, and viewing options.
Digsby: This desktop app is probably most recognizable for its multi-client IM support, but Digsby (for Windows only) can handle your social network profiles, and manage multiple Twitter accounts.
Web
Matt: Matt, which stands for Multi Account Twitter Tweeter, is a colorful and simple Twitter app that just lets you update multiple accounts from the Web.
TwittBot: TwittBot makes it possible to not only update multiple accounts, but allow multiple people to update the same account. The service looks for @replies to repost to specified Twitter accounts, and bots can be open to anyone or closed to a select group of individuals. This is a perfect tool for Twitter accounts that aggregate tweets from a variety of sources.
Tweet3: For web-based multiple account support that’s slightly different than the rest, there’s Tweet3. The site provides you with a dashboard view for each account, where you can customize the color, integrate with Facebook , follow and unfollow Twitterers, and adjust settings. Should you tweet links, Tweet3 will track their performance in the analytics tab.
Splitweet: Designed around managing multiple Twitter accounts, SpliTweet is great for viewing a stream of tweets from all your accounts, posting tweets to multiple accounts, and following brand mentions. Positioned as tool for brands, Splitweet doesn’t really deliver on that promise, and companies would be better off with CoTweet, EasyTweet, or HootSuite.
TwitIQ: TwitIQ is exactly like Twitter.com, except function-rich. So imagine your Twitter homepage including options to toggle through accounts, view a keyword tag cloud, and tab through conversations, questions, retweets, and URLs.
Twitomate: A very basic app designed just to let you queue tweets to publish on a rolling basis. But, if you’ve got multiple accounts and you just want to keep them fresh with regular updates, Twitomate is worth a look.
TweetLater: Another web service dedicated to automating the tweeting process, TweetLater includes support for unlimited Twitter accounts and bulk upload and scheduling of tweets. There are even some extra goodies thrown in for professional accounts.
Semi-Professional
CoTweet: CoTweet’s already the Twitter CRM Tool of Choice for BestBuy, JetBlue, and Ford, and that’s because it adds a business layer to Twitter account management. Yes, you can have multiple accounts, but the key with CoTweet is allowing multiple people to safely manage the same account so there’s no duplication of effort. We also love it for scheduling tweets for later, assigning tweets to coworkers, and adding notes to Twitter users.
EasyTweets: Positioned as a tool for marketers, EasyTweets is similar to a blogging platform, and comes with a minimum price tag of $24/mo if you choose to upgrade to get continuous searches, support for more than three accounts, post to multiple accounts, SMS alerts, and Google Analytics data on links. EasyTweets has a few tweet viewing options, but TweetDeck fans will especially like the Deck View (columns) of tweets.
HootSuite: A nifty web-based app for multiple accounts with multiple admins, HootSuite is also great at giving you visibility into link stats right within their dashboard view of tweets (so long as you use their ow.ly URL shortener). It’s also a convenient app for Twitter search, scheduling tweets, and posting to Ping.fm to update more than just Twitter.
Browser Add-Ons
TwtterFox: Twitterfox is a Firefox extension from the same guys that are behind the Twitterfon iPhone app. TwitterFox sits within the right hand corner of your browser and does a great job at keeping out of the way. Users can add multiple accounts in preferences and toggle through each of them in a single column view.
Adjix2TwitterLink: This bookmarklet is brought to you by URL shortening service, adjix. It’s simply for tweeting links while you browse, but since you have the option to specify which account to tweet from, and send later, it could prove extremely handy.
iPhone
Twitteriffic: The new and improved Twitteriffic 2.0 is a beauty and an extremely functional, free iPhone app that makes Twitter terrific on the iPhone and manages multiple accounts nicely. If tracking is your thing, you’ll love how Twitteriffic handles saved searches and supports advanced search queries.
Tweetie: The leader of the mobile pack, and the number 3 Twitter client overall according to TwitStat, Tweetie’s ($2.99) multiple account support is just one of the features that you’ll love about this iPhone app.
SimplyTweet: This full-featured iPhone app ($3.99) does the basics and then some. On top of managing multiple accounts, you can view trends, add notes, create saved views of friends (groups), use the Safari bookmarklet, and look up contacts while composing your tweet.
TweetStack: TweetStack ($2.99) brings your TweetDeck columns to the iPhone, and unlike TweetDeck, supports multiple accounts. Pick TweetStack if you want a customizable tab bar, groups, search, and retweets.
LaTwit: A multi-account Twitter client ($2.99) for the iPhone that supports posting to Ping.fm, the option to hide users, custom font sizes, and interchangeable tabs.
More Mobile
Gravity: A native Twitter client for S60 devices (Nokia, Samsung, and LG phones), Gravity costs 10 bucks and works wonders for multiple accounts, Twitter Search, a tabbed view of your timeline, replies, messages, and friends, as well as groups, and multiple photo upload options.
Poketwit: This app is for Windows Mobile users and is perfect for multiple accounts, groups, conversations, retweets, tweet shortening, and having a Twitter address book.
So get organized,while having fun.
Jackie Tulos
Since the early days of Twitter, users have had the ability to upload their own background images. From photos of cute kittens to jaw-dropping mosaics, the Twitter background has been a key medium for self-expression, personal branding, and personal fulfillment.
If you’re new to Twitter, or just never took the time to create your own Twitter background, this HOW TO guide is for you. This guide goes step-by-step into the rationale for creating a personalized Twitter background, takes a look at some amazing Twitter designers, and provides a list of useful Twitter design tools and resources. Your artistic juices shall soon be flowing.
Why create a custom Twitter background?
Some of you might ask: is creating a custom Twitter background worth the effort? While this is a valid question, and the final answer is up to you, there are a range of benefits to making your backdrop your own. Both the creative and the brand-conscious can (and have) benefited from unique background designs.
Here are a couple reasons for why you might want to build your own:
1. Personalization and expression: It’s a chance to express yourself and who you are. Are you an artist, a musician, a blogger, or a cook? Do you love Macs or the beach? A new backdrop can really help people understand who you are.
2. Contact info: It’s an easy way to add additional information you can plug into your 160 character bio.
3. Personal branding: Having your contact information, your face, or additional bio information within your background is a common practice. It helps potential followers understand what you do and why you are someone people should follow. Check out HOW TO: Build Your Personal Brand on Twitter for more.
4. Artistic creativity: Twitter is a great opportunity to push the limits of your talents.
Some great examples of custom Twitter background designs
If you’re looking for some inspiration for your Twitter background, look no further. These are some of the most unique, most inspiring, and best-branded Twitter backgrounds around. There’s not enough time or room to showcase the thousands of great backgrounds that exist on Twitter, so be sure to check out some comprehensive lists and discover some on your own.
And remember: you don’t have to spend an obscene amount of time to make a great background. It’s all about making a background that’s perfect for you, not for anyone else.
Doug Cone (@nullvariable): Doug, a web designer and consultant, brilliantly integrates his face with his brand and contact information in this spacey theme.
CoolTweets (@cooltweets): CookTweets, which collects, well, the coolest tweets on the web, gets an A for its simple and clean layout. Perfect for many brands.
Justine Ezeraik (@ijustine): The popular new media star has a balanced theme that perfectly reflects her brand.
Kristi Colvin (@kriscolvin): Kristi, a favorite tweeter of mine, opted to create a beautiful mosaic of color and life. I could stare at it all day.
Loic Le Meur (@loic): No, it’s not that Loic’s background is the most amazing, most complex, or most visually appealing image in the world. It’s that his background reflects who he is – a smiling, personal, fun-loving guy…who also happened to found Seesmic. You just have to love the picture of him kitesurfing, too.
There are literally hundreds of great Twitter backgrounds. Part of the fun is discovering on your own.
Creating your own background: the basic requirements
Now that you understand the reasons for creating a background and you’re feeling inspired, there are a couple of things you need to know about custom Twitter backgrounds.
First, you need to know how to actually change your background. This is a simple process: just go to settings, then design, and then click “change background image.” You can now browse your computer and add any image you’d like, so long as it’s under 800k in size.
Next, the actual dimensions. This is important because improperly-sized images can be covered up by your Twitter profile or can start to tile, which often leads to an undesired effect. In most circumstances, you want your background to be large enough not to tile. To achieve this, the total image size should be around 1600px wide by 1200px tall. This encompasses almost all screen resolutions.
If you build a left-hand column, popular on many Twitter backgrounds, make sure that it’s small enough not to be covered up by the central Twitter content – many designers suggest smaller than 200px or 235px. For more information on dimensions, check out Croncast and their numbers.
In the end, building your ideal background often requires trial-and-error. But if you’re not a designer, that’s not a problem – there are tools to help.
7 helpful Twitter background resources
What would a Twitter resource guide be without some useful Twitter apps? Not only do many of these tools provide pre-designed backgrounds, but many can also automatically update your background, provide detailed information and FAQs, and even fully-functional image editors. Here are a few of the best:
1. MyTweetSpace: MyTweetSpace is one of the simplest ways to create a Twitter background with minimal effort. It allows users to create badges, add graphics, play with text, and more to create elegant backgrounds and left-hand text columns. You can even log in with Twitter and MyTweetSpace will automatically update your background.
2. TwitterBacks: This website provides a set of templates perfect for creating your ideal Twitter background. The templates come in PSD (Photoshop) form. In fact, my Twitter account utilizes a TwitterBack template as the basis for my design. Can you guess which one?
3. TweetStyle: TweetStyle offers free background templates, custom Twitter backgrounds, and a few useful blog posts on the subject of the backdrop.
4. Free Twitter Designer: This handle little app provides an easy-to-use image editor to help you create a professional-looking theme.
5. TwitBacks: This is another tool for creating backgrounds. This one specializes in left-hand column-based backgrounds.
6. TwitterGallery: TwitterGallery is a directory of themes based on color and category. You can even click the “install” button under any theme, log into Twitter, and poof!…your background is ready.
7. Peekr: If you stumble across a great Twitter background and want to take a quick look at it in its pure form, the Peekr bookmarklet is the way to go. Click on the bookmarklet once to show only the background, and press it again to bring everything back to normal.
Start customizing and share your background
With this knowledge and these tools at your disposal, there is no reason you can’t build a killer backdrop for your Twitter account within minutes. So what are you waiting for? Try out some different designs, and be sure to share your artistic flair with the rest of us by linking to your newly-designed Twitter account in the comments.
See you on Twitter.
Jackie Tulos
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