Guide to Small Business Marketing

The

®

Guide to Small

Business Marketing

by Ramon Ray

The®

The Facebook® Guide to Small Business Marketing

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 10475 Crosspoint Blvd. Indianapolis, IN 46256 www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

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About the AuthorRamon Ray (www.ramonray.com) is a technology evangelist who is passionate about

helping small businesses grow using technology as a strategic asset. He is also regional

development director, NY for Infusionsoft (a sales and marketing software company).

Ramon is a journalist, event producer, speaker, author, and editor of smallbiztechnology.

com. His previous two books include Technology Solutions for Growing Businesses

(AMACOM Books, 2003) and Technology Resources for Growing Businesses (2011).

As a journalist and writer, Ramon has written thousands of articles (product reviews,

interviews, and more) about technology for small businesses. His work appears on

smallbiztechnology.com and also on allbusiness.com, entrepreneur.com, openforum.

com, blackenterprise.com, and more.

Hundreds of small business owners have attended his events, including the Small

Business Summit (www.smallbiztechsummit.com), Small Business Technology Tour

(www.smallbiztechtour.com), and Small Business Influencer Awards (http://influencers.

smallbiztrends.com).

Ramon is a speaker whose audiences routinely use the words informative and energized

when describing his content and speaking style. Ramon has spoken at the Inc. 500,

OPEN Forum at Consumer Electronics Show with Guy Kawasaki, Black Enterprise

Entrepreneur’s Conference & Expo, New York Expo, Infusionsoncon, and many other

events.

Ramon is not just a technology writer. As a former small-business technology consultant,

he has years of hands-on experience in building networks, installing software, upgrading

computers, and supporting the technology that small businesses use daily.

Ramon is often quoted in the media, including in Crain’s New York, the New York Times,

the Wall Street Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle, and others.

Acquisitions EditorAaron Black

Project EditorKristin Vorce

Technical EditorPaul Hammond

Senior Copy EditorKim Heusel

Editorial DirectorRobyn Siesky

Business ManagerAmy Knies

Senior Marketing ManagerSandy Smith

Vice President and Executive Group PublisherRichard Swadley

Vice President and Executive PublisherBarry Pruett

Project CoordinatorKatie Crocker

Graphics and Production SpecialistsJennifer Henry Jennifer Mayberry

Quality Control TechnicianLauren Mandelbaum

Proofreading and IndexingLinda Seifert Valerie Haynes Perry

Credits

To my family — Ronnie (wife), Timothy (son), Charity (daughter),

Clabe (father — deceased 1998), Olivia (mother),

Clalin (sister), and Joanna (sister).

To the 30 million small businesses who continue to struggle with

acquiring new customers and keeping the ones they have.

AcknowledgmentsI would like to deeply thank Carolyn Crummey (VirTasktic) for her supreme collaboration

to bring this book to fruition (hundreds of e-mails and more). Thanks to Laura Leites (L2

Event Production) and Pierre DeBois (Zimana) for their help and contributions toward this

book’s production and research.

Introduction .................................................................................................. xxiii

Chapter 1: Learning Facebook Basics .................................................................1

Chapter 2: Designing a Business Page ................................................................9

Chapter 3: Drawing More People to Your Page .................................................39

Chapter 4: Making Money on Facebook ............................................................71

Chapter 5: Boosting Your Website with Facebook ...........................................107

Chapter 6: Creating Facebook Events .............................................................131

Chapter 7: Using Facebook to Generate Local Store Foot Traffic .....................145

Chapter 8: Catching Media Attention Using Facebook ....................................169

Chapter 9: Leveraging Facebook as a Platform ...............................................187

Chapter 10: Creating and Using Facebook Apps .............................................199

Chapter 11: Learning Lessons from Real Businesses ......................................219

Appendix A: Resources ..................................................................................237

Glossary ........................................................................................................243

Index .............................................................................................................247

contents at a glance C

Acknowledgments ............... xiii

Introduction ........................xxiii

Chapter 1 Learning Facebook Basics ....... 1

The Power of “Social” in Social Media ..... 2

Content Is King and Customer Engagement Is Queen .......................... 3

What Is Facebook?.................................. 5

Why are individuals using Facebook? ..................................... 5

Why are small businesses using Facebook? ..................................... 5

Chapter 2 Designing a Business Page ..... 9

Facebook Business Pages versus Traditional Websites .......................... 10

Facebook Redesigns ............................ 11

Designing Your Basic Facebook Page ..... 14

Creating a Facebook login ............. 14

Creating a business Page .............. 15

Customizing Page content ............. 16

Profile picture ...................... 17

Business information ............ 19

Timeline posts ..................... 20

Cover photo ......................... 22

Views and apps .................... 23

Applying Page settings and adding admins ............................ 26

Publishing your Page ..................... 29

Choosing a Page Design Tool ............... 30

Other options ................................ 32

Selecting a design ......................... 32

Adding promotions ....................... 32

Establishing a Facebook connection .................................. 32

Best Practices in Design and Content ............................................. 33

Take the easy path: Use a Page design tool ......................... 33

Use simple and expressive visuals ....................................... 33

Get creative with profile image and photos ................................. 33

Profile photo ........................ 33

Cover photo ......................... 33

Inject your personality .................. 34

Follow Facebook guidelines .......... 36

Engage, don’t educate ................... 36

Refresh often ................................ 36

Case Study: It’s a Perfect Day ............... 37

Chapter 3 Drawing More People to Your Page ............................. 39

Creating Contests, Polls, and Questions .......................................... 40

Contests ....................................... 40

Polls .............................................. 42

Questions ..................................... 46

contents C

The Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing

Reviewing Your Facebook Page Analytics ........................................... 77

The Facebook algorithm ................ 77

Insights ......................................... 78

Other analytic solutions ................ 81

Hootsuite Pro ....................... 82

Crowdbooster ...................... 82

PageLever ........................... 82

Postling ................................ 82

Google Analytics .................. 83

Webtrends Social .................. 83

Radian6................................ 84

Adobe Social ........................ 84

Advertising on Facebook ..................... 84

Identifying your goals ................... 86

Defining your target customer ...... 87

Creating your advertisement ......... 87

Step one: Design your ad ..... 88

Step two: Use Sponsored Stories ............................... 89

Step three: Select your audience ............................ 90

Step four: Name your campaign and set your pricing ............................... 92

Step five: Review and submit your ad .................. 92

Determining cost and budgeting ... 93

Daily budget, daily spend limit, and lifetime budget ... 94

Auction system .................... 94

Test different messages and images ............................... 95

The Like button in Facebook advertisements ........................... 95

Using the Facebook Ads Manager ... 96

Measuring advertising success ...... 97

Ad performance reporting in Ads Manager ..................................... 98

First ad analysis steps ................... 99

Additional Ways to Drive More Facebook Visits ................................. 46

Include a link to Facebook in your business material ................ 47

Make your Page name simple ........ 48

Tag people .................................... 50

Participate in forums ..................... 51

Encourage fans ............................. 51

Make it easy for folks to share ..... 52

Using Groups ....................................... 52

How are Pages different from groups? ...................................... 52

How do I set up a group? .............. 53

How do people join my group? ...... 58

How do I poll a group? .................. 58

How do I find a specific post in a group? ..................................... 58

How do I delete a group? .............. 59

Managing Backlash .............................. 59

Do not be overly insistent on your point of view ...................... 60

Do not delete comments ............... 60

Consider judgment in using planted posts .............................. 61

Using Social Media Dashboards ............ 63

Leveraging Offline and Online Marketing .......................................... 68

Chapter 4 Making Money on Facebook ... 71

Selling Online Using Facebook ............. 72

Creating a Facebook Page to make money ............................... 72

Brainstorming content ideas for your Facebook Page .................... 73

Using Facebook and Skype ............ 73

Contents

Creating Livestream Events ................ 136

Promoting Your Event ........................ 142

Using Other Event Apps ..................... 143

Chapter 7 Using Facebook to Generate Local Store Foot Traffic ...... 145

Your Local Business and Facebook ..... 146

Using Facebook Places as a customer .................................. 146

Establishing a Facebook Place Page for your business .............. 150

Setting up a Place Page ...... 151

Adding details to your Place Page ........................ 153

Using Facebook Check-in Deals ........................................ 156

Using Facebook Places and Check-in Deals for your local marketing ......................... 160

Getting customers .............. 161

Spreading the word ............ 161

Building loyalty .................. 161

Local Check-in Deal Best Practices ...... 161

Is Your Business Ready for Your Check-in Deal? ................................. 162

Be proactive ................................ 163

Build your Facebook Place or Page content ............................. 163

Put yourself in your customers’ shoes ........................................ 163

Staff appropriately ...................... 163

Promoting Your Check-in Campaign ........................................ 163

Using Insights to Understand Your Campaign ................................ 165

Using Facebook Offers ....................... 165

Using Sponsored Stories .................... 101

Creating a Sponsored Story ......... 103

Setting up your budget and targeting criteria ....................... 104

Generating more stories about your business ........................... 105

Chapter 5 Boosting Your Website with Facebook ..................... 107

Integrating Facebook with Your Blogs and Website ........................... 108

Connecting your users’ accounts with Facebook accounts ............ 114

Authenticating users ................... 117

Publishing News Feed stories ...... 120

Plug-ins that work with Facebook Connect and Open Graph .............................. 120

Other integration ideas ............... 121

A meta description ............. 121

Facebook plug-ins .............. 123

Social media icon ............... 124

Website versus Facebook-Only Presence .......................................... 124

How a Cake Recipe Website Integrates with Facebook ................. 126

Facebook Like button .................. 126

Facebook comments ................... 127

Facebook group .......................... 128

Chapter 6 Creating Facebook Events ................................. 131

Creating an Event in Facebook ........... 132

Announcing Your Event ..................... 135

The Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing

Apps and Mobility .............................. 193

Designing for Community .................. 193

Case Study: Leveraging the Facebook Platform to Raise Brand Awareness ............................. 194

Objective .................................... 195

Execution .................................... 195

Strategy ...................................... 195

Cost ............................................ 196

Success and results ..................... 196

Chapter 10 Creating and Using Facebook Apps.................... 199

Facebook Apps for Your Business 101 ................................... 200

Discovering apps ........................ 200

Using apps with your business ................................... 204

Top Facebook apps for business ................................... 206

Should You Create a Facebook App? ................................................ 209

App Approval and Policy .................... 211

App Marketing ................................... 213

Facebook Ads for Apps ...................... 216

App Maintenance ............................... 217

Chapter 11 Learning Lessons from Real Businesses .................. 219

How Real Businesses Are Making Real Money on Facebook ................. 220

Content ....................................... 220

Advertising ................................. 220

Chapter 8 Catching Media Attention Using Facebook .................. 169

Conducting Audience Research .......... 170

Determining Desired Outcomes ......... 171

Working with Bloggers and the Media .............................................. 171

Finding and connecting with enthusiasts and influencers ...... 172

Good old-fashioned promotion .... 172

Public Relations Gurus Share Their Insights .................................. 173

Cheryl Snapp Conner, managing partner, Snapp Conner PR ......... 173

PR for building a dialogue .......................... 174

PR for building a following ......................... 176

Expanding the reach and the scope of a company’s PR program ...................... 178

Mistakes to avoid ............... 179

Janet Tyler, president, Airfoil Public Relations ........................ 179

Making friends with media .............................. 182

Marketers must push and pull the story ................... 183

Chapter 9 Leveraging Facebook as a Platform .............................. 187

Why Platforms Are Important ............. 188

Integrating Facebook and Your Website ........................................... 189

Social plug-ins ............................. 190

Authentication ............................ 192

Personalization ........................... 193

Contents

Appendix A Resources ........................... 237

Facebook News, Help, and Guidelines ....................................... 237

Facebook for Business ................. 237

Facebook Newsroom ................... 237

Advertise on Facebook ................ 237

Facebook Advertising Guidelines................................. 237

Facebook Brand Permissions Center ...................................... 237

Facebook Marketing .................... 237

Preferred Marketing Developer Program .................................... 237

Facebook Video Calling ............... 238

Facebook Help Center ................. 238

Promotion Applications ...................... 238

Wildfire ....................................... 238

North Social ................................ 238

Woobox ...................................... 238

Votigo ......................................... 238

Strutta ......................................... 238

Offerpop ..................................... 238

Social Plug-Ins .................................... 238

Facebook Social Plug-Ins ............. 238

SexyBookmarks ........................... 238

Wibiya ......................................... 239

Analytic Tools .................................... 239

Hootsuite Pro .............................. 239

Crowdbooster ............................. 239

PageLever ................................... 239

Postling ....................................... 239

Google Analytics ......................... 239

Webtrends Social ......................... 239

Radian6 ...................................... 239

Adobe Social ............................... 239

Analyzing Case Studies ...................... 221

How Community Coffee builds a loyal customer community on Facebook ............................. 221

How Squishable used Facebook ads to get more fans on Facebook .................................. 222

How the company How Fast Time Flies used keyword targeting to boost sales ............ 224

How CM Photographics uses targeted Facebook ads to sell more photo services ........... 225

How Wedding Paper Divas attracted engaged couples to buy wedding stationery ........ 225

How Thumbtack uses Facebook tools to sell services ................. 227

How Pretzel Crisps boosted its likes in 36 hours using Facebook coupons .................... 228

How Sweet Poppin’s gourmet popcorn keeps customers informed using simple Facebook posts ......................... 229

How TicketLeap sells more tickets through Facebook .......... 230

How Framework Media Strategies keeps customers informed with likes and shares ................ 231

How the organic body care company Motherlove grows with Facebook .......................... 232

Educating mothers ............. 232

Short-term customers ......... 233

Advertising on Facebook .... 234

Building a community ........ 235

End result: word of mouth .............................. 235

The future .......................... 235

The Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing

Workshifting.com ........................ 240

Blue Penguin Development Group ....................................... 241

ClickZ.com .................................. 241

The Small Business Web .............. 241

Appendix A: Resources ....... 237

Glossary.............................. 243

Index ................................... 247

Video Streaming ................................ 239

Vpype ......................................... 239

Ustream ...................................... 240

Justin.tv ...................................... 240

Brightcove................................... 240

Small Business Information ................ 240

Smallbiztechnology.com ............. 240

Small Business Trends ................. 240

Inc. Magazine .............................. 240

AllBusiness.com .......................... 240

Entrepreneur.com ....................... 240

OPEN Forum ................................ 240

When I wake up in the morning, I first think, “What can I do to build deeper

relationships with the customers I have?” And second, “What can I do to build

relationships with new customers?” There are many ways to do this, such as being

nice, speaking at events, nurturing referrals, and so much more. Many of the old

ways of building relationships still work, but compared to digital communication,

those ways are often slow and hard to measure.

Digital communication (blogs, websites, e-mail newsletters, online advertising,

and so on) enables you to reach new and current customers faster — to track their

responses to your communications, to enable them to forward your message to

others — all with a few clicks of the mouse.

With the advent of social media, digital communication capabilities have grown

exponentially. Not only can businesses communicate directly with their audiences,

but audiences can more easily communicate with businesses, and audiences

(customers and potential customers) can communicate with each other about

businesses, brands, products, services, or marketplaces.

When small business owners look for new customers, the Internet is the best

option — it’s better than print, TV, radio, Yellow Pages, billboards, and so on. The

Internet provides a variety of ad options small businesses can consider, such as

search engine advertisements, banner advertisements, mobile advertisements,

and social media. But if I had to pick one place for advertising online, it would be

Facebook. It has the broadest range of options. Facebook is perfect for small

businesses on a low budget that are just testing the waters or businesses with a

much larger budget and more experience. Facebook allows you to reach a broad

audience or be very selective and target a specific audience, making it an effective

way to reach potential customers and beyond.

With approximately 1 billion profiles, Facebook has just about everyone. If you’re

looking for a business customer, a retired uncle, a military veteran, a stay-at-

home mom, a high school teacher, or your “average” consumer, you’ll find them

all on Facebook.

introduction I

The Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing

xxiv

As you’ll see in this book, Facebook gives you a variety of free tools to engage with your

audience (through great content — posts, photos, video, and more), interact with

customers (Check-in Deals), voting, interactive apps, advertising, and so much more.

This book will help you strategically use Facebook as a powerful communications tool.

Maybe you just want to start by posting a relevant message or two. Maybe you want to

get fancy and include a video and photo. How about taking the training wheels off and

building a better Facebook Page for your business, product, or service? What about

customizing this Page with some cool and useful apps? Getting comfortable? It might be

time to purchase advertising on Facebook and drive local traffic to your local retail store.

This book also covers creating Facebook events, driving traffic to your website through

Facebook, and catching media attention. And I think one of the best parts of the book is

the real-world examples from successful small businesses.

John Wanamaker, a famous advertising executive, once said, “I know half my advertising

is wasted; I’m just not sure which half.” Using Facebook is much better than print

advertising to precisely reach the right customers, measure your return on investment

and their engagement with your product or service, and ultimately, make a sale.

You’re working with customers, hiring employees, and doing so many other things to

manage your business day to day while still looking toward the future. Although

customer acquisition and development are not easy, using Facebook can make it a lot

easier.

Info Photos NotesTimeline

chapter 1

Can you remember what life was like before Facebook? You sent e-mails to friends. Maybe you participated in online chats and you might (just might) have watched some online video. However, to really keep up with your friends, family, customers, and colleagues, you talked to them on the phone or visited them face to face. Facebook and other social networks have changed all that. You now get status updates the moment your daughter gets her first job and you see photos of your customers using one of your products. This is the power of Facebook and the power of social media: It brings people together online to discuss common interests. This chapter explains what social media and Facebook are all about.

The Power of “Social” in Social Media . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Content Is King and Customer Engagement Is Queen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

What Is Facebook? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Learning Facebook Basics

The Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing

2

The Power of “Social” in Social MediaAlthough direct e-mail and flyers in the Sunday newspaper are still great ways to attract

new customers or engage with the ones you have, social media enables marketers (that’s

you) to work in a new dimension.

With social media marketing, you are able to do more than just sell your product — you

can leverage the power of your customers to tell others about your products, services,

or brand within the context of their social networks. Social media is also powerful

because you can find customers who are already talking about your specific product or

company or about something related to your industry.

According to a June 2011 blog post by ClickZ, social media is a proven success for mar-

keting very “sexy” products, especially those that are focused on consumers. When com-

panies offer money or discounts to customers in exchange for “liking” them on Facebook,

many of their customers (and new customers) sign up for the offer (see Figure 1.1). The

challenge has been for companies who are also trying to attract new customers and get

them to take deeper action, such as signing up for a new bank account or buying a

product.

However, companies are finding that social media is indeed a very powerful way to get

people to encourage others to take action. For example, a ClickZ blog post reports that

Discover Card created a social media referral program that rewarded card holders $50

for each friend they got to become a card holder. And Zecco Trading, an online investing

site, offered its customers $75 for every friend who opened and funded a new Zecco

Trading account. The company realized a big increase in new accounts by offering

incentives.

Social media is an explosively powerful way to get customers to influence their friends

to take favorable action toward your brand, product, or service. It just takes creativity

and thinking through who to best use on Facebook to influence those decisions.

TIP Half the success in getting the most out of Facebook is knowing how to use

it. The other half is knowing what creative ways you can use to engage your

audience to take profitable action.

So do you see why Facebook can be so powerful? Facebook has a billion users, all con-

nected in one way or another. Diving into this swimming pool of connectivity means that

your customers and potential customers can engage with your brand through photos,

coupons, videos, surveys, polls, and so many other things.

Chapter 1: Learning Facebook Basics

3

1.1 Businesses offer discounts to consumers for liking their Facebook Pages.

Content Is King and Customer Engagement Is QueenBefore diving into Facebook, you should understand the importance of content and cus-

tomer engagement. Creating high-quality content is one of the key aspects of using

social networks to engage your audience.

People, be they business owners, stay-at-home moms, soccer dads, corporate lawyers,

or cooks at local restaurants, want online content. They either want to be entertained

(Hulu, YouTube) or they want to be informed (Wikipedia, HowStuffWorks.com).