One of the emerging business strategies today is using Facebook marketing and a lot of entrepreneurs and small business owners are using this form of marketing to attract more website visitors.  Plus, this gives owners a direct way of reaching their target market. Although Facebook marketing may sound easy, still there are several important things that must be considered if you want your Facebook marketing to succeed and effectively draw in visitors to your business.

One of the factors to consider when using Facebook marketing is the utilization of a personal profile compared to using a Facebook Fan Page or Facebook Business Page. More often than not, small business owners who are yet to launch their online business often opt to use a personal profile as their business page.

The truth is that there are lots of disadvantages to using your profile page as the landing page in your Facebook marketing approach.  Think about this for a minute “Who is really going to take your business for real if they are landing on your profile page?” Once they land on the profile they can’t even leave a message on your wall until you accept them as a friend. When you try to use your personal profile as your business page, viewers may think that the services or products you are offering are part of a scam. Another major disadvantage of using your personal profile as part of your Facebook marketing is that you will only have a very limited market reach, and most of your possible prospects are probably your friends already. Also, when using your personal profile, you have to remember that you cannot just add anyone because your request will still be subjected to the approval of that particular person. Will they really want to add you as a friend? Only after they accept your invitation to be friends would you have any chance of selling your products or services.  If you have already spent any amount of time on Facebook profile you know people don’t just want selling they want connections.

If you want to start your Facebook marketing it is recommended that you use a Facebook Fan (Business) Page like most experienced online business owners. If you have your own business page, the chances are high that viewers will treat your business seriously, thus making your Facebook marketing an effective strategy to improve your online presence. One of the main reasons why most beginners often ignore creating their own business page is the idea that it can be costly paying someone to create the page.  Did you know you could create your own page? Check out my course. The truth is that having a business page offers a lot of privileges that can make their Facebook marketing a success.

Having a business page as part of your Facebook marketing will also help with creating a brand for your online presence. Many of your prospects and leads are on Facebook….make sure they find YOU!

Image via CrunchBase

Tips for setting up you LinkedIn account

If you’re a business owner, or work for a business, or if you’re a job seeker, or are seeking someone to fill a job, then LinkedIn is a valuable tool for you. In other words, LinkedIn is for anyone looking to create a professional social media presence with the emphasis on “professional.”

From its inception, LinkedIn was strategically set up for business use. You’ll see this from the minute you go into the program and start to create your profile. But before you do, let’s talk about some of the ways to set up the right – meaning professional – image for your LinkedIn profile.

Build a strong profile
When you set up your profile you’ll see that the information is business related. There’s also a scale in the profile editing page that shows your “profile completeness” percentage. As you add more information under the Edit My Profile section, you’ll see the percentage increase. Your goal is to get 100% complete.

This isn’t a difficult percentage to achieve. And there’s no need to talk about your personal information (e.g. relationship status or birth date). But there are some key things you need to fill in.

• Jobs – present and past
• Education
• Links to your:  Website, Blog, Twitter account

• Referrals also move your profile completeness scale up. So, as you build your contact group, offer to give referrals to your contacts and ask for referrals. Ideally, these would be from people who know you well – former employers, working colleagues, members of a board you sat on, or other work- or volunteer-related associates.

In my next blog I’ll talk more about LinkedIn and growing your connections. Have any questions? Please post them here. Thanks!

Recently, I went in to change my profile HTML in Facebook. To my surprise, I discovered that Facebook will be eliminating this feature.

Profile HTML is used by many marketers, entrepreneurs, authors and other people who want to change the look/feel of the area on the left side of their profile page.

You can find your Profile HTML by going on to your Profile Page. Click on Accounts and Application Settings and you’ll see Profile HTML. If you do not the application here then you can type Profile HTML in the search box and the application will appear.

When I went in, there was a red banner that said “Please be aware that Facebook will no longer be supporting profile boxes very soon. You should move your content to a profile tab instead.”

So I created a video to show you how to access the Profile HTML and set it up using the profile tab so you won’t lose your valuable information.

You can find more details on my video at:

If you have any questions about the Profile HTML feature, please post them here and I’ll answer them.

I just posted a video about how to add and remove “admins” to your Facebook Fan Pages. You can view this quick and easy hands-on tutorial here:
I just realized, though, that I’ve been talking about Fan Pages but haven’t really explained what they are. So before you check out how to add admins on my YouTube link, here’s a brief intro to Fan Pages and some useful links to help you better understand how to set up, and the value of, Fan pages.

What is a Facebook Fan Page?

Ironically, I Googled ‘what is a Facebook Fan Page?’ and the most recent entry is a year old. Still, many people aren’t aware of Fan Pages and their use. But their popularity is just starting to gain momentum.

Businesses, organizations and celebrities are some of the biggest users of Fan pages. For businesses, Fan pages are another social media tool to allow people to follow your brand. You can post questions, give fans information, post upcoming events, and ask for input from people who sign up to be fans.

If you want to see an example, check out my fan page: http://www.facebook.com/SocialMediaSuccess.

If you want more information about Fan pages Facebook offers a Q & A or FAQ page at http://bit.ly/4v7bOC.

You can also find useful information on how to promote your Facebook pages at: http://bit.ly/7daOmA.

So, back to the beginning. What are admins? According to Facebook: “A group administrator, or admin, controls the membership and content of a group. Admins can send messages to the group, appoint other admins and edit group info and settings. They can also remove current members and other admins.”

So feel free to visit my video to find out how quickly you can add admins once you set up your Fan page.

If you have any questions about Fan pages please post them here and I’ll answer them.

I look forward to seeing you in Fanland!

Wow! I was blown away by the response on my Twitter and LinkedIn Button instructions. I truly appreciate all the Retweets and your great comments.

I did discover that some of you still had difficulty installing the buttons. And some got confused, thinking it was for their Fan pages instead of just the profile page.

In order to make it easier, I’ll be putting together some video tutorials to walk you through the steps to help you easily incorporate these great features, increasing the success of your Facebook profile and Facebook Fan pages.

Please let me know what other features you’d like to learn about by sharing your comments here.

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I recently posted a status update on Facebook about removing the year that you were born from your Profile page and then I went and visited a few Fan pages and people have the year on those pages too. So I decided it was time to write a blog post so I could spread the word like crazy. I also did a little research into the topic of identity theft, to help you really realize the importance of removing this information.

“Did you know that according to? over 12 million Americans fall victim to Identity Theft? Some of these victims have spent upwards of 5,800 hours trying to fix the damage that has been done. On average. an individual with spent roughly 350 hours repairing the damage. Another amazing statistic  – about 30% of the people spend four to six months working on their case.

And this number is startling: Nearly 45% of the imposters are people that we know. In the world of Social Media many people have access to an abundance of information about us, so even the smallest precautions help. That includes ensuring that you remove the year you were born from your Facebook Profile.

Here are the steps to do that.

1. Go to your Profile Page –> select the Info tab.
2. Click the little pencil on the right-hand side – Edit Info – to edit the Basic Information field.
3. Remove the year you were born (go to the top of the list and click on “Year”. You can also remove the month and day if you want to, but it’s not necessary. The year is the crucial information.
4. Click on “Done Editing” at the top right-hand corner.

If you have any questions please post them here in the comments section or at my Facebook Fan page: http://facebook.com/SocialMediaSuccess