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Posts Tagged ‘Campaigns’

15 Keys for Successful Facebook Use for Businesses

Thursday, January 13th, 2011

Facebook boasts more than 500 million users, half of which check in daily for a half-hour each. That’s why your business ought to be there. But you also need to not just set up the page, but use it effectively. Here are 15 insider tips to maximizing your page.

1. Build a Facebook page, not a Facebook Profile. Many businesses do use a Facebook profile, because it seems more useful. It isn’t in the long run.

Here’s why:

People who join your page are raising their hands publicly saying they like your business, and want to hear from you. You don’t know if that’s the case, if people are simply responding to you friending them.

Although I consider it unlikely, Facebook might one day shut down your account, because you’re breaking the rules by using a person, not a page.

2. Pages are packed with an ever rising amount of analytics, which is the key to tracking success on Facebook.

Let me share a few examples:

3. Each page needs to be connected to a real profile. We constantly see businesses fretting over having to attach a real person’s personal profile to a page. I’ll push the philosophical debate over keeping your personal and professional lives separate online to the side for now, except to say by default social media meshes the personal and business life together in new ways that require unique guidelines. If you as a business want to create a profile just to use to create a page for your business, feel free. Facebook doesn’t allow it, but we also haven’t seen anyone shut down because of it. But you can attach and detach people from pages at any time, so unless you hate the idea, just create a page using a real profile. No need to create a separate one just to manage a fan page.

4. You can start with a Facebook page, but if you really want to use online marketing to bring in sales over the long haul, you must create a blog, or some sort of way to display content you own. If you use Facebook and the site shuts down, or quashes your account, all your efforts are wasted. Facebook works best in concert with a blog. It’s just one part of an online ensemble of your efforts.

5. Content is key. If you’re not publishing interesting content and contests related to your business, why should anyone visit your page?

6. Use Involver.com, to showcase your YouTube and Twitter feeds, if you’re using those tools for business.

7. Create a unique welcome page. Early studies have shown it boosts “Likes” by 20 percent. This also allows you to reward people who Like your page with additional free content, like a coupon.

8. As a general rule post in the morning, and during the week for maximum benefit. This is doubly true if you depend on foot traffic during the day. Wednesday is the most popular day for Facebook. It is slowest on the weekends. It rises Monday and Tuesday, and slides down Thursday and Friday. If you’re scheduling your posts, send them at 11:00AM, 3:00 PM, and 8:00 PM. Post during these times to grab the attention of the largest slice of your target market.

9. Respond to every single comment left on your page, as soon as you can. This not only helps you connect with that customer, but more people see your store responding, and the more you interact with someone, the more likely your posts are to show up in their streams.

10. If you for example, gain 1000 “likes” or “friends” and then don’t interact or post normally, or you do post, but none of these individuals “like” your posts or visit your page, over time your posts will increasingly vanish from their streams. So you’ll be posting for zero people. This is a harsh and hidden reality for many businesses. This tool is like a muscle, either use it or lose it.

11. Provide some content specific just to Facebook, formulated more around the notion of building community and connecting with customers. Don’t just republish what you already post on your blog.

12. Use existing e-mail or direct mail lists to tell others about your Facebook page, and keep informing them about the content you’ve developed just for that channel.

13. If holding webinars, have people post questions on the Facebook page.

14. Promote your group’s upcoming events on the site.

15. Use @”name of a person” or @FanPage so it shows up on their wall as well.

Tags: Campaigns, Facebook, Facebook for business, Facebook tips, Page
Posted in Facebook, FanPage | View Comments

Social Media is about 22 simple things. What can you add to the list?

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

1. It’s about slow, real relationships, not in-your-face advertising campaigns.
2. It’s about tried and true, not temporary and shiny.
3. It’s about meeting people, like you would at a chamber of commerce event.
4. It’s about knowing what the different sites allow you to do, and remaining within those bounds. (Trust me, we had one account shut down due to skirting some of the site’s rules).
5. It’s about a strategic effort to teach the world about your product or service, so that they’re exposed to your brand and eventually contact you, because they love what you’re doing and selling.
6. It’s about genuine relationship-building, in a more formal online process than has ever been available before.
7. It’s about generating your own leads, through reaching out strategically to potential clients.
8. It’s about getting out of the office, and eventually meeting face to face.
9. It’s about never missing a day you’ve scheduled to blog. No. Matter. What.
10. It’s about choosing wisely which online networking systems meet your goals, and not just getting an account on Bebo because it seemed like a good idea at the time.
11. It’s about writing for your readers first, and worrying about search engine optimization second.
12. It’s about devoting hours and hours over weeks and months to learn the tools, and not assume it’s only going to take an hour or two.
13. It’s about listening, listening, listening.
14. It’s about not expecting your first video – or 51st – to go viral, but putting out what serves your company best.
15. It’s about not trying to be all things to all people.
16. It’s about tailoring your content to the culture of each community.
17. It’s about taking seriously what you’re telling the world, and not expecting them to read what you wouldn’t.
18. It’s about making it easy for the rest of the world to share your content.
19. It’s about not wasting people’s time.
20. It’s about knowing your niche.
21. It’s about using the tools every day, regardless of where you are.
22. It’s about people.

Tags: business, Campaigns, client, Social Media
Posted in Benefits of Social Media | View Comments

Google Twin Ports Conference Call Replay Available Here

Friday, May 28th, 2010

We had a nice turnout for our live audio sessions, but realized many people weren’t able to join us. So here’s the session in its entirety.

Google Twin Ports Conference Call

If you want to download the conference call, click on this link .

Tags: Campaigns, Google Twin Ports, Googletwinports, Pure Driven, puredriven
Posted in Google Twin Ports | View Comments

Hear about the Behind the Scenes of Attracting Google to Duluth

Monday, May 17th, 2010

This is the ninth installment in a series titled, How to Get Your Client on the Front Page of the New York Times, explaining how PureDriven helped vault the Google Twin Ports initiative (focused on Duluth, MN and Superior Wis.) to national prominence in its effort to win Google’s attention and become one of the few sites where Google will build an ultra-high speed fiber network. I’ve written this series in hopes of sharing with businesses, politicians and grassroots organizers how to best gain offline and online attention for your cause, event or organization.

Lesson 9: Hear How We Brought Google to Duluth

Instead of reading another blog post, I thought you might enjoy hearing some of our advice. While we’ll be launching a new podcast in June, today I wanted to point you to a podcast where I was the featured guest earlier today. The podcast itself deals with job transitions, but the host asked me a handful of questions about PureDriven and specifically our success with the Google project. So for those of you who are more listeners than readers, listen to Your Story, at Coach Radio.

So Remember: I talked a lot in this broadcast about giving to others without knowing what direct benefit you’ll ultimately reap. Both getting into social media as a career, and the Google project paid off handsomely for myself, and PureDriven, but there was no way of knowing how or even if we were going to benefit, at the start. So next time you want to turn down a potential opportunity, examine it for potential long-term benefits, not solely on whether you’ll earn a paycheck from it next week.

To read the first post in this series, visit “Google called, so we vaulted our client to Page 1 of the New York Times”

To read the second, visit “In Campaigns, Little or No Money Sometimes An Advantage”

To read the third, visit “When Running Big Projects, Simple Tools Work Best”

To read the fourth, visit “Steer – Don’t Order – Volunteers For Best Results”

To read the fifth, visit “My Mistake Was Not Viewing E-mail as Critical”

To read the sixth, visit “If You Can’t Be Yourself, Be Someone Else”

To read the seventh, visit “ A Google Fiber Tip: Connect, Don’t Chastise Competitors ”

To read the eighth, visit “ Google Needs To Know You Exist, So Tag Correctly“

Tags: Campaigns, Google Twin Ports, Googletwinports, grassroots, Patrick Garmoe, Pure Driven, puredriven
Posted in Google Twin Ports | View Comments

Google Needs To Know You Exist, So Tag Correctly

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

This is the eighth installment in a series titled, How to Get Your Client on the Front Page of the New York Times, explaining how PureDriven helped vault the Google Twin Ports initiative (focused on Duluth, MN and Superior Wis.) to national prominence in its effort to win Google’s attention and become one of the few sites where Google will build an ultra-high speed fiber network. I’ve written this series in hopes of sharing with businesses, politicians and grassroots organizers how to best gain offline and online attention for your cause, event or organization.

Lesson 8: Developing An Online Tagging Strategy

is Critical to Getting Seen Online

Photo Credit: Jason Morrison

In our efforts to attract Google to Duluth, we knew we wanted the public involved, and we knew we wanted everything we did to be seen by Google. Your business also needs to get exposure, once you’ve invested the time having a website developed, or put your Facebook page together. So is lots of words and pictures the key? Yes, and no. If you have a gorgeous website, but no content, then Google won’t see you, and therefore neither will anyone else.

If however, you have a lot of content, but not the right keywords in certain slots, that can seriously hamper your efforts.

So first, define your strategy. For example, we wanted attention in a lot of different places, so everywhere Google went online on the issue of Google Fiber, a video we shot, an article done on us, something we wrote, or our Facebook group would display prominently.

Our strategy was to make our entire online effort strong, not only googletwinports.com.

So we focused on optimizing every piece of content we put out. We told people exactly how to write their headlines, so collectively our YouTube videos would rank high for terms like “Google Fiber.” We wanted hefty levels of chatter and engagement. So we had volunteers chatting all day long on our Facebook Group, keeping people engaged in the process.

If your business wants exposure online, step one is normally creating the website or blog. Step two meanwhile, is making sure the pages are all tagged correctly. For a short primer on where to stick keywords, visit our first search engine optimization instructions page. And to see where those tags physically go, click on our second search engine optimization page.

One caution however. We’re currently upgrading our keywords, so what to pay attention to are the spots they go in. Pay no attention to the words in the boxes. If you need help choosing keywords, visit this excellent site called Google Insights For Search.

So Remember: If you want to be found on the web, you’ve got to have content filled with keywords not just in your copy, but also in the correct spots on each of your website pages.

Go ahead and post questions or comments down below, and I’ll do my best to answer them.

To read the first post in this series, visit “Google called, so we vaulted our client to Page 1 of the New York Times”

To read the second, visit “In Campaigns, Little or No Money Sometimes An Advantage”

To read the third, visit “When Running Big Projects, Simple Tools Work Best”

To read the fourth, visit “Steer – Don’t Order – Volunteers For Best Results”

To read the fifth, visit “My Mistake Was Not Viewing E-mail as Critical”

To read the sixth, visit “If You Can’t Be Yourself, Be Someone Else”

To read the seventh, visit “ A Google Fiber Tip: Connect, Don’t Chastise Competitors “

Tags: business, Campaigns, duluth, Googletwinports, grassroots
Posted in Blogging for Business, Google Twin Ports | View Comments

A Google Fiber Tip: Connect, Don’t Chastise Competitors

Monday, May 10th, 2010

This is the seventh installment in a series titled, How to Get Your Client on the Front Page of the New York Times, explaining how PureDriven helped vault the Google Twin Ports initiative (focused on Duluth, MN and Superior Wis.) to national prominence in its effort to win Google’s attention and become one of the few sites where Google will build an ultra-high speed fiber network. I’ve written this series in hopes of sharing with businesses, politicians and grassroots organizers how to best gain offline and online attention for your cause, event or organization.

Lesson 7: Connect With, Don’t Chastise Competitors

Photo Credit: AndyRob

With more than 1,000 competitors, the Google Twin Ports Fiber Initiative had a lot of reason to worry. Not only were we competing against most other communities in America our size, we were also up against big cities with far more resources and money than we had. This post isn’t about why we eventually rose to the top online based on this Share of Voice Report, or landing on Page 1 of the New York Times. I’ve already covered those two topics. What I wanted to focus on here, is the attitude we had throughout the campaign, that I believe really helped us stay focused on our goals, which helped us catapult ourselves to national prominence.

We didn’t care a whole lot about the rest of the country. Sure, we paid attention to what everyone else did, and incorporated ideas we thought worked extremely well, like the idea Grand Rapids had of having everyone post their confirmation codes, after explaining to Google why they ought to build their network that that particular community.

But we didn’t spend our hours worried about resources other cities and companies had, nor felt like we needed to simply copy what everyone else did. We live by Lake Superior, so we used that in our wildly fabulous video, from which the world learned of our campaign.

Instead, we encouraged the cities who we thought were our biggest competition, by connecting with them through private messages, and even kicking around ideas for how we might be able to team up on public relations stunts to sell our cities collectively. We also did our best to credit companies by name with work they did for us, whenever we were being interviewed as well.

We also took opportunities to build on what other cities have tried. In response to Topeka renaming itself Google, we put out a spoof video renaming our kids Google and Googlette. You can see all those videos by visiting our YouTube channel.

We realized that over the long haul, you get so much further in life by linking arms and minds with others, instead of viewing everyone as a threat. Sure, we had our own secret sauce projects we didn’t share with the competition, but we knew worrying about what everyone else was doing would only cost us time and energy. The online and even offline marketplace may seem packed with competitors offering your services more cheaply than you can. But remember, you only need a small sliver of the overall pie to be successful. And the way to get a bigger piece of that pie is to encourage your competitors. Then they want to help and work with you. People aren’t genuinely thankful and helpful, which makes your effort really stick out. I know it sounds nutty, but view the online world as a friendly marketplace full of potential customers and other businesses you might partner with. In the long run, it will prove a much more fruitful venture than if you view everyone as a threat.

Don’t believe me? Jason Fried, of 37signals.com, wrote a great piece along the same lines, which you can read in the most recent INC. That particular column is exclusive to the magazine I believe, but if you click on the link, you can read other great stuff of his.

So Remember: Being helpful and kind to others can only help your business. Worrying and acting mean to competitors feels natural to many of us, but will ultimately lead to fewer sales.

To read the first post in this series, visit “Google called, so we vaulted our client to Page 1 of the New York Times”

To read the second, visit “In Campaigns, Little or No Money Sometimes An Advantage”

To read the third, visit “When Running Big Projects, Simple Tools Work Best”

To read the fourth, visit “Steer – Don’t Order – Volunteers For Best Results”

To read the fifth, visit “My Mistake Was Not Viewing E-mail as Critical”

To read the sixth, visit “If You Can’t Be Yourself, Be Someone Else“

Tags: business, Campaigns, don ness, Googletwinports, grassroots, kindness, NewYorkTimes, page 1, Pure Driven, puredriven
Posted in Campaigns, Google Twin Ports | View Comments

A Google Fiber Tip: If You Can’t Be Yourself, Be Someone Else

Friday, May 7th, 2010

This is the sixth installment in a series titled, How to Get Your Client on the Front Page of the New York Times, explaining how PureDriven helped vault the Google Twin Ports initiative (focused on Duluth, MN and Superior Wis.) to national prominence in its effort to win Google’s attention and become one of the few sites where Google will build an ultra-high speed fiber network. I’ve written this series in hopes of sharing with businesses, politicians and grassroots organizers how to best gain offline and online attention for your cause, event or organization.

Lesson 6: If you can’t be yourself, someone else, literally
Meet my good friend, Speedie Gigabit,
This little man was created by local designer Brian Barber, and it was possibly one of the most successful ideas of the campaign, which I initially balked at.

Luckily, PureDriven as a whole and the rest of the volunteers at Google Twin Ports loved the idea of the character. My main complaint was that it served as yet another project our staff didn’t have the time or resources to manage. In fact however, it turned out to be a fantastic way to rally our supports and speak to them on Facebook. Here’s why it worked so well for us, and you might want to consider having a mascot or single person represent your business online.

1. It gave our volunteers a unified voice online. Right now, if your business uses a Facebook Fan page that you are an administrator of, every time you make a comment, it’s like the company logo responding. If you’d rather respond as an individual, you have to remove your administrative privileges from the Fan Page, and then get someone to make you an administrator again, when you want to change the page in some way. Here’s an example of when I post something on our company’s Facebook page.

Even though I’d like the person to know who I am, responding as the page’s owner, makes the logo appear, where ideally, I’d like my face to be.

In some cases, an employee might also want to respond to a customer. But if he or she responds as an individual, an introduction explaining he or she works for the company would have to preface every comment.

But a mascot, or even one person creating a personal profile on behalf of the company, solves that dilemma.

Whether it’s a person or a mascot, the personal profile can respond to comments and take part in conversations, with a clear, singular voice, instead of multiple individuals respond to comments, or having the company’s logo appear by each answer.

But in the world of Facebook and sites like it, real pictures of real people are preferred. And people do business with people. So having a picture of a real person on Facebook and especially Twitter to represent you, is ideal.

Because our campaign was a regional effort, we went with the mascot. It provided a “person” yet didn’t identify the entire campaign around one real face, as would be best for solo-entrepreneurs and candidates for office.

On a Facebook Groups page there is no company logo issue, but you still want that unique person or logo people can latch on to. And even if you’re a private individual with your own business, having two private accounts – one as you, and one as your public persona – is often most effective on Facebook.

A friend of mine runs a new business called Sgt. Steve, for weight loss and coaching. His real name is Steve, but when he responds to a customer or potential customer, he uses a separate Sgt. Steve account, to go along with the persona, and to keep people from wondering, “Is this someone named Steve, or THE Sgt. Steve?”

So how do you create a second private account?

All that’s required is a second e-mail address. If you don’t have one, just sign up for a free one at Yahoo, Gmail or Hotmail.

So Remember: Having an additional private Facebook account to speak to customers either with a picture of a person or a mascot, can give your business or organization more of a voice online, and it’s more personal than a logo talking to a customer.

To read the first post in this series, visit “Google called, so we vaulted our client to Page 1 of the New York Times”

To read the second, visit “In Campaigns, Little or No Money Sometimes An Advantage”

To read the third, visit “When Running Big Projects, Simple Tools Work Best”

To read the fourth, visit “Steer – Don’t Order – Volunteers For Best Results”

To read the fifth, visit “My Mistake Was Not Viewing E-mail as Critical“

Tags: Campaigns, client, duluth, duluth-superior, Google Fiber, Google Twin Ports, Googletwinports, grassroots, Pure Driven, puredriven
Posted in Blogging for Business, Campaigns, FanPage, Google Twin Ports | View Comments

Steer – Don’t Order – Volunteers For Best Results

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

This is the third installment in a series titled, How to Get Your Client on the Front Page of the New York Times, explaining how PureDriven helped vault the GoogleTwinPorts initiative (focused on Duluth, MN and Superior Wis.) to national prominence in its effort to win Google’s attention and become one of the few sites where Google will build an ultra-high speed network. I’ve written this series in hopes of sharing with businesses, politicians and grassroots organizers how to best gain offline and online attention for your cause, event or organization.

Volunteers at a bicycling event in St. Joseph, Missouri. Photo Credit: MoBikeFed

Lesson 4: Volunteers are your most important asset. Treat them like they are.

During the Google Twin Ports Fiber Initiative, our core team of leaders dealt with hundreds of volunteers. Here are three lessons we learned.

1. Don’t try and tell them what to do.

We knew what we felt needed to be done, and assumed that because we were the leaders, all the volunteers would be quick to following instructions. While some volunteers certainly followed directions, many didn’t.

They’re real people with time constraints and challenges. So over time we took a more laid back approach to volunteers. We would offer them specific tasks we called missions (so they didn’t sound like work, thanks to our marketing genius Kate Bradley) and would encourage them to try one. If they weren’t serious, they quickly faded away. If they didn’t do what we asked them, but hung around anyway, we would then try and talk to them about what they were interested in. Often once we matched them up with their natural interests, did some amazing work. It’s better to let go of some of your control and get a volunteer engaged where he or she feels comfortable, so they can contribute, even if where they feel comfortable isn’t where your greatest need might be.

2. Ask Early, Ask Often

We needed hundreds of volunteers to blanket our communities with fliers talking about the Google Twin Ports project, much like an election campaign does. But because we had so many projects in need of volunteers, we didn’t start asking for volunteers for a pledge-campaign drive until a week prior to the canvassing across the Duluth and Superior area. (Keep in mind Google only gave us about six weeks total.) When we were ready, we hit as many media outlets as possible with the message (social media sites like Facebook, e-blasts, TV, newspapers and radio especially.) While we hoped for about 125 volunteers, we probably got about 80, and covered half to 3/4ths of the area we were hoping to. Other initiatives later on made up most of the slack. But remember to ask for volunteers early and often.

3. Engage, engage, engage

Our group’s official Facebook Groups Page stands at 20,569 members

That page ended up being a great location to keep volunteers and supporters loosely associated with the organization informed, and to hear our latest calls to action. In order to keep the energy up, we made sure we worked hard to have several volunteers constantly chatting on the site, as well as asking people to post the verification code that they received, after nominating the Duluth-Superior area as a test site for Google. This gave something for each person to “talk about” and contribute. That once again allowed our organization to touch them with our message. We didn’t come up with the idea of posting the code though. We got it from the Grand Rapids, Michigan, fan page, which did an amazing job as well. And as you can see, had a much bigger presence on Facebook than we did: 38, 843 people as of 11:40 a.m. on May 3, 2010. (We’ll get into why in our minds that didn’t matter much in the long run though.)

So Remember: 1. Try and steer volunteers to what they want to do, because that’s where they will be most effective. 2. Ask for help early and often. It takes seven to 10 times before someone will typically take your request seriously. 3. Find little ways for people to stay connected to the effort, even if they don’t have the time or inclination to do a whole lot.

To read the first post in this series, visit “Google called, so we vaulted our client to Page 1 of the New York Times”

To read the second, visit “In Campaigns, Little or No Money Sometimes An Advantage”

To read the third, visit “When Running Big Projects, Simple Tools Work Best“

Tags: Campaigns, Googletwinports, grassroots, Volunteers
Posted in Google Twin Ports | View Comments

When Running Big Projects, Stick with What’s Familiar

Friday, April 30th, 2010

Credit: Jason Gulledge

Lesson 3: When it comes to running a grassroots campaigns, stick with what everyone is already familiar with.

Initially we used a couple fantastic workflow products from 37Signals.com called Basecamp and Highrise. Highrise was our database for all volunteers and supporters and where they fit in the big picture, which we immediately began forming upon launching the project. Basecamp tracked all the various tasks and committees everyone was a part of. Trouble was, even though the bulk of those volunteering on the project were tech-savvy, the tools were too unfamiliar, which might as well have been synonymous with being too complex.

It’s not that people didn’t know the essentials of how to use them. It’s that too many people didn’t have or take the time to really get to know the program intimately. So even though project management leaders formerly pushed the core volunteer group (about eight people) to use the programs, by the end of the initiative, everyone defaulted to shared Google documents and spreadsheets. Why? It was easy, intuitive, and familiar territory.

So Remember: Stick with what’s easy, especially when you’re short on time, and whenever you’re dealing with lots of people. No matter how much easier a new program promises to be, unless the group has had time to really grow comfortable with the new program, they’ll default to what works most easily.

To read the first post in this series, visit “Google called, so we vaulted our client to Page 1 of the New York Times”

To read the second, visit “In Campaigns, Little or No Money Sometimes An Advantage”

Photo Credit: Jason Gulledge

Tags: Campaigns, Googletwinports, NewYorkTimes, Tools
Posted in Campaigns, Google Twin Ports | View Comments