Tag: Facebook Marketing

September 24, 2014

How is Your Social Media Etiquette?

If you haven’t noticed already, Social Media is here to stay for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, and for as long as we both shall live. In fact, a report released by Forrester’s Research indicates 73% are consuming some form of social content on a regular basis. Now more than ever it is critical to know the ins and outs of social media etiquette especially if you’re using social media to build your business.

We at AIMS offer solutions for you to maximize your social media, but we want to share a few basic principles that are good for all to know.

Truly build your profile – No one likes to check out a page only to find out there isn’t even a photo uploaded to the account. This is a half-hearted approach and readers will take notice. Invest the time to fill out the “about you” information and build a robust profile worthy of checking out.

Give credit where credit is due – you know that content creation takes hard work, research, and, most importantly, time. For that reason, you should treat others’ content like you would want your own to be treated. Sharing is always fine but be sure on your business pages and profiles you’re giving the original source credit and not claiming as your own.

Be human – If someone interacts with your page, interact back just as you would in real life. One of the top complaints people have about business pages is when they try to engage they get no response. This can alienate your customer in a flash. Especially true when dealing with customer challenges; never hide from an issue or delete comments, rather quickly respond best you can (without being defensive).

No begging allowed – It’s a bit invasive to ask for retweets, or page “likes”. People want to choose what is interesting to them and not feel obligated. Being creative with ways to grab their attention and gain engagement is a more effective way to gain the audience you want.

Tag responsibly – Tagging people on your business page photo is a great way to expose your business to other friend networks, however check with the person before tagging. This can avoid invading what feels like personal space. Same goes for posting your event, article, or blog on someone else’s page.

Avoid self-serving content – Make sure you’re sharing things that your audience truly cares about. One way to aide you in this is always ask yourself “does anyone care about this except me?” Similarly avoid constantly pushing the sale with your content – this is neither engaging nor fun for your readers. Tips, tricks, pictures and valuable content is key!

To help guide you through this ever changing, fast paced, critical world of social media, contact AIMS today and we’ve got your back!

September 2, 2014

Why Facebook Like Gates are Overrated

Facebook fan gates are overrated. There. We said it. And we don’t mind that they’ve been banned.

In some circles, such a statement is blasphemous, especially since they help so many company get likes. But let’s be honest here, what good is a like if you didn’t come by it organically? What incentive is there for someone to share your page, or your content, if it is something they never had any true interest in in the first place.

But let’s back it up here for a moment. Some of you are probably scratching your heads right now. What is a like gate (or fan gate, to some of you)? A like gate is, in essence, a tab that business owners can add to their Facebook page and run a contest or offer coupons and discount codes from. The catch? In order to enter the contest or gain access to the coupons and discount codes, participants have to like the page first.

If you didn’t already know what like gating is, then you probably aren’t too concerned that it is banned from Facebook starting November 5^th.

Why would Facebook ban such a successful program. It’s pretty simple really, and this statement from Facebook explains it best:

To ensure quality connections and help businesses reach the people who matter to them, we want people to like Pages because they want to connect and hear from the business, not because of artificial incentives.

Got that? What Facebook is saying, and we here at AIMS agree with, is that companies should be connecting with those who like their pages because of the products and services they offer; because the liker believes in it, not because you have a super rad deal that everyone wants, but will then either disregard or hide you once your purpose has been served.

Our advice? Don’t sweat the like gate ban. Instead, get creative and start connecting with your customers again.

Photo – © trialhuni – Fotolia.com

August 25, 2014

Facebook Messenger: Not as Invasive as you Think

If you’ve logged onto your Facebook account recently, then you’ve probably noticed all of the hullabaloo about the new Facebook Messenger App. Facebook is now forcing all of its mobile users (i.e. nearly everybody) to download a separate standalone app to send and receive messages.

For some of you, this isn’t a big deal. A little inconvenient yes, but resisting really isn’t worth the time or effort. But for other out there, the whole thing is making you a little uneasy. After all, you’ve heard things. Like how the new Messenger App can send direct SMS message from your phone to contacts in your phonebook. Or that Facebook Messenger’s App can use the microphone on your phone to record private conversations.

But none of those is true, not entirely at least.

For starters, you can still circumvent downloading the app by using the Facebook.com messaging service on your phone and not the mobile Facebook app. It is kind of a pain to connect to the sit directly and not just click on an icon, but it does help prevent you from having to switch over to Messenger.

To address another issue, yes, one of the permissions that is required when downloading the app is to allow it to access your contacts so that Facebook can send, receive, edit and read SMS or text messages. That doesn’t mean Facebook is going to start spamming your friends. The purpose is actually to send you a confirmation code via text anytime you add a phone number to your Messenger account.

Finally, just because you allow Facebook to access your camera and microphone (permissions, again) does not mean that it is going to record your private conversations. The only reason FB wants access to your microphone is for voice calling, a feature that is not included the usual mobile app. The same goes for the video camera. If you want to send a video, Facebook needs permission to access your store videos.

Need help setting up Facebook for your business account? Contact AIMS today!

Photo – © Tsiumpa – Fotolia.com

June 17, 2014

Why Social Media is like owning a Pet

You don’t just buy a dog and not feed it or take it on walks. (Well, some people do, but that’s a whole other rant.) The same thing can be said for Social Media. Do NOT set up a social media account if it is not something you are going to take care of! Like a pet, it is something you need to pay attention to, feed and play with on a regular basis.

Why? Here are four reasons:

4 Reasons Social Media is like owning a Pet

1. Social media needs to be fed

As any pet parent would know, nutrition is important and social media accounts are hungry. Their favorite food? Fresh content. Without it, you can’t expect your social media accounts to grow big and strong.

Social media is dependent on interaction between users. After all, aren’t we all just searching for that illusive retweet or social network share? If you can’t engage your followers, you can’t grow your brand, and you can’t get clicks if you don’t have anything to say.

2. Social media accounts need to go for ‘walks’

Walks are important for pets. Not only are they a great form of exercise, but they also play a major role in socialization. Social media is similar in that you really need to get out there and meet the neighbors, so to speak, so that you can get feedback on how your social media branding is being received.

Is it interesting? Are you getting clicks? Is your content being shared? These are questions you can get answered by engaging with other users, or better yet, by networking with others in the business. Just like pet owners at the dog park share their experiences, you can share yours with others in a similar situation. Conferences are a great place to do so!

3. Social media needs grooming

Social media is like a show-dog; it needs grooming. You can’t just put it all out there and hope that people are going to engage. You need to entice them.

How? By wrapping it up in a pretty package. That may mean mixing it up – add pictures to your blog posts, tweet an interesting video, share relevant materials. Sometimes, that may even mean cutting down on your posting.

I know, we just harped on the importance of feeding your social media accounts, but it is possible to go overboard. Have you ever followed a company on Facebook or Twitter only to be bombarded with a litany of advertisements or overt marketing messages? Yeah, it’s off putting. Knowing where to draw the line is important.

4. Sometimes social media needs to be ‘fixed’

You know the signs that your pet needs to be fixed, right? They may be a little over zealous or territorial, perhaps even aggressive. So you take them to the vet and get it taken care of. The same thing needs to be done for your social media accounts.

How do you know your accounts need to be fixed? Let’s start with the most obvious one: You have no interactions. Another? You are losing followers. If ever there was a sign that you are doing it wrong, then that is it. Now, we all lose followers, but if you are losing at a higher rate than you are gaining, it is a problem.

Recognize the signs and get it fixed.

April 29, 2014

The New Facebook Business Manager Tool and How to use it

The next wave in Facebook marketing is here, and as a company that manages multiple accounts, we’re pretty darn excited about it. The new Facebook Manager Tool not only allows us to now manage pages, ad accounts and payment in one place, but it also allows the administrator to assign roles and monitor oversight.

How does it work?

To get started, just head on over to business.facebook.com and sign up.

As the page admin, you are in control of the account, which give you the power to not only modify or delete the account, but also to assign roles within the campaign.

The best part? You can now add business admins and employees to the account without being their friend on Facebook. This is important to a company like us here at AIMS because, as we stated above, we work with a lot of different companies, and that means we aren’t always connected directly to the employees. But now, so long as we have our contact person’s email address we can add them to the account, while also limiting their involvement to what we deem is necessary.

Another nice feature of the new Facebook Manager Tool is that we are now able to easily reassign roles and/or remove people from an account at any given time. So if you don’t like the way something is being done or your page is being managed, you can switch it up with little to no issue.

Everything in its place.

Even if you don’t use the new Facebook Business Manager Tool to manage multiple accounts, you’ll find it just as useful as we do. Instead of creating a brand new business page with multiple logins, you can now use your personal information to login and create an account. But don’t worry – none of your personal information will be available on the business page, it is solely used as a means of easing your access to all of your accounts.

Go explore!

We won’t pretend we know everything there is to know about the new Business Manger Tool – it just came out! But we hope this bit of information will help you get started. Check out the Introduction to Business Manager page from Facebook for more info.