by Chris Brown on Thursday, March 11, 2010
One of my most popular posts has been “How to Market Your Business on Facebook“. It was first posted in August of 2009 and has been updated several times.
Seems like a series may be in order!
Just found a great post about how to comment as yourself on your own fan page. Don’t know about you but it’s something I’ve been wondering for a while. The long and short of it is, you can’t. But there are some ideas of how to work around it without violating Facebook’s terms of service.
Those of you thinking of setting up a Facebook Fan page for your business may want to read these posts first so you know the pros and cons of setting up. Right now it doesn’t look like you can transfer the fan pages to another account, so you may want to set it up originally with 2 administrators, just in case something happens to your original account or to you. You can add admins, but you probably should do it before there is a problem.
The good thing about a Fan Page (versus promoting your company on your profile) is that by using privacy settings you can separate your company from your personal profile. That way information that you’d like potential clients to read and respond to doesn’t get mixed up with the individual comments that you make as a family member or friend to your personal contacts.
As my Facebook friends know, I subscribe to my fan pages with Networked Blogs in Facebook, so my family and friends are subjected to my non-stop marketing talk as well. Sorry!! (But, not very sorry though!) Because I use my Facebook Fan pages for business, and I use various privacy settings, my fans are not subjected to my personal vacation photos and individual wall messages to friends & family. So I’ve got a one way funnel of work into personal, but not personal into work. Makes sense, right?
Here’s one of my favorite links about the privacy settings explanation in Facebook, showing you how to control the privacy of each bit of content you post on Facebook.
by Chris Brown on Tuesday, March 9, 2010
State Toy of Kansas - The Etch-a-Sketch
Do you consider your company’s product “best in class?”
Maybe you want to consider applying to the government in your state to have your product become the “official state insignia” for a product category. Seems to me that even just applying would help give your product extra marketing exposure.
Most states have an official bird, flower and flag, but what about other categories?
The state of Wisconson has an official state motorcycle. Indiana has an official state wine. And the state of Maryland has the official state dessert.
Evidently many states have made milk their official state beverage. Bet that makes the milk council happy.
Most states have an official state song, however my state, Ohio, is the ONLY state to have an official state rock song. Must be because the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame is here in Cleveland.
Does your company brand and market a product that would make a great “official state _____”?
Photo: Flickr Courtesy of Creative Commons Warzauwynn.
by Chris Brown on Saturday, March 6, 2010
I just love one pagers! They offer a clear and conciseway to look at a program.
Silvia Azmitia shared this branding program model with me and agreed to let me write about it. (Click on the link to see it as a pdf.) What do you think of it as a model for a branding program?
While I assumed this was created for consumer products business only, this model can be utilized to analyze corporate brands or even to conduct a brand analysis of b2b company. Silva explained to me that the target audience should be read not as the general population but current and prospective clients.
Providers refers to the people who are involved with the organization but do not belong to it. For example, the company’s ad agency and other contractors. You could substitute that word for ’suppliers’ or ‘vendors.’
The initials ATL and BTL stand for Above the line and Below the line. They refer to themedia selected to conduct a message to the target audience. Above the line is mainstream and massive media such as TV and radio. Below the line refers to more targeted media such as email marketing and other niche marketing.
So what do you think? Can you see yourself using this model to analyze your business or one of your company’s branded products? Leave a comment below.
by Chris Brown on Thursday, March 4, 2010
Do you market a business that could benefit by your customers or consumers keeping track of where they were and how long it took?
You might consider introducing a GPS tracking system for increasing customer loyalty, interaction and buzz. The photo above is from the website generated after the information is uploaded to the internet and is from Flaik.
All of the sudden runners are using these to track their miles and route, skiers to see their runs on the slopes, and I bet some amusement parks have them too. It’s one of the new technology gadgets that people love to talk about and if you can figure out a way to incorporate into their experience with your product, service or business, you’ll be able to increase the relationship strength with your customer and their likeminded friends.
Wonder if there is a Facebook app for this?
by Chris Brown on Monday, March 1, 2010
Do you think about getting a social media program underway but are feeling a bit overwhelmed? If you’re responsible for the marketing of your company or organization, you really should take advantage of this marketing media. So how do you eat this elephant?
One bite at a time.
Here’s a new tool from COSE (Cleveland’s Council of Smaller Enterprises.) They’ve created a new tool to help small business owners and marketers nail down a strategy and create a presence in just 60 days. Using only 15 minutes a day!
SocialMediaLeaps.com offers step by step daily tasks and worksheets, as well as a pool of resources to help you start up and grow your social media presence.
One of my favorite links that I found on this website: “50 Ways to use Social Media, listed by Objective” by Jeremiah Owyang who writes Web Strategy.
One of my most popular posts has been “How to Market Your Business on Facebook“. It was first posted in August of 2009 and has been updated several times.
