Id like to welcome everyone to this training webinar to help you market your business through social media. My name is Phyllis Khare and to save time, you are welcome to look through my bio on LinkedIn http://linkedin.com/in/phylliskhare, but in a nutshell:
Im the author of two comprehensive books on social media marketing; Social Media Marketing eLearning Kit for Dummies (a 4-color book with DVD and online learning environment) and co-author of Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies You can see all my publications here http://ow.ly/7n6pL
And today I want to help you figure out if you need to turn on your Facebook Follow button or not!
I hope you enjoyed the training webinar 7 Vital Steps for Your Facebook Timeline to Promote Your Business. That webinar was really packed with a LOT of information and I went well over the time allotted! This time Ill try to keep to the schedule, but as a reminder, if I go over and you have to leave, dont worry, you can listen to the recording and youll have a full PDF Guide of this whole presentation to refer to in the Resource section.
Remember, there are two main types of accounts on Facebook; the personal account (which Facebook is now calling the Timeline and the business Page.
You create a business page from your personal account. In the past, you could not promote a business through your personal account (thats why Facebook opened up business pages in the first place). But things have changed a little in the last few months and now there IS a way to support your business on your personal account that wont jeopardize the Terms of Service that Facebook has for personal accounts.
If you do not have an official business Page, no matter. This training webinar is focused on your personal account and the Follow button and how you can set it up to support your business. Having both a business Page and a personal Timeline that has been modified to support your business is a total marketing package on Facebook.
Ill be going over 4 main points today
1. Is the Follow Button is Right for You? I have a few questions you can answer to see if this is the best system for you personally.
2. How to Turn On the Follow Button: The step-by-step instructions are simple, but there are a few options we need to go over.
3. How to Post to Followers: It is a different thing to create Public posts for your Followers. Ill give you a few guidelines and show you some excellent examples.
4. 3 Advanced Marketing Strategies: Questions, Videos, Pictures simple simple simple!
Lets start at the beginning, so we all are on the same page as I go through these points.
Timeline: what Facebook calls the personal account.
Follow button: Optional way to connect with public figures on Facebook. One-way connection like Twitter uses.
Followers: People who have Followed your Public posts. Your Friends are already following you and your are following them back.
Friends: Two-way connection on Facebook.
Cover Image: Large banner-like image that people only see if they visit your Timeline.
Profile image: The image people see in their News Feed
Sponsored Updates: You can pay Facebook to make sure your Friends see your posts.
In your own time it would be wise, if you havent already, to just watch these videos that Facebook created to explain Timeline https://www.facebook.com/about/timeline
Lets go over a few questions to see if turning ON the Follow button is right for you. Answer these as I go through them and well tally up the results and make a decision. Here we go:
Do you consider yourself a Public Figure? A public figure is a slippery term. Facebook says authors, magazine and newspaper writers, politicians, actors and radio and TV personalities are public figures. But there are other definitions, too.
Do others consider you a Public Figure? When others think of you do they think public figure? You might be a spokesperson for some type of event (local, regional or national) or represent a topic (like a conversation in your business niche or a non-profit organization).
Are you considered an expert in your field? Do people seek you out when they have a question about your business niche? Do you speak at events about your business niche?
When people look at you do they think of your business? Most small business people carry both sides of their lives business and personal with them where ever they go. If you are walking down the street and someone says Hi do they ask you about your family or your business or both?
Do you like to share things that are business-related? Look back at your personal posts on Facebook for the last year. How many of them would be related to your business niche? Would you share more of those types of posts if you felt people wanted to see them?
Do you have people who want to be Facebook Friends who are really business contacts? Do you have people who have asked to be Friends, but they are people you dont really know personally? Do you have a bunch of people who have asked to be Friends that you have ignored?
Ask yourself these three questions:
Are you branding yourself? Are you setting yourself up to be a public figure in the future? Do you want to be a public figure?
Are you and your products the same thing? Do you sell information-products that feature you as the expert?
Are you branding your company to include you? Apple=Steve Jobs -- Is that the kind of relationship you have with your company?
If you answered YES (to most of those questions) Turn On your Follow button
If you answered NO (to most of those questions) Dont Turn On your Follow button
If you are branding yourself absolutely Turn On your Follow button.
If you are branding your products if people think of you and your products as one big thing Turn On your Follow button
If you are branding your company you dont *have* to Turn On your Follow button, but if you enjoy your business and have a great passion around it, consider Turning it On so you can expand your territory of influence. There will be a particular way to post especially if you are in this category, as you will soon see.
Now that you have an answer and that answer is Yes - the easiest way to Turn On your Follow button is to go to:
https://www.facebook.com/about/follow and click the big green Turn On Follow button.
The text Facebook has developed answers some of the questions:
Whats the difference between following someone and adding a friend?
You should only add someone as a friend when you know them personally. If you don't know someone personally but want to hear what they have to say, following them is a good option. When you follow someone, you'll only be able to see their public updates. For people you are already friends with, you will see a Friends button. Use this button to unfollow their posts without unfriending them.
The next step is to adjust your Follow settings:
Follower Comments: Think about it. You create a Public Post so you want your Followers to be able to comment on it. So select Everyone.
Followers Notifications: These are notifications about new people subscribing to you, when someone Likes one of your posts, etc. You can decide if you only want notifications from friends of friends or everyone. You can select Everyone and see how it goes. You can always come back and adjust these settings.
Now you need to adjust another setting, but it isn't found in the Follower Settings. Go back to your Timeline and click the Lock icon in the top right corner. Click to open the section called Who can contact me? There are two settings to adjust here.
1. Decide if you want your Message button to be fairly open or closed to only those people you are Friends with. I like the basic filtering, but you will need to learn how to find your Other inbox for Messages.
2. Decide who can send you a Friend Request. This is an important decision, because it will effect which buttons show up on your Timeline for people looking to connect with you.
If you select Friends of Friends: When someone who is a friend of one of your friends happens upon your Timeline they will see BOTH the Add Friend button and the Follow button.
If they are NOT a friend of a friend they will ONLY see the Follow button.
If you select Everyone: They will see both buttons.
I suggest to select Friends of Friends.
Also remember, if someone requests to be a friend with you and you ignore them, when you turn on your Follow button they will automatically be a Follower and will see your public posts.
How Do People Find Me to Follow?
- Include the Call to Action ("Follow my Updates") on your Cover Image
- Add your personal Facebook URL to your letterhead, email signatures etc..
- Make an announcement on your other social accounts
- Mention it in all interviews, promotional materials and on your business card
Now that youve turned on your Follow button and people are starting to follow, you need to remember to post Publicly the kinds of things that will support your business.
How do you do that? Lets say for example, you have a new product coming out. You can surround the post with something personal. Great public figures do this very well. You can learn from them, or just remember to add your personal take, your personal feelings, your personal experience to the post.
Some examples:
You have a new product coming out: post a picture of you holding it and in the comments talk about your personal experience with it. Did it take a long time to develop? Did you have some twist of fate? Did you have a personal aha about it? What was the personal connection?
You are being featured in an article: post the link to the article and in the comments talk about what it was like to be interviewed. What did the interviewer leave out? Did you like how the interviewer worked?
You have developed a new info-product: Dont be blatant about it! Dont just post a discount code! Talk about the personal reasons for developing it. Talk about the process of creating something new. People will click through if it resonates with them.
Going back to the posting icon it is really simple. Notice you can change the icon when posting on your Timeline and on the News Feed view.
You can see its just a matter of remembering to check the icon before you post. If you need to change the setting, you know how to do that (just click the icon and change it).
Sometimes, the way you posted the last time will be the default for the next time. This happens a lot when posting from a mobile device. You can change a setting to make sure the default is always Public or always Friends by:
Sometimes, the way you posted the last time will be the default for the next time. This happens a lot when posting from a mobile device or a Facebook app. You can change the setting to make sure the default is always Public or always Friends by going to your Privacy Settings and selecting your preferred default.
If you tend to post things from your phone that are public choose Public as the default.
Now having said all of that, the official Facebook app for the iPad just added the ability to change the posting preference
This is a very important step! I mentioned this last week, but it is important to remember.
Some people have been calling the personal Timeline the ultimate resume. The reason, is this wonderful feature to be able to add Life Events to the Timeline. You can go all the way back to when you were born!
Now You can add as many life events as you want, in so many different areas, but for this webinar I want to focus on the business events. You absolutely need to add events that support your business.
For example; can you add:
Book deal
Article published
Award won
Special recognition from your industry
New products launched
Financial milestone for your business reached
Photos of you or your products in local paper or magazines
You could add all sorts of things to this list. Focus on adding these life events and make sure you make them Public. You cant add things with future dates, by the way. Remember to comment as noted before.
Dont make this one big infomercial! Add your personal experience to each post in your authentic human voice. And dont post them all at one time spread them out over a few weeks. These are part of your marketing.
But before you can really let your Timeline represent you and your business authentically, you need to clean it up. By this I mean, you need to look at what you have posted through time and decide if you want those things Public or just for Friends, or even just for a custom group of people to see.
You will need to set aside time to go through this housecleaning project. Depending on how long you have been on Facebook, this could take a few minutes to a few hours!
Follow these steps:
Check the viewing icon for each post change the ones you need to change from Friends to Public and visa versa. Alternately, you can go to the Activity Log and go through the posts in a linear fashion. You find the Activity Log overlaying your cover image.
Hide items you want to not be seen by Friends or by Subscribers by clicking the dropdown and selecting Hide
Find important posts and Feature them
Next you need to clean up and enhance your About section and your About Me section.
Click About (on your Timeline) adjust the icons next to each item. Decide if you want these things Public or just available for your Friends to see.
Add to the About You section. You might need to click the See All link at the bottom of the About section for the About Me section to show up. Yes. Facebook.
Fill this section out just as full as your LinkedIn account.
Go through each field of your Contact Section and decide who gets to see what
If you have a local business add the business address, instead of your personal residence
If you have a business phone number add it, instead of the personal number
Add your business email address and change the icon to Public and hide your personal one, or make it only available to Friends
1. Ask questions: Its human nature to have an opinion and to help. By asking simple questions that have a simple answer like Yes or No, will engage people. Think about using fill in the blank questions, or right or wrong questions. Dont ask questions that require long answers!
2. Share videos: Facebook is a video sharers dream. Find videos that supports your business and share them. Dont just post your own videos. Round it out a bit, but always add your two cents.
3. Upload pictures: This is where it can be very interesting for a business. Learn to wrap your personal experience into your image posts. For example, you can upload a picture of your newest product, but instead of saying that its on sale this week, talk about your personal experience developing it. Be transparent.
Remember to use attraction-based marketing principles with your public posts to your Followers. Avoid push marketing techniques. Even though the Follow system is like having an opt-in newsletter, you still need to remember that this is a social platform.
Thats it!
I have included this presentation with all my Notes in the Resources section of this course. You can download the presentation and the PDF Guide.
Questions? Theres a space for that! Ask me anything about this course. I love to help.
Thank you!
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Downloadable 48-page guide to this course
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