Why is it that social media marketing seems to take up so much of our time? It’s so easy to pop on to Twitter or Facebook for “just a few minutes” only to find hours later that it has sucked you in and kept you away from that other work you should have been doing.

I don’t by any stretch of the imagination claim to have mastered the art of social media time management, but I thought I’d share some tips with you to help minimise the amount of wasted time spent on social media sites without giving up on social media marketing altogether!

• Stick to a schedule – decide in advance exactly what you want to accomplish on each social media platform each day and how long it should take you then schedule that exact time into your calendar. Avoid checking your accounts on an ad hoc basis as this inevitably leads to time wastage.
• Plan cleverly – schedule your social media time before meetings or appointments so you can’t get carried away.
• Minimise the distractions – figure out what distracts you the most and take steps to control it. For instance create a shortcut to take you straight to your Facebook business page without going via your personal account if it’s too tempting to click on those personal notifications.
• Use timesaving tools – using a tool such as Hootsuite or Social Oomph to schedule some of your tweets and updates in advance can help you to go into your accounts less often and thereby minimise distraction. A simple alarm set on a timer can also help remind you when you’ve spent enough time on a task.
• Create content in bulk – sometimes it can be more efficient to create your content in batches, e.g. cranking out a number of blog posts at once or researching several interesting news links to share on Twitter or Facebook, then use a tool like those mentioned above to post them out at regular intervals.

Do you have any other tips to share with us on how to save time on social media marketing?

Come on admit it, you are addicted to Facebook. Love it or hate it its now the most popular website there is and it has changed the way we communicate for good. Whether you have 5 friends or 500 it’s a great way of keeping in touch with people, building on existing relationships and creating new ones. It’s not just for the young any more and over 66% of us are connected to at least one social platform.

Sometimes it can be hard to try and distinguish how to use Facebook for personal and business at the same time, well there are ways that you can separate your ‘friends’ so that certain groups can see certain posts but to be honest I use my account for both and post the same information out to everyone. One of the good things about this is that it does force those who are tempted to stop simply posting sales messages, also it can stop people posting things that they may later regret.

Everywhere you go you will see people sat on their mobiles on Facebook, you will hear people talking about it, arranging social events and even ‘Fraping’ each other, so even if you can’t stand the concept it is very difficult to get away from the level of influence that the platform has. One of the best features is that it allows api’s or applications to integrate with the platform. This is the bit that enables you to play games through your Facebook account but it’s not just games there are many apps that are useful for business too.

With the timeline about to hit us all (if you haven’t been already) it becomes even more important to ensure that you are censoring your posts and activity and a good marker it to ask yourself if you would be happy for your parents and/or your boss to see your post before you press the return button. People forget that this is a public tool and that what you post will be there for a very very long time and so just be careful and sensible really about what you are saying and about whom.

If you are looking for advice on how to use Facebook for your business then these posts may be of interest:

Facebook Advertising

Advice for Business Page Updates

Getting more Likes for your Business Page

Facebook have done a recent about turn with regards to giving people the option to opt out of the new Timeline. In a blog posted yesterday they have stated that all profiles will be changed to the new Timeline over the next month. Originally Facebook said that they would give people the option of whether or not they wanted to change.

If you have a Facebook account and you do not actively opt into the new Timeline you will soon receive a message at the top of your Facebook home to let you know that your profile will be changed, you are then given a week to make any changes before the Timeline is published.

My advice will be not to ignore this, you will be given the chance to hide any posts or photos that you don’t necessarily want everyone to see, it’s easy to forget what you said in a moment of anger about someone years ago. So go check before it’s too late!

Whenever there has been a change to Facebook many users have complained but then soon quietened down once they got used to the new features or layout, is this the same? Many are saying that with the advent of Google+ they may well look to leaving Facebook for good and do their social networking with Google instead.

So what do you think? Have you seen the new Timeline and if so what do you make of it?

Facebook advertising can be a very effective way to target a specific market, you can drill down so much more than any other form of paid advertising and it can work out fairly inexpensive too, simply because you are only targetting those people likely to be interested. For example if you are a retailer selling wedding dresses, then you may want to target women who are engaged that live in a certain geographical area. Or if you are a driving school, again you can target people within a certain age group in the area that you operate.

Facebook allows you to advertise using both images and words, allowing you to engage with your target audience in different ways. Here are some tips to help you get started.

1. Do your research first, find out who your target market really are.

2. Ensure your advert is simple and effective, I would always suggest using a marketing professional to put this together for you, this can be critical in the success of your campaign.

3. Set a realistic budget, Facebook advertising doesn’t have to cost the earth but you need have have enough impressions (number of times the ad displays) to get any real data and so make sure your budget allows this.

4. Make sure you send people to the right place, when people click on your advert they need to be taken through to a page on your website that is relevant to your advert, people won’t stick around.

5. Measure, improve and measure again. Facebook allows you to see the data behind the campaign which can help you tweak your campaign to make sure it is as successful as it can be.

One of the things you need to be aware of is that Facebook has a much lower click through rate than something like Adwords so you need to be prepared that your advert will need to be displayed a lot more to get those all important clicks. You have two different options in terms of the way you run the campaign, you can pay per click or you can pay per impressions, the one you choose will be dependent on your overall aims for the advertising in the first place. Are you looking to increase brand awareness or are you expecting sales leads?

If you have any questions or require any clarifications about how Facebook advertising can help you then please don’t hesitate to get in touch by leaving a comment below or giving us a call on 01279 647003.

Most of the bigger brands and many smaller ones now have their own customised Facebook welcome page and you may be wondering whether your business should too.

What is a Facebook welcome page?

For those of you who are not sure what a Facebook welcome page is, it’s a specially designed page that visitors land on when they first find your page in Facebook. It’s almost like a mini website within Facebook that they initially land on instead of the usual wall or feed.

First time visitors are welcomed to your Facebook page with this attractive branded page, and can also see any deals or new products that you want to promote on there.

Why should you have one?

There are several good reasons for having a custom Facebook welcome page:

• It welcomes first time visitors with an attractive branded page, letting them know a little bit more about your business and what you do.
• You can add a call to action encouraging them to ‘Like’ your Facebook page and explain the benefits of doing so, which makes it far more likely that they’ll click that button.
• Some businesses use their welcome page to promote deals, events or competitions or to call attention to new products.
• Having a custom page reassures people that you know what you’re doing on Facebook and makes you look more professional, hopefully encouraging them to engage with you.

What should you include?

Your Facebook welcome page should reflect your current social media marketing objectives, so think about what action you want visitors to take when they land on it. This could be to ‘Like’ your page, to engage with you on other social media platforms such as Twitter or your blog or whatever else is important to your business marketing goals. Make sure that your page contains an appropriate call to action that stands out clearly and leads them to this next step as quickly and easily as possible.

Let visitors know what sort of information you share on your wall and how they can join in. Lay out the benefits of engaging with your business on Facebook to increase the chances that they’ll ‘Like’ your page and come back again. If appropriate you can also include links to your other social media accounts and your blog’s RSS feed and encourage them to connect with you there too.

As you can see, a custom Facebook welcome page can improve your ‘Like’ conversions and act as an additional promotional tool. Without one you could be missing out on a lot of opportunities and failing to make the most of your Facebook marketing.

Facebook advertising can be a great way to reach your target marketing, this only really works for business to consumer companies where they are looking to sell to the end user.  Some of the things you need to consider before deciding whether this is a valuable way for you to advertise are:

• Who are my target audience
• Is there a specific geographical location
• What age group am I targeting
• Any specific marital status
• Likes and interests of my target market

If you cannot narrow it down then Facebook advertising is unlikely to work for you.  If you can be very specific about who you are trying to reach then advertising in this way can be incredibly cost effective, but again you need to consider your ultimate aim of the campaign.  Are you looking to:

• Increase brand awareness
• Drive traffic to your website
• Create leads
• Create online sales

If you are looking to focus on brand awareness then you may not need to be as specific, but if you are looking to generate actual sales then the more detailed you can be when setting up the campaign then the better your chances of success.  A couple of examples for you, one of the businesses where this can work incredibly well is a Driving School, you can target all 16 and 17 year olds in a certain geographical area. Where this doesn’t work so well is if you are looking to generate sales of cosmetics and your target market is all females between the ages of 16 and 60.  Your likelihood of making sales is much smaller than with the Driving School Example.

If you are unsure, then please seek advice first before you spend any money on something.

A lot of businesses will set up a Facebook Page but then don’t really know what sort of content to post on it. Here are some suggestions about what (and what not) to publish as well as how often you should be adding updates.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to use your Facebook Page as yet another place to publish self-promotional material. You’ve got to remember that Facebook is a social media platform and is therefore all about interaction and engagement, not advertising (if you want to advertise on Facebook use Facebook Adverts). You need to use your Wall to build a sense of community with your fans and provide a place where they can interact with you and vice versa.

The more interesting and engaging your updates are, and the more comments and interaction you get, the more Facebook will show them, so the quality of your updates is very important.

So what sort of updates fit the bill?

A lot of fans will have “Liked” your page in order to take advantage of promotional offers, and these are the sorts of posts that often get shared with their friends, so take advantage of this by creating special offers for your fans and posting them on your Page.

Content that relates to Facebook itself is also usually really popular with those who use it, so consider posting comments, questions or information about the social media portal itself as it relates to your business or industry.

You can also take advantage of popular topics in general and create content, questions, etc that relate to these to post on your Facebook Page. For example, these can be about popular TV shows that everyone is currently talking about, celebrities or news items.

Once you know what to post about, how often should you be adding updates?

Dan Zarrella at Hubspot found that people don’t want to be swamped with messages all the time and the optimum seemed to be to post approximately every other day. That way you’re not overwhelming them with updates but you’re still keeping in contact regularly. Interestingly he also found that posting in the mornings and on the weekends was best in terms of engagement, as this is when most people tend to be on Facebook.

Ultimately, if you remember that Facebook is about interaction and community you won’t go too far wrong. If you’re an avid Facebook user yourself then think about what you like and what irritates you when you’re looking at your own Newsfeed and bear this in mind when posting content on your business’s Facebook Page.

Facebook is a great place to run a competition, research shows that they get a good response.  But what do you need to think about before running one?

Well the first thing is to understand your overall marketing aims, if you are looking to expand your customer reach and help build your brand then Facebook competitions can certainly help.  The first thing I would do is ensure that no one can enter unless they have ‘liked’ your business page, this way any posts you make will appear in their newsfeed long after the contest has finished

Keep it simple, try and come up with a way that will encourage interaction on the wall of your business page, so for example you could ask people to come up with the strapline of a new product you are launching, or ask people to describe the thing they like the best about your product or service.  By doing this you are not only increasing your marketing reach, but you are encouraging people to start talking about your business.

There a lots of apps out there that will help you run a successful competition, I would certainly recommend you use them as they will make things much simpler for you.  My favourite is an app called Wildfire, it will take you through the whole process step by step so that even if you haven’t done anything like this before you shouldn’t have any real issues along the way.

Be sure to announce the winner on your Facebook page and ask them to post a photo with the prize at the end of it so that people can follow the story. Once the competition is over make sure that you continue to encourage conversation on your wall so that you don’t lose those people who liked your page so that they could enter.

Well first to the obvious, to grow your Facebook fanbase you need to have something that will make someone want to like your page.  As well as making sure that your posts are not only relevant to your industry, they need to be engaging for the reader too, so much so that they will value your expertise and want to learn more from you.

One of the things that people often overlook is actually encouraging people to like your page in the first page.  By having a branded welcome page you can create call to actions in the same way you would with your website.  Also, when you post, ask people to share it with their contacts.

Don’t forget that you can reach potential new fans in other places too, for example if you have a blog, then why not include a link and ask people to like your Facebook page.  Many websites have social media links on every page to make it easy for their visitors to connect and communicate with them in a number of different ways.

Make sure that you engage with people too, there is no point asking for people to comment or Like your page if all you do is have a continuous stream of posts, make sure if someone comments on your page that you communicate with them, this will encourage more people to like your page and that particular person to share your post amongst their own network.

The more you engage with people, the more you will appear in the newsfeed and the more likely you are to attract new fans.  But a word of caution, this is not Twitter and posting every two minutes throughout the day will have a negative effect, people will get fed up of your posts and ultimately you will lose those people that have already liked your page.

So in summary, to get more Facebook fans you need to create relevant engaging content that is easy to share and be active in communicating with your current fanbase.  It really is that simple, but it can take time so keep at it, it will work for you.

Find out more about Facebook for Business

The first thing to remember is that a profile is about an individual person and not a business, if you are looking to market your business using Facebook then you must have a business page.  One of the great things about Facebook is the amount of functionality that it has, there are so many applications that you can use to help your business and you cannot use these effectively if you have a profile set up.