Facebook Events is an application that lets you schedule your business events from a Fan Page and invite friends and fans to attend. Events can be “Public” in which case anyone can RSVP and attend or “Private”, which only allows invited guests to RSVP. Either way this app is a great way to help get the word out about your next event! Thanks to Becky O’Brien of Optimal Wellness for helping me test the process!
Add an event from your Fan Page
Sign in to Facebook and go to your Fan Page. One of the tabs should be “Events”. If you don’t see an Events tab click on the “>>” tab or the “+” to see more options, “Events” may be there if you have other tabs. Your Events tab will show and at the top right is a button to “Create Event”. This will bring up a page to enter your event information.
After you fill in the event information it’s time to invite people. Realize that the people that you are able to invite are “Friends” from your Personal Profile, not Fans. You might want to filter and select from that list or choose not to invite people at this point if it is a business event. You can always post and share from your Fan Page after creating the event. Don’t forget to add an image to your event so that you don’t get the standard event picture! When you create the event it builds and event page that allows people to post comments and see who else has been invited and who has accepted, if you click on the boxes to allow those things.
When you are done entering the event information, click the button to “Create Event”. This will bring up your new event page. From here you can invite more Friends (once again from your Personal Profile) using the link on the left under the picture. At the top there is a link to edit the page if you need to make changes and…..
Update Your Fans!
Clicking the link to update your fans will bring up an update box for your event that lets you invite your friends to the event. You have the capability to do some filtering on your list by region, gender and age. Add a subject and message then click send. Your friends will see the invitation in their news feed and have the opportunity to comment, share and RSVP directly from the post.
You can send additional updates as your event approaches. You might want to consider planning this out and using additional updates to announce speakers, VIP guests that have accepted the invitation, door prizes that have been contributed or other special news relative to the event.
Sharing Events
The best thing about social media is the ability to quickly share information. This is true of Facebook Events as well. When you see events posting to your News Feed from your network, click on the share button to send to your friends if you think they may benefit. When posting and updating your events, encourage your fans to share with their friends!
Please comment with any additional tips or lessons learned while using the Facebook Events Application.
This scene from the movie classic Raising Arizona reminds me of a conversation between a Social Media expert and the typical small business person!
“Well you’re on Facebook, right? You’re not on Facebook, you don’t have a page? And what about Twitter, well you just have to be tweeting…and blogging, are you using WordPress, Blogspot, what, you aren’t blogging? And make sure you use Hootsuite, or Tweetdeck or you won’t have any idea what is going on!”
I often catch myself doing it with my students and clients, and then slow down when I see the eyes glaze. Because of the value of social media and the ease of linking things together and sharing, it is difficult to talk about only one media at a time. For those who are overwhelmed and panicked, here are some tips for fitting social media to you. Make sure to leave a coment with your biggest challenge in social networking!
Some is better than none! Start with one application and build as you get comfortable. What you start with depends on the business and objectives. I like to get professional services people up on LinkedIn first and then get them blogging before digging into Facebook and Twitter. For retail I might focus on Foursquare first, followed by Facebook and Twitter.
Learn to Subscribe and Comment. Find blogs to subscribe to, people to follow on twitter and Facebook Fan pages to “Like”. Track those with experience and see how they do it. Write comments, respond to questions and ask them questions about their sites. It’s a great way to learn and an easy way to start getting your name out there.
Carve out an hour a day. Most social media is free, but if it’s a significant part of your marketing plan you have to put in the time. At first you will spend the hour learning more than posting, but as you get more comfortable and experienced the hour will become more and more productive. To start try spending 20 minutes learning more about social media, 20 minutes reading and commenting on other peoples posts and 20 minutes on your posts – thinking through what and when you will post throughout the day.
Read a good book on Social Media. I recommend the book Trust Agents because it focuses more on the philosophy and strategy of social media than how to use any specific tool. What you really need to understand is how you can add value to the network you are trying to build. For the “how-to’s”, there are a ton of step-by-step blogs out there.
Slow and steady wins the Race. Listen, you may go a couple days and not have time to post anything. It’s ok to jump back in! Even if you can only spend 30 minutes every other day, it’s better than nothing and you will see some results. Just like most other types of marketing, a little every day is better than a marketing dump every two weeks.
Don’t try to solve world hunger in your first week of social media! You will become quickly overwhelmed and likely stop after a couple weeks. Instead, pick one media app and go with it, focusing on establishing a routine and setting aside the time. You will get people telling you about a ton of other tools that are out there. Write them down for reference but make the time and get comfortable with the first thing before taking on the second and third.
It won’t be long until you shift from finding the time to network online to forcing yourself to stop so you can get some work done!
What’s your biggest challenge to social networking?
See how annoying that is? Are you doing the same thing through your Facebook and Twitter Posts?
This is a family favorite scene from the movie Get Smart and it came immediately to mind yesterday while I was reviewing my Facebook feeds. A local organization that I “Like” posted about 20 things in a matter of 2 hours, pushing all my other posts to the third or fourth page. Now I’m open to a little creative marketing blitz now and again, but there was no creativity and the posts were long! It was like Jamie, Jamie, Jamie, Jamie….
If social medial is going to be a significant part of your marketing strategy I recommend that you develop a media schedule that spreads out your posts and mixes them up a bit.
Spread posts throughout the day instead of posting everything in the hour you spend on Facebook during the day. Develop a media schedule and use a scheduling tool like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck to spread out the messages. Place the messages during times your audience is most likely to be online so that you are more likely to receive a response.
Pick your key message and nail it. When it comes to messaging 1+1+1+1=ZERO, if you try to announce 4 different products in 140 characters your followers see “stuff”. Pick the one message that they will most likely click or share and nail it. The great thing about social media is that it’s acceptable to send messages 2-4 in separate posts throughout the day or week.
Mix it up! This is the hardest for me (and for many of you from what I see). The media schedules that we create for clients mix different types of posts to keep fans and followers engaged. For one client we recommend educational facts, promoting others, entertaining and self-promotion. If you only promote yourself every time, using very similar posts, it’s going to get stale. There are some exceptions, especially if people are waiting to hear from you. For example, one ice cream store tweets their daily ice cream flavor.
Lay down the foundation and fill with spontaneity! Many of the posts you will make next week could be written right now. So why not do it right now. We create a monthly schedule for clients that lists post ideas around the events we know will be happening over the next month. This way they can write and schedule the posts early, mixing them and spreading them according to the Social Media Plan. On a daily basis they can fill by adding posts about what is happening in the moment. And if they are out for a day, they still have the scheduled messages providing a consistent presence.
As with most marketing there is nothing new under the sun. Social media offers some great tools, but it’s still important to stick with the basics – a clear and consistent message that touches your audience frequently when they are most receptive. So, create a social media schedule that gets you in front of people without annoying the crap out of them!
Excuse me Mother. Yes Sean. There is a flying man outside my window!
A great place to start is with the full title of this book!
“Getting Naked: A Business Fable about shedding the three fears that sabotage client loyalty”
Like the title, this isn’t your typical business book. Mr. Lencioni challenges all of us in the service industries to put our pride aside and replace it with the best interest of our customers. And, he does it in the form of a novel, an interesting touch for a business book.
The Story…
…is about the acquisition of a boutique consulting firm by a big corporate firm. Jack, is the man set up to manage integrating Lighthouse Partners into the prestigious, international, full-service management consulting firm of Kendrick and Black. Along the way he learns some of the secrets of Michael Casey, founder of Lighthouse Partners. What Jack later terms “Getting Naked” with the client is the technique of putting aside corporate and personal pride to be more effective and build tremendous client loyalty. I won’t spoil the end of the story for you, but will hit on the key business points – the “Three Fears”.
Fear of Losing the Business
The premise to this fear is that when we are afraid of losing the business, that becomes our focus and drives our actions. Actions driven by keeping the account are often contrary to actions focused on helping the client. An example is when we are tempted to tell customers what they want to hear rather than our true thoughts based on the experience and education for which they hired us. Although this might help keep the account for the short term, when it doesn’t work out we become part of the problem and lose credibility.
Fear of Being Embarrassed
This fear is what causes us to walk away from meetings wondering. Instead of speaking up and asking what might sound like a dumb question, or suggesting something that might be laughed at, we decide not to speak up. Patrick’s take is that naked service providers are so busy putting the success of their client first, they are willing to speak up with ideas and questions even at the risk of being embarrassed. Otherwise, you wonder what it was you didn’t understand or what would happen if they tried your idea.
Fear of Feeling Inferior
At one point in the book a group of executives are asked which of these fears are they most susceptible. For me it was this one. As a business management instructor and service provider at Sigma College of Small Business, it seems logical that if you aren’t continually demonstrating superiority, clients will start thinking you aren’t important and adding value. However, the case is made that by purposely putting ourselves in a lower position than our clients (which equates to putting them on a higher level), the naked service provider will gain trust, respect and loyalty with their clients.
“Shedding the Three Fears”
Mr. Lencioni completes the book with a set of principles for overcoming the three fears. Instead of working through those here, I highly recommend that you pick up and read the book. It’s a very enjoyable read with a great message for anyone who provides services. Caution: When reading in public, expect some strange looks and people avoiding you as they look at the title:-)
I was listening to the Tony Kornheiser show this morning and they read through a direct mail piece that Tony received from the Washington Kastles Tennis Team. The letter was a form invitation from the owner of the Kastles to an upcoming event and seemed to be pretty well done for a direct mail piece. Tony and the crew absolutely ripped the Kastle organization for it though. The problem – the letter started out “Dear Anthony”.
Boy, if you could take back a direct mail piece!
Most of us understand the methods for gathering names and information for direct mail, and that there are many mistakes in the names, titles or even gender. Where the Kastles really messed up though is that they didn’t use public relations to address the media audience separate from the direct mailing to the general population.
For those not familiar with the Tony Kornheiser show, it is a daily talk show on a local DC sports radio station. They talk some sports, but it is more about entertainment and, well, just stuff. The Kornheiser crew/posse/team (what exactly are they?) loves to latch on to a product or company, for good or bad, and use it as conversation fodder throughout the show. At the end of the show there is an email pile-on where the audience sends in their take on the day’s topics, usually dominated by the product or company in the spot light. You can imagine (or you can probably go listen) how much fun they had with a letter from a local sports group to a national sports celebrity and local sports icon that started out “Dear Anthony”.
When you are planning your marketing campaigns, especially for upcoming special events, do some public relations planning first. How would this have been different if before Tony received this impersonal, promotional invitation he had received a personally signed invitation, or even a phone call, from the owner or a public relations person? Do you know the ten or twenty media people in your industry who have the power to make or ruin your day because they have an audience? You should be communicating with these folks through public relations.
Many small business owners mistakenly limit public relations to periodic press releases about their business. PR is much more than that, and unless you are a company popular enough to be newsworthy, self reporting press releases are useless. Public relations is about knowing and building relationships with the media and providing information and resources that help them provide more value to their audience. Of course your hope is that the end result reflects positively on your business.
The Prince William Chamber of Commerce is hosting a Marketing, Advertising and Public Relations Strategies conference in September and the focus this year is on Public Relations. Wouldn’t it be great if Tony Kornheiser somehow found and read this obscure blog post and offered to come to the September 22nd as the keynote speaker! “Mr. Anthony”, you can email me at jlgorman@sigmabizlearning.com if you’re interested. It’s more likely that they read this post and publically humiliate me for my poor grammar and shameless use of their name to promote my blog and MAPS event!
A couple weeks ago, I finally purchased my new Droid phone. This led to an increased frequency in my Foursquare posts – the posts you see on Facebook and Twitter stating that someone has just “checked-in”. Now that my friends and followers are seeing these posts I’m getting more questions about Foursquare, so I decided to shed some light for those that are in the dark on this unique social media application.
It’s Good for Businesses
Quite frankly, if it didn’t show some value for my small business customers, I wouldn’t be so enthusiastic about Foursquare. It’s good for business because it has the potential to send out your brand from a trusted source to hundreds of people every time a customer enters with a cell phone!
Here’s How it Works
Let’s say I am sitting at the Sigma College of Small Business offices in Haymarket, VA and decide that I need a cup of coffee and something sweet. I walk across the parking lot to Cupcake Heaven. While I wait for my tall decaf coffee and afternoon treat, I turn on my Droid, open the Foursquare app, select Cupcake Heaven from the list of nearby venues, add a note about how great the service is and “check-in”. This automatically sends a post to my Facebook and Twitter accounts and all my friends and followers see my comment and that I am at Cupcake Heaven.
So, do the math. If 5 customers like me walk into the store and each of us has 200 friends and followers, the name of that store is promoted to 1,000 people that day. Cost and effort to the store – ZERO!
Why Would a Customer Check In?
Just read your Facebook posts. I get posts from people when they wake-up, go to bed, eat, stub their toe, etc… So people will check-in just to be social. However, Foursquare offers tools for businesses to encourage customers to check-in. As the manager of Sigma College of Small Business I “claimed” my venue and can now offer specific promotions to people who check-in. Promotions can be based on number of check-ins or given to those who check-in the most – The Mayor. That’s right, if you are the person who has checked in to an establishment the most, you are given the title of Mayor, which is announced to all your friends and followers. People will definitely check-in for free stuff and a title!
There’s More!
As the registered owner of your venue, you have the capability to see who is checking in at your place and how often they are checking in – a great way to keep tabs on some of your most loyal and vocal customers. If you are a retailer or restaurant and not using this free tool, you need to put it on your list of things to check out. I’m still researching all the benefits, but this one seems to be a no-brainer, just set it up and let your customers promote your business! Did I mention FREE?
This weekend I traded emails with Becky O’Brien of Optimal Wellness about my Subscribe! blog posts that described the importance and steps to subscribing to a blog. As part of the discussion I went to her blog, checked out the subscription setup and left a comment – nothing serious.
Here’s where it gets interesting…
I walked into Sigma College of Small Business yesterday afternoon and there on the desk was a little pink box with a great thank-you note from Becky. The little pink box contained a Southern Red Velvet cupcake from one of my business neighbors in Haymarket, VA, Cupcake Heaven. Now, 5 years ago I would have e-mailed or called Becky to thank her and probably told my wife and a few others what she had done and how wonderful the cupcake tasted. In the end maybe 5 or 10 people would have known how thoughtful Becky had been, what a wonderful cupcake they have over at Cupcake Heaven and the fact that I took some time to help Becky out with her blog.
The Difference with Social Media
Instead of just e-mailing or calling, I posted my thank you on Becky’s Fan page and on my personal profile in Facebook, tagging her fan page. I also mentioned Cupcake Heaven and the quality of their product. The difference with social media is that the same message that went to 5 or 10 people a few years ago can now reach hundreds of people between my friends, my fans and Becky’s fans. And it took no more effort on my part than if I had just sent an email. If I could have quickly found the Cupcake Heaven Fan Page, (I have since found them on FB) the message would have been received by all their fans as well! So the advantage is that in the simplest of transactions and communication, all three of us are promoted from trusted sources (people choose to fan, follow and like those that they trust) to a few hundred people.
And By the Way…
You may be asking the question “Why would Becky choose Cupcake Heaven, with its pink box and swirly frosting for a male business associate?” Well, it is right next door and I look like I enjoy a good cupcake, but that’s not the case. The fact is that I have been posting my visits to Cupcake Heaven for coffee through Foursquare, and commenting on how tempting the cupcakes (and ice cream) look, for several weeks! In fact I’m the Mayor! So Becky knew going in that this would the perfect thank-you gift, and it absolutely was! I was wiping frosting off my face as I walked into my next meeting.
A Lot of Hype
There is certainly a lot of hype around social media. And there are some who can fit the technology so well with their business and personality that it becomes a huge business driver. But like any other marketing tool it takes time and consistency to build success. Don’t get scared by the hype because even a simple presence and effort can become beneficial. In fact, in many cases, like the one I described above, you just need to set up the presence and let your customers and network do the work for you through their social media channels!
Subscribe! Part 1 covered the importance of getting interesting blog content brought to you in a convenient, efficient manner. Part 2 is a bit more hand’s on in showing you how to actually subscribe.
Decide where you want to see blog content
A great thing about RSS is that there are multiple ways to manage content. You can set it up in your web browser, through email or even feed it to your personal or business home page. I actually have some feeds that come up in my iGoogle home page, some that feed to a tab in Internet Explorer and some that go to an email folder in Outlook.
To determine which tool to use for feeding content you should ask yourself, “Do I want to see this post immediately, or have as a reference for later” The posts I want to see immediately, the timely information I want to comment on, are fed to my iGoogle personal page through Google Reader. Those I use for reference to search later feed to my browser or an email folder, and some feed to multiple places.
Don’t forget that following and commenting on other people’s blogs is an important part of social networking. It is how you listen and interact in the discussion, building trust and credibility with each thought and comment.
For step-by-step on three basic RSS feed techniques, click the links below. If you have any questions, suggestions or run into problems, drop me a comment. Although the directions are specific to an application, most similar apps have the same functionality.
Google Reader is a great little tool that helps aggregate the blogs you are tracking to your Google account. The reason I like it is that I have an iGoogle “portal” page (a page that I can personalize with info I want to see) and there is a “Gadget” that puts my feeds right onto my personal home page, the one that I see first every time I open Internet Explorer. This is what I use for those blogs I want to see and review quickly and then comment, especially on blogs related to educating small business owners.
1. Sign into your Google Account. If you don’t have a Google account:
Click “Create an Account Now” under the Sign in box
Follow instructions for setting up an account
Click on Settings in the upper right to add new Google apps
2. In the upper right of your Google page click on the “Settings” drop-down and select “Google Account Settings”. You can do a lot here to personalize your page and account.
3. If “Reader” isn’t listed under “My Products”, go to the “Try Something New” section and click on “More”
4. Under the “Communicate, show & share” section, click on “Reader”. This will place Reader into the “My Products” section where you can open and start using.
Open Google Reader by clicking the link
5. Open Reader by clicking on the link and you should see your Google Reader Page
Now it’s time to add a subscription.
Go to www.SigmaBizBlog.com or another blog you want to feed
1. Go to www.SigmaBizBlog.com or another blog that you would like to track. Select and copy the web address, or url for the blog. (you can also just type this in to the subscription box when the time comes if you know it)
Click on the "Add Subscription" Button
2. In Google Reader click on the “Add a subscription” button at the upper left, paste or type the url into the box that drops down and click “Add”.
3. You should now see your new subscription in the subscription box on the left and the latest blog post in the reader box.
Click on the Subscription to see the latest posts from that source.
Add the Google Reader Gadget to Your iGoogle Home Page
Click on "iGoogle" at the top right to open your iGoogle page
1. Go to www.Google.com and sign in if you aren’t already. This should open your iGoogle page (if it doesn’t, click on the “iGoogle” link in the upper right) and you should see something like this. Each of the little blocks is called a gadget and you can customize which gadgets you want on you page.
Click on the "Add Stuff" link in the upper right to get new gadgets!
2. In the upper right click on the link for “Add stuff”. In the search area type in “reader” and search. This will show you the Google Reader gadget and clicking “Add It Now” will put it on your iGoogle home page.
Search for "Reader" to find the Reader Gadget and "Add it Now"
3. Now, when you go to Google.com, your subscriptions will show up for a quick review. If you click on the title a preview window pops up so you can take a quick look without even leaving the page.
Although I walked through the Google method for putting subscriptions on your home page, most other portal sites that let you customize a home page will have similar functionality.
In Subscribe! Part 1 I talked about the importance of tracking and commenting on relevant blogs and news feeds to building your online presence. Internet Explorer and other browsers have the capability to help you manage your RSS feeds and this post will walk through how to send news and current blog posts to the “Feeds” tab in Internet Explorer 8. Other browsers should have similar functionality.
If you are someone who routinely uses the “favorites” functionality in IE to manage the web sites you visit frequently, then this may be the best place to track important RSS Feeds that you want to comment on immediately. I don’t routinely use the favorites part of IE so I use this method for sites that don’t update often, or for sites that I want to track for reference when I’m developing business curriculum. Remember, in social networking it is important to follow and comment, so keep your “high interest” content where you will see it often through your normal work routine.
1. Go to SigmaBizBlog.com or another blog or news site that you want to subscribe to.
Click on the RSS Icon in the upper right of the IE window
2. In the upper right of the window, in the menu area is the little orange RSS icon. If the icon isn’t orange, either you are already subscribed or the site doesn’t have RSS capability. Click on the RSS button and a “feed” page will load.
3. Click on “Subscribe to this feed” and then “Subscribe” in the window that pops up. The subscription will be placed in the “Feed” Tab in Favorites.
Access your saved RSS feed through the Favorite window on the Feeds Tab
4. To see your feeds, click the “Favorites” button in the upper left of the window and then the “Feeds” Tab.
5. Click on the subscription to see the latest post!
Remember that a big part of building credible online relationships is to listen and comment on the thoughts of others. Subscribing to interesting blogs with RSS, reading them and consistently commenting is a great way to be part of the discussion!
August 23, 2010 | Posted by Jamie Gorman 
Categories: Business Networking, Business Topics, Marketing and Sales, Online Marketing, Social Media | 
Tags: advertise, education, facebook, gainesville, haymarket, learn, management, manassas, networking, online, seo, small, social, Social Media, VA, Virginia, warrenton, web | 
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A couple weeks ago, I finally purchased my new Droid phone. This led to an increased frequency in my 
