How to Separate you Facebook Page from Competition - Part 2

How to Separate you Facebook Page from Competition

In the first part of "How to Separate you Facebook Page from Competition" I have highlighted 6 important things you need to consider if you want to be on top of the competition. 

These are:

1) Set up your strategy carefully

2) Design

3) Videos 

4) Competitions

5) Page Promotion

6) Promoted Posts 

Apart from the above you need to consider, and do exceptionally well, a few more things. These are not necessarily new but they need time and commitment to get really good results! 

1) Content - Your Content must always be relevant to what your audience likes to see and learn from your company. It is not what you want to show them but rather what they want to see. To be more precise, if you always advertise your products on your Facebook page it can be quite boring even if your design-graphics are looking great. What you need to do is to try various information and posts and see to what people respond best. In this way you will prepare a nice mix of content to share on your page that people will respond to.   

2) Insights - Facebook provides a huge data of insights for people who visit your Page. I doubt if most of you take the time to analyze those information. Insights will provide you with a better understanding of your audience's demographics and psychographics as well as which of your posts are doing well and engage more people. This is important as it may give you a better understanding of your audience and help you shape your content towards their tastes more easily! 

3) Respond - Responding is very important when it comes to engagement on Facebook. You may have noticed lately that a small button appeared on your Page called "Response Rate". This gives a signal to visitors if your Page-Brand responds to messages and in what percentage. If you respond to 90% of messages in less than 5 minutes for a straight week then the icon turns green indicating that you are super fast. This fact plus the response you give to comments on your posts will give a huge positive impression about you and how well you care about customers! 

4) Monitor Competition - Monitoring your competition can be an easy way to give you an edge or evaluate how much better or worse you are doing. Facebook Insights allows you to monitor some of the competition and how well they perform in some area against your company. In this way you can see which kind of posts have more engagement against your ones or how much reach they have. These insights can help you set targets or give you ideas to generate new type of content or type of approach! 

5) Be Creative - Creativity in Social Media is not something new. You may have heard it before for all sorts of reasons. Creativity in your content, creativity in your design graphics, creativity  on how you differentiate your Brand are just a few ways to be creative. Creativity though may be also found if you use some new ways to get your message across that competition has never used before! Let me give you an example. If you see that competition is not using videos to answer questions and solve problems for clients then that might be a creative way to communicate with your audience. Another way may be to invite a professional to talk about a subject of interest to your clients (imagine the response to that if competition is not doing it).  

(for more expert advice i will be happy to talk with you, just email me at pxinaris@gmail.com)  

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• 10 Ways to Maximize Your Facebook Business Page
• How to Turn Your Facebook Page into a Sales Hub

How to Separate you Facebook Page from Competition - Part 1

How to Separate you Facebook Page from Competition

Not long ago most of the companies that had a Facebook page had neither the time, skills or faith to invest on Social Media and see the benefits. The few that did gained quite an advantage for some time. 

Now we are at a point where most Brands and companies do invest time, money and other resources to have the best possible presence on Social Media and especially their Facebook Page. It is a fact that quite easily and inexpensively many people can acquire the skills or hire a pro to manage their Page quite well. 

At the same time this fact has shortened the gap among competitors along all industries. Many Brands do a good job and invest time and money to attract more prospects on their Page and provide a nice experience. 

So here comes the question for all those who still want to differentiate and separate themselves from Competition, What do we do to maintain our edge?  How do we attract more prospects and give them an even better experience to convert them into clients or increase our word of mouth or strengthen our Brand. 

Whatever your target or targets are you need to do a lot more and a lot better that before. 

So here are some very important things to consider if you want to keep your advantage and do a better job than anyone else. 

1) Set up your strategy carefully - Strategy is necessary and must contain all the components that will lead you to success. You need to study your competitions Page and yours to see what works best and what not, when prospects respond most and when not. Your strategy must contain not only a strong message but a very well prepared plan of activities to pass it on. This means you need to consider your graphics, videos, posts etc in a very professional way.

2) Design - The designs you use for your cover photos or posts play a huge role on how your message will be received. The same message with a different graphic can be a total success or a total failure. Use simplicity in words and appropriate colours for each message you want to promote.

3) Videos - Videos had a huge rise in 2014 and continues to do so in 2015. Thus if want to be on top you need to realize the power and impact of videos and use them to pass on you message. Be careful though to do it in a professional way. A professional way does not necessarily mean to spend a lot of money in production with special effects etc. Your video may be "amatuer" but if done correctly it can have great results.

4) Competitions - Competitions are a great way to promote your Brand but in order to separate from competition you need not to fall in the trap to make one because everyone does. For a successful competition think about your audience, make the prize relevant to your Brand and then think about you ultimate target. Do you want to collect data like emails or mobile phones to use them later on? Well you most probably should! Thus you should use a third party application and make your competition look pro, smart and attractive.

5) Page Promotion - Be careful when promoting your Page. Boosting your Page can get very detailed with the analytics provided, both demographics and psychographics. Make sure you check your audience before you try to attract others prospects. Many times you may make a simple mistake and see no results. Also do not forget to adjust your page's descriptions according to the message you have on the header banner. This will maximize the potential of attracting new customers.  

6) Promoted Posts - Promoted posts is yet another way to promote your message and create Brand awareness. Since Facebook Page's organic reach is limited to 2% then promoted posts can many times have great effects and increase engagement. Just remember about your graphics and content to be of top class.

(end of part 1)

For more professional help visit www.digitalbakerymedia.com

Social Media Time Hacks - How to save time when using Social Media

Social Media Time Hacks

Social Media can occupy a big part of your everyday schedule and sometimes you feel that it's too much. Most people want their job done but cannot afford to spend so much time in all the various platforms they are active or keep up with everything that goes on. 

Thus everyone needs to have some shortcuts to get the maximum with the available time they have. So here are some hacks you can start using tomorrow to help you out. 

1) Connect your Social Media platforms - Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram etc have the option to be connected with each other and your message to appear simultaneously to more than one platforms. e.g. If I pin something on Pinterest in can appear on my Twitter account and from there on to my Facebook profile. Same things happens with LinkedIn. So If your message is suitable for various audiences connect your profiles and save time. 

2) Schedule Posts - Another great way to save time is to schedule your posts. For example if you have prepared your week's material on a Sunday then go on Facebook for example and schedule your posts to appear at the day and time you prefer. This can also help you post on a time frame that you would otherwise do not have the time to. 

3) Organize your posting ratio - It is very common that people do not have a posting ratio. What this simply means is that you decide ahead how many times you post in a week on each platform. For example if you plan 3 posts on Facebook, 5 on Twitter, 2 on LinkedIn and 1 on Instagram then you can know ahead how much time you need to devote creating or finding your content. This will save you time trying to figure out every day what and if you should post. 

4) Find your subject - Too  many people get frustrated because they do not know what to post about. Thus they lose valuable time trying to find a subject. To avoid that just make a list of what your writing and communicating about, in other words your area of expertise and interest, and everything becomes simpler! 

5) Monitor the right way - As it is taking much time to monitor all your profiles and updates you need to know that you do not have to check every profile continuously. Use your time wisely and either use a third party platform to check all at once or even better devote 10 minutes 3 times a day for monitoring and responding. In this way you know exactly how much time to spend and you stop worrying so much all the time. 

5 Biggest LinkedIn Profile Mistakes

5 Biggest LinkedIn Profile Mistakes

It is of no wonder why many people complain Social Media are "not working for them". It is exactly those people, who do not see the value and the benefit to invest on their relationships, who most often make the basic and biggest mistakes. 

Above are the top 5 biggest profile mistakes LinkedIn users do. If you really want to connect with the right people, make a sale or land your dream job then avoid these 5 lethal mistakes. 

1) You are not connected to recruiters - Make sure you connect with the right people if you want to get the right job. It is if vital importance to your future success.

2) You do not have a profile photo - Having no profile photo is almost like having no profile on LinkedIn. People who matter will pay no attention to you.

3) You have a boring, generic headline - Make sure you check how your headline shows up in results and that it is interesting for people you wish to connect. Make a clear statement of what you do. Nothing more and nothing less.

4) Your profile lacks the right keywords - It is important to use the right keywords in your profile setup to make it easy for people when searching for someone like you. No one knows what you are capable of unless you make it clear.

5) Your Profile isn't public - It may sound strange enough but it happens. Check out your privacy settings and make sure once again that anyone out there can find you and connect with you.

How to Conduct a Basic, DIY Content Audit

Click To Enlarge

Via Salesforce

How to use Foursquare to Gain new Customers - 5 important steps

How to use Foursquare to gain new Customers 

Foursquare is a mobile app that allows its users to check in in venues and rate them as well as to upload pictures, comments or suggest edits. It's a huge worldwide directory that gains more ground as time goes by. On its latest update Foursquare separated its "check-in" feature to a new application called Swarm. In this way Foursquare has been able to offer even more customized services to its users and businesses. 

Foursquare offers a wide range of possibilities that businesses can take advantage of to attract new customers or keep existing ones updated with current info and offers. Below are 5 steps you need to know if you consider Foursquare on your digital strategy. 

1) Claim your Business - Visit the Foursquare website and on the business section you can claim your business for 20 dollars. If you have more than 10 locations you get a discount rate. By claiming your business you can have a wide range of tools to control your image. 

2) Update your profile - Once you've claimed your business make sure you update your profile to the maximum. Info like opening hours, wifi options, credit cards accepted, categories and subcategories you belong to, location address and contact details are just a few of the things you can modify. You can also import photos that will been shown more times than those others upload about your business. 

3) Moderate - Since anyone can post things like comments, photos or other info about your business you will probably find many that are totally irrelevant. Foursquare gives you the option to flag comments as not relevant, spam or offensive. You can also moderate photos as offensive, blurry etc. This way you provide more relevant content for the rest people who will check in to your business venue. 

4) Create Specials - Creating Specials is a great way Foursquare gives businesses to create special offers for their customers. For example a restaurant can advertise a free dessert for any client who checks in or a retail shop a -10% on any purchase. These ads can also be promoted by paid advertising to the audience you choose.  

5) See Customer Stats - Foursquare gives you access on your audience stats so you know more about them. It's one of the basic rules of marketing to know your clients so you can adjust your strategy or offers according to their demographics and psychographics. So get to know your customers a bit better before you proceed with special offers or other actions.  

Social Media Strategy 2015 - 5 things to Consider

Social Media Strategy 2015 - 5 things to Consider 

Social Media is a fast growing area with many businesses and professionals trying to figure out what is the best strategy to follow in order to achieve their goals.  

What worked until yesterday will not necessarily have the same impact tomorrow so you need to be alert and adopt quickly new ways and methods in passing on your message and separate from competition. 

Following the above infographic here are 5 things you should pay attention to in 2015 when preparing your strategy.

1) Video is becoming more and more important - Facebook generates more views on a video shared directly rather from another source. Twitter has now launched a new easier way to upload 30 second videos and instagram offers that option for some time now for 15 second videos. YouTube on the other hand keeps growing every day. 

2) Content Marketing - As brands are looking to increase engagement with clients and prospects they continuously try to create more interesting and creative content that offers what we simply call "Value" to their audience. Content is one of the top 3 reasons why people follow a Brand! 

3) Increase in ad spending - Social Media platforms have moved away from their old approach and are now into the money making business, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn etc are offering new ways into reaching the right prospects. Thus a budget into your strategy is more than necessary but very effective on the other hand. 

4) Mobile - 60% of Social Media time is via mobile phones. Some platforms like Instagram and Foursquare are being used almost exclusively via phone. Thus mobile friendly content, graphics and advertising are essential. 

5) Engagement - Engagement with clients and prospects is what ultimately leads them into buying your product or service. You need to be interesting, offer value, answer questions and requests promptly and communicate as often as needed. It also requires using other tactics like email marketing to keep in touch with people and offer them incentives to start turning them into clients.