Archives for February 2014
Advanced Facebook Audience Targeting
Though many people lament the fact that Facebook collects a lot of information about its users, it is that information which makes Facebook advertising so attractive. After all, you can target users who like specific pages, who went to a particular college, who are in a “complicated” relationship, who live in a given ZIP code, and much more. You can even target users who have indicated an interest in whatever it is you happen to sell. For example, if you sell dog sweaters, you could probably find a group of Facebook users who have expressed an interest in dog sweaters, or at least dog clothes.
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Facebook recently simplified its “interests” targeting, making it even easier for you to find the precise interests you want to target. Broad categories and precise interests have been combined. For example, if you click on Family and Relationships, the category will now expand to include more precise subcategories such as: Dating, Family, Fatherhood, Friendship, Marriage, Motherhood, Parenting, and Weddings. While that’s easy enough, what if you want to target “brides” instead of just weddings? This is easy. Whenever you are in the Interests category, you can explore, ask for suggestions, or enter a search term. In this case, let’s enter “bride” into the search box. Several options appear including “bride,” which has a potential audience of over 13 million Facebook users and “bridesmaid” which has about 5 million.
While Facebook seems to know a lot about its users, other companies know even more. If you want to get even more precise, use Facebook’s Power Editor. This tool allows advertisers to tap into data from external partners. Currently, Facebook partners with Acxiom, Datalogix, and 
Epsilon. These third party partners collect consumer data. Facebook uses some advanced logic behind the scenes to match actual Facebook users with various consumer behaviors. This means that if you want to target consumers on Facebook that have recently purchased cosmetics or upscale travel services, you could easily do so. The possibilities are mind-boggling.
Despite having three external data providers, you can only use one external data source in your advanced targeting. Because of this restriction, you might want to explore the offerings of all three companies before you start adding audience criteria to your ad. Note that you can still include Facebook-specific criteria.
Many of the consumer categories are similar across all three partners. To give you an idea as to what to expect, the categories for the first partner include: Charitable Causes, Demographics, Hobbies and Activities, Home, Personal Finance, Politics (US), Purchase Behavior, and Work. Want to target farmers? Look in the Work category, choose Job Role, and choose “Farmer.” Want to target people based on their net worth? Go to Personal Finance, click Net Worth, and choose the income range you would like to target.
Though Facebook has a ton of data about its users, a whole lot more is on file with third- party consumer marketing organizations. You can tap into some of that data by using the Power Editor in Facebook.
Watch out elephants! This slayer of business challenges comes with 30 years of record breaking sales, marketing, operations, training and leadership experience . He has worked face-to-face with 100’s of small business owners as well as large firms. His love of creating, communicating, developing and executing results for clients shines with each project, publication and training event. His entrepreneurial spirit, passion, industry experience, education, problem-solving prowess, charismatic personality and been-there-done that attitude leads his client focused approach.
Getting Feedback from Your Followers
Having a social media presence is a two-way street. Not only can you share information with your customers and prospects, they can do the same with you. With just a few strokes of the keyboard, you can ask your followers what they think about new products, competitors, an emerging trend, and so much more. When was the last time you tapped into this? Below are a few ideas on how you can glean insights from your social media followers.
- Ask questions. This is by far the simplest and most direct approach. For example, if you want to know what your followers think of your current logo before you hire a logo designer to redesign it, ask your followers what they think of it. Let them know you are flirting with a
redesign and ask for their thoughts. You may be surprised at the responses. For best results, use open-ended questions rather than yes or no questions, as open-ended questions prompt people to share their opinions.
- Create a poll. Polls are easier for participants to give you their two cents but a little harder for you to put out there. However, polls also tally the results, making it easy to see which option is the clear winner.
- Create a survey. Surveys go into much greater depth than polls though they work in a similar fashion. Third-party survey tools, like SurveyMonkey or SurveyGizmo, allow you to quickly create questionnaires and share them with your followers. Depending on the tool you use to create the survey, you may even be able to embed the survey directly on your social media pages. If not, place it on your website and let your followers know where to go by linking to it. Most third-party survey tools include graphical results and detailed reports so that you can understand the data.
- Hold a social focus group. Traditional focus groups are usually held in a conference room where a moderator leads the group through various activities such as sampling the product and talking about it. You can do something similar using social media. For example, you could recruit participants from your social media sites and then hold a traditional or virtual focus group. You could even create a private Facebook group specifically for private group discussions.
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Why ask your followers what they think? If you have built a targeted audience, your followers are customers and potential customers. They have problems that your products and services can solve, but you can’t possibly solve them if you don’t know about them. One way to find out is by asking. Another reason to get your followers’ opinions is to keep them engaged and show them that you value them. If you genuinely care about your followers, getting their feedback can help you to better equip your company to serve them.
Watch out elephants! This slayer of business challenges comes with 30 years of record breaking sales, marketing, operations, training and leadership experience . He has worked face-to-face with 100’s of small business owners as well as large firms. His love of creating, communicating, developing and executing results for clients shines with each project, publication and training event. His entrepreneurial spirit, passion, industry experience, education, problem-solving prowess, charismatic personality and been-there-done that attitude leads his client focused approach.
Using Mind Maps to Generate Social Media Ideas
Have a case of Facebook or Twitter block? Like writer’s block, social media block strikes from time to time. You simply run out of ideas or feel uninspired. Fortunately, you can overcome this problem by using mind maps as a brainstorming tool.
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What Are Mind Maps?
Mind maps are visual tools used to graphically express your ideas. They can be as simple as a sheet of blank paper or as complex as a piece of software. Mind maps are used for a variety of purposes including:
- Brainstorming
- Problem solving
- Decision making
- Note taking
- Planning
- Studying
- Breaking down and categorizing down complex information
- Process development
Using Mind Maps to Generate Ideas
Brainstorming ideas for your social media posts using a mind map is a creative process. As such, don’t edit yourself – anything goes! Remember that just because you write it down, it doesn’t mean that you have to use that idea. In fact, some of your craziest ideas may spawn even better, more practical ideas.
If you already have mind map software, feel free to use it. If not, a blank sheet of paper will do. Start by writing “social media ideas” in the center of the sheet and circle it. That’s the center of your hub. Your ideas will be represented as spokes. You can have as many or as few spokes as you would like. Start making spokes. For example, you could write down several broad categories that you usually post about such as: news items, time management tips, bargain hunting, great deals, or book reviews. Try to get at least five spokes going.
Once you have your spokes, consider each of those categories as its own hub with its own spokes. Write down related ideas. For example, for the news item spoke, you may want to write about specific types of news item such as: celebrity news, industry news, industry reports, or Google news. The same is true of your time management tips spoke; for example, you could list: books, software/apps, timers, strategies, pitfalls, and organization products.
Your sub-spokes may even turn into their own hubs. As you start mind mapping, you will start thinking about related items. Go for it. Don’t worry about creating a balanced mind map. If you are inspired to dig deeper into a given category because the ideas are flowing, that’s great! That means you are over your social media block. You now have a wealth of ideas to post about on your blog, Facebook page, Twitter account, and other social media sites.
Mind maps are not necessarily pretty, but they are a great way to get the creative juices flowing. Whether you use software or a blank sheet of paper is up to you. Either way, once you start putting your ideas down, more ideas are likely to follow.
How do you brainstorm social media posts? Tell us in the comments below.
Watch out elephants! This slayer of business challenges comes with 30 years of record breaking sales, marketing, operations, training and leadership experience . He has worked face-to-face with 100’s of small business owners as well as large firms. His love of creating, communicating, developing and executing results for clients shines with each project, publication and training event. His entrepreneurial spirit, passion, industry experience, education, problem-solving prowess, charismatic personality and been-there-done that attitude leads his client focused approach.
How to Brainstorm Ideas to Discuss on Facebook
Ever find yourself staring at your Facebook Admin Panel and wondering what to post? It’s not easy coming up with useful, relevant, witty, shareable, timely, engaging status updates day in and day out. Use the tips below to come up with ideas.
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- Daily Themes – Having a designated topic for each day of the week can help you get and stay focused. For example, Tips Tuesday and Witty Wednesday provide you with direction right off the bat. If it’s Tuesday, you know you need to focus on posting useful tips. If it’s Wednesday, you know it’s time to come up with witty quips or share a funny cartoon related to your niche.
- Define Categories – You should also know the general categories you need to focus on. Pick three to five broad categories and then break them down into subcategories. From there, try to brainstorm at least five ideas per subcategory. Once you have a list of ideas, refer back to it anytime you need inspiration. You can even use this list in conjunction with your daily themes. For instance, you could create a daily theme for each of your five broad categories.
- Use RSS – Once you have your categories defined, use your favorite RSS feed reader to subscribe to feeds related to each of those categories. Whenever you need inspiration, check out your RSS feeds. This doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily share those you find interesting, th
ough you could if you wanted to. It also doesn’t mean you should rewrite the words of others. Use the feeds to get ideas, to find out the latest news, add your own commentary, form and share your own opinions, and stay on top of the latest buzz. RSS feeds can trigger ideas you might not have thought of on your own.
- Use Facebook Insights – When you’re completely drawing a blank, despite having a daily theme, a list of topics, and numerous RSS feeds at your disposal, head over to your Admin Panel and look at your page’s Insights Page. Insights will show you which posts reached the most people and received the most engagement. When you see a post that has far more likes, comments, and shares than most of the others, click on it. What was unique about that post? Was it controversial, did it feature a great image, did it contain industry statistics? Try to identify the “why” behind all the engagement. Once you have an idea why that post was so popular, try to replicate it by using a similar approach. For example, if it was a survey, maybe it’s time to post a new survey. If it was a commentary on an industry report that was issued, maybe it’s time to find the latest report in your industry and add your two cents.
These brainstorming tips should help you avoid writer’s block when managing content on a Facebook page. How will you put them to use in your own business?
Watch out elephants! This slayer of business challenges comes with 30 years of record breaking sales, marketing, operations, training and leadership experience . He has worked face-to-face with 100’s of small business owners as well as large firms. His love of creating, communicating, developing and executing results for clients shines with each project, publication and training event. His entrepreneurial spirit, passion, industry experience, education, problem-solving prowess, charismatic personality and been-there-done that attitude leads his client focused approach.
Setting Twitter Goals
Is this the year your business finally gets on Twitter? Getting on Twitter is the easy part; getting it done is more challenging. Use these tips to set attainable goals for Twitter this year, and then start tweeting!
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Determine what you want to accomplish with Twitter. Do you want to get on Twitter just because everyone else is on Twitter? Sorry, but that’s not a good enough reason. Without a good reason, your Twitter goals will fail because you won’t be driven to follow through. Think long and hard about why you want to be on Twitter and what you want to accomplish. Your reasons will give you clarity and guide you once you get started. For example, if you want to use Twitter to listen for brand mentions and sales opportunities, you’ll use a different approach than if you want to use Twitter as a customer service channel.
Determine who you want to reach with Twitter. Do you want to connect with existing customers, prospects, employees, vendors, or mentors? Who you want to reach will largely correspond with your reason for being on Twitter. Once you know who you want to reach, you can then set goals for reaching them and develop a strategy for finding them.
Determine who will be responsible for tweeting. Will you be in charge of tweeting or will someone else in your office handle it? Will you outsource? Once you know what you want to accomplish and who you want to reach, you need to determine who will be responsible for making it happen. From there, get that person involved in setting realistic goals and milestones for the year.
At this point, you have the basics in place. You know what you want to do, who you want to reach, and who will oversee your Twitter plan for the year. Now it’s time to set actual goals for the year. As with other goals, your Twitter goals should be SMART goals:
- Specific – For example, how many tweets per day/week/month do you expect?
- Measurable – How will you know when a goal is complete?
- Assignable – Who will handle each goal?
- Realistic – Is your goal attainable in the given time period? Is it realistic given other variables?
- Time-based – Make sure to give yourself deadlines to complete specific goals such as creating an attractive Twitter background or completing your profile page. Otherwise, they may get perpetually postponed.
Since each of your SMART goals is time-based, put them in your planner. For your larger goals, you may want to break them down into smaller steps and then schedule those steps accordingly.
Finally, once you have your Twitter goals created, post them in a prominent location so that they are always in front of you. It doesn’t matter if you use a large sheet of paper, a dry erase board, or an electronic sticky note that appears on your computer screen first thing in the morning as long as you see it every day.
Watch out elephants! This slayer of business challenges comes with 30 years of record breaking sales, marketing, operations, training and leadership experience . He has worked face-to-face with 100’s of small business owners as well as large firms. His love of creating, communicating, developing and executing results for clients shines with each project, publication and training event. His entrepreneurial spirit, passion, industry experience, education, problem-solving prowess, charismatic personality and been-there-done that attitude leads his client focused approach.