This article highlights nine small businesses of various sizes and industries that have transformed their online presence with innovative social media marketing practices.

You’re guaranteed to find inspiration for your social media marketing efforts here.

These tactics will work for just about any business—from solopreneur to multi-employee manufacturer. So let’s dive in!

#1: JarvieDigital Photography

Scott Jarvie takes world-class wedding and nature photographs and he has trained a number of photographers using his unique methods. He’s even had a photographic method named after him: The Jarvie Window.

The Jarvie Window has generated interest in Scott's photography around the world.

As a photographer, you would expect Scott to have exceptional photos on his site, and he does. But he uses them on both Facebook and Google+ to create personal engagement and promote his products and services. In fact, Scott has developed different engagement strategies for each platform.

On Scott's personal Google+ profile, he is highly engaged through sharing resources and commenting.

On his Google+ business page, Scott features his photo services.

While Scott is a premium photographer and trainer, he demonstrates his expertise and generosity to photographers worldwide through sharing resources on his website and through his social sites.

Scott not only shares valuable resources, he also promotes the work of his students—a great way to show social love.

#2: The Prospecting Expert: A Consultant

Steve Kloyda founded The Prospecting Expert, a business-to-business consulting firm that helps salespeople with their prospecting skills. He has developed a powerful social presence through the use of video and podcasts.

Steve provides valuable content through a regular podcast show and video channel. Notice also the use of social sharing buttons.

One thing Steve understands is branding. Through the use of his photo and logo, he has created a consistent look and feel across all of his social channels.

Steve's brand is instantly recognizable. Notice also the friendly picture—important when your face is your brand.

One ninja trick executed by Steve is the creation of an iPhone app for distributing his content. While it could cost from hundreds to several thousands of dollars, the marketing benefit of having your content delivered straight to your users’ mobile devices could be invaluable.

Let your customers directly access your content on their mobile devices with a customized app.

#3: Coconut Bliss: An Ice Cream Company

Coconut Bliss is an organic dessert company based in Eugene, Oregon. Their products have become widely popular due to their social media practices.

Coconut Bliss conveys a fun, social brand through rotating photos on their home page.

Technorati discovered in their 2011 State of the Blogosphere report that bloggers use photos more than any other type of media (80% use photos, around 50% use videos and many fewer for all other formats). Coconut Bliss makes an effective use of fun and friendly pictures to show customers eating their dessert products.

Coconut Bliss integrates photos across social platforms.

Coconut Bliss makes an effective use of promotions to engage their fans. In this year’s Veggie Awards, they were able to partner with VegNews to offer a unique prize to Coconut Bliss fans while also getting partnership in a much larger promotion to all readers of VegNews. Two smart strategies: contests and partnerships.

#4: JamaicansMusic: An Online Music Channel

Casey Hibbard highlighted JamaicansMusic in a Social Media Examiner post, but they have some unique social practices worth emulating. After all, they have achieved astronomical growth through smart social media practices—1.5 million new fans in 4 months!

When visiting the JamaicansMusic website, one instantly gets the feeling that this is a social company. In fact, there are three different places on their home page to connect socially.

Make it easy to connect socially, especially if there are multiple offers on your home page.

By providing contests, free music, games and other valuable resources, JamaicansMusic has given their Facebook fans lots of reasons to revisit their page—and tell their friends about it.

When playing this creative songwriting game, JamaicansMusic offers fans more ways to connect socially.

#5: SEOMoz: A Software Company

SEOMoz is a search engine optimization and social monitoring service provider. One thing that distinguishes their site is the use of gaming mechanics to spur participation from their writers and site members. Each post, comment and Like generates points that help distinguish the experts from the crowd.

Gaming mechanics encourage site members to actively participate if they want to rank well against their peers.

Not only does SEOMoz invite social engagement on the first visit, they also use social proof to earn the trust of visitors. See the recognizable brands in the image below.

If you've done business with name-recognizable companies, ask if you can tell others. It provides significant social proof for your business.

#6: Ana White: Carpenter

Ana White is a carpenter billing herself as a “homemaker” who has a website to empower women to do carpentry projects. With over 51,000 Facebook fans, Ana has created a massive following among women (and quite a few men) who love her easy-to-follow blueprints for do-it-yourself furniture projects.

Ana's Facebook page has over 51,000 fans. Her fans post tips and projects here frequently.

Since late 2009, Ana has been publishing free how-to guides for furniture. She also asks her fans to post pictures of their success stories—the very thing people love to do (talk about themselves). As a result, she has a very popular site where most of the posting comes from fans. Very smart!

Ana's fans love to post pictures of their successful home projects.

Notice all the social sharing options Ana makes available at the end of the post above. She makes it easy to share with friends.

Ana has also created a very engaged community on her Facebook page that complements, but is distinct from, her blog.

Remarkably, she doesn’t post that often—she doesn’t have to. While she comments on at least half of the posts, her fans are busy posting and answering questions for each other.

#7: EasyLunchboxes

Kelly Lester founded EasyLunchboxes out of a personal desire to find healthy ways to package food she sent with her children to school. As a solopreneur, she has found unusual success due to her wise social practices and great social branding.

Her blog presents a clean, compelling look into her company. On her website, Kelly has integrated multiple opportunities to connect socially and to subscribe to her newsletter.

In addition to inviting social connections, Kelly has positioned herself uniquely as the "Singing CEO," a title that will be easily remembered.

An important piece of social real estate is the Facebook welcome tab. Kelly makes good use of this space by keeping her brand exciting, telling visitors what to expect from her page and promising valuable content.

Your welcome tab should give visitors a sense of what to expect on your page.

Kelly has created a focused plan to market through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and her blog. She delivers unique content on each channel and integrates them with each other—all while maintaining her personal life as a mom and actress.

With her acting background, Kelly has distinguished her YouTube channel by creating her own TV series. This includes over 150 videos where she has even given her audience a chance to share videos of why they like EasyLunchboxes.

If you or someone you know has an acting flair, think about creating your own video series.

#8: Social Media Explorer: An Agency and Online Service

Social Media Explorer is a business-to-business education and information products company focused on social media and digital marketing.

On their home page, Social Media Explorer has taken advantage of Intent, a Twitter plugin. This allows a user to see if he or she already follows this business.

What is seen before following Jason Falls' Twitter account

What users see if they are following Jason Falls.

As a blog, Social Media Explorer features numerous guest authors. To show social love to these authors, Jason Falls and Aaron Marshall have prominently highlighted the social profiles of each of their authors. This allows readers to quickly connect with the experts and enables the authors to expand their influence.

Each Social Media Explorer author receives prominent recognition for their articles and an easy way for readers to find them on various social platforms.

#9: Orabrush: A Dental Product

After years of failed attempts to market his innovative tongue brush, Dr. Bob Wagstaff decided to give YouTube a try. Spending only $500, he created his first video. In less than 3 years that video has been seen more than 16 million times and helped to generate over $1.6 million in sales and contracts with Wal-Mart and CVS Pharmacies.

While you can’t guarantee a video will go viral like this, there are some lessons to be learned:

1. Talk about something that people care about—in this case, bad breath.
2. Keep your video short—Dr. Bob’s video was only 2 minutes long.
3. Embed your video on your home page.
4. Grab people’s attention in the first 5 seconds—with some minor editing, this video incorporates quick, edgy statements that pull the viewer into wanting to hear the solution.
5. Offer something for free—your first Orabrush is free, if you’ve watched the video.

Here are more tips on video marketing.

Orabrush embedded their popular video on their home page, while answering a problem that concerns many people: bad breath.

Some other best practices used on Orabrush’s website: They made it easy for users to tell their stories with video clips. They also prominently feature quotes from the traditional press on their page. Finally, they make their YouTube channel prominent, because this has been a key to their success.

Let individuals and the press sing your praises through videos and quotes on your website.

Finally, Orabrush understands the importance of keeping customers on their website, so they integrated Facebook onto their site.

Integrate Facebook to keep fans on your website.

These nine small businesses have many more things to teach other small businesses everywhere, but they aren’t the only ones.

What do you think? What have you learned that you’d like to share? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

In this article I’ll reveal some of the social media techniques I used to get thousands of people excited enough about my new book Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition that they shared it with friends and peers.

By the way, you don’t need to have a book to benefit from these tactics.

Why Social Media for Books?

Back in the old days, book promotion heavily relied on the traditional press. I remember the challenge of promoting my first book (Writing White Papers) back in 2006. I had to work with journals and print magazines—and their long editorial cycles. I also needed to speak at physical events and perform many other time-consuming tasks.

The success of a book promotion hinged on getting it reviewed by the “right publications.”

This typically meant spending thousands of dollars on PR firms who had established contacts with elite publications and creating press releases that hopefully caught the eyes of editors. Not to mention a lot of prayer.

Today, authors have an amazing advantage. Not only are there millions of bloggers whose collective audience is larger and more engaged than that of the traditional press, there are also millions of consumers who are one click away from sharing your work with their friends on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Power to the people!

If you can make it easy for people to share and get excited about your book, you won’t need to spend big bucks or hope you make the list of some old newspaper that no-one really reads anymore.

Below I’ll share the techniques I used to help my book go viral with social media.

#1: Embed a Retweet button in a free chapter of the book

Everyone loves a free sample. In my case, I gave away the first chapter of my book as an immediately accessible PDF. I included a Retweet button in strategic locations in the chapter. This allowed people who loved what they read to easily share it with friends on Twitter.

I included the above button on the dedication page of the free chapter and the final page of the PDF, enabling people to share the free chapter on Twitter.

When someone clicks on the Retweet button, it populates a precrafted tweet that says: “I’m reading @mike_stelzner‘s new book: Launch! Get the 1st chapter free here: http://bit.ly/kipZZK.”

Within the first two weeks of the launch of my book, more than 27,000 people clicked on that link!

Here's how the link looked on Twitter.

Click here for an article on how to add Retweet buttons to PDFs.

#2: Create a “Spread the Word” page

To help things spread via social media, you need to make it easy for people. I created a special page on our book promo site called “Spread the Word.”

This page contains a short letter from me asking for people’s help. On the page I include some prefabricated tweets that people can share with the click of a button, as well as instructions on how to share the book on Facebook and LinkedIn.

A clearly visible link on my book page encourages people to help get the word out via social channels.

When I sent emails to my list about the book, I always included a P.S. that said something like: “I’d love your help spreading the word about Launch! Click here to find out how you can help.”

#3: Design a Facebook photo contest

There’s nothing like a fun and friendly competition to get people excited about your book. And there’s no better platform than Facebook to get things rolling.

About two weeks before the book launched, we worked with the fine folks at Strutta to develop a photo contest. The premise was simple, yet creative. We called it the Help Me Launch photo contest.

All participants needed to do was take a creative photo with the words “Help Me Launch.”

We had only 50 Facebook fans when we started the promotion, but that quickly grew to more than 1000! More than 70 people submitted creative photos that caused a viral storm.

Here's the grand prize winner, Ken Sehres from http://855donttext.com/.

#4: Organize a Top 50 Bloggers promotion

Bloggers are the new press. Engage them and watch what happens.

I crafted a post called How Bloggers Can Use Book Reviews to Connect With Experts a month prior to my book’s launch.

In the post I made the case why bloggers should do book reviews and included tips on how to do them.

Near the end of the post I asked, “Want a chance to review a new book?” I explained, “I’m inviting up to 50 bloggers to review my new book on their blog and receive an extra copy they can give away to their readers. Here’s how you could win two free copies of my book…” I went on to explain the application process and how I would select the winners.

I created a contest where bloggers applied to be selected to review my book.

More than 120 bloggers applied to do reviews. We selected the 50 winners and mailed two books, along with instructions on how to create the review.

This technique created a lot of exposure because each blogger created multiple posts about the book. They wrote about how they were giving away the extra copy of the book and also wrote book reviews.

We added an extra incentive by mentioning we’d pick one of the 50 bloggers to write a book review column for Social Media Examiner.

This idea came from a discussion with my friend Jay Baer, co-author of The Now Revolution.

#5: Broadcast live videos with experts

Our launch date for the book was June 6 (the first day people could order the book on Amazon). I invited three experts to special live broadcasts using TinyChat.com. Mari Smith, Jay Baer and Joe Pulizzi each joined me for one hour live.

I interviewed experts for three hours, sharing their knowledge with viewers.

To promote the event, we wrote a blog post entitled Want to Grow a Loyal Fan Base? Four Experts Tell You How where we revealed how the event would work.

During the interviews, we talked about subjects related to the book, but did not overtly pitch the book. Rather this became a fun and educational activity that was valuable for all attendees.

#6: Add social share buttons

Adding social share buttons to your page is a powerful marketing tool for two reasons. First, these buttons allow people to easily share your page on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Equally important, they also provide powerful social proof to first-time visitors to your page. When someone sees that hundreds of people have shared your book with their peers, it triggers the thought, “maybe I should closely examine what’s here,” in the minds of visitors.

I added social share buttons to the top of my book page as seen here.

The cool news is you can embed these buttons on any page! Click here for the Facebook Like button, here for the TweetMeme Retweet button and here for the LinkedIn Share button.

#7: Add Facebook Comments

Facebook allows you to add a commenting system to any web page! This is very effective because you can make a book page look like a blog.

What’s amazing about the Facebook Comments system is it allows you to change your personality. For example, I could easily reply with my personal identity or my Facebook page brand. I selected to always use my Launch Facebook page to help grow a following there.

The Facebook Comments technology makes it easy for people to leave comments on any page and allows you to reply as your Facebook page.

#8: Leverage photos on Facebook

Photos are more likely to make their way into your Facebook fans’ news feeds. A fun way to get people talking about your book is to take a screen shot of something exciting and share it on Facebook.

For example, when my book became both #1 and #2 on Amazon’s hot new releases in the Sales and Marketing category (due to the print and Kindle versions), I took a screen shot and shared it with our fans on our Facebook page.

This created a great response including both congratulations and glowing endorsements from folks who were reading the book. It also was widely viewed by our fans.

By simply posting an image on our Facebook page, it was widely viewed and commented on.

#9: Create fun videos

There’s no better way to build a connection with people than video. I decided it would be fun to “share a special moment” with my fans.

I located a store in my area that had my book in stock. Then I took a video (with my kids) showing my response to finding the book.

.

This video was fun to create and showed my personal side by getting my family involved. I posted the video on Facebook for my fans to see.

I also signed a copy of the book and shared that there was one autographed book waiting for the first lucky person who got into the store. To my surprise, the person who purchased the book (Stephanie Nivinskus) took a photo and posted it up on Facebook!

A fan shares how she discovered my signed book in a Barnes and Noble.

So there you have it!

With a little bit of creativity, you can do some amazing things with social media. You no longer need to rely on the traditional press to successfully launch a book (or any product).

What do you think? Have you used any similar techniques to promote a book (or other product)? Please share your comments below. I’d love to hear from you.

Image: Flickr

You’ve come to the right place. This article highlights nine companies (big and small) that have transformed their online presence by implementing innovative social media marketing.

You’re sure to find inspiration for your social media efforts here.

Look at the tactics these companies employ and don’t concentrate too much on the target audience. It doesn’t matter whom you’re targeting—these tactics will work for just about any business… so let’s dive in!

#1: Martell Home Builders

Martell Home Builders is an Atlantic Canadian custom homebuilder. In the past, Martell relied heavily on realtors to keep their business moving forward. However, once they embraced social media, they were able to create a direct-to-consumer model where they were no longer reliant on a middleman to bring them business.

Martell started a content creation and blogging strategy to focus on their homebuyers’ needs. With topics such as “14 Must-Have Tools for New Homeowners” and “Home Staging Tips & Techniques,” Martell was able to grab the attention of homebuyers. Today, about 86% of all their leads come directly from consumers.

Notice in the image below the placement of their email capture box as well as their social media channel buttons. Prime placement of both components (above the fold and in the right sidebar) is the key to grabbing attention and encouraging interaction.

Note: Studies show that more people subscribe to blogs by email than RSS feed readers. Martell’s call to action—”Get the blog sent to your inbox. Enter your email”—is a smart move to capture leads while promising value in the form of new blog updates.

Martell also takes advantage of geolocation technology by mounting GPS tracking devices on their contractors’ vehicles, making it easy for their customers to always know where their contractor is when on the job. This eases the customer’s mind and allows Martell to extend even greater customer service.

In the image above, Martell's customers can track their contractor's location when they're on the job.

With innovative strategies, Martell has made the homebuilding experience social. One great strategy is their use of photo galleries of the clients’ homes being built. Not only can the homebuyer watch the progress in pictures, but also they can share their excitement with their family and friends on social networks. This is not only a great experience for their clients, but Martell is able to gain excellent social proof and even more visibility online via these photos as seen below.

Martell also uses the Facebook Like box, as seen below. This widget is dynamically updated; pulling content right from their Facebook page each time someone visits their site. The Like box is great social proof. It shows how many people have Liked your page and also shows faces of your Facebook fans.

The benefit of having this widget is that people can become your fan without leaving your company website. This encourages viewers to stay on your site longer and allows you to increase your fan base from your own website.

Tip: Think outside the box, like Martell did by allowing their clients to see where their contractors were at all times while on the job and by giving access to photos of their homes being built. By providing real-time, socially connected customer service, you’re able to create even more trust with your clients.

#2: Zappos

Zappos is an online retailer that sells shoes, clothing and accessories. They’re known for the enormous emphasis they put on creating real relationships with their fans and customers.

Notice their Facebook custom welcome tab below. Their catchy saying, “Let’s be in a Like-Like relationship,” shows they treat their potential fans as equals, solidifying their relationships even more.

One great strategy they’ve employed is to first ask for the Like and then ask their new fans to join their email list. Once you click their Like button, the custom tab changes and you then see the opportunity to sign up for their email list and interact with their products, as seen in the image below. By waiting until after the fan clicks the Like button, Zappos is proving they care about building relationships with their fans first.

In addition, Zappos uses a strategy often called “fans-only content” where they reveal content only after someone has become a fan, such as the fashion images in the illustration above. Once you click the Like button, you get instant access to exclusive content, videos and special promotions.

They’ve also included comment widgets, as seen below, on their custom welcome tab where you can post about their products and your comments will post to your profile or page, telling all your friends or fans what you like most about Zappos. Great social proof!

One of the best engagement strategies I’ve seen on Facebook is Zappos’ “Fan of the Week” contest. They encourage fans to send in their photos with the Zappos box and other fans get to vote on the best photo of the week. What’s great is that Zappos highlights the fan of the week by putting him or her in their wall image photo for all to see. As seen below, this is definitely about putting your customers first!

Tip: Brainstorm ways you can use social media to make your fans the stars. The more you spotlight your fans and followers on your social media channels, the more often they’ll engage with you and come back for more. Remember, you don’t have to be a billion-dollar company to model what Zappos is doing on their Facebook page. You can take their best strategies, tweak them to fit your unique needs and make them work for your business.

#3: Giantnerd

Giantnerd is a company that sells outdoor equipment for outdoor activities like hiking, biking and snowboarding. This company represents one of the best examples of social media integration seen online today. Their emphasis is on giving their customers the most value possible while becoming friends with them in the process.

As seen in the images below, Giantnerd has integrated social media into almost every aspect of their website. They’ve created a social network on their site that’s completely different from other social networks like Facebook or Twitter. Their one-click process to join their network makes it easy and fast to join the group and they incentivize new membership by offering a discount to all new members with their “Nerds save 5%” promotion.

Also, Giantnerd has incorporated the Like button on their site and they promise their fans exclusive deals and promotions when they click Like and join their Facebook community. Since adding the Like button, their average order has increased by 50%! That’s a pretty impressive social media ROI, to say the least!

Also, when potential customers are researching products on the site, Giantnerd provides multiple social methods to get feedback from other social buyers. One example is their WikiNerdia, as seen below. Similar to Wikipedia, viewers can check out all of the different products, including descriptions and photos, and their customers can edit the information as well, making the experience interactive.

With WikiNerdia, potential customers can also ask product questions and the nerd community comes on board to answer the questions. What’s genius about this is that they let their customers sell for them by giving them the tools to answer questions that potential customers post on the site. People tend to trust their friends and other consumers more than they trust the brand. Giantnerd benefits from their fan engagement by allowing customers to answer product questions for them, thus increasing brand trust for potential customers. Brilliant!

Tip: Let your customers be your salesforce. Think of multiple opportunities for your customers to tell others about you. Social sharing buttons, exclusive social communities and real-time engagement opportunities are all great ways to turn your existing customers into word-of-mouth advocates.

#4: Ford Motor Company

Ford has brought the social experience to the forefront of their marketing efforts.

Each time they add a new blog post, they pull in the image, headline of the post and the comments from readers onto the front page of their website. Those new to the site or those browsing for a new car get to experience the company and its culture from a social viewpoint right from the start.

Their blog, The Ford Story, is also unique. In the image below you can see their innovative layout where viewers can start reading the comments before they read the article, putting their fans’ and followers’ viewpoints first. Introducing your blog and your readers’ comments to new viewers sets a welcoming and friendly first impression for any company.

Notice the placement of the Stories button in the image below. Ford takes the social sharing component to the next level by not only asking their customers for their Ford stories, but also asking their community to share ideas that are in popular categories like Safety or Personalization.

Ford uses this as a way to get new ideas for their next generation of cars. These ideas are not taken lightly; Ford has used many of these innovations to advance the technology of their cars. They do a great job of involving their fans and customers into their company growth.

Also, photos are always a great way to attract new viewers and draw in existing audiences. In the image below Ford has added a Flickr widget to show off some of their latest photos, making their site more interactive and fun. (One little-known fact is that Flickr is a fantastic tool for search engine optimization. When you load your photos onto Flickr, you can tag them and optimize the descriptions.)

Tip: Encourage your customers to share their stories and ideas and make it easy to do so on your site. Also, make it easy for readers to interact with and share your content by adding more opportunities to comment on your blog and sharing buttons to encourage social sharing.

#5: Convince & Convert

Convince & Convert is a social media strategy firm with clients across North America. Its founder, Jay Baer, is a social media expert and co-author of the new book titled The Now Revolution.

To say the least, Jay knows a thing or two about making a website social. One smart strategy he uses is placing a link to all of his comments at the top of each blog post. This tactic is a smart social proof mechanism.

Most people only show their comments when you’re on the abstract of the blog post. However, when you showcase your comment numbers near the top of all posts, others can see how many readers before them have interacted with your post, making it more appealing to them and more likely they too will follow suit and read the post.

Jay also includes social share buttons in strategic locations on his site. He includes them at the top of each post (as seen in the image above) and he includes them at the end of each post as seen below. To get more people to share your content, provide more opportunities via social share buttons in numerous places throughout your site.

Since Jay is targeting businesses, he knows his audience is likely connecting differently than the masses when it comes to networking. He found that by adding the LinkedIn Share button to his site, he was able to dramatically increase the amount of traffic to his site from LinkedIn. In the image above you can see that for Jay, this button outperforms the Facebook Share button because his community is actively engaged on LinkedIn. It’s important to understand where your audience is spending time.

Tip: Give your readers every opportunity to share your content with their networks. Expert marketer Brian Solis calls this “an audience with an audience of audiences.” If you want to expand your message, make it as simple as possible for your readers to share with their audiences.

#6: Cree

Cree is a business-to-business company that sells energy-efficient, environmentally friendly, industrial LED lighting. When you think of social media marketing, you wouldn’t think that an industrial lighting company that sells LEDs to grocery stores would be shining; however, Cree is extremely social-savvy.

As you can see in the image below, Cree knows how to make their customers’ experiences fun, social and interactive. In their “Cries for Help” section, they encourage companies to showcase their terrible lighting on their site. It’s a fun way to make light (no pun intended!) of their bad lighting situations in their offices.

In addition, Cree provides valuable content to pique their audience’s attention. With articles such as “What happens if a baby holds a Cree light bulb?”, they’re able to speak to their audience in a way that grabs their attention and gets them involved. Great content is the key to a happy audience.

Also, Cree knows the value of social proof. When you become part of their environmental movement, you get to display a badge on your site that says, “Take the pledge. I joined the LED lighting revolution.” This is a great way to build community with your audience and get great viral exposure for your company.

In this image you can see they also do a great job of including their social media channel buttons on their site. When you see the Facebook Like box and their Twitter and YouTube buttons, it’s easy to see that Cree is truly changing the way B2B does business today.

Tip: Remember that you’re not selling to other businesses or to “consumers,” but instead you’re always selling to real people whose buying decisions are driven by emotion. Speak to that emotional side, as Cree has done by infusing the hot buttons of bad lighting in the workplace and people’s passion for environmentally friendly products. Find your cause and use it in your messages and share it on your channels.

#7: Emmy’s Closet

Emmy’s Closet is an online store that sells accessories for children. They’re a great example of infusing social media with ecommerce.

Emmy’s Closet is an extension of the popular arts and crafts ecommerce site, Etsy.com. On the site they use an application created by Etsy that allows you to browse and purchase directly through Facebook (see the image below).

They’ve also included social share buttons so fans can share their favorite items on their Facebook profile with their friends and their friends can then click through and buy products via Etsy as well. The share buttons create a viral buying experience. In the image below, you can see how easy it is to share favorite items with your Facebook audience.

Emmy’s Closet knows that Facebook commerce is on the rise. With over 500 million people on Facebook, it makes sense that many of them like to conduct their entire shopping experience on Facebook, including the actual purchase.

Emmy’s Closet also does a great job of branding their company to their social experience. Notice in the images below, they’ve created social buttons to reflect their brand, thus personalizing the social experience.

Tip: Experiment with ecommerce and product sharing apps on Facebook. For a great article on Facebook apps, check out the Top 75 Apps for Enhancing Your Facebook Page.

#8: San Chez Bistro

San Chez Bistro is a tapas bistro and restaurant in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Just like Martell Home Builders, they’ve taken social media and infused it with the needs and preferences of their local audience. San Chez encourages their patrons to use Twitter to reserve a seat at their restaurant. They call it “Tweet-Ahead Seating” and it’s a great use of social media local marketing. Once you tweet your interest in a reservation, the online hostess tweets you back with a message similar to this: “Great, you’re on the list. See you in a little while.”

With the number of smartphones on the rise, San Chez knows they can reach even more potential customers if they make access to their restaurant easy and quick. By combining smartphone capabilities, social media and local marketing, they were able to create an extremely successful marketing campaign online.

In addition, San Chez Bistro utilizes Foursquare to gain even greater viral visibility. Foursquare, one of the top location-based services out there today, allows people to check in with their mobile devices and let all their friends know where they’re currently spending time. It’s fun for the fan and powerful exposure for the physical business.

Notice below how San Chez Bistro has customized their Foursquare page, making it easy for patrons to see the incentive for checking in.

Tip: If you’re a local business, consider customizing your Foursquare page and adding an incentive for social media check-ins. It’s great exposure for you and makes your patrons’ experience in your establishment more fun and interactive.

#9: Cranium

Cranium, a game by Hasbro, takes board games to the next level by including fun activities like drawing, singing, acting and trivia questions.

To make their experience more social, Cranium does a great job of using content from the game to engage with their fans. They often post factoids that can be found in their game, such as the one about Einstein’s theory below. They know their audience well and therefore know that these fun factoids will attract them.

Also, Cranium has brought the experience of playing their game to their social networks. They’ve developed an app that encourages fun via fan engagement. For example, as seen in the image below, the app asks fans “Which one of these characters are you? Take our little quiz” and fans interact with the app and then are told which character best fits their personality.

Cranium is also clever with their use of video. Again, in the spirit of bringing the experience of playing their game to their social channels, they use video to get their fans to play along. For example, in the video they have someone humming a song, and you have to guess what song she’s humming. It’s put together in a way to make the experience interactive and fun.

In the image above you can see that the use of video on your Facebook page is smart because when you upload your video, you get an embed code. You can take that embed code and place the video on your website, your blog or anywhere outside of Facebook. When you do this, the Facebook video automatically brings the Like button with it. Therefore, if somebody’s surfing the web, they find your video and they’re not yet a fan, they can become a fan of your Facebook page right from the video just by clicking that Like button.

Also, if somebody shares your video on their Facebook page and a bunch of their friends see it, they too can become a fan of your page while they’re watching the video, without actually leaving the video. This is a great way to virally grow your Facebook fan base.

Tip: Create experiences on your social channels. How can you tailor your programs or product experiences to get your fans engaged and interested? Think of ways to spread your message by getting people to interact with you in fun and interesting ways via great content, apps, videos and quizzes.

Want to Learn More About Social Media for Business?

If you’re not fully leveraging the power of social media, don’t worry. You’re not alone.

There’s one easy way to take your social media efforts to the next level. By attending the web’s largest online blogging conference, Social Media Success Summit 2011 you’ll become empowered to use social media to gain more exposure, better engage customers and grow your business.

The great part is you’ll be learning from 22 blogging experts. Join Jeremiah Owyang (Altimeter Group), Guy Kawasaki (author, Enchantment), Brian Solis (author, Engage), Frank Eliason (Citigroup), Mari Smith (co-author, Facebook Marketing), Erik Qualman (author, Socialnomics), Michael Stelzner (founder, Social Media Examiner), Dan Zarrella (author, The Social Media Marketing Book), Andy Sernovitz (author, Word of Mouth Marketing), David Meerman Scott (author, Real-Time Marketing & PR) and experts from Verizon, Boeing, Timex, Intel, and Cisco as they reveal proven social media tactics at Social Media Success Summit 2011.

Check out this video from Michael Stelzner

It’s the web’s largest online social media conference. Click here SAVE 50% (expires Thur. April 14th) or for a free sample and to learn more.

Now it’s your turn. Did you see some great ideas and tactics that might change your social media strategy? Leave your comments in the box below.

A great blog post respects the needs of three distinct entities. It educates and informs your audience (your subscribers and visitors), optimizes for the search engines and sufficiently energizes you so that you do a good job creating it.

Every blog post should address the following five components to ensure it hits the mark for your audience, the search engines and you.

#1: Has an Engaging Title

The title is arguably the most important element of any post. Engaging titles that spark curiosity are more likely to be clicked. When this is combined with strategic keywords that affirm the topic of the post, you have a winner.

Tim Ferris recently wrote a post on the art and science of headlines to increase the click-through rate. The idea is simply to generate curiosity, such as Why Are You Single? Perhaps It’s the Choice Effect. You’re wondering what the Choice Effect is all about, aren’t you?

Many of us don’t have Tim’s fan base, so we need to develop a catchy title that also includes keywords that will get indexed by Google. Brian Clark with Copyblogger does an excellent job of this. One of his generally accepted SEO copywriting tips is to place these keywords near the front of the title.

You should occasionally test your titles to determine what resonates most with your audience. I’ve personally found that titles that respond to a specific need, such as How Often Should I Blog?, will result in higher traffic with my targeted readers than those that are deep and thought-provoking.

#2: Offers Easy to Consume Content

When you organize your content so that it’s easily consumed, you tap into a secret of blogging. The more readily your content is assimilated in the minds of your readers, the more favorably it’s received—and remembered.

Here are some ways to accomplish this.

• Blog for Your Audience: As you develop your blogging style, always consider the needs of your audience. My audience is the same as that of Social Media Examiner—business professionals and marketers. They expect me to get to the point quickly and avoid technical jargon.
• Learn to Write in AP Style: If you scan any news source, you’ll notice the paragraphs are short—only a few sentences. This is one of the hallmarks of Associated Press (AP) style of writing, which many journalists consider to be the standard. These guidelines will give your posts a professional appearance and make them easier to consume.
• Use Subheadings: This helps both you and the reader. I tend to write my first draft quickly for flow and readability. Then I go back and organize with subheadings, while also reorganizing and eliminating entire paragraphs so that my readers don’t have to.
• Create Lists: Lists are the ultimate organizing tool, which is why they’re frequently retweeted—thereby attracting valuable links back to your blog.
• Use Italics and Bold Text for Emphasis: If someone reads your blog post word for word, it’s usually after skimming it first. Help readers do both by emphasizing key points with italics, bold text and, with care, all caps.

#3: Mixes Content Types

Delivering great content requires a mix of qualities that keeps your readers coming back for more. The key isn’t always the quality of the message, but how it’s delivered. Improve how you do this by employing these 5 practices.

• Offer Your Opinions: If you’re an expert in your field, then your opinion is relevant. Who do you respect more, the waiter who says everything on the menu is excellent, or the one who looks you in the eye and recommends her favorites (or suggests avoiding some dishes)?
• Use Multimedia: Make it a point to use images, screenshots and video to communicate your message with more punch.

These contextual forms of communication enhance your message while also breaking up the text to improve the appearance of your post.

• Link to Your Research: Data has greater credibility when it comes from a reputable source, such as the Pew Research Center. A link to that source raises your credibility by showing you’ve done your homework.

Data from respected sources such as the Pew Research Center will validate your perspective.

• Provide Practical Examples: Examples of situations where you’ve had direct experience are powerful, although it’s important to provide details such as names and places to validate that credibility. Just be sure you get the proper permissions first.
• Take Out the Trash: Make the effort to edit out anything that doesn’t support your title or enhance your post. Include details to create a mental picture, but leave out anything else that detracts from your story.

#4: Is Search Engine Optimized

Learning search engine optimization (SEO) is a necessary aspect of blogging if you expect to build a sustainable reader base. While SEO can get complicated, you can be very effective by simply tuning into your audience and writing for them. Trust your gut and write for people and SEO will take care of itself.

These are the key elements of SEO that deserve your attention.

• Excerpts: The excerpt of your post is the brief description included with the return of search results. A well-chosen description encourages click-throughs. If you don’t build an excerpt, the first couple of sentences of your post will be used as a default. Get in the habit of summarizing your post in the first couple of sentences.
• Keywords: Learn the common words and phrases being used by your audience. For example, do they use the term entrepreneur or small business? It’s a distinction that has to be made so that you can be found when they’re searching for your expertise.
• Links: The SEO pros universally agree that inbound links to your blog are vital for achieving a high ranking. How do you get these links? The most reliable way is to write amazing content that people want to link to.

One tip is to link to the keywords (known as anchor text) in your post that are aligned with the words you expect to be used by someone searching for your expertise. The classic mistake is linking to click here instead of more relevant keywords such as small business marketing, or whatever relates to your expertise.

Additionally, you naturally want to link back to your previous posts to encourage your readers to hang around longer. This increases the likelihood they’ll respond to a call to action, such as subscribing to your blog or newsletter.

• Tags: Tags are handled differently in every blogging platform. Just be sure to use tags that are relevant to the post you’re creating, as well as the audience you’re blogging for. Darren Rowse of Problogger suggests no more than a dozen tags for each post to avoid undermining their effectiveness through dilution.
• Categories: Categories obviously help your blog visitors go deeper into the subject matter or topic that interests them most. Google also indexes your categories for the same reason, so choose your categories carefully. You’ll note the categories here at Social Media Examiner were intentionally limited to just eight to be relevant now and in the future.

#5: Encourages Interaction and Action

While blogging is indeed a platform for broadcasting, the ultimate objective is to encourage engagement and interaction, namely in the form of comments. Just as an engaged audience gives a speaker feedback on his live presentation, the comments to your blog will do the same.

You can and should learn from every single visitor to your blog by responding and seeking to better understand his/her point of view. The reason for this is that every commenter represents the perspective of many others. The more you learn, the easier it is to focus your efforts on what’s most relevant to your audience.

Why else do you want comments? Because comments are social proof that your blog is a happening place. And this encourages more traffic and subscribers to your blog.

To encourage more comments, you may not only have to remind your audience to do so, but show them as well. Write a post on commenting and use your blog as an example.

Show your readers exactly how to comment, and even go a step further to describe how to share your post by retweeting or using the Facebook Like button.

As you begin to engage your audience, you’ll want to move them closer to helping you accomplish your blogging objectives. For example, you may ultimately want to sell your ebooks. A preliminary step toward that is to encourage more subscribers to your list. Then when the time is right you can reach out to your list to provide higher-value content that monetizes your blogging efforts.

There is no such thing as a perfect blog post. However, if you follow these recommendations, you’ll be sure to enhance your blog for you and your audience, as well as the search engines that work on everyone’s behalf.

What do you think? What else makes for a great blog post? Leave your comments in the box below.

You can, and social media can be more effective than other forms of influence, as you’ll see in a minute.

First, let’s talk about the phenomenon I’m referring to. Influencing people you don’t know (in this case, new web visitors) by using information is known as social proof.

The Growth of Social Proof

Social proof isn’t a new concept, or one that only applies to social media. It’s a psychological phenomenon.

Marketers have used social proof as a fundamental principle for years. Blogs have used it recently by displaying the number of RSS subscribers prominently (usually through FeedBurner). Then, when new visitors stop by, they think, “Hey, this site looks pretty popular. 2,000 people already subscribe. It must be worth following, so I’ll do the same.”

Social proof gives your site an advantage over other sites that don’t use it, and social proof can help you grow faster by turning more people into repeat visitors.

And now, with social media, social proof doesn’t have to be restricted to just displaying RSS subscriber counts. Your social media profiles and activity on Facebook, Twitter, etc., can serve as social proof too, and sometimes are even more effective than just RSS counts or traffic numbers.

How Effective Is Social Media as Social Proof?

I reached out to Lisa Barone from Outspoken Media, a respected Internet marketing company, to ask her exactly that question. Here’s what Lisa had to say about the effectiveness of social media as social proof for a blog or website:

It’s highly effective, especially for an entrepreneur or small business owner. Developing a presence on the social web adds credibility to your blog/website because it allows people to see you engaging with other people. They see their social media friends talking to you and it serves as a sign that you’re trusted and not going to swindle them.

It also gives another indicator that you’re committed to building your presence, and that as a customer, they’ll be able to get in touch with you if they have a question, concern or complaint. Creating a social media presence is another way of letting customers know you’ve left a light on for them.

Social media actually enhances social proof because it can involve the specific friends, colleagues or associates of the people you’re trying to influence.

How to Use Facebook, Twitter and Others as Social Proof

Let’s look at a specific example of what I’m talking about. Facebook has all kinds of social widgets you can install on your website. These widgets can show lots of things, including how many people “like” your site (if you have a Facebook Fan page), or how many people have recently shared your content on Facebook.

And Facebook is smart about it. They tailor the widgets to whoever is visiting your web page. In the example below, Social Media Examiner uses the Facebook “Like Box” in the right sidebar. It says 10,530 people like SME on Facebook at the time of this writing (wow). If some of my friends are in that group that “likes” the site, their pretty little faces will appear for me to see:

Facebook makes it easy to use your Fan page as social proof with widgets.

In either case, the social proof makes it more likely that I’ll keep reading this site, or even subscribe to or “like” it. In one case, I’ll see that lots of strangers already like the site; in another case, I’ll see that some of my specific friends like it.

Facebook isn’t the only form of social media that can serve as social proof, either.

Twitter can be used in a similar way (by displaying follower counts, activity feeds or the number of times content has been retweeted). Digg and other social networks/bookmarking sites also have widgets. Check your favorite social media hangouts for things you can use for social proof.

Below is a unique and creative way that the blog Engadget uses Twitter as social proof (as well as a great way to direct visitors to popular content):

Engadget uses the number of times a story has been shared on Twitter in this unique display of social proof.

Get Creative With Your Site’s Social Proof

Don’t forget that blogs are a form of social media as well. If your blog attracts lots of comments, displaying your comment counts prominently can serve as an effective form of social proof.

I asked Lisa Barone how she and Outspoken Media have used social media as social proof on their sites. Her methods include displaying FeedBurner subscriber numbers, rotating testimonials from respected industry colleagues and displaying media logos on their home page to show visitors where they’ve been mentioned.

As for tips on using social media as social proof, Lisa likes to focus on making your site/blog look bigger than you are. Borrowing logos from other sites where you’ve been featured and letting people know about interviews or podcasts you’ve been a part of are a great way to show visitors that your site is worth paying attention to, according to Lisa. “If social proof tells us that we like what our friends like and that experts hang with experts, then you want to make it look like your community has a line wrapped around the corner waiting for entrance. Fake it till you make it, and when you’ve made it, show your badges,” she recommended to me.

Consider using any points of interaction you have with your tribe on the social web as social proof for your site. People will see that you’re active, that you’re providing value, and that crowds of other people (possibly even their friends) think your content is the bee’s knees.

How do you use social media as social proof?

What is your experience with influencing people on the web with social media? What could you do to improve your use of social media on your website? Please share your thoughts in the comments box below.

The real question is how many people are buying what you’re selling?

Unfortunately, getting your blog readers to buy what you’re selling, especially if you run an online business, can be difficult.  This article will reveal a proven technique to turn your blog into a sales engine.

If your social media campaigns are not netting you any cash, then you’ll be out of the game in a hurry.

Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are great marketing channels, but the blog is king. If you aren’t setting your blog up to convert when new Twitter or Facebook users come your way, then your entire content marketing plan will be in jeopardy.

So what do you do to overcome this? You not only have to find a way to build in social proof, provide a value proposition, craft an offer and convince readers that your product is worthwhile, but you also have to do it in a way that isn’t pushy, doesn’t confuse people and works for you around the clock.

Sounds impossible, right? Wrong.

This article will introduce the concept of using your blog as a lateral sales page.

Leaving Breadcrumbs: An Introduction

Your blog is your content showcase, but it also does more. It functions as a hidden sales agent, ready to market for you.

If you’re selling something, don’t try to force all of the details on a single sales page, blog post or in an email. Why not take Jeff Walker‘s concept of the lateral sales page (once done via email), and apply it to your blog?

It’s simple, really… Define what your blog needs to accomplish, break it into sections and turn those sections into blog posts. You can use a single post for each goal, or you can take your time and work them in on a monthly basis.

The best part about this is that posts don’t have to be in order because there’s no way you can guarantee people will read them in that order; and furthermore, when you introduce them casually, you don’t raise any alarms. You’ve got your audience where you need them, which is focused and attentive.

By doing it right, you’ll slowly work your way into the forefront of your reader’s minds, without having to force your way in.

#1: Create an Offer

For now, stick to the basics. What are you offering (i.e., what is your product?), how much does it cost and what does it include?

Your Product

If you’re blogging already, then you should be talking about your products anyway, but if you aren’t, then start using your blog as a way to describe and explain what you’re offering.

Is it a physical or digital product? Is it something I can download? What does it look like when it arrives at my door?

This part is all about the experience. Use posts like this to help your readers actually visualize owning the product.

The Price

Although you don’t necessarily need to mention price (it should already be listed somewhere on your sales page or shopping cart), you can mention the factors related to price, such as how your product compares to those of your competitors, how important your ingredients or materials are to the value of your product and why the value of your product is far more than a number on a price tag.

The Package

Your product isn’t just a widget, it’s a package or a bundle, right? It’s not just a digital product, but a system… a whole course.

This is also a great time to talk about upgrades, new releases (great for software), trial versions, improvements and any other changes that you make to your lineup. Introduce new products as they come. Create ribbon-cutting ceremonies. Add some flair and spice it up. Get people excited!

37signals has a dedicated product blog that strategically pitches their products without going overboard.

Check out how 37signals does it.

The goal here isn’t to pitch, but to blog about your offer in detail so that you can eliminate this objection right off the bat. Readers won’t buy unless they know exactly what they’re getting, so don’t leave it up to chance.

Notice the call to action at the bottom of the post? This feeds directly into their lateral sales page.

#2: Create Value

Obviously, if you want to convert a reader into a buyer, you’ll need to convince him that your products are worthwhile. You’ve already done half the work by blogging about your offer, and now you’ve got to work to overcome a few objections.

This is where you get to dress it up a bit. Write posts about why your customers can’t live without your product. Provide examples of people who aren’t using it, but could really benefit from doing so.

Build your authority through informative posts and talk about the need for your services. For example, freelancers create need via detailed posts about how to improve design, how to improve copy, or how to build a better application. Internet marketers do this by talking about what could happen if you followed their system.

Online service companies such as 37signals share “insider” industry information and create not just a following, but also a philosophy around their product offerings. It’s even easier with physical products… The classic “before” and “after” shots in weight loss commercials come to mind.

You get the idea.

Feel free to add a call to action at the end of these posts. If you don’t point to the sales page, then point to an opt-in (continue this lateral concept there).

Again, this is where you talk about philosophy.

Are you green, easy to use, complex, efficient, experienced, and so on? What is it that makes your company tick, how does this feed into your product offerings and why should I buy from you instead of your competitor? You could easily write dozens of posts on these topics alone.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYNssS_DCPo

#3: Employ Social Proof

Social proof is one of the most important aspects of the blogging sales engine. It’s not essential, but it makes your job easier. It’s also something you should be doing on a constant basis because it creates a culture around your products and in today’s market culture is extremely powerful.

Written testimonials are decent. They’re a start. Most people don’t really believe them, but they like to see them. So if you have them, post them on your blog in a place that’s easy to see. If you don’t have any, then get some.

Video testimonials are even better because we get to see a face. It’s closer to being real. I prefer testimonials that are rough and imperfect because let’s face it, if they’re too polished they’ll look like a late-night infomercial. Nobody believes those are real, do they?

Also, interviews work well too. In fact, interviewing customers is a great way for you to put them in the spotlight. Who wouldn’t like to be on the blog of their favorite company’s website?

Both audio and/or video work well, but it just doesn’t have the same effect.

Another tactic is to post photos of your customers, or even better, of your customers with your product in/on hand. That’s about as real social proof as you can get.

Lastly, as we all know, Tweet streams are extremely useful for showing social proof. “Surely this must be good if everyone is talking about it,” right?

Tweetizen allows you to embed streams, as does TwitStat.us. Strategically placed on a blog or sales page, these streams work as street teams for your product, and they do it 24/7.

Artist John T. Unger has 10 pages of customer photos on his homepage.

#4: Take Your Time

Creating a lateral blogging sales page isn’t a one-time thing, it’s ongoing. If you do it right, you’ll always be selling without having to sell, your customers won’t have their guard up and you’ll still be providing useful information. That’s the goal really, to make use of your blog in a way that maximizes your ROI without making you feel like a marketer… even if you are one.

Just remember that a blog exists to serve one purpose, which is to keep your business in the black.

Are you using your blog to sell? If so, what tips have you discovered? If not, what’s holding you back? Leave your comments in the box below.

If so, I can relate.  I was there.  My first attempt at using Facebook for business was a big flop.  For the longest time I focused most of my social media marketing efforts on Twitter.

But now my tune has changed. Facebook offers far more opportunities for businesses.  I predict that in the near future, businesses of all stripes will soon declare Facebook as their number-one social media target.

In this article I’ll demonstrate why your business needs to invest heavily in Facebook.

My First Facebook Experience: A Waste of My Time

I got my social media start on Twitter, not Facebook.  Twitter is an amazing social media tool.  In fact, I invested countless hours growing and nurturing my 24,000+ followers. I was pretty convinced I could just use Twitter for business.

Then someone I respected introduced me to Facebook.  I recall the email.  My friend Ann Handley from MarketingProfs asked me, “Are you on Facebook?”

I thought it was just for college kids.  But since Ann was there, I quickly signed up.  To my great surprise, many of my personal friends were there. It was cool to connect with old college buddies and get a sneak peek into their lives.

But immediately I ran into a problem. I wanted to use Facebook for business and my personal friends wanted nothing to do with my business. Facebook was fun for personal reasons, but I struggled with the business side of things.

So I set up a Facebook fan page to promote my book.  I started rejecting friend requests on my personal profile from strangers and asked them to become fans of my Facebook page I had for my book.

It quickly became a pain to manage a personal profile and a fan page. In fact, some pretty high-profile people (like Darren Rowse) were dumping their Facebook personal accounts because of this very conflict.

I decided to simply feed my Twitter updates into my personal Facebook profile and my fan page.  I went back to using Twitter as my primary tool.

I had determined that:

• Facebook is mostly for personal connections: My wife found enormous value sharing pictures of our kids and updates of our whereabouts with friends.  But I couldn’t do that because I had a bunch of business peers (and some strangers) as friends.
• Facebook is a time suck: I spent a lot of time on Facebook and frankly accomplished little.  At least on Twitter I knew I could strictly talk business.
• Everyone who mattered to me focused primarily on Twitter: I knew it was wise to keep investing my time in Twitter.  My growth of followers was steady and my traffic from Twitter was great.

Then I Saw the ‘List’ Light

The strength of Facebook is its amazing breadth of capabilities.  The weakness of Facebook is ALSO its amazing breadth of capabilities.  There are so many options and settings that most people don’t realize what Facebook can do.  Count me among the former clueless.

My turning point came when Mari Smith introduced me to two little features that rocked my world: friend lists and privacy settings.

Facebook allows you to set up an unlimited number of lists.  But it gets better.  You can decide precisely what people in lists can and cannot see with a few privacy settings.

For example, I set up lists called college, personal, church, business, fans and so on.  Then I went into the privacy settings and made sure the ‘fans’ list had no access to photos of my kids, my personal contact details, etc.

Here’s how this works…

You can go under your privacy settings (click on ‘custom settings’) and declare specific personal items only be viewed by certain lists (see below images).

Here I chose custom privacy for displaying family.

Then I selected my "Specific People," typed in the name of my personal list and clicked "Save Settings."

The result is my family is now only seen by people who are on my personal list.

When I get new friend requests, I can classify people to one or more lists (see below).

Here I have assigned a person to my 'Fans' group.

This was huge.  Not only could I restrict what people had access to, I could also selectively share with specific lists.  For example, I could let my friends know I was on an airplane to New Jersey crafting this very blog post (with my new iPad), and know with confidence that strangers had no clue I was out of town.

Here is an example of a post only my close personal friends saw.

Facebook Page Redux: Getting it Right the Second Time Around

All along I was treating my Facebook page like Twitter.  I thought that by simply posting updates I would build a loyal following.

I was wrong.

When we launched the Social Media Examiner Facebook page, I was determined to push the envelope and see what Facebook could do.

This time around, we created a custom landing tab with a welcome video from me.  I asked people to become fans in the video and encouraged them to comment on our wall.

Here's our welcome tab…

We set up a tab introducing our Facebook team.  Yes, we have a team managing our Facebook page.

We put together an editorial guide.  It included some clear guidelines such as:

• EVERY single wall comment gets a reply.
• Break news or discuss controversial industry changes.
• Delete anything that is self-promotional.
• Post an interesting link to someone else’s article each day.
• Make sure to post a link to our daily articles AFTER our email updates go out (to ensure email folks get the news first).
• Regularly ask interesting (and sometimes fun) poll questions to get our fans engaged.
• And a LOT more.

The response from our readers was immediate and it was incredible.  In the first few days we had 1000 fans.  After just a few months we exceeded 9000 fans.

And these folks are active.  They post questions, support each other, reply to our questions and promote our articles.  A vibrant community was building right before my eyes.

Almost overnight, Facebook became the number-one source of traffic on Social Media Examiner.

Why Facebook Over Twitter?

#1: Facebook is communal.

Unlike Twitter, Facebook makes it very easy for group discussions.  Twitter is primarily a one-to-one or one-to-everyone tool.  With Twitter you can’t easily interact with two or three people at once, for instance.  And you certainly can’t easily see what others have had to say about a post.

But Facebook has grown to over 500 million active users for a reason.  They make it really easy for people to connect at a human level.  And Facebook knows what its fans are interested in.

For example, if you frequent a fan page, Facebook knows you care about that page and shows you popular posts and discussions from that fan page in your live feed, above others.  If done right, this is marketing gold!

When your Facebook page shows up in the live feed of your fans, it encourages rapid discussions and a chain reaction.  When your fans engage in those discussions, it shows up on their walls.  Their friends discover your page and your following grows.

In this regard, Facebook is like blog comments on steroids.  When people interact with your brand, you are building community.  This moves people from passive observers to advocates.  And that’s a powerful marketing weapon.

#2: Facebook pulls people to its site OFTEN.

Part of the brilliance of Facebook is how it taps into some of our innate human desires.  Every time someone posts something on your wall, tags you in a picture or tags your wall, you are notified in some way.  For most people, this is an email with topic like “Joe Smith commented about a picture of you.”  Or it’s a little red number at the top left of the screen when you are in Facebook.

These little mechanisms are intentional ways to get you into Facebook and interacting.  It’s almost impossible to ignore these cues.  If you’re like me, you’ve been conditioned to check Facebook almost as often as you check email.

Twitter doesn’t have the same systems to pull people back.

This is a huge advantage of Facebook and a primary reason you need to be there.  The more people connect with others on Facebook, the more this grows.  The upside is huge.  This is why Alexa ranks Facebook as the second most frequented destination in the world, just behind Google.

Your customers, prospects and fans are already there A LOT.  And when they arrive, they’ll likely see your page updates if you’ve figured out a way to get them to engage with your Facebook page updates.

#3: Facebook reveals powerful social proof.

This one is a brilliant move.  If you click the Like button on an article (inside or outside of Facebook), something amazing happens.  The next time one of your friends goes to that page, your name is displayed as someone who likes the page.

This is powerful.  “If John Doe (whom I respect) likes this page, then maybe I should take another look?” is the thought that might go through the mind of a reader.

But wait, it gets better.

If you use the “Like Box” feature on your website, Facebook displays the pictures of familiar faces that are also fans of a page.  For example, if some of your Facebook friends are fans of Social Media Examiner, you’ll see their pictures if you scroll up and look to the right of this page.

This is amazing social proof because it only shows people you know.  That increases the likelihood you too will become a fan.

So What’s the Business Advantage?

Now let me connect the dots.  With 500 million people on Facebook, chances are more of your customers are active on Facebook than any other network.

Remember the benefits early movers had with Twitter?  Think of Comcast, Ford, and Zappos and the early mover advantages they gained.

Now think about Facebook.  Businesses are just now figuring out how to use Facebook. This is your chance to connect with your customers and prospects in a totally new way and build powerful advocates.

Investing in Facebook now is the equivalent of purchasing real estate in downtown New York just before all the other businesses move into town.

Facebook is also investing in helping businesses succeed.  Beyond their powerful and granular advertising, they’re extending the Facebook experience off of their site with features such as the Like Box and the Like Button.  This is just the beginning of what’s to come from Facebook.

So what are you waiting for?

Your Action Plan

Here are a few simple things you should do right now…

• Customize your Facebook page using Static FBML.
• Leverage creative ways to grow your Facebook fan base.
• Work on engaging your fans.

Has Facebook become your new favorite social media site? Are you using it for business?  Do you have any tips to share?  Do you disagree?  Let’s talk.  Leave your comment in the box below.

Much of this advice is framed as “universal truths” that every business must follow. Unfortunately, a lot of it is based on the expert’s personal experience.  And that may not be appropriate for you. Even the most well-intended advice is often off the mark when it comes to your business.

There’s nothing wrong with sage advice, but when guidelines become rules, they need to be scrutinized.

What follows are some of the oft-quoted “rules” that you need to question as you use social media for your own business.

Claim 1: Social Media Has Changed Everything

Balderdash. Yes, we’ve got shiny new tools, and consumers can give more public, vocal feedback on your products and services. However, leads still need to be generated, sales need to be closed and invoices need to be sent; no business survives otherwise.

Furthermore, networking didn’t start with LinkedIn. Before there was social networking there was real-world networking. And you know what? It came with drinks and hors d’oeuvres, so it wasn’t all that bad.

In fact, arguably the best book on social media marketing predates social media marketing: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Go and (re)read that book; everything he talks about is still true today, it’s just that now it happens on Twitter.

Claim 2: You Can’t Sell in Social Media

This statement is the mantra of early adopters who remember “the good old days” of social media, before Facebook had ads and all the spammers realized how powerful and inexpensive the medium could be.

It’s well-documented that Dell has sold million of dollars of PCs and accessories through Twitter promotions. Local coffee shops use Twitter to take orders that are ready when you arrive or promote themselves using location-based apps like FourSquare or Gowalla. (In fact, if you’d like some advice on how to sell in FourSquare, check out Why Foursquare Drives Business.)

Now this doesn’t mean that you should go out and spam everyone you can reach through social media. In fact, that’s probably a quick way to lose followers and even get banned from popular networks. However, when you put the right message in front of the right person in the right social medium, sales happen.

Claim 3: You Have to Stay On Message

This is preached by many of the most successful social media experts out there. But you know who stays on message? Politicians and boring corporations. If you don’t count yourself in either group, then staying on message isn’t for you.

I’ve bonded with people over my love of Phineas & Ferb, photos I’ve uploaded to my personal Flickr account, and my fear of a zombie apocalypse.

In fact, my interest in zombies is so well-known that friends tweet me zombie news and I’ve even received several zombie-themed gifts at events. It seems strange, but the undead have helped build my network.

While that may not lead to direct sales—Google Analytics still doesn’t list “zombies” as a traffic source—it has helped me make new connections and opened up new opportunities that have led to business.

While zombies may not be your cup of tea, sharing your interests—whether it’s gardening, cooking or skydiving—will attract like-minded people to you and help build your network.

As Chris Garrett says in his post “How to Boost Your Personal Brand with Social Media”:

Using light humor, being kind, sharing about more than just your work—including your interests—allow people to connect with you on a human level as well as a business and technical level.

Claim 4: You Need to Have a Lot of Followers

When I asked my network about expert advice they disagreed with, the focus on developing a large following was the most often cited.

There are two types of experts who talk about social media as a numbers game. The first is the social media “guru” whose Twitter bio promises to teach you how to get hundreds of new followers a day, but is somehow stuck at 17 followers himself.

The second is the social media evangelist who is almost always on message and has a business model that requires a large number of customers to succeed. For her, a lot of it is about the numbers.

And in defense of this particular piece of advice, the bigger your network, the more people you can reach. All things being equal, that’s a good thing. If you ask a question and you have few followers, expect few answers. If you have hundreds or thousands of followers, expect a lot more responses.

There’s also the matter of “social proof”: without anything else to go on, we often “trust” someone with a lot of followers, or who gets a lot of comments on his blog or video. Twenty-five thousand followers can’t be wrong… right?

But beyond that, social media is not an arms race. It’s better to have 100 followers with whom you regularly engage than 10,000 who never pay attention to you.

Some people spend each day following as many new people as they can, then unfollowing those who don’t follow them back in 24 hours to free up space for more new followers. What kind of return on investment are they getting for that behavior? When your followers are following 20,000 people, how much attention is being lavished on you?

Likewise, if you’re following tens of thousands of people, how many can you truly engage with? The rule of diminishing returns is at work here.

Claim 5: You Need to Have a Lot of Comments on Your Blog

Nothing gives you a warm feeling like posting a blog that garners a lot of comments. It’s nice to know that your work is having an impact.

That being said, comments aren’t clients. They may make you feel good, but they don’t impact your bottom line. In fact, focusing on comments can be detrimental to your business. I know of businesses that quit blogging because they weren’t getting many comments on their blog. They stopped creating new blog posts that would have increased their online visibility and generated more online leads.

If comments are your business goal, then blog about politics, religion or American Idol. If growing your business is your goal, then focus on whether your blog appears in the search engines and delivers warm leads to your website.

Claim 6: You Can’t Measure Social Media ROI

Of course you can. There are “soft” numbers, like how many people viewed your last YouTube video, how many people subscribe to your podcast, and how influential your blog is according to Technorati. It’s also easy to know how many Facebook friends you have, how many people follow you on Twitter, and how often your most recent blog post has been “dugg.” (Keeping in mind that not all friends or followers have the same importance and social media is not an arms race.)

There are also “hard” numbers, like the traffic social media and blogs send to your website, and how much of that traffic converts into business. If your contact form asks “How did you hear about us?” you may be seeing more people respond with “I follow you on Twitter” or “Your video came up in a Google search I did.”

As you can see from the graphic above, most of the non-search traffic to our site came from blogs (our own and those of other companies) and social media sites where our company and employees are active.

Claim 7: You Have to Be on Facebook (or Twitter, or Have a Blog…)

There’s only one reason to use a specific social platform for business: your audience is there.

There’s no platform that’s right for every company. If you’re using social media to grow a business, you need to focus on the sites and applications that are already being used by your target audience.

You should still reserve your “handle” on as many social media sites as you can, for two important reasons:

1. It protects your brand and keeps someone else from using “your” handle.
2. What seems like an unimportant platform now may grow into a popular place where your audience hangs out.

The important thing to remember is that there’s no one rule that’s right for every company. While much of the advice you hear might be solid, it may not be appropriate for your business. Just because it worked for someone else doesn’t mean it will work for you.

Except for this one rule…

One Rule Worth Following

Provide value. That’s it. In social media it’s all too easy to unfollow, unfriend or unsubscribe from someone who’s not providing value. Every tweet, status update, blog post, video, or check-in should provide value to your audience.

Value means different things to different people. Your value may be in creating thought leadership blog posts. It might be in always posting links to great resources. Or it might be creating irreverent, sarcastic or even off-color commentary on what’s going on in your audience’s lives. The key is to just keep providing that value to your audience.

Now it’s your turn. What social media advice have you heard that you feel is completely off base, or has been the key to your success? Please add your thoughts in the comment box below…

The best content in social media inspires, informs, educates or entertains (and if you’re really lucky, it does all four!).  But how do you create content that goes viral?

What follows are seven strategies you can employ to help your content succeed.

The idea for this post came from Jay Baer’s excellent article on creating reusable social media content, which defined how companies can generate more value by repurposing existing content.

Content Creation Is Easier Than Ever

With the growing number of social media tools coming online each day, creating content is easier than ever. You can grab a bunch of pictures from your camera and create an Animoto slideshow in just a few steps. You can also upload these pictures to Facebook and Twitter using sites like Twitpic or Tweetphoto. By adding captions and explanations, you help those in your network share the experience with you.

Will They Notice if You Create It?

Similarly, it’s reasonably easy to get started with blogging.  The challenge is, even though content is easy to produce (and a lot of people are actively creating it), how do you create powerful content that actually gets attention?

The answer to this lies at the intersection of neuroscience, individual psychology and group dynamics. Here’s a bit more detail.

#1: The Cocktail Party Phenomenon

In terms of neuroscience, there are a few concepts you need to know. The first is the reticular activating system (RAS). The RAS is one of the structures in the brain responsible for orientation and attention. Most commonly, the RAS is associated with the concept of selective attention, which means that we naturally orient to information or ideas that we are invested in.

An example of the RAS at work would be in a crowded room where you can’t hear much of anything, but you suddenly turn to someone who has just used your name in conversation. As our names are one thing we are clearly interested and invested in, we naturally focus more fully when someone mentions us.

One strategy is to create content that is relevant and meaningful. Sounds obvious, right?

But the trick is that it needs to be relevant, meaningful and usable. Adult learning theory says that adults are much more interested in content that addresses a specific problem they are having right now. If you want your social media content to stand out, don’t be afraid to get specific and target your audience very tightly. The more relevant your content is to a specific group of people, the greater attention it will receive.

For example, let’s say that you’re a time management expert. You have productivity tips that would help everyone, but you’ll get more attention and notice if you target the tips to a specific group, such as “time management for working Moms.”

#2: More Formats: Better Learning

The second concept related to neuroscience is the idea of assisting people to interact with your content in multiple ways. The concept of “multimodal learning” explains that people are more likely to learn and retain information when it is presented in multiple modalities such as written (visual) and aural (auditory) at the same time. Your content will get more attention if you offer people multiple formats by which they can consume it.

Edgar Dale’s Cone of Learning demonstrates this concept well:

#3: Emotional Narratives Are Remembered Best

As we turn to human psychology, we can find a few ideas that are useful in terms of content creation. First, remember that people tend to respond more strongly to stories and to find meaning in narrative. To the extent that your content is logically presented, sequential, easy to follow and includes emotional elements, your audience will pay more attention. Use stories in your marketing to make it more relevant and personal.

For example, when sharing content on social sites, include case studies and examples of how your concepts or ideas were applied successfully with good results. People remember narratives better than a series of facts.

#4: Familiarity Fosters Likeability

Another concept from human psychology comes from Swap (1977), who found that familiarity fosters likeability. The findings of this study suggest that the more exposure we have to someone, the more we are predisposed to like them, especially when we feel they are giving us value or rewards. For your content, this means you should syndicate your content widely and be out in front of your target audience every chance you get. As people see you “everywhere,” they start to pay more attention. And as they pay more attention, you become more familiar. And as you become more familiar, they like you more. We all are more inclined to do business with people we know and like.

#5: People Want Shortcuts

A third concept from human psychology that we can apply is the idea that people want shortcuts to help them make good decisions. As Barry Schwartz points out in his book, The Paradox of Choice, we all want lots of options—but, paradoxically, the more options we have, the less able we are to decide. This means, as a marketer, your content has to filter, not aggregate.

While people do appreciate resource lists, and you should use these in your marketing, it’s also important to include some suggestions and ideas for how people can benefit from these resource lists. Guide your visitors to make good decisions, filtered through your expertise. This is a powerful content—and persuasion—strategy.

#6: People Take Advice From People They Don’t Even Know

Turning now to group dynamics, let’s talk a bit about social decision-making and the value of social proof. Social decision-making is a term used to describe the idea that we are looking for ways to make good decisions without extraordinary effort. One way we do this is by asking questions of our social group. Sites like Yelp.com (and other review sites) tap into the wisdom of the crowds, to help you make a better decision about where to eat and where to shop.

A study completed in 2008 by Jupiter Research found that 50% of people consulted a blog before making a purchase. This means that we are basing our purchasing decisions on the wisdom of the group and can be influenced by people we have never met and hardly know. This growing focus on social decision-making has an important implication for you. You must position yourself as an expert resource for your clients. When you do this effectively, clients are more likely to trust, and act on, your recommendations. When your potential clients are ready to make a buying decision, you want them to think of you as the best solution.

#7: Engage, Captain!

As a content creator, it’s important to seek out comments and feedback from your audience, because not only do you connect with them more deeply, but you also start building your group of true supporters. These true supporters will look to you for guidance, information and assistance in making crucial decisions. As you gather more true supporters, your status grows. And, as your status grows, people are naturally more willing to listen to what you say and act on your suggestions.

So your content is powerful when it moves people to take action for personally positive results. Social proof is activated when others start talking about you, and sharing positive experiences with you. This naturally builds your credibility and visibility, and makes it more likely that people will pay attention to you and your content.

Putting it all Together

So as you focus on building content, keep in mind that it should:

• Be relevant, targeted, and usable
• Be offered in multiple formats
• Use stories and sequencing to appeal to emotions and logic
• Be consistently delivered
• Guide your visitors to make the best decisions for them
• Focus on building your true base of fans
• Move people to personally positive results

When you use these principles in your social media marketing, you’ll be benefiting from the convergence of neuroscience, human psychology and group dynamics, which will call attention to your content. And getting attention is the first step to making anything happen.

What about you? What powerful content creation strategies do you use? Let me know what you think in the box below.

Image sourced from http://www.piscatawayschools.org/1368205171844580/site/default.asp

People must be lured to your fan page. And there are some good and bad ways to go about doing this. In this article, I’ll share a big myth and 21 ways to drive more fans to your Facebook fan page. (Though Facebook recently changed the “Become A Fan” button to the new, omnipresent “Like” button – and a fan page is called a “Business Page” or “Facebook Page” – we can still call them fan pages and people who join are fans!)

The Big Myth

There’s a great myth that once you create a Facebook fan page for your business, the first thing you should do to get fans is invite ALL your friends from your personal profile using the “Suggest to Friends” feature.

Unfortunately, this strategy may not be that effective and can, in fact, often backfire. I have seen many industry gurus complain that when they decline a fan page request, it’s frustrating to continue to be asked again and again.

There are several reasons not to use the Suggest to Friends feature:

• Facebook users can only like up to 500 pages and may wish to be selective. (Though I have seen it’s possible to go over this limit).
• Fan page suggestions may often build up, unnoticed. (At last count, I have 593 overlooked fan page suggestions and am already a fan of 500!)
• To aggressively pursue all your friends to join your fan page – for no apparent incentive – is counterintuitive to the nature of social media.

So, the good news is there are many ways to promote your fan page and proactively increase your fan base without bugging all your current Facebook friends, and also by thinking wider than just Facebook.

Here are 21 ways to get more fans for your Facebook fan page:

#1: Embed Widgets on Your Website

Select from a number of the new Facebook Social Plugins and place them on your website and blog. The Fan Box widget is now the Like Box and it works well to display your current fan page stream and a selection of fans - see screenshot below with Whole Foods Market Facebook Like Box. I would recommend adding a title above the box encouraging visitors to your site/blog to click the “Like” button (which makes them a Facebook fan).

Whole Foods Market Facebook Like Box.

You might also consider the Live Stream widget for more advanced uses, particularly on an FBML custom tab of your fan page itself. The Live Stream widget allows Facebook users to add their comments to a live event, for example, and that activity pushes out into their stream.

#2: Invite Your Email and Ezine Subscribers

Assuming you have an opt-in email list, definitely send out an invitation to your subscribers via email (several times, over time) letting them know about your fan page and encouraging them to join. Ideally, provide them with a description of the page and an incentive to join.

Be sure to have the Facebook logo/badge appear in your HTML newsletters. Instead of the usual “Join our Fan Page,” say something creative like “Write on our Facebook wall,” or “Join our Facebook community,” or “Come add your photo to our Facebook group” (where “group” is actually your fan page). Users have to be a fan in order to interact with your fan page in this way.

#3: Add to Your Email Signature Block

Instead of promoting your Facebook personal profile (if you do), include a link to your fan page in every email you send out. If you use web-based email, check out the Wisestamp signature addon.

#4: Make a Compelling Welcome Video

Create an attractive landing tab (canvas page) with a video that explains exactly a) what your fan page is about, b) who it’s for and c) why they should become members.  The result: you’ll increase your conversion rate from visitors to fans. One of my favorite fan page welcome videos is by Steve Spangler, the Science Guy! After watching his video, you can’t help but want to join!

(By the way, with the new Facebook changes, if your custom welcome tab and video talk about clicking the “Become A Fan” button, you may want to change the wording to “click the Like button” now).

#5: Use Facebook Apps

I recently tested a new live video-streaming app called Vpype. The app adds a tab to your fan page called “Shows” and when you broadcast as your fan page, everyone can view by default. (You can also broadcast as your personal profile and selectively invite friends/friend lists). I wrote up a review of this app here. By announcing via Twitter, your personal Facebook profile, your blog and your email list, you can broadcast regular live Internet TV shows from your fan page and create much buzz.

Another example of app integration is Target’s “Bullseye Gives” campaign. Target had their fans vote on which of ten charities they most wanted to see the company donate to. By voting, a post goes out onto your Facebook wall and into the News Feeds of all your friends, thus providing Target with valuable exposure. (For custom apps, see companies like Buddy Media, FanAppz, Wildfire Apps, Involver, Virtue, Context Optional.) [UPDATE: Thank you to Context Optional, the creators of Target’s “Bullseye Gives” campaign!]

#6: Integrate the Facebook Comment Feature

My favorite example of this is the t-shirt company Threadless. On their landing tab (canvas page), you can view and purchase t-shirts as well as Like and comment on any item and choose to have that comment posted to your Facebook profile, as shown in this screenshot:

(Screenshot of Threadless Facebook Fan Page landing tab)

Threadless actually has their landing tab set up so visitors don’t have to become a fan to purchase/comment/interact. Yet they have organically built well over 100,000 fans.

As users comment on items, that activity is pushed out into their stream (profile wall and their friends’ News Feeds), which creates valuable viral visibility for your fan page.

(Important Update: Facebook no longer supports FBML. Please refer to the articles on Facebook iFrame.) For further information on adding the comment box to your FBML page/app, see these pages.

#7: Get Fans to Tag Photos

If you host live events, be sure to take plenty of photos (or even hire a professional photographer), load the photos to your fan page and encourage fans to tag themselves. This, again, pushes out into their wall and friends’ News Feeds, providing valuable (free!) exposure. And, a picture says a thousand words – we notice the thumbnails in our feed more than text. (Props to Nick O’Neil for this tip.)

#8: Load Videos and Embed on Your Site

Facebook’s Video feature is extremely powerful. You can load video content to your Facebook fan page, then take the source code and embed on your blog/website. There is a “Become a Fan” button right in the video itself. For an excellent tutorial, see Nick O’Neil’s post: How To Get Thousands of Facebook Fans With a Single Video.

[UPDATE: Since Facebook changed the Become a Fan button to the Like button, embedded Facebook videos now display a white watermark hotlink of the Facebook name in the upper left corner of the video player - see first screenshot below. This is a clickable link that goes to the original video page on your fan page. If the visitor to your site clicks through to Facebook from your video, and they are logged into Facebook at the time, they will see a Like button at the top left corner of the video player - see second screenshot below.]

(Screenshot shows example of an embedded Facebook video on an external site)

(Screenshot shows the same video on the original page of the fan page with the Like button)

#9: Place Facebook Ads

Even with a nominal weekly/monthly budget, you should be able to boost your fan count using Facebook’s own social ad feature. It’s the most targeted traffic your money can buy. To buy an ad, scroll to the foot of any page inside Facebook and click the link at the very bottom that says “Advertising.” From there, you can walk through the wizard and get an excellent sense of how many Facebook users are in your exact target market.

Then, when you advertise your fan page, Facebook users can become a fan (click the Like button) right from the ad as shown in the screenshot below. Additionally, Facebook displays several of your friends who have already liked you, thus creating social proof.

My book with Chris Treadaway, Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day (Sybex) contains comprehensive instructions on maximizing your marketing through Facebook social ads.

#10: Run a Contest

This is somewhat of a gray area because Facebook changed their Promotional Guidelines last year. Essentially, you need prior written permission from Facebook and need to be spending a significant amount on ads per month. However, you CAN require Facebook users to become a fan of your fan page in order to enter a contest, sweepstakes, drawing or competition. See these two posts for further explanation. PLUS, good news: you CAN run contests and sweepstakes with the use of the apps created by Wildfire App.

#11: Link to Twitter

Link your Twitter account to your Facebook fan page and automatically post your Facebook content to Twitter. You can edit what gets posted, choosing from Status Updates, Photos, Links, Notes and Events.

You have 420 characters on the Facebook publisher and 140 on Twitter. In the tweet that goes out, Facebook truncates your post past a certain character count and inserts a bit.ly link back to your fan page. To track click-through stats on that link, just paste the bit.ly link that Facebook created for you in your browser’s address bar and add a “+” sign to the end. This works for any bit.ly link!

I also recommend you promote your Facebook fan page on your Twitter background and possibly in your Twitter bio/URL field too.

#12: Get Fans to Join Via SMS

Your fans can join your fan page via text message! You’ll need to get your first 25 fans and secure your username. Then, to join your fan page, Facebook users just send a text message to 32665 (FBOOK) with the words “fan yourusername” OR “like yourusername” (without the quotes).

This feature is ideal when you’re addressing a live audience, say. Have everyone pull out their mobile phones and join your fan page on the spot! This would also work well for radio or TV. (Note that this only works for Facebook users with a verified mobile device in his or her account.)

#13: Use Print Media

Look at every piece of print media you use in your business. Your Facebook fan page (as well as Twitter and any other social sites you’re active on), should be clearly displayed. Put your Facebook fan page link (and the logo) on your business cards, letterhead, brochure, print newsletter, magazine ads, products, etc.

#14: Display at Your Store/Business

If your business is run from physical premises, put a placard on the front desk letting your customers know you’re on Facebook. Ideally, you have a simple, memorable username. Incentivize customers to join right away via their mobile device and show you/your staff the confirmation for some kind of instant reward!

You might give out physical coupons promoting your fan page. For restaurants, put the Facebook logo, your username and a call to action on your menus.

I was at a hotel in San Francisco last fall and they had a placard in the elevators promoting their presence on Facebook and Twitter. The sign was very noticeable because of those ubiquitous Facebook and Twitter logos/colors!

#15. Add a Link on Your Personal Profile

If you’d like to promote your fan page to your Facebook friends, just under your photo on your personal profile there is a section to write something about yourself. I call this the “mini bio” field and strongly suggest adding a link to your fan page like so:

Be sure to format the URL with http:// otherwise it will not be clickable with just the www’s. You have a limited amount of characters, so keep it succinct and leave out the www’s. You can put in hard line breaks though to make the content easier to read.

#16: Add a Badge/Button to Your Profile

Using an app like Profile HTML or Extended Info, you can create your own custom HTML, including a Facebook badge and/or graphic embedded, as shown in the screenshot below:

#17: Use the Share Button

The Share button is all over Facebook and is a very handy feature. It only works for sharing on your personal profile. So periodically go to your fan page, scroll toward the bottom left column and click the “Share+” button. Add a compelling comment along the lines of exciting news, recent changes, special incentives, etc., happening on your fan page and invite your friends to join if they haven’t already. I find the Share button far more effective than the Suggest to Friends approach. (And, if you’d like to Share content from the web on to your fan page vs. profile, I highly recommend using the Hootlet bookmarklet tool at HootSuite.com).

#18: Use the @ Tag

As long as you’re a fan of your own fan page, you can “@ tag” it on your own personal profile wall. From time to time, you can let your friends know about something happening on your fan page by writing a personal status update that includes tagging your fan page with an @ tag. Simply start typing the “@” symbol and the first few letters of your fan page name (this works whether you have your username registered or not), and it will appear from a drop-down menu to select. This then makes it a nice, subtle hyperlink that your friends can choose to click on.

#19: Autograph Posts on Other Walls

A subtle way to gain more visibility for your fan page is to add an @ tag for your fan page when writing on your friends’ walls as a way to sign off.

I would use this one sparingly and, again, monitor the response from your friends. I have never been a fan of adding a signature block on Facebook wall posts because our name and profile picture thumbnail are always hyperlinked right back to our profile anyway. But the simple @ tag could be effective.

#20: Autograph Other Fan Pages

As with adding your fan page @ tag to posts you make on your friends’ walls, you could equally use the same technique when posting on other fan pages. This needs to be used with discretion and I would advise against doing this on any potentially competing fan page!

#21: Maybe Use “Suggest To Friends”

I won’t rule this one out completely as it does depend on how many friends you have, your relationship with your friends, how often you suggest fan pages/friends to your friends, etc (see ‘The Big Myth’ above). But I do recommend monitoring the response to this technique – perhaps simply by asking for feedback in your status update.

So, these are just 21 ways to create strategic visibility and promote your Facebook fan page.

Let’s hear from you.  Which ones have you implemented with success? Plus, do feel free to add any of your own creative promotional ideas in the comments box below!