Celebrate Social Media Week With These Fun and Interesting Facts
September 26, 2012 - Posted by Rilee Chastain
A few fun facts that you may have known about social media marketing. All week long, we here at The Marketing Zen Group have been celebrating one of our favorite weeks out of the entire year―Social Media Week. Given our teams passion for social media marketing and the web, it should come as no surprise that we jump at the chance to celebrate the power of Facebook, Twitter, Google +, etc. on marketing in our current society. But other than being a chance for us to geek out about our love for social media, what exactly is Social Media Week? This worldwide event was held for the first time in February 2009 and has since become a global platform that connects people, content and conversation around the many growing trends in the worlds of social and mobile media. It is predicted that over the next 10 years, 3 billion new… read more
Facebook Marketing: 6 Steps to Facebook Marketing Success
September 14, 2012 - Posted by Shama Kabani
Transcription of “Facebook Marketing: 6 Steps to Facebook Marketing Success” Shama: Hi, I’m Shama Kabani, CEO of the Marketing Zen Group, and the number one question that I get and the team gets here is Facebook marketing related. How do we engage people on Facebook? What’s the best way to get our business out there to people and so Facebook tends to be a big question mark for a lot of folks out there and perhaps even yourself. Today we’ll talk about Facebook marketing. There are six things that you should be doing if you are engaging and participating in Facebook marketing and this is my list to try to make it easy for you as possible. The number one is design. A lot of people overlook the importance of the Facebook timelines, the cover timelines that they have. While Facebook gives a lot of importance to the visual aspect,… read more
Tips For Using Facebook As A Successful Marketing Tool
September 12, 2012 - Posted by Rilee Chastain
Essential marketing tips that will ensure a successful Facebook campaign. It is no major secret that many businesses are now taking to Facebook to market their company and connect with new consumers. After all, there are more than 900 million people on Facebook who are liking, subscribing, posting or sharing information with their friends and family on a regular basis. Given this major statistic, it only makes sense that many businesses are flocking to the site in order to increase their customer base and build a lasting relationship with the ones they already have. However, what many companies do not realize is that simply registering on Facebook is not enough to reach your business objectives. There is an actual science behind the art of social media marketing and there are many different resources and tricks that marketers can utilize in order to become more successful with their online marketing efforts…. read more
How Nonprofits are Succeeding with Social Media
August 14, 2012 - Posted by Amanda Norris
As social media networks began to shed their limited niche appeal and were embraced by the general public, many businesses began to take note and quickly followed suit, using the sites as an effective networking and marketing tool. But for-profit corporations and businesses aren’t the only ones who realized the marketing potential of social media. As the recently released “4th Annual Nonprofit Social Network Benchmark Report – 2012” from NTEN, Common Knowledge and Blackbaud shows, nonprofits have also found success using social media to promote awareness and raise funds for their causes. Below are some key findings from the report that show how nonprofits are using social media effectively. General Trends According to the report, 93% of nonprofits are currently using social media marketing on commercial social networks (as opposed to private, in-house social networks) as part of their strategy. This number is relatively stable, increasing only 1% over 2011…. read more
Facebook Insights You Can’t Afford to Ignore
August 9, 2012 - Posted by Rilee Chastain
Facebook Insights can help you improve your social media marketing efforts. We all know how important Facebook business pages can be for connecting with consumers and establishing a relationship with the people who follow your brand. Through creative status updates, personal photos and informative links, Facebook can truly be the ultimate content-sharing platform for your business… if you know how to successfully measure all of the hard work you are putting in. Facebook Insights had always notorious for being a complete mess. Sure, there was a ton of valuable data hidden within graphs, charts and spread sheets, but it had always been a complicated maze of clicks and downloads trying to separate the helpful information from the useless data. Luckily, in early 2012, Facebook rolled out some new metrics that help to give businesses better insight into how to improve their results and how to create better experiences on their… read more
The Biggest Social Media “Don’ts” For Businesses
August 1, 2012 - Posted by Rilee Chastain
Be sure that your company avoids these common social media mistakes. It is no secret that social media is a large part of business marketing and promotion in this day and age. If you are a business owner who has yet to sign up for a Twitter account or create a Facebook page, not only are you missing out on an easy (and free) way of spreading the word about your business, but you are also ignoring the chance to develop meaningful relationships with your consumers that would otherwise not be possible. However, while the debate of whether or not your company should have a social media presence may be obvious, the question of how to best execute a successful, engaging approach that generates results is not as simple to answer. In fact, some companies are so determined to make a name for themselves online that they may actually be… read more
6 Keys to Increasing Facebook Fan Engagement
July 27, 2012 - Posted by Amanda Norris
One of the biggest draws of Facebook – and of social media marketing in general – is the ability to help your message reach a huge audience of interested fans. But the real benefits come when your Facebook fan base moved beyond a group of passive receivers and becomes an engaged and interactive community. However, keeping follower engagement high is something that many on Facebook struggle with. Here are a few tips to keeping your Facebook Page followers engaged and interested. 1. Ask Questions Good conversationalists know that asking questions is the best way to keep both parties interested and involved in the conversation. This is just as true in face-to-face settings as it is in social media contexts. By posing questions to your Facebook followers, you are both inviting engagement and giving them a prompt to help them get started. The key is to ask questions that your fans… read more
A Guide to Creating and Using Facebook Interest Lists
March 16, 2012 - Posted by Shama Kabani
Have you ever wished that there was some sort of combination of Twitter lists and Google Circles for Facebook? Even if that thought’s never actually crossed your mind, Facebook stayed one step ahead of you and created a new feature to fill that void anyway! They’re called Facebook Interest Lists, and they allow you to create and subscribe to lists of users who talk about things you’re interested in. Facebook describes the new Interest Lists as a “personal newspaper,” and says they’ll be coming to your bookmarks in the next few weeks. To prepare you for their arrival, let’s go through the basics. Finding Existing Interest Lists Many Facebook users have already created Interest Lists on a wide variety of topics. You can browse through these and choose the ones you think you’d want to read. Based on your profile information and likes, you might also have some suggested lists:… read more
Facebook Timeline for Brand Pages is Here!
March 2, 2012 - Posted by Shama Kabani
The day has finally come: the Timeline format we’ve seen introduced to personal Facebook profiles is now here for brand pages. What does that mean for you? Read on for some of the major changes coming your way. All pages will automatically switch to Timeline format on March 30, 2012. Until then, you can preview Timeline on your pages. You and your page admins can see the Timeline and make changes to it, while the public and your fans will see your old design through the end of the month. You can choose to publish your Timeline before March 30, but doing so will take effect permanently. If you’re not sure you want to switch to Timeline just yet, do not press the “publish now” button at the top of your preview Timeline page. Cover photos: what you can and can’t do. You cover image is an 851×315 pixel photo… read more
Facebook Promotion Guidelines: What You Need To Know
February 24, 2012 - Posted by Shama Kabani
Those of you who’ve been following along may remember our post from a few months back about the difference between sweepstakes and contests. If you’ve decided that a Facebook promotion is the next step in your online marketing campaign, regardless of the type of promotion (if you’re doing anything where you’re going to pick a “winner” then you’re having a promotion), you need to be aware of Facebook’s official Promotions Guidelines before jumping in head first. Changes since we last wrote on this topic Our CEO Shama wrote a similar post about the Facebook Promotion Guidelines back in 2009. As you probably know, the site has had a few facelifts since then – and its legal language hasn’t been exempt from the company-wide makeover. The biggest change is that now you do not need written permission from a Facebook account executive to hold a contest, sweepstakes, or giveaway. Previously, you needed… read more