Ready or not, 2010 is here. And according to eMarketer, 2010 is going to be a good year for email marketing. A December survey revealed that 69% of respondents plan to increase spending on email marketing efforts – more than any other marketing strategy.
To ring in the New Year, we’ve compiled 5 email marketing tactics that are likely to gain even more ground this year.
1. Integrating Email With Social Media.
This email marketing tactic – which picked up steam throughout 2009 as a way to boost customer reach – is likely to spread like wildfire throughout 2010. Consider the results of an early 2009 study by Exact Target, Ball State University and the Email Marketer’s club: 46% of marketers planned to incorporate the two marketing strategies in ‘09, compared to 13% in ‘08—a whopping 253% increase.
Both BtoB and Consumer Marketers are moving beyond simply including links to social profiles, such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, in email messages. Some additional tactical ideas for integrating the two strategies include:
2. Focusing on Engaging Subscribers.
In a December article from Direct magazine, writer Ken Magill reports that ISPs are now looking into using engagement as a factor to determine if emails get to inboxes. That would mean if subscribers aren’t interacting with email messages, the ISP may stop delivering the messages.
Of course, it’s not yet determined what exactly will constitute an “engaged” email subscriber. But potential measures of engagement we would recommend focusing on improving include:
Open Rates: Try increasing open rates by personalizing subject lines and including clear information in the “from” line indicating who is sending the email.
Click Rates: To improve CTR, analyze if the design of the email is guiding subscribers to the CTA. Web heat maps, for example, can be used to distinguish areas of a Web page most frequently scanned by visitors. Also, give subscribers a reason to click, whether for additional content, a product coupon or a complimentary gift.
Number of Forwards: To increase the number of subscribers forwarding an email, make it as easy as possible to do so. Include the ability to forward the message via email, as well as the option to share on social networks.
3. Re-engaging Inactive Subscribers.
Building an email subscriber is one thing; building an active email subscriber base is another. Virtually every email marketing list contains a group of inactive subscribers, those who aren’t opening emails but haven’t yet unsubscribed.
To re-engage these sleepy subscribers, consider these email marketing tactics:
4. Creating Viral Campaigns.
Viral marketing isn’t a new concept. But today, with sites like Twitter, Digg, Flickr and Facebook, email messages have the potential to be shared like never before. Try out these email marketing tactics in 2010 to help extend your message to a maximum number of customers:
Tailor forward links to specific campaigns: In lieu of the typical “forward to a friend” link, customize the link for the individual campaign, content and audience. For instance, if an email message provides tips to help small business owners build credit, create a forward link with the text: “Forward these tips for building credit to a colleague.”
Don’t restrict access to content: In order for a message to spread to a maximum number of prospective customers, make content free and accessible to anyone. Plus, make all login processes as quick and painless as possible.
Experiment with placement of forward links: Avoid subscribers developing a “blindness” to forward links because the links are placed in the same location for every campaign. Instead, try varying placement, size and color of links.
5. A/B Testing and Optimizing Landing Pages.
Thanks to quickly advancing marketing automation technology, email marketers can more easily perfect landing pages to create a relevant experience and maximize conversions. Many email marketing tools now offer built-in A/B page-testing capabilities, enabling marketers to test multiple page variations and measure the performance of each.
In a recent post on Email Marketing Strategy Blog from Silverpop, CEO Bill Nussey suggests that advanced A/B testing and optimization can easily yield a 5% to 10% lift in conversion rates. Plus, because email solutions are automating what used to be a manual process, marketers can spend more time interpreting numbers and focusing on the creative.
There’s no better time than the New Year to set resolutions and make improvements. As we head into 2010, take some time to assess your email marketing tactics. Could any of these 5 ideas be incorporated into your marketing mix to improve results?
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When the iPhone OS 3.1 update rolled through town, it brought with it a handful of new features – but it also killed off one, not-so-official feature: unauthorized data tethering on AT&T.
Early this morning, the endlessly ingenious iPhone hacking community released Blacksn0w, a carrier unlock for the iPhone 3G and 3GS. Even if you have no need to plug in a different SIM card than what was originally intended, however, Blacksn0w still has its perks. Namely, it brings the aforementioned unauthorized data tethering right on back.
We’ve just walked through the process, and it went off without a hitch. If you’re interested in doing the same but don’t want to do it alone, we’ve thrown together a handy step-by-step guide, just for you.
Disclaimer: We are not your mom. We are also not the ones who made any of this stuff, nor do we recommend doing it. There have been reports of this process bricking (read: breaking) phones, though it seems to work just fine for everyone we’ve talked to. If your iPhone breaks, melts, or runs away, or if AT&T somehow figures out you’re tethering and charges you a million dollars per megabyte, it’s not our fault.
We’re seeing some reports on Twitter that some users are having issues with WiFi, GPS, or YouTube after unlocking with Blacksn0w. If you have any such issues, go to Settings > General > Reset> and hit “Reset Network Settings”. Once that’s complete, do a hard power cycle by holding the sleep/home button for a few seconds and then sliding the on-screen power toggle.
With that out of the way, lets begin. The entire process is drop dead simple, and should take roughly 10 minutes. This should work on both Windows and OS X. The steps below assume that you have not yet jailbroken your iPhone, and will walk you through that process.
From here, tethering is a matter of following the on-screen instructions. Enjoy your jailbroken, tetherable iPhone 3G/3GS on OS 3.1/3.1.2! If you’ve gotten this far, we’d recommend installing Cydia (just open up blackra1n and tap the Cydia label). You should also consider allowing Cydia to record the signature hashes of your device once installed; be it that Apple patches this exploit in the next release, you’ll most likely need those to get back to a jailbroken state.
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Subject Line Spam Trigger WordsEvery email marketer should have a list of no-no’s next to their desk. While we’d argue that a subject line trigger word thrown in every once in a while won’t hurt your delivery rate (if you’re already in good with the delivery gods), you still need to be practical about finding good synonyms.
According to SiteSell.com, who make the free email marketing tool, SpamCheck, you’re not supposed to used obvious trigger words such as “free”, but using them in combination with other trigger words such as “trial”, “quote”, “sample”, “access” etc. can put your spam score through the roof.
In case you weren’t aware, the way spam filters work is that they assign ratings to your email newsletter. Using the word “free” in the subject line with an otherwise perfectly harmless email might slide you through to home plate if you have a good delivery record.
However, do it again the next day or combine that subject line with an ALL CAPS subject line and use a * to disguise another trigger word within your email, it’s off to the garbage can for you.
Download our Subject Line Trigger Words sheet or view the list below.
Spam Checking Tools:
http://spamcheck.sitesell.com/ameq.html
http://www.lyris.com/contentchecker
http://www.swiftpage.com/support/spamcheck.htm
THE WORST SPAM FILTER TRIGGERS
| $$$ 100% free Ad Affordable Amazing stuff Apply now Auto email removal Billion Cash bonus Cheap Collect child support Compare rates Compete for your business Credit Credit bureaus Dig up dirt on friends Double your income Earn $ Earn extra cash Eliminate debt Email marketing Explode your business Extra income F r e e Fast cash Financial freedom Financially independent Free Free gift Free grant money Free info Free installation Free investment Free leads Free membership Free offer Free preview |
Guarantee ‘Hidden’ assets Home based Homebased business Income from home Increase sales Increase traffic Increase your sales Incredible deal Info you requested Information you requested Internet market Leave Limited time offer Make $ Mortgage Rates Multi level marketing No investment Obligation Online marketing Opportunity Order Now Prices Promise you Refinance Remove Reverses aging Save $ Search engine listings Serious cash Stock disclaimer statement Stop snoring Thousands Unsubscribe Web traffic Weight loss |
THE NOT SO GREAT SPAM FILTER TRIGGERS
| 4U Accept credit cards Acceptance Accordingly Act now! Don’t hesitate! Additional income Addresses on CD All natural Amazing Apply Online As seen on Auto email removal Avoid bankruptcy Be amazed Be your own boss Being a member Beneficiary Beverage Big bucks Bill 1618 Billing address Billion dollars Brand new pager Bulk email Buy direct Buying judgments Cable converter Call free Call now Calling creditors Cancel at any time Cannot be combined with any other offer Can’t live without Cash bonus Cashcashcash Casino Cell phone cancer scam Cents on the dollar Certified Check or money order Click below Click here link Click to remove Click to remove mailto Compare rates Compete for your business Confidentially on all orders Congratulations Consolidate debt and credit Copy accurately Copy DVDs Credit bureaus Credit card offers Cures baldness Dainty Dear email Dear friend Dear somebody Diagnostics Different reply to Dig up dirt on friends Direct email |
Direct marketing Discusses search engine listings Do it today Don’t delete Dormant Drastically reduced Earn per week Easy terms Eliminate bad credit Email harvest Email marketing Expect to earn Fantastic deal Fast Viagra delivery Financial freedom Find out anything For free For instant access For just $ (some amt) Free access Free cell phone Free consultation Free DVD Free grant money Free hosting Free installation Free investment Free leads Free membership Free money Free offer Free preview Free priority mail Free quote Free sample Free trial Free website Full refund get it now Get paid Get started now Gift certificate Great offer Guarantee Have you been turned down? Hidden assets Home employment Human growth hormone If only it were that easy In accordance with laws Increase sales Increase traffic Insurance Investment decision It’s effective Join millions of Americans |
Laser printer Limited time only Long distance phone offer Lose weight spam Lower interest rates Lower monthly payment Lowest price Luxury car Mail in order form Maintained Marketing solutions Mass email Medium Meet singles Member stuff Message contains disclaimer MLM Money back Money making Month trial offer More Internet traffic Mortgage rates Multi level marketing Name brand New customers only New domain extensions Nigerian No age restrictions No catch No claim forms No cost No credit check No disappointment No experience No fees No gimmick No inventory No investment No medical exams No middleman No obligation No purchase necessary No questions asked No selling No strings attached Not intended Off shore Offer expires Offers coupon Offers extra cash Offers free (often stolen) passwords Once in lifetime One hundred percent free One hundred percent guaranteed One time mailing Online biz opportunity Online pharmacy Only $ |
Opportunity Opt in Order now Order status Orders shipped by priority mail Organization Outstanding values Paste Pennies a day Percent Perpetual Please read Potential earnings Presently Print form signature Print out and fax Produced and sent out Profits Promise you …! Pure profit Real thing Reciprocal Refinance home Removal instructions “Remove” Remove subject Removes wrinkles Reply remove subject Requires initial investment Reserves the right Reverses aging Risk free Round the world S 1618 Safeguard notice Satisfaction guaranteed Save $ Save big money Save up to Score with babes Section 301 Sincerely Somebody Special promotion Statements Stop snoring Urgent |
Sources: WilsonWeb.com, Andrea O’Neill, eProfitNews.com, MailChimp.com
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You can use this script to view a photo in the original album, even if you’re not friends with the person.
Get rid of some of the Facebook advertising and sponsored by sections with this tool.
This script redirects to real profiles from the Facebook people pages (public profiles). There is a risk of an infinite redirect loop if not logged in, so be logged in.
If you hate some or all of the new Facebook changes, undo them with these scripts and use what you liked previously.
You can search for pictures of a Facebook member who has tight privacy settings and view all his/ her pictures without his/ her consent.
Suppose some of your friends have newly joined Facebook and you didn’t even knew. Use this script and it will help you go through your friends’ friends list and find them out.
With this box widget, you can share files from your computer through Facebook. Isn’t it great?
Looking for a job? This application gives Facebook users unique access to job information, networking opportunities and other career resources.
The Private Wall combines the best of both worlds of Facebook: online convenience and communication with more serious privacy settings.
This is one of my Favorite hacks and that is why I have saved it for the last one. Using this software you can see the cards of any player and the advanced version of this software allows you to even add credits to your account for free.
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Author:
Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers
We’ve been keeping track of Facebook’s self-reported demographic statistics on the US market for a while now, and here’s the latest update for November 2, 2009. While Facebook says these stats, provided to advertisers, are not necessarily real time, they do give us a sense of how Facebook is growing.
On the whole, Facebook’s US audience grew by 6.8% in October to 94.2 million uniques (compare to latest data from Quantcast, Compete, and comScore). Here’s how Facebook’s gender and sex numbers break down as of today:
(Note: about 5% of users do not report either gender or age, and are not included in this chart.)
Where did the growth come from? Primarily from younger audiences. Males 18-25 led Facebook’s demographic categories this month, adding nearly 1 million monthly active users to over 12 million. Females 18-25 also increased in number by nearly 1 million last month. In addition, women 35-44 showed strong growth, while increases in males 35-44 were lower.
While Facebook is still growing most quickly percentage-wise amongst users over 45 – an interesting demographic trend that started earlier this year – the growth rate amongst users under 18 is also picking up. Interestingly, the growth rate of males 13-35 is faster than females, closing the overall gender gap on Facebook somewhat. Women still represent 57% of the overall Facebook audience.
Overall, 48 of Facebook users in the US today are over 35, and nearly 20% of all US Facebook users are over 45. That’s a good sign for Facebook’s brand advertising business, which has brought 83 of the top 100 ad spenders on board, according to VP of Global Sales Mike Murphy.
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Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites online and offers varied options for promoting yourself, your site, your business or your client.
Two of the best ways to go about marketing yourself through Facebook besides your main profile are Facebook Groups and Facebook Fan Pages. While both are similar in concept, there are some key differences to keep in mind when you’re setting them up.
I would advise you to create both a group and a fan page, because while they perform similar functions e.g. as outlets and communities for your like-minded fans/visitors/clients/friends to meet and share about whatever topic you’ve chosen for your page or group, they offer several different options.
Here’s a breakdown of what they offer side by side:
|
FB Fan Page Specific |
FB Group Specific |
Both |
|
————————– |
————————– |
Invite members |
|
————————– |
————————– |
Video/photo addition and exchanges |
|
Bigger Logo |
Smaller Logo |
Logo addition |
|
————————– |
————————– |
Discussion board |
|
————————– |
————————– |
Message all members |
|
Traffic/Visitor Stats (“Insights”) |
————————– |
————————– |
|
Event posting (via notes, imports from blog, etc.) |
Event Creation and Invitation (via built-in app) |
————————– |
|
————————– |
————————– |
Comment Wall |
|
————————– |
————————– |
Add posts |
|
Import posts from blogs as notes/ add notes |
————————– |
————————– |
|
Mini Feed |
————————– |
————————– |
|
Publically Visible (because its public, the search engines can index it. They can’t index groups) |
Private (must be a Facebook member to view, thus can’t be indexed by the search engines) |
————————– |
|
————————– |
————————– |
Main Facebook membership profile required before joining |
|
Bulk updates to fans |
Can send out bulk invites |
————————– |
|
|
Members can send invites to others |
————————– |
|
Social Advertising Options |
————————– |
————————– |
|
Better for long-lasting relationships with clients and creating an interactive community with them |
Better for things like updates, quick discussions and etc. |
————————– |
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Facebook Fan Pages are the hottest thing on the web right now! Business owners, movie stars, and even churches are finding that a Facebook Fan Page can radically change the way they interact with fans.
Not to mention the viral marketing exposure for those that have a Facebook Fan Page. Basically the more your “Fans” interact with your page, the more your page is exposure to their personal friends on Facebook!
However, promoting your Facebook Fan Page can be a bit challenging if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So I want to help you today by showing you 4 simple, yet powerful ways you can promote your Facebook Fan Page:
1) Create A Custom Username
Read my detailed “How To” for creating a Facebook custom username here. Get the abridged version below!
** NOTE ** You must have at least 25 fans of your Facebook Fan Page to be eligible for a custom username.
A custom username is now pretty easy to come by on Facebook. And in fact, this strategy works great for your Facebook Fan Page AND your personal Facebook profile.
Most new Facebook Fan Page web addresses look like this:
Now that’s a lot of numbers, words, forward slashes, and whatever else is going on there.
With a custom username, you can now have something like this:
http://Facebook.com/SocialSEO (that one is mine by the way)
Do you see the difference? And from a marketing perspective, a custom username (or custom URL) allows you to more easily brand your Fan Page on things like websites, business cards, documents, etc…
Also a custom username for your Facebook Fan Page makes it easier for you to tell others how to get there (again, look at the 2 addresses above for example).
Create A Custom Facebook Username & URL
The way you create a custom username for your Facebook Fan Page (and also your personal profile) is by first visiting http://Facebook.com/Usernames.
This page opens by default in the personal profile option. Look below the shaded box and click the link that says “Set a username for your Pages.”
You will then be able to proceed and set your custom username for your Facebook Fan Page. And whatever you enter here, will be what’s here: //facebook.com/YOURCUSTOMNAME
2) Embed your Facebook Fan Box
Read my detailed “How To” for adding a Facebook fan box here.
If you visit your Facebook Fan Page, and then look under your the profile picture, you’ll find the following link:
“Add Fan Box to your site”
Go ahead and click that link, and you’ll be taken to the dashboard for your “Fan Box”. There are a lot of ways to customize this fan box, but you’ll see 2 easy edits right in the dashboard and these are “Streams” and “Fans”.
If “streams” is clicked, then the comments from your Facebook Fan Page will be included in your Fan Box. And obviously, if it’s not clicked they won’t.
The same for “fans” – if it’s clicked, then your default number of fans is 10, and if it’s not clicked then you won’t see any fans.
If you look at the right hand side bar of this site (just look right), you’ll see my Facebook Fan box. This is the standard box without “streams” checked, but with “fans” checked.
Once you’re done selecting “streams” and / or “fans”, there are options for embedding into your Blogger blog, TypePad blog, or other. If you have a Wordpress blog, then select “other” and then highlight the code in the text box that will appear. Then take that code and embed it into a sidebar widget, or wherever else you want to present your fan box.
You can learn about more advanced customization by visiting this link. This is a the Facebook developers platform with instructions for you to customize the code. It’s actually quite simple once you see how the different elements are working.
3) Utilize the new “Get More Fans With SMS” feature
A lot of people have yet to realize that Facebook now allows people to send a text and instantly become a fan of Facebook Fan Pages! Go to your Facebook Fan Page, find the word “more” (it’s in small blue print), click that and a drop down menu will open. Look down that menu and you will see “Get More Fans with SMS”.
But wait… there are a few restrictions on this feature – which are:
* you must have your own custom user name (see #1 above)
That’s really the only restriction.
If you have your own username for your Facebook Fan Page, then you’ll see this feature present. You can start telling others about, and you can even put a quick note on your blog or website with instructions on how to text to become a fan.
Look at the top right of this blog for an example.
The only other thing to remember with the “Get more fans with SMS” feature is that text rates do apply.
4) Add a custom Facebook Fan Page banner to your Facebook profile.
This one is my favorite! It’s been a point of contention since Facebook Fan Pages launched that Fan Page owners had no way to promote their Page to their personal friends on Facebook.
The “Add Fan Box To Your Site” does not embed into a Facebook profile. And without that, how else is someone suppose to promote their Facebook Fan Page to personal friends on Facebook? People don’t want to be emailing their personal friends all the time talking about their Fan Page – most would perceive that as inconsiderate.
** OUR SOLUTION **
We finally had enough people ask about “how to promote my Facebook Fan Page from my Facebook profile” that we decided we were going to find a way – someway, somehow, to make this happen.
The result of our efforts – – ->> an awesome looking banner image for your Facebook Fan Page that fits perfectly underneath your personal Facebook profile friends. Here’s a screen shot of my profile:
There you can see the banner image for my Facebook Fan Page directly underneath my friends on my personal Facebook profile.
Since adding this image, my fans on my Facebook Page have more than doubled!
The image is custom made with a screen shot of actual fans from your Facebook Fan Page, and designed to resemble the actual “Fan Page Box” that Facebook provides as a widget.
The Take A Way
Having a Facebook Fan Page for yourself, your business, and your organization is a powerful way to engage fans and interact on a personal level. The interaction that is generated on Facebook Fan Pages is invaluable to the marketing and exposure of your Facebook Fan Page due to the viral marketing effort of Facebook.
Remember that you need at least 25 fans to create a custom username and URL for your page. But once you hit 25, make sure you get in there and pick up a custom.
—–
Finally, if you are interested in having us create a Facebook Fan Page that you can add onto your Facebook Profile and promote your Fan Page to your Facebook friends, then let me know in the comments below
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The very first thing I should mention is that when it comes to Facebook, there’s really no such thing as “hack codes.” The title of this article is partially tongue-in-cheek, because with Facebook, the rules change so often that one “Facebook hack” code that works today will likely not work tomorrow. Facebook designers change links and features at whim – and you’re left trying to guess what’s coming next and why your link or plug-in no longer works.
I’ve previously written a couple of articles here about Facebook, such as the controversial method on how to view private Facebook profiles, or how to email mobile photos to your Facebook account. However, in addition to those tips, there are other codes and features that aren’t immediately obvious to most users – so I wanted to provide a list of the top 6 of my favorite Facebook “hack” codes and tips to other Facebook enthusiasts out there.
This is a rather silly hack, but if you’re visiting friends who may not be very computer savvy – this is a very easy way to impress them with your hacking skills. Borrow their computer (or bring your laptop), log into your Facebook account, and then on the computer keyboard just type the following key sequence of arrows and letters exactly: UP-UP-DOWN-DOWN-LEFT-RIGHT-LEFT-RIGHT-B-A-<Enter>
Then, click around on your Facebook page, or scroll up and down the page (this seems to work best), and you’ll discover a pretty cool display of lens flare effects.
Oddly, the effect isn’t horribly annoying because it disappears pretty quickly when you really need it to. It isn’t the most impressive hack though, because it’s probably the most common one mentioned across the net – but it’s still kind of cool and fun to play around with.
The second profile hack is also one of the easiest to implement. Facebook offers users the ability to transform their Facebook pages into any language that they like. If you scroll down to the lower left corner of your profile page, you’ll see your current language setting. Click on this, and you’ll have a list of all languages available to you. Notice the English Pirate option?
Ahoy matey – yer now a Cap’n! Now as you go through your profile page you’ll notice some pretty hilarious pirate variations.
Now, the wall is the Plank, your profile is the Cap’n’s Log, and you can now either click a post as pleasin’ to me eye (like) or blabber t’yer mates (comment). It certainly removes the “boring” factor from your old standard Facebook pages.
If you’ve been on Facebook long enough, you’ve probably noticed a few people posting upside down status updates. They sure do think they’re clever don’t they?! Yes, you too can be the envy of all of your friends and family by posting your updates so that people have to look silly by tilting their heads upside down so they can read it.
Most of the people you’ve seen doing this have likely installed a Facebook app just to do so. However, I dislike installing apps because you always have to provide permissions to those applications to access your profile. A better approach is to use the free online application at FlipText to generate your upside down status update.
Simply copy the upside down text from the lower text box, paste it into your Facebook status box and post!
If you have a lot of friends on Facebook, you may not have the time to keep up with all of the new family photos they’ve posted – but you are very interested in them and would love to have them stored in your own private photo collection to review later. Well, thanks to a very cool FireFox plug-in called FacePAD, you can do just that. The add-on is awesome, and I would recommend that anyone with the resources to do so should send in a contribution to Arthur Sabintsev for his efforts.
After you install the FacePad plug-in, make sure you select Tools->Add-Ons, and configure the options for FacePad so it has your correct Facebook language. Then, all you have to do is go to your friend’s photo albums, right-click on the title and select “Download Album With FacePAD.” That’s right, you’re not downloading a single picture – but an entire album.
Once you do, FacePad downloads every single image within that album into the download folder you’ve configured in FireFox. Don’t forget to organize all of those photos using JetPhoto, as recommended earlier by Jeffry.
Do you like to keep your Facebook profile active, but you’re coming down with a cold and may be offline for a few days? Maybe you’re taking a trip and won’t be anywhere near a computer for a week. Or maybe you’ll be playing hooky from work and traveling, but you want your colleagues and boss to think you’re stuck at home sick. Accomplish any of these wishes by using Sendible to schedule your Facebook status updates. This is an application Daniel covered earlier, so check out his article for more details.
But for Facebook specifically, once you sign up with Sendible, just click on Facebook and provide your Facebook login details. Sendible connects directly with your Facebook account. The, under “New Messages” click on “Status Updates“.
On the next page you can schedule out as many updates as you’d like! This service is awesome – and you can distribute scheduled updates to a number of social networks including MySpace, Blogger, Twitter and more.
Look, don’t feel bad about it. When I first joined Facebook I left my online status wide open. After a couple of weeks of getting inundated with nonstop chat requests, I simply turned off my online status completely. Problem solved. Except, there really were certain people I wouldn’t mind hearing from – is it really fair for a few chatterbox buddies to ruin your chances for communicating with everyone? Well, there is a way for you to selectively block your online status from certain people.
All you have to do is open up your chat icon in the lower right corner of your Facebook display, click on Friend Lists, and create a new list called “BlockList.” Make sure after you create it that it’s configured under “Display these lists in Chat.”
Now, all you have to do is either click “edit” and add the friends you want to block, or if they’re already online, just click their name and drag them under this new list. Once you’ve got everyone there who you want to block from see your online status, hover your mouse over the green dot to the right and click on “Go Offline.” Now, you appear offline to only those certain friends.
Facebook, unlike MySpace, is not really easy to tweak – which is actually a good thing. Gone are the days of those horrid eye-bleeding pages with pink flashing backgrounds and instant music that you can’t turn off. However, the tweaks and plug-ins in the list above offer at least a few ways to customize your Facebook account and usage to suit your life and your personality.
How do you use Facebook? Are there any hacks or add-ons not offered here that you especially like to use? Share them in the comments section below!
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The newly redesigned Facebook has led inviting members to an event/group/page to an even more complex process. Why can’t they just make a “select all” button? Initially I got tired of clicking several hundred times on all the pictures to invite people to my event, so I came up with this small piece of Javascript:
Go to your event/group/page, click invite people and then paste this snippet in the URL field of your browser.
Left-click the mouse in the URL field and hit Enter. Your invitations will not be sent yet, but all your friends will be selected. Click the “Invite” or “Send” button on the Facebook page to finally send the invites.
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n this guide, I’ll walk you through 10 of the most important laws for businesses when advertising on Facebook.
These are laws that define how Facebook advertisements function and general perspectives that you should keep in mind when creating your advertisements. Some laws will describe immediate actions you can take while others are more broad. All of these laws should help you improve your overall Facebook advertising experience.
1. Facebook Is Least Effective At Direct Sales
If you’ve come to Facebook looking for instantaneous sales than you’ve come to the wrong place. Facebook presents businesses with the opportunity to reach their target market throughout the entire marketing cycle. While a small percentage of users are ready to purchase while they’re browsing Facebook, a much larger percentage of users are going to make a purchase in the future if not now.
Fortunately you have the opportunity to build an ongoing relationship with your customer and that’s what Facebook is most useful for: building relationships. It’s a platform to build ongoing relationships and “remarket” to your customers, as Facebook says in some of their own marketing copy. Understanding that these users are not ready to purchase is key to success on Facebook.
As I outlined in the 5 phases of the Facebook sales funnel, Facebook is about relationship marketing. As Wikipedia describes, “Relationship marketing differs from other forms of marketing in that it recognizes the long term value to the firm of keeping customers, as opposed to direct or ‘Intrusion’ marketing, which focuses upon acquisition of new clients by targeting majority demographics based upon prospective client lists.”
2. Create A Greater Volume Of Ads That Target Less People
Often times on Google, advertisers will create an ad which targets every person in a single country and then split test two ad versions against each other. On Facebook this model will do nothing but cost you money. Placing a generic ad that’s targeted at an entire country, without any additional targeting, will do nothing but get you a lot of clicks and waste a lot of money for the most part.
Facebook provides 11 targeting factors for advertisers (with three new factors announced yesterday). Below is an outline of each of those factors:
If you aren’t taking advantage of the numerous targeting factors then you aren’t using Facebook advertising effectively. In order to have an increased conversion rate on your advertisements, increase the targeting in order to make the advertisement more relevant for the users. Relevance will get people to respond to your ad.
3. Friend Users Before You Sell To Them
Facebook is about relationship marketing, not direct sales (as I described in the first law). That means it’s more important to build a relationship with a potential client or an existing customer rather than closing a sale right away. So how does this law show up in practice? The most obvious form is through the Facebook Ads for pages and events.
Through these advertisements, users can become a fan or RSVP to an event directly from an ad. At that point, you have the opportunity to interact directly with that individual and build a relationship. If you had directed a user to your website, you would have been forced to have them enter a form or make a purchase right away. The odds of getting a user to fill out a form or make a purchase immediately is far less than getting them to become a fan of a Page or RSVPing to an event.
In addition to having an increased conversion, you are also now able to reach out to individuals directly if you wish. For example if someone RSVPs to an event, but you don’t know who they are, you can send them a message welcoming them to the event and inquiring about more information. This form of relationship building is used to build lasting customers, not one time purchases, and it is core to Facebook marketing.
4. Understand Your Market
On Google, a shoe retailer will develop an advertisement that targets people who are “looking to purchase shoes”. These advertisers will look for people who are carelessly misspelling a word while searching for something in order to convert them into a customer. It’s a great model for generating one-time sales but unfortunately these advertisers don’t always understand their market.
In order to become an effective Facebook advertiser, you need to have effectively defined your market. This will help you to take advantage of the 11 targeting factors that Facebook currently provides. To help define your market, you can go through the market segmentation process. This involves defining the need your company satisfies and then more thoroughly defining who your customer is.
After exhaustively defining who your customer is, you’ll be more effective at defining the targeting factors to be used in Facebook advertisements.
5. Set Advertising Budgets With A Goal In Mind
It’s extremely easy to spend a lot of money on Facebook advertisements by “experimenting”. I can’t tell you how many people I know that have aimlessly spent thousands of dollars on Facebook advertisements but couldn’t point to tangible goals that they had accomplished. If you set a budget on a campaign for $20 a day you should know what you would like to receive for that money.
Yes, we all want customers, but as I’ve continuously emphasized: Facebook marketing is not about instant sales. With that in mind, below are two practices that are good to keep in mind when setting your goals.
Think Long-Term
In terms of sales, the payoff will be further down the line so be prepared to spend over weeks and months, don’t blow your budget in a day. Unless you are an affiliate marketer (who has distinctly different goals), you should be invested in the advertising for the long haul. A one-week campaign is not going to bring you riches, but a long-term investment in advertising can produce measurable results.
This means don’t spend beyond your means for one week and have no money left at the end. Instead, set reasonable budgets that you’ll be able to handle for longer periods of time.
Measure Initial Conversions As Fans, Comments, and Likes
Since most users will not make a purchase right away, you need to make sure that you are at least engaging them. Would you go out on a first date with someone and then wait two weeks to call them back? If you want to see them again I hope you don’t wait two weeks to follow-up. The same goes for your fans. Follow-up with your fans often and consistently.
6. Monitor Your Ad Performance And Adjust Accordingly
Now that you’ve defined your goals, it’s time to track whether or not you’ve achieved them. Throughout each Facebook advertising campaign, you should be tracking how well the advertisements perform. Are you on track to reach the goals that you’ve set? Are your advertisements achieving a reasonable click-through level?
Facebook provides advertisers with a number of monitoring tools including their basic ad manager area as well as downloadable data about each campaign you are running. If you visit the ad reports area you can download three types of reports to determine how your campaigns and ads are performing: advertising performance, responder demographics, responder profiles.
The primary things to monitor are clicks, click through rates (CTR), actions, action rates, and CPC. Each of these variables will differ depending on what type of campaign that you’re running but in theory, the more targeted your ad, the higher click through rate you should have. Additionally, your click through rate will tend to go down over time as your entire target population views your ad and decides whether or not they want to respond.
7. Test Landing Pages Versus Facebook Pages
In traditional online advertising, users are directed to a landing page from which they are prompted to fill in information in a form. This information is then typically used to send marketing literature. On Facebook, you want to build relationships but if the relationships you are building aren’t generating any revenue, you may want to diversify your advertising strategy by including some landing pages.
Yes, building relationships are extremely valuable and despite those users never making a purchase, they can become effective brand advocates that ultimately drive new customers to your business. For smaller businesses, investing in brand advocates is often considered to be a costly proposition which is why investing in some direct sales is always useful.
The point of this law is that Facebook advertising cannot combined with relationship marketing cannot be your only strategy. You need to generate sales and sometimes that means being direct and converting a customer. If you want another phrase to summarize this law: “diversify, diversify, diversify”.
8. Split Test Ads By Demographic
An advertiser once told me that women tend to react more often to advertisements that have the color pink in them. While I doubt this is consistent across all women, this could be true for a large portion of them. The only way to find out if it is true is to split test different ads within that specific demographic. I’ll use an example to illustrate this rule.
Let’s say that you’ve created an advertisement that’s targeted at CEOs of companies in the Northeast region of the United States. You can create two advertisements and compare which version of the ad results in a larger response. An example lesson learned would be that “CEOs in the Northeast region tend to respond better to ads with the word ‘influence’ over the word ‘power’”.
As you narrow your targeting, you can begin to adjust your advertisements even further. For example, as a second step you can now create separate ads for CEOs in the Boston area and CEOs in the New York metropolitan area. Each step along the way you should be refining your advertising copy while incorporating some of the lessons learned from the previous steps.
As you increase your targeting, you can incorporate some of the lessons learned from previous steps.
9. Develop Creative Ad Copy
This honestly has to be one of the most important laws. Conversion is primarily about two things: your ad copy and the landing page. If your advertisement doesn’t provide a call to action, there is a good chance that the user won’t respond. Facebook ads for pages and events already provide a call to action but generic advertisements don’t. If you offer the user something for clicking, there’s an increased chance they will click.
The best way to determine effective ad copy is to take a look at the existing sites around the web. Which are the ones that you see most often? Even if the ads appear to be annoying, if you continuously see them, there’s a good chance that they are doing something right. Click on ads and see what types of products are being offered and what the pitch is.
The best way to improve your advertising is through research and other advertisers provide you with plenty of free information. While copywriting books can assist with writing effective headlines as well as how to structure landing pages, your best information will come from other ads. Also check out magazine racks at book stores and see what headlines are being used. Often times you will find great headline ideas there.
10. Don’t Over Target
In the eighth law I outlined how the more that you target, the more you can begin to hone your ad copy. While increased targeting can increase click through rates, determining how to most effectively target sub-segments of your customer population can be costly both in time and in money. While you should most definitely take advantage of Facebook’s targeting features, it’s more important that you get your company’s name out there and then build the relationships.
Everything in marketing is a balance and the last thing you want to do is spending all of your time increasing ad relevance while not interacting with the users who are clicking through on the ads. Spend time tracking your ads’ performance but also make sure that you spend time connecting with all the people that respond to your ad.
If you aren’t following through with the marketing process then you aren’t going to generate new customers.
Conclusion
Improving your advertising is something that takes time and patience. On Facebook, marketing is about relationships, not immediate sales, so set your budgets and advertising plans with that in mind. Facebook advertising is still a relatively new offering and marketers are just beginning to understand how to use these advertisements most effectively. With these 10 initial laws, all marketers should have a great starting point.
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