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These days, there is no question that social media marketing is a major buzzword in promoting your company. Whether it be Facebook, blogging, Twitter, or Digg, people are investing a lot of time and money into making these sites work for them. In fact, according to a poll by e-Tailing Group in September of 2009, by the end of next year 96% of brands and retailers will be using Facebook fan pages as a community and social networking tool for their business. So the question is how can you use these sites to help you too?

Great question! All of the sites mentioned above can be fantastic sources (and to find out more about how Twitter can help you, watch our Twitter for Business video blog series about it in posts below!!) but we will explore some options with Facebook in this post.

The first thing to do is to set up a Facebook fan page for your business. Just follow the set-up instructions or if you want a more branded or interactive fan page, we can help by developing a custom Facebook fan page for you. Either way, with a fan page, you will have a venue to get whatever message you want to whoever “fans” your business.

It is a great idea to send messages to all your Facebook friends suggesting they follow your fan page and hopefully you gain more followers from that. Through your fan page, you can post exciting things happening with your business and upcoming events that are going to happen. Specifically, you can post messages about upcoming deals you may be having at your company.

For example, if you are giving a special offer to customers because your company is celebrating its five-year anniversary, why not tell all your fans on Facebook in hopes of a potential sale?

Messaging your fans could also be used if you want to host an event that you want people to attend. You can send them an invite to attend your event. All their Facebook friends will see the event as well and could greatly increase the awareness and attendance of your event than if you chose to stay away from Facebook. With how competitive businesses are now, you should do whatever you can to get noticed by the public.

The potential doesn’t end there! On your fan page, you can link back to your website and have your company telephone number listed. This not only gives people another way to reach your site, it can also help bump up where your website is ranked in Google searches and other search engines. It could be the difference that sends your company to the top of the charts!

The fun never ends when you join Facebook! Adding Facebook to your company’s marketing repertoire makes you more relatable. Your customer will see you as someone who is social and in tune with recent trends. This means you are using a venue that they feel comfortable using. They can see what your company is all about through Facebook before giving you a sale later.

Once you have tackled Facebook, you can take the basic principles you have learned to then further market yourself in other online social tools. From fan pages to messaging, higher rankings to higher customer usability, Facebook does it all. It’s time you start using it for your company and see your sales grow!

Often times the most difficult or challenging part of learning a new technology is understanding the lingo. When you don’t understand the jargon, it can seem as though what you’re reading is in a completely different language.

If you’re not familiar with Twitter, Part 6 of the 2009 Minnesota BBB Focus Seminar presentation, “How to Use Twitter for Business,” will help you learn the foreign tongue of Twitter lingo. And once you’ve mastered the lingo, it will be much easier to go about using your business twitter account.

The Language of Twitter

• Tweet – Update or post
• DM – direct message
• RT – retweet
• @username – public reply (dialogue)
• #keyword – hash tag
• Tinyurl.com, Bit.ly or is.gd – url redirects (used to shorten and track urls)

Watch Part 6, “Learning the Lingo” now to get a handle on the jargon Twitter uses. And be sure to check back again next week for more useful tips on using your business Twitter account.

Now that you’ve created and configured your business twitter account, it’s time to get comfortable with it so you can begin using it as a social media marketing tool.

Part 5 of the “How to use Twitter for Business” presentation from the 2009 Minnesota BBB Focus seminar gets you acquainted with your Twitter homepage, dissecting the various components which include:

• Following – People you are subscribing to
• Followers – The people who are subscribing to you
• Updates – Number of Tweets you’ve made
• @username – People who have made public comments about your tweets, that are visible on their personal profile pages
• Direct messages – comments others have made to you that are not public

The video continues to walk you through your new business Twitter account, showing you how to find people to follow and how tweets work. Tweets? What’s a Tweet?

Tweets are how you communicate on Twitter.

• They are small updates consisting of 140 characters or less
• Can include trackable links to images, content, videos, etc
• Will be public on your page unless you protect your account (or direct message someone)
• And with be visible to your followers as well as on your own profile page (this also means they are indexable by search engines)

Watch Part 5, “What the Tweet – Dissecting your Twitter Account” now and be sure to check back next week for another exciting installment of “How to use Twitter for Business,” and more insider tips on how to leverage your twitter account to get you more business.

As a marketing tool, social media is a relatively new concept for many people and many businesses. You might be familiar with what Twitter is or even use it to follow your friends, but where do you even begin creating a marketing campaign centered around it?

What should you know about Twitter before getting started

• It’s relatively disorganized…
• Communications are short… 140 characters
• Offers an API which makes it easier to use… otherwise not very user friendly
• It’s quirky… 98% up time in 2007

Well, one place to start is by looking at what other companies are already doing. The third video segment of the 2009 Minnesota BBB Focus Seminar, “How to use Twitter for Business” begins with a few examples of actual business’s Twitter accounts and different campaign strategies and offers advice on what you should know before you Tweet. 

For more Twitter tips on how to use it as a social media marketing tool for your business, watch Part 3: “What you should know before you tweet.” And be sure to stay tuned for more from, “How to use Twitter for Business.”

If you missed the Better Business Bureau of Minnesota and North Dakota’s FOCUS 2009 Luncheon Series, “How to use Twitter for Business,” you’re in luck. We’ve got the whole presentation (by our very own Executive VP, Christian Del Monte) and we’ll be posting it in easy to watch, 10 minute videos over the next two months.

The seminar focuses on how to use Twitter as a business and marketing tool to stay in touch with clients, increase brand awareness and get your company in front of new prospects.

If you’re interested in learning:

• Who’s using Twitter and how to communicate with them
• How to increase your Twitter following
• How to Tweet like a pro with popular software programs
• How to monitor what’s being said about you and your industry and
• How to track results and calculate an ROI,

be sure to stay tuned for the upcoming blog posts.

The first video, “How to use Twitter for Business Part 1: An Introduction to Social Media” serves as an introduction to social media, explaining the value it has for business professionals and companies. With a very loyal audience, who’s highly involved and a reach similar to that of television, no matter how much time you have to invest in social media, it can still be very beneficial to your business.

Twitter can help you:

• Network
• Build / extend your social community
• Gain market research knowledge
• Communicate with other professionals
• Communicate with your target market directly
• Create brand exposure
• Generate leads
• Increase sales

And the best part is? Yup, you guessed it. It’s FREE!

To learn how Twitter can help your business, watch Part 1 now and don’t forget to check back next week for Part 2.