Optimizing Your Facebook Page for Mobile Devices

You might have thought to get your website optimized for mobile, but how many of us have done the necessary steps to ensure our Facebook pages are also mobile ready? That’s what I thought! You’ll need to give this some thought, since millions of people are interacting with Facebook daily, and more than half of those are connecting with their mobile devices. Going further, it’s been shown that 79% of smartphone users use their phones to help with shopping, with 74% making a purchase as a result. While much of Facebook would appear to be mobile optimized out of the box, there are some aspects of this you’ll want to check.

First see how your Facebook Page shows up on a mobile device

Facebook will condense your Page into elements in the following order: Timeline, Recommendations and Check-ins, Photos and your most recent post. Since there are a number of ways we can make our pages look, this isn’t always so with a mobile device.

A few tips to help optimize your Facebook Page

• Remember you have less time and space on Mobile to grab someone’s attention, so be sure to use vivid pictures, (not very big, as Facebook will crop them!) and direct, concise text and calls to action.
• Keep your Facebook page complete and up to date. Be sure and check it on “Facebook Nearby” to ensure your vital information is visible and accurate.
• Be sure to encourage check-ins from your location as they make a big difference. This is the mobile equivalent of word of mouth advertising.
• Be active and check in on your page frequently. You can even manage your Facebook from your own mobile device, which can help with customer engagement tremendously!

Is It Time for You to Start Using LinkedIn Business Pages?

It was just a matter of time until business professional network LinkedIn became a useful and workable tool for small business to use effectively. Long an afterthought when it came to actually marketing with this social network, it has recently emerged from the shadows to provide a attractive alternative to Facebook and Google pages. No longer is it merely a job seeking site, but an attractive and useful social channel. MarketingLand reports that LinkedIn has expanded to more than 3 million company pages plus some 225 million members actively sharing content, engaging with one another, and making the most of the Web’s #1 business professional network.

How your small business can use LinkedIn

There are numerous ways having a business page on LinkedIn can help your brand. Let’s examine a couple.

• LinkedIn profiles and optimization – Optimizing your company page with brand specific keywords and content is vital for your profile page along with any targeted pages, where you can present your wares. The LinkedIn audience is quite sophisticated from a business standpoint, and your company profile is the place where you need to display your strengths. Also, be aware that profiles will turn up in organic Google search, so it’s a virtual business card also.
• LinkedIn search – What you post on LinkedIn will appear both in a LinkedIn search along with Google. Keeping your search keywords consistent will help you rank as highly as you possibly can for the desired search terms. Another plus is the recently announced ability for LinkedIn admins to post as your brand, instead of as a single person. New endeavors including the acquisition of SlideShare, LinkedIn Influencers and Sponsored Updates are ample evidence of LinkedIn’s commitment to search.
• Create great content – Undoubtedly one of the better ways you can benefit from the LinkedIn platform is by generating and sharing fantastic content. Taking advantage of not just your home page content, but also the tabs for products and careers is a wonderful chance to show your best content. Make liberal use of video as well.
• Link to your other social media channels – Currently only a third of the top 100 LinkedIn company pages link to their social profiles from LinkedIn. This is an absolute must, as it will improve your Google rankings as well.

LinkedIn has grown into far more than a job board. See how it can benefit your small business today!

Understand Your Social Demographic

Do you know who’s following you? Socially, of course. Well, you should! A lot of us have thousands of fans and followers, and yet for the life of us can’t figure out where they go when you send out a Tweet, update or post. Are they real, or are you just not giving them what they are looking for from you? Any type of marketing relies on ensuring that you’re matching message to market, and your social media is not any different. You simply have to understand whom you are speaking with and what interests them.

How does one measure social media demographics?

The usual tools to discern the demographics of your audience (Compete, Quantcast, etc) aren’t quite up to the job yet of measuring the critical data that makes up your social audience. Thankfully, for all of us, many new tools are sprouting up as we speak to assist us to gauge the likes, dislikes and trends of our followers and fans.

Three hot new tools!

Here are three social media demographic tools that complete the task!

DemographicsPro – Known until recently as KnowYourFollowers, this tool breaks down your Twitter followers into literally oodles of information, including country, state, gender, interests, other people followed, their jobs and a lot more. This is delivered in both a numerical and percentage format, providing you with the best chance to target your followers.

Birdsong – A social intelligence tool, Birdsong delivers on demand analysis and insight on what brands are talking about on their social media accounts such as Twitter, Facebook and others. Learning how your competition is targeting their social media is very useful information that can give you direction for your campaigns also.

SoDash – A very unique and useful tool SoDash combines the act of listening to social media into actual lead generation, customer service, brand management and competition monitoring.

Understanding the buzz and chatter about you and your competitors is the beginning of being able to use the information better in your marketing.

Bitcoins have become a popular way for people to purchase goods and services online. The question, though, is if your small business should accept this virtual currency. Entrepreneur Magazine recently took a look at this issue. Here are the key questions they outlined about Bitcoins.

Is it real money?

As Entrepreneur explains, Bitcoins are virtual currency. Individuals purchase them with real money and then exchange them online to purchase products and services from a wide variety of vendors – some reputable, some illegal – in the virtual world. According to Entrepreneur, an increasing number of reputable vendors – such as Reddit and WordPress – are accepting these virtual coins.

Safety

Businesses do take on a safety risk if they decide to accept Bitcoins. But it’s the very same risk they take with all online financial transactions. There’s no guarantee that a cybercriminal won’t hack their Bitcoin transactions. These transactions are encrypted. But that’s insufficient to deter the smartest of cybercriminals.

Your decision

Why would any company choose to accept Bitcoin payments? For one thing, these payments have no credit card or bank transaction fees. They also aren’t subject to taxes. And if more online vendors are accept Bitcoins, it could be a trend you don’t want to miss.

Project-management software can help your teams stay on task. Using this tool, you can clearly organize tasks specific to each team member. And when team members complete their tasks, they’re able to quickly check it off your to-do list. But there are a ton of project-management tools around. How can you determine which one is right for your small business?

Research

Thankfully, in a recent feature story PCMag.com features a handy list of project-management tools.

Asana

For the record, PCMag.com writer Jill Duffy brags about Asana. However, as the matrix shows, Asana isn’t the only good option available.

Research

Finding the proper project-management software for your small business will require some thought. A lot of programs are filled with features that your business will most likely never take advantage of. But if you take the time to determine the program that best fits your small business? You and your employees will find their productivity will soar.