Use Your E-mail List To Improve Results With Facebook Ads

For many businesses, advertising on Facebook can be a big time and money suck. Even though Facebook is the #1 social media tool, it can be difficult to get a great ROI since you’re marketing to a wide range of prospects. The biggest problem is getting a qualified prospect to “Like” your company Facebook page so you can market to them…but who goes out and likes a potential vendor’s page? Nobody, that’s who! And if you market based on demographics, then you’re targeting a bunch of people who don’t know you on a platform where they’re not looking for your product or service in the first place. They are there for cat pictures and videos of their 2-year-old nephew. The answer that solves a big part of this dilemma…“Facebook Audiences.”

Facebook Audiences allows you to display your Facebook ads specifically to just about anyone that you have an e-mail address for, without them even knowing you are marketing to them this way. Plus, based on market testing, ads directed to a targeted “house list” instead of demographics- or interest-based lists cost about 75% less with 4x the results. Not too shabby.

So ask yourself…who do you have e-mail addresses for? Clients… Prospects… Membership lists from groups you belong to… E-mail opt-ins… You can segment your list in any way you want.

Have a list of clients or prospects who expressed interest in a product but never bought?  Create an audience of just these people to remind them about the product with a special Facebook offer. The list segmentation is nearly endless.

Using Facebook Audiences, you upload your e-mail list to Facebook and they will match these e-mail addresses up to Facebook user accounts. Not everyone has a Facebook account, but based on our testing so far, somewhere between 35%-60% of your e-mail list should match up with Facebook.

To find out more about custom audiences and how to get started, simply Google “Facebook custom audiences” and you’ll find all of the “how to” that you need.

 

Does Google+ Add up for Your Business?

One of the more recent social media outlets is Google+. While not as popular as Facebook and Twitter, it is growing fast and has some features that can be very useful to your business. An added benefit to Google+: it comes as no surprise that since Google is behind it, being active on Google+ can help your search engine results too!

Your Page

You can create a page for yourself as well as your business. Your page is referred to as a profile, but you can add as many pages as you like, including one for your business. Fill it out as completely as possible. Google wants their search engine to be the best, so the more relevant information you provide here, the more likely Google will promote that information in their search results. If you have specific keywords you focus on for your website, include them here for added boost.

As with any website or social media, focus on content that is relevant to the person reading it. Be helpful to them instead of focusing all on you and your business. Anticipate their interests and provide what they want. Add relevant links to related content (including pages on your website, if appropriate). Google+ pages are very flexible, so you can add nearly any content you want.

Interaction

Google+ invites participation and fresh content. New postings are almost a requirement to keep your audience engaged and active. As you add new information, people can interact with it just like they do on Facebook and Twitter. They “+1” it, essentially the same as “liking” a Facebook post or “favoriting” a Tweet. The more pluses you get, the more visibility your content will have. That also ties into how much it can help your search engine results. Look at the social sharing reports to review your content and see what’s getting the most attention. Use that information to decide what is most valuable to your audience, and let it guide your future postings.

You will also want to engage with others. Join communities, “hangout” in the group video chat with like-minded people, view content from others and of course be sure to comment and “+1” anything you like. The more active you are, the more active others will be with you.

Circles

Circles are the way Google+ organizes groups of people. If you are promoting your business, you will want to expand your circles so that you have the broadest possible audience of people who care about your business and what you do. Each circle is its own group, with whatever criteria you want to set, and they are very flexible – you can rearrange and combine circles however you like, and people can add themselves which is known as “circling” you. They max out at 5000 people, so if you reach these limits you may want to split those contacts or remove people who aren’t interacting with you. Because of the cap on participants, it means your strategy for Google+ needs to be a little different than on other sites: you don’t just want a high volume of people following you, you want high quality followers.

Ways to Engage

Google+ is incredibly versatile. You can share events, photos, videos, blog posts, links, recommended places (like your own business!), and just about anything else you can imagine. If you participate in the group video chat “hangouts” you can even save sessions and post those. Consider using events to post training seminars, lunch and learns, open houses, or even special events like a sale. Photos can include you, your staff, your office, your products, and whatever else may be relevant. Videos can be used to inform your customers, teach them more about what you do or how to use what you sell, or you can post video testimonials from happy customers.

To make it easy for visitors, get a customized URL address that’s easy to remember. It will be an address something like “google.com/+mybusinessname” where the “+” indicates it’s a Google+ page. Make sure you post this link everywhere else you are online – your website and other social media outlets. Google+ even offers badges that link directly to your pages, so you can have the full spectrum of social media icons all together. Most online postings these days include icons for LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and of course Google+, making it quick and easy to share content you like with friends and colleagues.

Measuring Results

As mentioned above, there are tools like the social sharing reports to help you evaluate your social media performance. You can see who engages with you within Google+, and you can also use the activity stream reports to see who follows your links to outside websites. Google+ Ripples will help you see who your influencers and raving fans are, with visuals to see the impact of people who are sharing your posts. This isn’t completely altruistic – Google still makes a lot of money on advertising, and if you can see how their tools are benefiting your business, they figure you are more likely to spend money with them. Google AdWords can be tightly integrated with Google+, with the added benefit that Google will show endorsements along with your ads to give you greater credibility.

How to Get Started

Getting started is a breeze. Visit https://plus.google.com and follow the instructions. If you already have a Gmail account, you can use that to get started, and Google will walk you through the set-up instructions, step by step. You can get a few things entered and come back later for more, so you don’t need to carve out a huge block of time to get started. As you start to build your circles, stay engaged, monitor the social reports to see what’s making the most impact, and consider whether advertising will benefit your company. Keep it up, and over time you will see that the more you do, the more Google+ will

I kissed a girl (accidentally)!

The other day, I kissed a girl for the very first time. In fact I kissed dozens of people, men and women both, in a matter of seconds. I didn’t even realize it until I woke up the next morning. How, you ask, did I become so wildly promiscuous?

I’ve got to blame it on technology…Facebook has all these cool little apps, and I happen to be fond of one called “superpoke.” I was trying to send a kiss to a friend who’d done me a lovely favor, but by hitting the wrong button I managed to kiss every single one of my Facebook friends!

When I saw the list the next morning – all the people I kissed, many of whom would be quite surprised at the unexpected intimacy – I winced in embarrassment and used technology again, this time to alert my friends that I didn’t intend to be amorous or inappropriate: “Wendy is really embarrassed that she accidentally kissed every single one of her friends on Facebook!”

Quite a few people seem to have gotten a good laugh, and I don’t think anyone has unfriended me as a result. Whew.

But here’s the thing to think about…everyone’s talking about social networking and how it’s the hot new trend. Just think – in person, I probably would have limited the interaction to hugs, although it might still have been a number of people over the course of an evening. But in cyberspace you can kiss, hug, or simply say “what’s up?” to dozens, hundreds, even thousands in the blink of an eye. Use this power deliberately, to build relationships and promote your business (in a give-first, non-pushy way of course) and think about the reach you have, far beyond what you could do at a handful of in-person business networking events.

Three best resources for online images

If you are working on a blog or a website, you may be in need of good-quality graphics to liven up long paragraphs of text.

Fortunately the Internet is full of great resources, and thanks to technology it’s all searchable.

Resource #1 is Google Images. Type in what you need, hit search, and then browse thousands of results. However, be cautious in reuse of these images, especially for commercial purposes. Most of these are likely to be copyrighted. If they were obtained from the stock photo vendors, like Corbis or Getty, they were purchased at no small cost. Likewise if your competitor paid for a photo shoot they probably would not approve of you “borrowing” what they spent good money on. However they can help you locate appropriate images, and in many cases you can ask and obtain permission to reuse.

Corbis and Getty aren’t the only sources for stock photography. Resource #2, istockphoto.com, is an excellent source for inexpensive stock photography. Small low-resolution images, appropriate for most web needs, cost little more than $1. Freelancers world-wide contribute their work so the selection is vast and the quality has improved dramatically over the last several years. Their images are royalty-free which means once you purchase it, you have rights to use it as you see fit.

The third resource is Flickr. Most people think of this site as an online shareable photo album. However, many choose to allow others to use their photos via the Creative Commons license. This reserves some rights but allows a wide variety of usages up to including commercial use and creation of derivative works.

Social networking: just do it

A friend recently cooked me dinner in return for a few hours of web strategy. She’s already doing a great job of online networking but she’s under the impression I know loads of arcane secrets about online marketing and social networking, which is flattering but not entirely true (although the dinner was FANTASTIC!).

This morning, my dad said he wanted to try social networking. He asked me why I didn’t have any blog posts on how to use Facebook and Twitter.

I will tell you what I told both of them: there are no secrets, just do it. Dive in, try things out, and make connections. You’ll learn as you go.

When I first got on LinkedIn, hardly anyone I knew had signed up. Now, a few years later, I have over 300 connections, which gives me a searchable network of millions. I haven’t used it to grow my business in any deliberate way, but it’s a tremendous resource with all kinds of potential.

Twitter was an experiment – I didn’t “get it” so I tried it. In my case I use it as a mini-blog but I see friends using it as a way to keep in touch throughout the day, or they offer on-the-spot social commentary, or maybe they just keep up to see where the party is. I hate to admit it, but it’s got a certain appeal. And the fact that I can tweet from my phone…it’s kinda cool. But it’s hard to explain why. I just like it. And so whenever I think about it, I tweet.

On a personal level, Facebook seemed useless to me for well over a year, probably because of my age – late 30s. A year later, now that I’m about to turn 40, many of my friends are online. The newsfeed is starting to get interesting as I read all the posts and find out what my everyone’s doing. I like the apps, too – you can share books and movies, play games (albeit slowly, one turn at a time!), or simply reach out and poke someone.

So for all of you social networking butterflies out there, don’t be afraid. Sign up, log in, and link up. Friend someone today and see what happens.

Three reasons you should use a service for your ezine

I ran into a colleague recently who was excited about a free email blast program he’d downloaded. With this program, he could send email directly from his computer. He thought it was great that he was going to save $30/month in subscription fees on his email marketing.

That excitement turned quickly to chagrin when I explained key reasons it’s better to use an online service like iContact (this is the one we use).

First and foremost, the good email services work closely with internet service providers (ISPs) to ensure that your email actually reaches your targeted destination. A desktop program is nearly worthless if you’ve been flagged as a spammer and all your emails get blocked.

Another reason a service is better is that many ISPs and mail servers limit the number of emails you can send simultaneously. You may think you’ve sent hundreds of messages only to find out later that just 50 actually made it past your ISP. The tricky part about all this is that you may not get any error messages so there’s no obvious way to be sure what happened. A service is built with mass quantities of email in mind and has reporting built right in. This provides detailed stats on what was delivered, what was opened, what was forwarded, and what was clicked.

Third reason: CAN-SPAM regulations went into effect a few years ago. They’ve had little impact on spam, which is more of a problem than ever, but nonetheless we small business owners must comply or risk governmental wrath. Services generally enforce regulatory requirements, including simple subscription management for your recipients. This eases any worries over legal ramifications.

There are many additional features and benefits which vary by provider. We like iContact because of the easy-to-use interface, great reports, surveys, and multi-message autoresponders (I’ll post later about all the cool things you can do with this feature!).

Not sure whether it’s for you? Most services offer a free trial so you can try before you buy.