Your Friend on the Web, Diana Ratliff

Website Strategy & Digital Consulting

Social Media

How to Schedule a Post for Facebook

If you’d like to add information to your Facebook Page NOW (while you have time!) but don’t want it to appear until later, you can actually pre-schedule Facebook content.  There are tools for that, but it’s really pretty easy to do within Facebook itself.

Go to your PAGE (at this time you can’t do this from your personal profile page, only from a business page) and insert your cursor in the Status window.

Click the icon in the lower-left of the sharing tool.  It’ll look something like this:

Facebook Schedule Post

Once you click on the little clock, it will ask you to choose the year, month, day and time you want the post to appear.  You can backdate posts, or schedule up to six months in advance.

Click here for the instructions, straight from Facebook.

It’s really pretty easy, and definitely a handy feature!

Using LinkedIn As Your Website

I talked myself out of a web design job today, and I did it deliberately.  The lady simply didn’t NEED a full website, so I recommended she use her LinkedIn profile instead.  Perhaps this strategy might be appropriate for you or someone you know.

The lady – I’ll call her Pat – is retired and does consulting.  Most of her work comes from word of mouth and the connections she’s made over the years.  But occasionally someone asks if she has a website, so Pat decided it was time to look into what was involved in getting one.

Pat wants nothing more than an online brochure, so to speak.  She doesn’t see herself using the site as a marketing tool and doesn’t care if it comes up in searches for consultants in her industry. She doesn’t anticipate updating it often.  Pat just wants a professional way to show people her background and credentials, and wants to make it easy for them to contact her.

Using LinkedIn Profile as WebsiteFleshing out her LinkedIn profile would be an easy – and free – way to deliver all the content she needs.  So I suggested that as her first step.

Then what she can do is buy a domain name – preferably her own name, in her case – at a domain name registrar such as Godaddy.  But instead of buying hosting and developing a site, she can redirect (forward) that new domain name so that it takes people to her LinkedIn page.

That’s it!  She’ll have a professional domain name to put on her business cards, at a cost of less than $15/year.  She can get a matching email address for $12/year.  So for less than $30 she has all she needs.

Of course going this route doesn’t give you the flexibility that developing your own website does.  You’re locked into using LinkedIn’s format and there’s no guarantee it won’t change tomorrow.

But she can always develop a website later, and in the meantime it should work just fine for her.

 

Facebook, Website, OR Email Marketing

I’ve noticed lately that many small business owners are choosing Facebook as their primary online marketing method – even to the exclusion of having a website or email list (newsletter) at all.

After all, Facebook is free.

Lots of people are ON Facebook, using it every day.

It’s easy to pop in a time or two on a daily basis and say something, or click a few “Like” buttons – it feels very productive.

Using FB seems like a no-brainer!

But using Facebook EXCLUSIVELY is “craziness”, according veteran Internet marketer Andrew Cavanaugh of Offlinebiz.com.

Cavanaugh continues “Do you really want to rely on an external site you have no control over for your list of prospects and clients and for handling the way they interact with your business?  You really should have your own website and your own email list.”

Jim Cockrum, the most trusted Internet marketer according to IMReportCard.com, addressed the “email list versus Facebook” when he told me:

Abandoning email to go 100% with FB is a huge mistake. The best use of any FB marketing is to grow your email list.

Reasons to keep email:

1 If FB decides they don’t like you, they pull the plug and you vanish along with all your leads (I’ve seen it happen).
2 Sending bulk messages on FB is tedious and ineffective.
3 You can’t segment and target specific customer and prospect groups with FB
4 You can’t launch an automated campaign of follow up messages for each new follower on FB (you can with email)
5 You can’t personalize your messages based on the preferences and predetermined parameters your customers indicate when they join with FB, but with email you can. For example, you can automatically send customers a one year bonus with email. With FB you can’t.
6 On FB you compete with countless distractions in your marketing efforts, but with email, once your prospect opens it, you have a chance to own their attention (even if only momentarily)

I could probably brainstorm a list of a dozen more reasons to keep email, but that will hopefully help you out the next time a customer thinks about dropping email for FB.

Should you still use Facebook?  Certainly – but it’s much smarter to use Facebook as one potential source of traffic and new prospects, rather than an entire solution.

Wonder of the Web Map

Have you noticed that communities large and small are getting connected online? The Web is so vast — often too big for most to grasp or use fully. And yet, online resources or simple mobile webpages with key information are quite localized and even warm to use.

 

 

 

Matter of Scale

 

 

Every community or area on earth, such as Eastern Connecticut, is now an expandable point of interest on the different landscape of the Internet. Each place determines how much it will represent itself online, and, how much its citizens use the Web for local organization.

 

We on earth who are connected to this global network, especially those of us using the mobile Web, have become accustomed to a wider sense of scale, a new sense of geography than our ancestors.

 

This will be disorienting — this new scale — for anybody, although some like the youth take to it more easily. GPS and social networks actually help people adjust, it could be argued.

 

In any case, if a person just adopts one online tool, such as a reference website, to use in daily life then they step closer to comprehending the new relationship between earth and its online map.

 

 

Great Local Detail

 

 

Basically, now that many of us (and soon, most or all of us) are able to access the Web on a daily basis, if not in real time on a phone or tablet, we have a lot more information at our disposal. Each person must choose and organize their online life.

 

Many people go overboard when starting to use the Web's many tools and points of entertainment. The biggest thing to remember is that one platform contains pretty much every kind content made by people under the sun, from just about all parts of the world — and the content from official or corporate sources should be considered as well.

 

If it seems overwhelming to you that you can at the same time look up information about Eastern Connecticut and play games at reputable Tablet casinos, and at other times get an online degree — all from the same device and Web connection. Try to get to grips with how useful the Web can be even for your local community-focused life, and stay focused amidst plenty to distract you at times.

 

The Dangers of “Sharecropping” Online – Facebook, Google etc.

Digital sharecroppingExcellent article referred to me by a friend, titled The Most Dangerous Threat to Your Online Marketing Efforts, from copyblogger.com.  “Sharecropping” online refers to the practice of building your business on someone else’s land, to so speak – which means doing a lot of work, and placing a lot of emphasis, on something you don’t control.

“If you’re relying on Facebook or Google to bring in all of your new customers, you’re sharecropping. You’re hoping the landlord will continue to like you and support your business, but the fact is, the landlord has no idea who you are and doesn’t actually care.”

The article goes on to say that there’s certainly nothing wrong with using eBay or Google+ or LinkedIn or whatever.  They can be wonderful additions to your marketing mix.

It becomes risky, however, when you make your business model completely dependent on another company.

I’m seeing a lot of this with Facebook right now – please don’t neglect other aspects of your web presence!

Better to Advertise on Google or Facebook?

Is Google dead, now that Facebook gets so much traffic? I loved the answer in a recent blog post on AttorneySync.com.  Author Jeff Berman makes very good points about the importance of intent and “interruption marketing”:

“People are on Facebook to be social, interact with friends, check out interesting stories, post updates, etc.  People are on Google seeking information to help them answer questions, perform research, locate services, etc.”

When – and whether – Google or Facebook is more important to you when you’re seeking new business is highly dependent on that distinction.

 

When someone visits Facebook they’re looking to connect, to hang out, to talk to friends, to see what’s going on with the people and businesses they know and like.

 

When someone searches for “Columbia plumber” their intent is quite different – they’re not looking to chat, they’ve got a toilet that’s leaking or need plumbing installed, and want to find a reputable plumber.

 

In my opinion, putting your website or ad or offer in front of your prospect THEN – when they’re actively looking for your product or service – is what’s going to give you the greatest ROI.  Search engine optimization (SEO) – the art of making your website easy to find in Google – is a good way to make sure people find you when they’re looking.

 

Yes, Facebook offers ads, and because of the demographic information Facebook collects, you can really target your offers/ads.  Some businesses do very well with this approach.  But as Berman also points out:

“In my mind, this makes Facebook a more targeted version of television-style advertising.  You are blasting out your message to a certain demographic of users (or viewers in the case of television advertising) in the hopes that you catch a certain number of them at just the right time.

The advertising is interruption marketing.  You are “interrupting” the users from their socializing in order to present them with your offer.  They were not actively seeking it out at the time.  The result is that many, many more people need to see your message at just the right time in order for you to convert those people into new clients. “

 

I couldn’t have said it better, myself!  There are certainly sound reasons to add social media such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to your marketing mix.

 

But as Berman asserts “… doing so at the expense of marketing dollars devoted to the search channel would be a mistake.”