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So…do you need Facebook pages?  Here are some reasons why:

Branding:  These pages are a wonderful way to develop your professional brand on Facebook without taking away from your own PERSONAL profile.  This allows you to have the best of both worlds without hurting your brand positioning.

Target Market Communications:  You are able to connect and speak directly with your target consumers right on your page!

Feedback:  It is a wonderful place to post items that you want to receive feedback on, survey or just have your audience kick around an idea to see if it would work.

Newsfeed Visibility:  Again, this is a main reason why these are powerful.  Anyone who connects to (or “likes”) your page, when they log into Facebook on the main screen they will see your updates.  This is very powerful!

Professional Promotions Hub:  This creates a main hub where you can direct people that are interested in your product/service.  It is also great to put on your email signature, email blast, suggest to friends and much more.

And that is just the beginning!  But instead of persuading you to jump in….how about I just give you some ideas of how to do it yourself.
Here is my list of the 10 things that you can do to launch your page effectively:

When you are asked for a picture, make sure to use your logo or you logo incorporated with your product or service.

In the blank box underneath your photo that says “Write something about yourself”, include your company contact information, website, Twitter address, blog and more.  Whatever you want people to have instant access to purchasing and learning more about your product/service.

Fill out the “Info” tab to the full extent, packing it with information, keywords and website links.

If you have a range of products, in the “Photo” tab, create photo albums around your product ranges and in the caption portion give links to click and purchase.

Use the “Discussions” tab to create questions that you want your target consumer to answer.  This is good for customer feedback, development of new products and much more.

Make sure that your blog feed is connected to your page so that all new entries will be automatically sent there.  If you don’t want to automate that, everytime you update your blog, post a link on your Facebook Page wall.

Do not link it with Twitter!  Not all of your “tweets” will be suitable for your Facebook Page wall, and sometimes you will forget they are linked.  I suggest staying away from this.  Also, it can look lazy.

When you are posting to the page, don’t constantly “sell” or “push” things are your audience.  Make sure your posts contain something that is either educational, engaging or entertaining.

When you are happy with how the page looks (and all of the information is COMPLETELY filled out) suggest it to ALL of your Facebook connections.  Even ask your friends to suggest it to their network.

Consistently monitor and update the page.  A good solid page should have at least one update per day and all comments responded to.

And there you go!  Hopefully this will help you get started on your way to being a Facebook Page success story!

Social media is a medium that helps marketers to understand customer requirements while also helping customers to understand the brand. Currently it is growing by leaps and bounds. The users do try to understand the company, brand, and product through various social media platforms, but if the company hasn’t established a convincing reputation on social media platforms, the chances of losing customers are very high.

1. Unfinished Profile: This shows your inability to prove your strength online. Most of the marketers are making the mistake of not filling in all details in the profile. Unfinished profiles create a poor impression of the business and one that prompts people to believe that marketers are lazy. This is not the case. Ensuring an online presence with complete profile details as well goes a long way in helping the marketer’s efforts.

2. Irregularity in Updates: This is the one of the most frequent mistakes made by marketers: they are irregular in posting updates. Or, they are not ready or armed with a plan for making comments, tweets, and updates. As a professional marketer, you have to plan your social mediamarketing strategy. Advance planning can help you save your valuable time while being consistent and prompt to the customer as well.

3. Less or no Interaction: If a visitor leaves a comment on your updates or writes something on your wall, you, as a marketer, must be ready to respond to them politely or thank them for the feedback. If you don’t, you will lose your visitors’ attention from your product and business. This will gradually lead to less and irregular visits on your profile. Hence it makes immense sense to participate in conversation threads and express thanks or write a nice reply to feedback left by visitors.

4. Absence of Inter-linking: This is a common and easy-to-fix mistake by most of the marketers. Inter-linking can make every follower/fan aware that you are also available on another social media sites. You must put every social profile/page link on your blog and website; you can also inter-link the social sites.

5. Afraid of Asking visitors to ‘Like’ or ‘Follow’ you: As one survey shows, visitors ‘like’ or ‘follow’ those pages more often which asked for their approval and participation, as compared to those that did not ask. So, don’t be afraid of asking for ‘likes’ or ‘follows’.

6. Content Issue: There are a numbers of marketers, who publish content without bothering about its relevance. Content is one of the biggest tools for a marketer. It must be interactive and interesting. Ideally, you should post content that is not only interesting and interactive but also related to your business.

There are other mistakes also that are made in social media marketing such as not putting a relevant call to action button, not proofreading the content thoroughly, and not posting continuous updates throughout the day, among others. We look forward to your valuable inputs on this topic.

Just when we thought it was safe to rest for a second, another social media site hits the scene to shake up those marketing plans. Again.

Since its inception at the end of 2011, Google+ has grown astronomically and stole the spotlight by snagging more headlines than any of its competitors.

As the site continues to grow, it continues to define itself as a major player in the social media marketing arena. NOW businesses too have the opportunity to throw their hat in the ring with Google+ Pages for professional purposes.

While to some it may seem straight-forward how to use Google+ Pages for business, many are confused as to how to set up brand marketing on the site.

Much like Facebook – Google+ has some ground rules that you have to follow. Remember before Facebook Pages, how many companies registered their business under a personal profile…and when Facebook Pages was implemented, were left out in the cold and had to start over? Thankfully Facebook has fixed this problem and now those who were out in the cold can transfer their info over to an official Facebook Page, but what a pain, right?!

Google+ moved quickly on this front in order to trounce this confusion and to get users started using the Pages quickly. But the question remains: if I am marketing my business in Google+, do I use a Google+ Profile or a Google+ Page?

Here’s the skinny. The best way to get the most out of your time on any social site is to follow the guidelines that are presented when you sign up. If they are asking for your first and last name – its a personal profile. If they are asking for your business name and website – it’s a Google+ Page. Pretty straight-forward right?

Here’s a little curve ball for ya…in order to create a Google+ Page, a personal profile must be presented. Yikes! What do I do now?

First, don’t worry. Think of your Google+ Profile as you would your LinkedIn profile. You can list your interests, achievements, work and educational history, as well as social media links and lots more. Update your profile and interact on Google+ as if you were on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter in a professional way.

Now on to your Google+ Page! This is pretty much a similar format to your Facebook Page, Company Twitter or LinkedIn Company Profile. Here, updates will be in your brand’s voice and carry information that your company wants to share to engage your audience.

So to keep it short and simple, use both profiles to market yourself and your business on Google+, as this will give you two areas of coverage. Not interested in having your personal details connected? Keep your personal profile sparse. I think it is best to fill everything in, but everyone is different. Here’s one way to look at it; The internet is a pretty open place, you can find out just about everything and anything about someone – so rather than hide behind your business, be transparent! Although there may be some good reasons that one may not want to be the spokesperson for the company’s

Google+ or LinkedIn page, the trick here is in how you manage your privacy settings, and what content you put online.

I was listening to an online radio show from the UK yesterday that said that of 300 hiring firms, almost all of them had ‘researched’ social media sites regarding individual candidates – the takeaway from that should NOT be negative…rather – solidly build, manage, and populate your social media sites, and they will be your living resume! (And if someone is interested in speaking to you about a job offer – they will usually contact you utilizing your offline contacts!)

Once you have yourself setup – dive in! The conversations are lively and you will be able to connect with lots of interesting people and drive brand awareness like never before.

Today I want to talk about how to use this new top 10 social media tool to attract a demographic it has not yet fully reached: men.

It should be obvious in your day-to-day interaction that men and women process information differently. According to studies, men can narrowly focus their brains on specific tasks or activities for long periods of time without tiring. Women are better equipped to divide their attention among multiple activities or tasks.

This research lends itself to why Pinterest has found such a friendly response from female users. Pinterest’s structure is made for those who can multi-task and look at multiple streams of different topics and information at the same time.

Think about that information and apply it toward the way Pinterest is structured. Men like single-subject content, i.e. men want to choose the things they want to see at that moment, not a proverbial quilt of other users content. This means they are more apt to search other users specific boards (a compiled set of pins pertaining to one topic) for great content.

Using focused and content-specific boards is a great way to market to men as their brain is highly specialized. Men use specific parts of one hemisphere or the other to accomplish specific tasks, while the female brain is more diffused and utilizes significant portions of both hemispheres for a variety of tasks. Create boards with one idea in mind that can be easily searched. This may mean having to put on your SEO hat doing a little research with Google’s keyword analytics tool.

Now that you have created a focused and targeted board, lets talk about how to use the Pinterest medium to your advantage by creating content men are more apt to look at. Pinterest is an image heavy medium and your campaign should be as striking as it is clever. With that said, here are some tried-and-true ideas that men will want to look at and share.

Do It Yourself
Images showing step-by-step method of handling a difficult task easily or creatively will always draw a man’s eyes. Nick Collins, a film student and avid Pinterest user says: “I use Pinterest for personal use and upload posts that relate to my style and posts that relate to everyone. My most popular board is my “DIY” and “Everyday Tricks” board, which always attracts interest and produces repins.”

Funny Stuff
If you watch any beer commercial (whose commercials are generally targeted towards men), you will see their primary tactic to garnering their viewers attention is through humor. Next to sex (more on that later), humor is the most commonly used marketing ploy to gather men’s eyeballs. Create your own funny content or ads to post or share the funny content of your peers. Try creating a board that encourages users to create funny captions to a picture (or pictures) that feature your product or your products lifestyle. A well made, funny ad is great fodder for virality and a surefire way to pick up the attention of your male market.

Creative Results
Men like seeing clever ways of getting things done. Why not show your product in a different light with creative uses and ideas for your projects? Suggest that people submit their creative ideas to your boards. Show men how your product can be a quick or efficient solution to a problem and they will be sure to share your image with their friends; most likely with a caption that reads something like “check out this” or “this is awesome”. These uncommon and creative adaptations to your product will gain virality and create a positive and functional connotation with your product.

Sex Still Sells
Everybody likes looking at a pretty person. The last and possibly the most obvious image that will attract men is sex. Men are genetically attracted to the visceral and sexual. Using fleshy pics that arouse the ire will help in selling your wares and spreading your message. Utilizing sex as a tool to sell your ads however may associate your brand with being salacious and possibly sleazy. A bit of market research should advise you how much discretion to use when using sex to market to your male client.

Pinterest surely is a social network on the rise. These are a few ideas on how to use this powerful new network to target a male audience. Do you have any clever ideas to attract a male audience on Pinterest? We’d love to hear them, so share!