If I got a pound for every person that has asked me if ‘social media’ is better than SEO I’d be very rich indeed.

Sadly alas I get asked the question but don’t get a pound for the answer.

So without any further questions, I’ll answer the question of SEO and social media in this blog.

Firstly, social media is no way a substitute for SEO.  While you can gain extra presence with a few social media profiles, they are no competition for your actual website and having that indexed well on the major search engines.

Just because your company name in Facebook shows up on Google, does in no way demonstrate it as a reason to see it as a better marketing option than SEO itself.

The most important thing to consider here is that people don’t necessarily search for your company name online – usually when people are looking for services, they will seek out search terms that might be relevant to your business.

For example, if you’re called John Smith Lawyers – new potential clients are not going to search for that.  They may opt for ‘Lawyer in a town somewhere’ and a multitude of other potential search terms.

So what’s the difference between the two then?

Well for starters, search engines like Google are used to find information, professional services and of course products.  Whereas social media platforms like Facebook are social networks where people can join groups, interact with their colleagues and friends and post links to videos etc.

So from this point even, we can see that the purpose of SEO and social media is different.

Thus if you imagine that you have thousands of people coming to your website and you suddenly stop the SEO activity you may well get a few people to join your group but that won’t bring in anything like the same level of traffic.

Furthermore, with SEO you actually optimise your website for keywords that are relevant to what you do.  Therefore, a good SEO programme can really improve your ranking and of course potential business leads.

With Social Media, you also have the added problem in that it is not designed to ‘sell’ in the traditional sense, which means getting a return on investment in this area can be very grey indeed!

There are of course benefits to using social media but not for the same reasons as SEO.  Social Media can allow you to listen to your users, interact with them on a more social level and allow you to expand your customer service levels.

However, with any benefit comes a non-benefit.  Social Media takes a long time to build up.  It is not necessarily the best option for those looking for long-term commitment from users.

People who like your website and its products will return.  If you are expecting them to find the time to do this via your Facebook channel then you are probably slightly deluded (no offence honestly).

Social media is also a relatively new medium, whereas SEO has been around for a fairly long time and we all know that it is still important to have a good presence for your website.

After all, if someone is looking for a new pair of boots, they aren’t going to buy from your Facebook page.  They will undoubtedly buy from your website and therefore, that’s where your efforts should be focused on getting traffic to.

Don’t ignore social media – it’s a great supporting structure to everything else you do, but it is not a replacement for any kind of marketing activity.

Paul

Facebook’s new timeline means that the social media channel is going to be evolving and moving into a new iteration of its life. At first glance, the concept sounds like something from a science fiction film: ‘rebooting the timeline’. The reality is that Facebook is evolving to incorporate new and exciting features, as well as improving current features that have grown stagnant or too static. As its social competitors started to grow in strength, Facebook put a plan in motion to shake-up its foundations and start down a new path in the growing expanse of social media.

I have a huge passion for all things related to search engine marketing and social media, so here’s my breakdown of the key elements of Facebook: The Next Generation.

More media, more apps, more customisation

One of the most exciting aspects of Facebook’s timeline unveiling was the customisation that Facebook would now cater for in a big way. Facebook’s developer modules have been popular because they allow the users – especially brands looking to market themselves via social media – to customise their pages in ways that other social platforms cannot.

Every day, there are more brands wising up to using these elements in order to create a richer, more dynamic social experience for the users. Apps add further interaction between the brand and the user within social media, which can help to strengthen engagement with the brand and encourage them onto your website. Utilising these new Facebook elements effectively with a search engine marketing and content strategy could potentially be very effective in driving good traffic to your site.

Data

The apps updates segue into the new data features that Facebook will be implementing. Using new analytical software, developers can now learn more about the successes and failings of their integrated apps. They can look at more in-depth usage data to better inform their application development. Open Graph analytics are going to help to show the more engaging content to the users and improve on future applications to maximise user-engagement within social media.

Privacy

As with every update to Facebook, privacy remains the chief concern for users. The new timeline immediately set alarm bells ringing for users, who demanded to know exactly what information would now be available for everybody to see.

To prepare for the implementation, it’s advisable to go and review your privacy settings via Facebook. You are able now to limit the audience for all of your past posts. Although this option is tucked away at the bottom of your privacy settings page, selecting it will mean that people can’t trawl through your past posts if there’s content on there that you may not want them to see. This isn’t an airtight method; anyone tagged can still see the older content and their friends may be able to, too.

If you don’t review your privacy settings and amend them accordingly in time for the timeline introduction, then private information might suddenly become available to anyone searching for it. This might be a particular problem if you have used Facebook as a medium to rant about someone or as a channel to hop onto your soapbox about something that was aggravating you at work.

Facebook’s new timeline should revitalise an already powerful and popular social media channel and take it into a new, exciting era, but it isn’t without its potential problems. Innovation like the timeline is exactly what Facebook needs to differentiate itself from Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.

Paul

As Facebook continues to expand and develop the reach of social media across the world, the development team is making it easier and easier to customise a business’ Facebook page tailored to its specific offerings. The development apps in Facebook now allow a greater freedom for your business to develop its ecommerce strategy and digital marketing offering, with even more interactive features than ever before. A business Facebook page no longer needs to remain static with usual social updates. Businesses can now make social media their own, but some businesses are too afraid to make the leap from social media to social revolution. Outside of a strong search engine marketing strategy, this could be a huge and untapped resource for any brand wanting to solidify conversions and drive more intelligent traffic to the website.

Social shopping 

Facebook development is seeing a growth boom at the moment and improvements are being made all the time.  Integrating these innovative features into a business page allows you to create richer content within the social sphere and open up their offers or deals to active users within the Facebook page. Adding content like this – unique content is preferable – gives the active users a more comprehensive experience in using the Facebook page. Facebook pages are social communities where fans or customers can interact and discuss your brand. They are also a community where you can interact and engage with your customers on a regular basis. Businesses who integrate their offers and products into their pages are on a strong footing for encouraging more traffic to the website and encouraging purchases through an immediate and time-restricted offer.

Using these social elements is becoming quite popular within the fashion and cosmetics industries, as brands are trying new ways to engage with their customer base and target them with offers.

The Uniqlo clothing brand has several apps within its Uniqlo UK page on Facebook and each one is targeted in a different way. The first app is a digital marketing (e-newsletter) sign-up app – not as grabby as you might think, though. Although it’s encouraging people to add themselves to the database for direct digital marketing, it also incentivises the sign-up by offering a £5 discount voucher for opting to receive the e-shots. This £5 discount voucher could mean that your delivery is free of charge; whichever way you look at it, you’re getting money off for giving them your email. That’s a pretty good deal.

Uniqlo UK has also created a competition app that asks you to create a Uniqlo Christmas wish-list. Each week, the brand chooses a winner and sends them their entire wish-list. This seasonal offering has great sharing potential, encourages participation and encourages them to look through the products on the website to choose their wish-list. Great interaction and it is a great ‘surprise and delight’ for customers at Christmas.

Facebook apps are a great leap forward for ecommerce and targeted offerings. Having them directly integrated into the Facebook page gets a higher level of interaction as users participate in a comfortable environment. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens as a result of the forthcoming timeline feature. There could be bright blue days ahead for social media shopping and I’ll be keeping an excited eye out for the future.

Paul

If you have an e-commerce website and religiously follow your Search Engine Marketing regime, you might be looking for new and interesting ways to promote yourself further, without spending thousands of pounds on advertising?

Well, if you are then you should consider a new trend online that will eventually become the norm!

We always like to stay one step ahead of the game here at Little Big Voice and over the past three years, we’ve watched as You Tube has become an all encompassing machine of how to, how not to, what to do, product review videos – and that’s without the entertainment content available.

Early on, clever companies like Firebox offered video demonstrations of their products, offering the buyer a much more intensive view of something they were interested in online.

So how does a demonstration video work?

If you imagine you’re looking at buying a new desk online.  You see the photograph (which has been created professionally in a studio) but when it arrives suddenly you realise the colour you thought it was, is actually much darker and you’re now not so sure about the handles!

Well a video demonstration can offer the buyer a much better view of what you’re offering.  It allows you to get close up, to open the drawers, to look at the handles and see it against something else to produce a sense of scale.

This makes it much easier for a buyer to make an informed decision.

Videos can be short (perhaps 30 seconds) or a bit longer (say up to 1 minute) but if it’s something that is a big purchase (such as a video camcorder) you can probably spend a bit more time demonstrating all the features.

Video: An example of a good instructional video demonstrating the fitting of an aftermarket vehicle suspension system

How much does video production cost?

This is a big area in video but you’d be very surprised what you can achieve with a smaller budget.  Obviously if you’re heavily branded you may feel that a highly polished video is the answer, but more and more, You Tube users like to see real people simply demonstrating the products and talking about features.

For this reason, a good quality HD camera will work.  The only thing you will really want to be sure of is the sound quality.  This is very often forgotten when it comes to producing of videos.

So, for demonstrating it’s best to use a clip on microphone, rather than a directional one.  The sound quality is usually much clearer and you will find that it makes the video look a lot better!

If you are using a directional microphone, then you’ll need to be extra careful when filming and check levels regularly.  If in doubt, stick to a clip on microphone that is good quality!

What kind of stuff can be demonstrated?

You can choose a massive amount of things to demonstrate.  There is one company that features very simple videos of their furniture and have done for the last three years with success!

Technical videos that cover what a product can and can’t do are good, as well as gift videos that demonstrate a product more closely.

Pretty much anything can be demonstrated as long as you’re willing to put in the effort.

Sound Advice

The main thing to remember is that unless you’re a skilled editor, you are probably best opting for a close up demonstration of a product with a voice over, rather than trying to achieve Spielberg style shots.

While it’s nice to mix things up with close ups and mid-shots, unless you really know how to frame something you are best leaving it well alone.

A good option if you want some simple editing is to film the demonstration twice.  Once as a close-up and then again as a mid-shot, so you can then intercut between the two in the editing process.

However, again, we would repeat, the simpler you keep things the better result you’ll get.  Remember that people using You Tube are looking for advice, not high production values that cost the earth and that don’t really do what they’re supposed to do.

And before the curtain goes down

Obviously in retail terms, you will find products come in and out, so it’s probably not worth trying to film them all.  Instead, have a think about your popular products, what people tend to ask you about them and then put these in to your video.

Also, if you want to be really clever and get people to your videos, make sure that you tell them in any literature you send out with products so that they know they can come back.

Paul

If you’ve got a business Facebook page you may have wondered many times how to gain more followers and how to turn those followers in to paying customers.

The facets of Facebook can seem like a mystery to many businesses, who are still trying to get to grips with the basics but it does not necessarily stop them from asking; “What are Facebook Ads?” and “Do I need them?”.

In short, the answer is ‘maybe’ depending on the type of business you have and what you want to achieve and in this blog we aim to give you a few ‘truths’ along the way.

So He-Man what do I need to know?

First thing to do is to know what Facebook Ads actually are.  You can get information from the Facebook Ads Page to start.  The case studies section is a little thin on the ground, but by logging in to your own Facebook account and going to your home page, you should be able to see Facebook Ads in action on the right hand side of the page.

Once you’ve taken a look around then you’ll need to focus your attention to your own campaign and how it might work.

Do you want people to buy more from you?

If you want people to do this, then you may be better off putting more budget in to your Search Engine Marketing efforts and getting people to go to your website.  If you think Facebook is about selling directly then the truth is you may have a tough time and while some people have found success, many others haven’t.

While big brands and niche products or services tend to do well, you’ll suffer if you’re B2B.  If you are business centric and sell to other businesses, then it will be much better for you to use things like Twitter and LinkedIn to do this.

If you are dead set on having some kind of campaign then consider some kind of promotion if you can or at the very least make sure the link in your Ad goes to a page that is full of resources rather than a simple retelling of your latest offers.  Remember, support of your page needs to have a social edge so simply telling people what you do won’t really illicit the kind of interest you imagine.

Do you want to raise brand awareness?

Facebook is much better for those who want to do this and you can get away with B2C and B2B in this area.

However, remember not to simply ‘sell’ all the time when it comes to updates as this won’t really do you any favours.

Your Ads can be highlighting promotions, offers and perhaps even things like Facebook games.  Remember you’re always looking for a ‘social’ edge so try and think of ways you can find people to like you and stay with you because they like you.  Equally, if you consider Facebook another way, it could be a great opportunity for people to ask questions and find out about your services.  This has worked well in our experience with people that sell specific interest products, such as gardening equipment or ski-holidays.

Do you simply want to gain more followers on your business page?

If you understand that you may not have an easy time selling through Facebook then you can always consider your Facebook Ads a way of getting people to follow your page.

If you are opting for this then you may want to ensure that there plenty going on within the page as well as an iframe or landing page of some kind to inspire people to ‘like it’.

These tactics work well for branded businesses and usually fair pretty well for ecommerce based businesses that want to make Facebook an avenue and tool to ‘remind’ people that they’re around.

Links back to the website have to be approached with caution though as technically Facebook does not condone the use of ‘website’ promotion, so remember if you’re going to do this you must make it ‘social’.

This could be something simple like; “What do you think of our latest product?” or could involve a ‘review’ of the product.

Skeletor’s only around the corner dead set on crushing your plans!

If you’re a B2B type of outfit then you may be disappointed to learn that Facebook is probably not your best choice in terms of marketing yourself.  It’s a sad fact, but it is also true!

While some people see success with Facebook, there are a number of businesses who are unrealistic when it comes to their expectations of Facebook and what they can actually achieve with it – so make sure you are a cautious before running in on full throttle!

Paul

There are so many strands when it comes to social media, that it can be difficult for businesses to grasp the facts.  After all, social media is still relatively new for many and while having a page on Facebook or Twitter seems like a great idea, it can be very difficult to work out HOW these pages can be used effectively to market your business.

In reality, social media comprises everything from SEO through to PR and to harness it well, you need to be aware of how best to your daily business efforts to your social media presence to get what you want!

So this is a very basic but helpful blog for you on how to create a proper social media strategy for your business, while identifying what is truly relevant and what you can ignore!

• The very first step is to identify what you want to achieve as a business.  This is usually before you do anything else and certainly before you set anything up!  So, take the time to think this through.

While it’s also obvious that for most businesses, gaining more business is top of the list, for social media you need to be much more creative in your thinking, so think about brand awareness, launching of new products or services, gaining customer feedback and opinion and so on.

• The next step in creating your social media strategy is working out what social media platforms will integrate well with your business needs and that list you have created

Now this bit can be a little more challenging.  Basically you’re not just promoting yourself on Facebook for example you have to assume that you’ll be marketing, selling, communicating and a whole host of other things through your social media platforms and thus, you need to work out which social media platform will work best for your activities.

So, the best advice here is to keep it simple and build upon it in stages.   Consider that Facebook is a good business to consumer tool, but is not necessarily going to sell products for you on an individual basis and that Twitter can drive traffic to your website and find you new business leads.

This is of course very simplified for you and for a top notch social media strategy you may be wise to consult a professional but if you’re a smaller business it’s a good place to start!

• Once you’ve deduced what platforms you’re going to start with – we would usually suggest Facebook, Twitter and possibly You Tube (but do speak to us about micro-blogging sites for SEO purposes).

So once you’ve worked out what you want and which platforms you’re going to use, you now need to apply all the other activities that need to be considered when it comes to social media for business.

These include:

• Include your Social Media links on your website
• Include your Social Media links at the bottom of your emails
• Contact of your current customer base to tell them where they can find you.  Maybe consider an email to your database!
• Set yourself a ‘review’ date for your activities. This is usually around three months from the date you started.
• Start looking for your current or past client base if you’re a business.  If they’re on Twitter follow them and say hello.  If they’re on Facebook do the same!
• Make sure that whenever you produce new marketing or PR materials that you consider the impact they will have on your social media.  Don’t forget.  Social media is not a ‘bolt on’ to what you already do.  It’s part of what you already do so you need to integrate it.
• Don’t forget your current clients or customers.   Most people assume that with social media you are simply gaining more followers to buy or promote you.  Remember in traditional marketing your biggest advocates will be the people who have used or purchased from you before so don’t forget them!

There are of course a multitude of other things to consider when creating a social media strategy, but this blog should give you a few pointers to get you started.

Always evaluate and review your activities regularly and once you think you’re doing okay, it’ll be time to create another strategy to take you forward another three months!

If you would like any help or advice on creating a professional social media strategy you can contact us anytime or do read our other social media blogs for top tips and tricks!

Paul

Barely have we got used to Twitter and a new concept comes along.  It’s called Quora and has been tipped to be the ‘next’ social media platform to hit the big time!

In my experience, this ‘big time’ concept has happened a million times over and it could be complete hype or considered something to take note of, but in either case, it’s probably worth taking a  look.

What is Quora?

Officially it’s an evolving platform that comprises of questions and answers that are solely created, edited and organised by individuals!  This may not seem that relevant if you’re a business owner, but if the onus is on you to create a question and answer page that is considered the best possible resource, it will become something you’ll want to get right!

As you are no doubt aware, whatever industry you’re in, it’s important to offer information about your products and generally share what you know to build trust – well if you now consider this and why having a great question page on Quora is going to be important you could well have your answer

Tell me more…

The best way to understand what Quora is, would be to look at it as a social platform where anyone can ask a question and get an answer.  In fact the name Quora is derived from ‘Questions or Answers’!

Quora basically acts as a cache for research and information from around the web, provided by other people.  So, it’s a bit like Wikipedia in some respects but much more ‘social’.

At the moment, Quora is the main site used as a meeting place for information between Silicon Valley tech companies but the word on the street is that 2011 is going to be its year to break through to the masses.

Just like Twitter, Quora allows you to follow trends, topics and of course questions and answers as well as people with similar interests, so it’s not too far removed from Twitter on this count and perhaps surprisingly it seems to be catching on with a lot of people.

However, it’s not all good news as Facebook and Twitter are putting together a new ‘graph’ concept which effectively charts interests and no doubt other things, which could make a great addition to the current social media monitoring tools and analysis platforms out there so on this basis, maybe Quora is a little late!

Keep your eye out for Quora this year. This could be the launch of a new social platform that does something quite different to the norm and as usual, when it does hit the general public (if not before), Little Big Voice Search Engine Marketing will be looking at how it may be effective for your business and how you might benefit from it.

If you are looking for any advice on Social Media, do look at our previous social media blogs, as you will find them packed with helpful information based on the platforms currently available.

Paul

If you missed recent events in the UK, you would probably have been under a stone as we saw significant rioting in many cities in the UK.  These included London – probably the worst hit, but also Birmingham, Nottingham, Manchester and Bristol to name a few.

Irrespective of the reasons why the rioting took place, suffice to say that it did a humungous amount of damage to businesses and communities everywhere but it also highlighted a major shift in the way that social media is viewed by the masses.

While the rioters themselves were believed to have used their Blackberrys and social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook to organise groups and activity, people around the world were getting the results of that activity from the same sources in real time.  So quickly in fact, that had you been watching Twitter on any of the days that riots took place, you would have found information being released twice as fast as it was on the news channels, with both images and even video being available.

At one point someone tweeted that they were on the streets of Birmingham with a video camera and that if you went to a specific channel, you could see things taking place as it happened.  I switched over to see a car driving through the streets picking up all the events – with not one inkling of the activity on the BBC or Sky News.

Another person tweeted the events in Manchester long-before they hit the news headlines on channels like Sky and the BBC, with photographs of rioters and the shops that were being damaged as it happened.  So when the Arndale centre was stormed, I distinctly remember seeing a group of rioters outside (via Twitpic) before it even occurred.

Does your mamma mia know?

Even the police were forthcoming in offering information about number of arrests and the activities taking place, which meant were you like me, watching the events unfold, you could pretty much get the full picture as it happened.  Greater Manchester Police were actually pretty impressive with their updates and a popular tweet amongst Twitter users was one that smacked of Liam Neeson in the film Taken.

“To the rioters in Manchester.  We have you on CCTV and we will find you!”.

The entire country (at least the tweeters) were commenting at an amazing pace with updates happening in seconds and it struck me that the power of social media at times like this is highly significant and having finally been noticed by Government and the Police, is perhaps now part of the masses.

The other side to the riots was of course the various clean up operations that occurred after the events.  It was actually quite touching that so many people used Twitter and Facebook to organise clean ups of their cities with fellow tweeters, with a Manchester based tweeter updating everyone after they’d taken part.  Apparently Picadilly Square in Manchester was the cleanest it has been for years!

So, while the Government and the Police are frowning upon Social Media as a tool that rioters and presumably other criminals could use all to easily, it should not be forgotten that the same social media channels were used for good.

Additionally, there were a number of people ‘caught’ by Police by using Facebook to incite rioting – which surely could be considered a good thing rather than a bad thing as well?

Needless to say I have absolutely no idea what will happen ongoing, but can tell you that in my neck of the woods the biggest upheaval was someone putting their bins out a day early – which shocked rather a lot of people!

Let’s hope that the rioters stay at home now (with some watching their stolen TV’s no doubt) and give us all a break from what has been a crazy couple of weeks!

If you haven’t been on Twitter and are still wondering what it’s all about.  Go to www.twitter.com and type ‘riots’ in to the search box.  It’s a really good way to see just what happened and what you could find as it happened!

Paul

The problem used to be…

When Facebook started out, perhaps its biggest USP when compared with the competition was the simplicity of each page design. While other sites like Myspace allowed users with little knowledge of code and no eye for design to customise their pages to oblivion, throwing all sense of usability out the window, Facebook offered refuge in the form of fixed layouts in clean blue and white.

With the introduction of fan pages, all that changed though, as businesses were given the opportunity to construct their own FBML code to represent their brand image within the overall Facebook layout.   This offered new Search Engine Marketing opportunities and direct access to offers, websites and content.  Now, however as Facebook pushes developers to create iFrames on their fan pages instead, businesses have more scope than ever when it comes to customisation options.  So if you’re looking for ways to improve your presence online and your Search Engine Marketing success, you may want to read about this!

So what does iFrames do?

iFrames essentially allows you to display other websites within your site, often within a scrollable box of dimensions specified by you. This can be incredibly useful, as it means you can refer users to other sites without leaving the page they’re currently on, so you can avoid disrupting the browsing process on your site. This prevents the issue of losing site traffic to other linked pages as well.

The scroll format iFrame also means users can scroll through the contents of the iFrame without losing their place on your webpage, so for example you could have an IFrame containing a scrollable album of pictures alongside a blog article about your reaction to the pictures or you can even replicate a smaller version of your actual website within Facebook, offering your potential customers a real branding experience.

What are its benefits/advantages? 

The advantages are even greater where Facebook is concerned. As iFrame content is generated by an exterior site (exactly the same as your website in fact).  This allows developers to create their own site and display it within an iFrame on Facebook. Whereas FBML code limited the scope of possibilities, especially if the developer did not fully understand this Facebook-specific mark-up language, now anything within a site developer’s capabilities is possible on Facebook.

Businesses looking to use this newfound freedom to develop their brand image could install Youtube feeds, blogs and other add-on apps onto their Facebook fan pages, giving them a whole new set of tools at their disposal to lure their target market in and increase interactivity.

iFrames offer benefits over the now largely defunct system of frames when it comes to SEO marketing, as they are search engine friendly, meaning keywords held within iFrames will be registered by search engines, increasing site traffic – meaning if you’ve got a Facebook landing page you could see it form an important part of your Search Engine Marketing ongoing.

Not only that, but they’re also one of the best ways to display items on your page which need to be frequently updated. For instance, if you have the same duplicate information on several pages; a date perhaps as a simple example, by using an iFrame on each page which links to a single page containing just the date, you can change this information on all the pages in one go, simply by amending this original source page. For more complex and detailed source material, this can prove immeasurably useful.

With all these possible benefits to your business, learning how to use iFrames really is vital in the rapidly evolving social media climate.

If you are interested in iFrames – then you can look in-house if you have the luxury of a developer, or you can opt for a number of subscription pages.

The very best ones if you’re a novice are Involver which has been around for quite a while and offers an array of social media applications – all easily installed for your business pages.

They have a pretty good static HTML Facebook page which is designed for the new Facebook iFrames and should have you up and running within an hour but they also have a whole host of other goodies, such as You Tube integration, Flickr, Polls, photo galleries and even vouchers – so it’s all out there if you look.

If you’re looking for something even simpler, then you may want to consider Pagemodo a really easy application that allows you to upload images and a link to create a page for your Facebook business page.  You can get one page completely free of charge too, so it’s probably one of the best to start with.

If you require any help with getting the best out of your Search Engine Marketing and Social Media, then drop us a line for advice and tips!

Paul

In a previous blog we took you through the ‘ins’ and ‘outs’ of Facebook to clarify what you needed to know as a business when it came to navigating and utilising it the right way.

This blog goes deeper into the Facebook universe so you can understand how to set-up and operate landing pages on Facebook to benefit your business.

So what are Facebook landing pages?

For those of you not in the know, a landing page for Facebook is essentially a page that profiles a brand or business with the option for anyone and everyone to “Like” it. Pick a big brand, type it into Facebook search and you’ll be sure to find a landing page and profile for it.

In the simplest possible terms; it’s a Facebook profile for companies, businesses, business persons and brands. And you really need to get one.

How do I set one up?

Many businesses employ the services of web developers or social media experts to do the legwork on this. It can be time consuming and confusing if you don’t know what you’re doing.

You have to think about what it is you want to communicate to your audience. What’s your business saying, what is it selling and what image is it promoting? Then those key factors that define your business brand and model must be directed into a strategy for turning visitors to the page into fans of the page.

Remember, it’s not all just about the product or service! You have to create a user experience beyond that.

A simple step guide:

Step 1

Install Static HTML iFrame Tabs – this is essentially a blank canvass on which to build on. You add whatever content you want onto it including custom graphics.

Step 2 

Set up your tab – this app can function as a set of boxes or as one dedicated prolife tab.

Step 3

Design your template – configure the page and add your content. Think about aesthetic, functionality and navigation. Include teaser content that convinces the user to click like on the page. To do this you need to set the page up so that it displays content to fans only. People need to click ‘like’ in order to see all the features of the page.

Step 4

Learn the language of FBML (Facebook Markup Language) in order to integrate and interact with your visitors. This comes only from practice.

What are the benefits of Facebook landing pages?

If the major brands out there have already recognised the value and importance of Facebook landing pages to their search engine marketing campaigns, you need to ask yourself why that’s the case.

The numbers of Facebook users are currently at 750 million from all across the world. That’s a huge potential market to tap. Remember, if you’re trying to raise your brand awareness you need to keep people informed by establishing an online presence in the right places.

Through a Facebook landing page you can link users to more information about your business, your products and services, and increase shares and likes amongst the online community.

But you have to BUILD that community from scratch.

That takes time and effort.

If your brand works and if you create the right presence for it on Facebook you can effectively market and network your business to a huge audience.

Paul