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Facebook: Profiles, Groups & Pages

Getting started as a business on Facebook can be confusing!

For an individual to get started on Facebook is really pretty straightforward, but businesses are often left scratching their heads at what solutions are available to them.

Facebook has three basic functional units: Profiles (for individuals), Groups (for community and interest groups) and Pages (for businesses and intellectual property)

Facebook Profiles

For a “personal”, non-business entity Profiles are the simple easy answer. They are the default method of operation on Facebook and it is just short of impossible to do anything without a profile. Many things that you can create or do (such as these Pages and Groups) are tied to and linked to your profile as well. (You can create a Page without a Profile but be prepared to jump through many hoops.) While it may be tempting to do business from here that is a huge no-no in Facebook’s eyes (and a violation of the Terms of Service (TOS)).

Creating a profile for a business, creating more than one profile for an individual, posting any direct advertising on a profile page, running a contest from a profile, as well as anything that can be even SLIGHTLY considered spammish such as adding too many friends in one day or replying in the same way too too many invites at once… are all grounds for your profile to be banned (which then takes associated Groups/Page access with it).

This does not mean however that Profiles are not an ideal way to network, make friends and connect with other like minded individuals and further business relationships. Because a Page or Group can not have a “friend”, a profile is your only ticket to getting access to another individuals profile wall and thus current status updates. For an example of these you can find my & Nile’s profiles here, however keep reading to understand why we both make more use of our pages than our profiles for early networking.

Facebook Groups

Groups used to be the primary point for interaction among like minded communities on Facebook. They also used to be the most likely opportunity to build some buzz around your area of expertise. While groups based just on a brand did not often fair too well without preexisting name recognition, groups built around areas of interest such as “social media” could often allow a small business to develop a loyal community that they could serve with value and carefully use as a market.

All of that said, you note the “used to” expressions here I’m sure. That’s because Groups have been on (non-official) non-development status for a long time now. They have received no love and do not have access to many of the resources, utilities, features (including no access to Facebook Applications) that they should have. Messages posted on a Group wall do NOT post in the members News Feeds and because of this members will usually join Groups and never return.

So why do I mention them? Because they are the only way on Facebook to form an interest community that you then have access to directly EMAIL (okay, Facebook Inbox email) the individuals “blast style” all at once time. While there is no scheduling of email messages, the ability to send emails directly to the Facebook Inbox of members can be a critical part of some marketing campaigns. However, it must be noted that all marketing done in Groups has traditionally been soft sell, attraction-marketing style because the TOS is incredibly vague as to whether doing business from a Group is permissible. Big businesses shied away from Groups for this reason, and Facebook sought to appease the needs of these businesses by creating….

Facebook Pages

The late-coming to the Facebook Game, Facebook “Fan Pages” were designed with businesses in mind. Their policies are permissive on advertising, marketing, member engagement (except contests which is a sticky problem) and more. Fan Pages are the sexy, younger, high-maintenance sibling with all the neat toys!

This is where a business can get in and develop both their brand and an interactive fan base. The best pages are those that foster brand involvement are are open for members to post on and interact with the business, however businesses can chose to keep all of the postings on the wall as strictly their own too.

Facebook Applications help take a rather sterile looking Facebook platform and bring it to life with color, HTML (technically FBML), javascript, video and social media integration (such as RSS Feeds).  Since Nile (her page) and I (my page) both appear to currently have our FBML Welcome/Landing tabs under development again (to comply with some upcoming changes), I’d like to point you to have a look at Mari Smith’s fan page. Now if you are not already a fan of Mari, when you clicked that link you were redirected to Mari’s Welcome/Landing tab and you can see the high rate of customization as well as the call to action to “Like” the page. In case you were already a fan but wanted to look again at what I’m talking about, here is the direct link. Applications like “Static FBML”, “NetworkedBlogs” and “RSSGraffiti” let you bring pages to life.

There are some downsides though and that is that Pages can not have “friends” and so can not access a individual’s profile directly (although their status updates do appear in the fan’s News Feed), can not post replies off of their own wall (on another Page for example) as the business (only as their own personal profile), and can only send “Updates” to the members which do not go to the members actual Inbox. Also because of the inability to (ever) change a page’s name, it is highly suggested to have a personally branded page even if you chose to make a second business branded one. Think with the end in mind and realize that if your business name ever changes you can not rename the page.

Regardless of the limitations, Pages are essential to building businesses today on Facebook. They are the cornerstone of presenting your business in a professional light, have good SEO, are inviting to the public and their ability to be customized is helpful.

Hopefully this helps you understand the opportunities and tools available to a business on Facebook. While initially it can all feel confusing, once you get used to it there is some method to the madness! Likely over time, as Pages continue to be actively developed on, the few downsides that they presently present will be eliminated. Questions? Thoughts? I look forward to seeing them here and also getting to know you on my page. Drop by and tell me a about you and feel free to share a link to your own Page!

Kimberly

In April, Twitter announced Promoted Tweets – a way to show ads that relate to specific searches people do on Twitter. They’ve started with a few large companies to test the program – one of those is Starbucks. If you searched Twitter for “coffee” you might see the ad, which looks like any other tweet except it’s labeled. It says, “Promoted by” but it works differently than a regular tweet. The more people retweet, favorite, and click the ad, the more it’s promoted. The opposite is also true.

Twitter is said to have over 100 million users. Other models have you pay someone to tweet something for you. So you could pay someone like Ashton Kucher to send a tweet about your new video to his followers (he and wife Demi Moore have almost 8 million followers between them).  With promoted tweets, the tweet comes directly from the company.

Here’s how it works – advertisers pay for keywords so when those words are searched, the person sees their ad. So for example, let’s say DISH Network signed up. Then when someone searches on the name of a show a tweet the company creates about the show could show up. For example: someone searches “food network” and a tweet from DISH Network asks your opinion about the most recent episode.

Of course, if no one searches on the terms, no one will see the ads. That’s the problem I have with it from an advertisers point of view. Unless people retweet it the only exposure you’ll get is for the small percentage of people who use Twitter search and happen to type in one of the terms you’re bidding on).

One of the first companies to say they were successful with Promoted Tweets is Virgin Airlines. They announced a new flight to Toronto directly from Twitter. They also ran a 50% off deal for the first 500 travelers to book a flight from LAX or SFO to Toronto. It looks like it was successful because the day Promoted Tweets went live, Virgin had the fifth highest sales day in its history.

The nice part is that the ads are pretty low key and hopefully advertisers will make the ads more conversation starters or sharing information than pitches to buy something. I wonder if the ads will go through an approval process.

People on Twitter haven’t been very enthusiastic as you can imagine. Twitter doesn’t really make money but they expect hundreds of advertisers – which could bring in a lot of cash.

What do you think – do you like the idea of Promoted Tweets?

Recently Mashable published Facebook CEO: “We’ve Made a Bunch of Mistakes” and as much as I hope Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg means that those new things include revamping the privacy policy, I would have to wonder how much would they compromise in changing it.

There ARE people still washing their hands of Facebook… so this kind of makes me believe that there either was enough account deletions for Facebook to care, or perhaps a light of common sense finally shined. I like to use Facebook. I will keep using it unless there is something extremely wrong ethically with their system that I cannot agree with.

Despite the fact Facebook is one of the largest websites, it is like when Yahoo! used to be top dog over ten years ago – you do something to piss off people that were loyal users, and you lose it. For those who want to jump the ship, fine, but for those who are not as rash – wait a bit.

This little tidbit of hope for redefining a user’s experience might actually happen. However, is it too late? I mean, hey, Facebook found the time to put in Leet Speak and English Pirate in their language options. I mean, if it was really important to focus on that rather than important user policies, I am not sure what kind of direction Facebook wants to go.

What are your thoughts?

Facebook users are pissed off after Facebook’s privacy issues. This is nothing new, as they have been pushing their plan of taking over the Internet, users are getting pissed off enough to delete their own Facebook accounts.

Frankly, it is not surprising. I am not sure about other countries, but if anyone remembers Pinky and the Brain… I am just about relating that to Facebook’s mentality on how they dominate the Internet. I like to use Facebook, but I am concerned if it comes to my information being carelessly shared with people who have no business knowing it.

Of course, I am pretty lax about my own information, going as far as even sharing my birth name here on Blondish.net because I have nothing to hide and because I kind of agree with Tony Bradley’s article on PC Word called Facebook Privacy: Mea Culpa Reality Check, let me add:

- Did you share your Social Security Number or equivalent?
- Did you share how you go to the restroom?
- Did you share that embarrassing college moment?

My advice in this matter is that if you are not comfortable sharing your information with others online, then do not fill all those blanks out in your Facebook profile (or any of your social network profiles.) I know my own father is hesitant to join Facebook because he already has an issue with his patients (he is a Physician Assistant) trying to get his home and cell number. How do I know? – people have called me to try to get it!

The problem is that when you go online and fill out anything with your own information, the search engines WILL pick it up. So, if you are not comfortable, do not fill out all of the user profile information.

Unless Facebook requested you to put driver’s license, country residence, your exact home address, or social security number (or equivalent in another country), then it is pointless to delete. Be responsible for your information first.

It has been known that Facebook has been inching toward some kind of plan to let everything be open. I do have to put my own foot down as I do believe that even though Facebook offers a great and free service, the company should make sure the users feel like they can use it and not fear for their lives. It is bad enough that employers are looking online to check a person’s background by merely conducting a search through Google. That and the fact Facebook brings in a lot of money from its users – (point of view change) come on Facebook – give your users some love!

What are your thoughts on Facebook and its privacy

I was laughing lately about the title in the article that Dan Keller writes, called Does your blog suffer from ADHD?. However, as much as it was a funny title, the article shares a serious issue. Before I go into sharing some ways to help give your site a better focus, I thought I would share my own personal experience.

Some of the bloggers that are still learning the ropes may have started a site for whatever reason and built it with zest. However, months or maybe a year or two later, the site is one heap of a mess. This is what happened here at Blondish.net at one point. And that took 3 years and a very bad decision to have a hiatus. What I realized was that I needed to focus on what my site was about. I never wanted Blondish.net to be a personal blog. In fact, this site has evolved from a website I had in site competitions and the goal was to give free advice and free graphics.

Blondish.net is always evolving. A lot of people who visited 6 months ago have seen it in action. Two years ago, this site was quite a stranger. So, as I have focused more on what was important, my site has improved greatly.

Here are 5 ways I did this:

• 1. Go back to the drawing board. Your site does not make you. You are the one responsible for your website and can control it. Brainstorm what you want your site to focus on. Keep it within so many topics and make sure what you talk about is something you are familiar with as well as eager to learn more about. Too many topics and your site could continue to seem chaotic.
• 2. Get rid of the excess or move it elsewhere. All that content that no longer fits needs to go somewhere. You might want to open a second website, or keep it on draft.
• 3. Is your site design reflecting what you want it to? You need something to be proud of. If your site is too plain Jane or does not give anyone a reason to want to visit, why bother. Even if your site has awesome content, how can you make your site memorable. Think ‘McDonalds’ and all those places that you probably knew what they were as a child before you could read by just the logo on the sign.
• 4. Get feedback. As some people in your niche that you know about what you can do in order to improve your site. Make a survey. Send an email out or send a message through your social network streams. Ask anyone who has visited your site what interested them and what they believe would help you covert over more visitors.
• 5. Be open to changing and revamping your site focus at any time. You might go through several brainstorm sessions on your site focus before you get a winning plan. It is up to you to make sure you or your webmaster is on top of the most current ways to optimize your site for search engines, designs, and even your visitors.

What other ways do you believe will help a website owner have a better site focus?

A lot of people like to debate on which is better – Blogger or WordPress? For those not familiar with these two, you can skip the first part as I will give a little background on each.

Background of Blogger
Blogger started in 1999. In 2003, Google acquired Blogger. Most Blogger users are typically found on the Blogspot.com domain. This is a service that is totally online and done through Google. There are no free downloads to install.

Background of WordPress
WordPress started in 2003 and was forked off from b2/ cafelog as an open source software. In those days, it was merely called a blog platform, which some people today are still getting over the fact it is now a whole content management system. Users could download the full script and install it to their own web host. In 2005, WordPress also opened it doors at WordPress.com to mass hosting anyone that wanted their own website.

Side by side comparison chart for WordPress.com and Blogger users

Summary
Although I have my own self-hosted install and find it very comfortable, I did try out both WordPress.com and Blogger.com. I found Blogger not as user-friendly as WordPress.com. Of course, I was already familiar with the WordPress admin panel, but it was annoying to have to feel like I was going the long way to do something.

I have an issue with Google gobbling up so many different products and smashing them together to work. I think better integration of Picasa would be nice.

My main worry is the fact that if Blogger goes down, that means even those who have full domains will suffer this issue. For those who are using it for their business, this would be a problem. It might be better to get away from Blogger and get hosting elsewhere.

The choices in templates are quite limiting and not as mature as a lot of WordPress templates out there that are available. In fact, a lot of Blogger websites I have seen have a lot of issues with coding. I have found a lot of widgets that did not work. It took 5 different tries to get a Twitter widget on Blogger to work.

I am annoyed that with WordPress.com does not allow you to include outside codes for tracking or some javascript codes in the widgets.

I like that you can import a lot of different places to WordPress.com. This is feature is also available to those who self-host their blogs.

I am a WordPress fan girl, so of course I am going to root for WordPress all the way, but because I wanted to honestly review these two services side by side, I had to look pretty deep. In the end, I found WordPress far more user-friendly. I am not totally ruling out Blogger. It is a pretty good tool, but it is kind of a damper that it can only be access by signing up. Perhaps Google might open source it? Maybe not… who knows.

What are your thoughts on Blogger and WordPress? Which one do you think is a better system for bloggers, and why?

Why should you guard your email address? Most people know when you see an email address that the text is blue and underlined, you can simply click it and your default email program (like Outlook Express, Yahoo, or Thunderbird) will open up with a way for you to immediately write that person. When you display your email address to the public that way, you are welcoming a lot of trouble, like being spammed.

Every day there are computers designed to scan the Internet for information. Many are for good, and others for bad. Some that are good do not discriminate on the information retrieved by the computer robots/ spiders / programs. This information can be many things like people, things, amounts, and much more, but even more so, a lot of computers are designed to acquire email addresses.

This is called email harvesting. It is much like companies who pay good money to get people to gather phone numbers so telemarketing companies can call you in the most inconvenient times at their most opportune time. When these computers have harvested emails each day, they are sent automatically to a program that has a template email pre-made from the company behind that computer, sometimes even several, or several hundred different templates. They plug the emails in two different ways. They either plug it in individually- again the computer does this so this whole process has nothing to do with humans emailing you. The other way is mass email. This is spamming. Well, both ways are as the simple definition accepted for the term “spam” is unwanted, off topic, solicited material.

So, when you sign up for some items, your email might be sent out to third party computers/ companies. In return, your email goes from getting the one email that you wanted to several emails that you did not want. Some individuals will open their email inbox and find hundreds of emails they never wanted.

The even more pathetic thing is that if some of those emails offer you a way to sign up to get off their mailing list, you will be taken off theirs, BUT you will find that you have sadly gotten sucked even further into the spam system. Despite the Spam Act of 2002, which was suppose to protect users online from this horrendous and seemingly unending cycle, people are still having problems with being spammed.

Some of the spam emails are quite tricky. Some include your name in the subject, making you, the user think that these people somehow either know you or they trick you to think that there really is a real person out their emailing. There are real people that do get paid to send mass email, but because of the easy email harvesting, that is even becoming obsolete.

Here are some suggestions in trying to prevent from your information being harvested, even your email.

1. Do not hyperlink your email address. If you must, put NO SPAM within your actual email address or type out the AT and the DOT in your email address. This makes it a little tougher for spammers to filch your email address from your web site.

2. It is far more recommended to not reveal your email address at all. Use a secure contact email form or one that has captcha. For WordPress users there are plenty. I actually use Dagon Design Formmailer (they even have a stand alone php version) for my contact forms because they have captcha.

3. Do not sign up for things that ask you to sign up just to get something back, even if it seems fun. It will not be fun when you keep getting email because you signed up for hundreds of things because it was free. Free should should mean without expecting anything in return.

4. Do not reply to spam mail. Block it or report it if you can.

5. Use a spam filter for your email inbox. Most filters allow you to put in keywords that you usually see in spam so you can reduce it. This will not eliminate the problem, but it certainly can reduce what you see coming into your email inbox.

6. Sign up for some type of email security that will not deliver mail unless the sender has to verify that they are a real person. There are plenty out there that are free.

7. Do not open emails that you do not recognize. It is either spam or it could even be a virus. Viruses can be attached through the code in email as well as any attachments.

8. If you do open spam mail, do not click on the link to take yourself off their mailing list. As mentioned, you will not succeed, and only make the problem worse.

9. If you do sign up for something, make sure that the site says that they do not share your information with third parties. This would be like a visual contract and the company could be reported easily.

10. Always, if you are not sure of something, simply do not even open the email, or even the site in question.

11. Remind your usual email friends to remember to put a valid subject. This will prevent their email from being thrown into the spam or junk mail.

12. Make sure your password is not easy to figure out. You might have to write it down somewhere, but it is better to do that then risk being hacked.

Have any other advice? What services do you recommend for people wanting to prevent spam?

There are so many ways you can monitor your site. Google Analytics, Quantcast, Woopra, and much more. But with all these bars, graphs, and numbers – what do they mean? This article will discuss how you can analyze your site stats.

The Terms
Visits – This is pretty much self-explanatory.

Average Time on Site – This is how long your visitors stay on your site. You want them to stay on your site as long as possible. This means you have to provide interesting, relatable, and valuable content.

Bounce Rate -Google explains bounce rate as:

Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. Use this metric to measure visit quality – a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren’t relevant to your visitors. The more compelling your landing pages, the more visitors will stay on your site and convert.

Conversion Rate – This is the percentage of how many people you have gotten to do something other than just visit and leave your main page. It might be an e-commerce shop, a script, an e-book, or something. This is something that attracts people to the nifty parts of your site that you wanted people to see.

How To Make These Work For You
Applying these tools usually takes inserting a snippet of code somewhere in your theme. The site will track and you can go in daily or weekly to see your site’s progress.

In order to see progress, you have to create content that will attract readers – no matter what niche you might be in. And yes, even if you just have a journal site to document your family life, as long as you are striving to reach a certain audience, you too also have to watch your stats.

Focus on what people are looking for on your site, what pages they are visiting, where they entered from, where they left your site from, and even what time they are visiting. You can blog anytime you want, but if your regular visitors come around a certain time, aim to publish before they might come by.

You might have to venture into search engine optimization and make sure your articles are effectively being seen. So, if your keywords are not what they should be… you might want to go back and check things out.

If you have a site that has several major products (whether it be a free product or one for purchase), you can focus on each. When you do, check your stats to see what methods are successful and what are not. If people are visiting the page, but nothing is happening, you might want to check out the content on the page and see why it is not bringing the results you want.

A few outside related resources in Web Analytics that you might like to read when you are done here:
Web Analytics 101 -Learn Which Data You Should Be Using
Annotations of Google Analytics..How To Successfully Track What’s Working

What other suggestions do you have for anyone looking to make the most of their site stats? Any questions?