1. A personal Facebook profile

A personal Facebook profile is what you get when you sign up with Facebook under your own name. After entering all your information and confirming your account you are all set-up and ready to start! Based on your email address, Facebook will suggest people you already know and then those people can suggest others you may know to help you out.

On your personal Facebook profile you will have the ability to add friends and accept friend requests. You will be able to send these friends private messages and write on their public walls. Your friends can communicate with you in the same way. You will also have what’s known as a ‘home page’ or a ‘news feed’. On this page, which only you can see, it will display all of the activities of your friends.

You are only allowed to have 5,001 friends on Facebook, once you reach that number they won’t allow you to accept or add any new friends.

2. A Facebook Fan Page

Your Facebook Fan Page is going to be the main page of your business, your service, or it will be your page if you are a public figure. It’s meant for businesses to be able to connect with their customers, clients, and fans.

A Fan Page will operate in a similar fashion as your profile page, but with a few major differences. You have a public wall and a section to list your events, photos, and information. However, the only time you can respond to a friend ‘as your business name’ will be on your own wall. You cannot send people private messages or write on their walls.

Another essential difference, and the biggest benefit, is that anyone can ‘Like’ your Fan Page without having to be approved. Once someone has ‘liked’ your page, any updates you post will show up in their news feed. Unlike a personal profile, there is no limit to the amount of ‘fans’ you can have.

Make sure you check your Fan Page regularly (at the very least once a day), as Facebook does not alert you by email if a Fan has asked a question or written on the wall of your Fan Page.

3. Facebook Group

Facebook Groups are usually created around a mutual interest of the people involved. Groups are able to communicate privately between members and are a great tool for people with a common interest.

The major difference between a Facebook Group and a Facebook Fan Page is that any public communications between group members will not show up on a news feed. Members will have to visit the group regularly to see any new activity or will have to be alerted of new activity through private messages.

Which Facebook Page or profile do you use the most? and which one do you like the best?

If you still have question about the different types of Facebook accounts, do not hesitate to send me an email or comment [kristen@pxymarketing.com].

Below is the conclusion of my top 10 Tips on How to Use a Facebook Fan Page:

From creation, to tracking, to execution and sales.

6. Show some personality

Give your audience nuggets of information that will show them some insight into who you really are.  Are you seriously enjoying your favorite frozen yogurt in the middle of the day? Did you bring your dog to work and she just did something hilarious? Snap a photo, post something about it. Show people that you are human because ultimately people will end up buying products and services from other people, not from a ‘company’ image.

7. Bring your online customers offline and your offline customers online.

Combine the best of both worlds!  Host events that online fans can attend at your office, at your store, or at the neighborhood coffee shop.  Invite them to public events that you know would interest them, even invite them out for a cup of coffee to learn more about what they do. Encourage your offline customers to connect with you online, and hey if they aren’t signed up for Facebook yet you get the honor of being their first connection!  Don’t forget to add the URL to all of your marketing materials.  Put it on shopping bags, business cards, your email signature, everything!  Anytime you send something out to the world, make sure people can find you and easily connect with you.

8. Use Facebook insights

Using Facebook’s built in Insights tool is the best way to see what your fans are doing, and how they are responding to your posts.  After logging into Facebook, type in this URL: http://www.Facebook.com/insights and it will bring up the analytics of each fan pages that you are an administrator on.  By looking at each day, you can refer back to your post of the day to see which ones are generating the most comments and which ones didn’t spark any interest.

9. Connect with your influencers.

Once you are in the Insights page, find a day where you had a lot of activity (comments and likes), then make a note of those fans that continually comment.  You can keep this list on a notepad or a word doc, but make sure it’s somewhere you can reference it later.  When the time is right and you know enough about those fans who are constantly talking about you and to you, take some time to connect with them on a more personal level.  Send them a personal thank you note, recognize them on your Facebook Fan page, or think of some creative ways to connect!

10. Sales

You want to always treat your Facebook Fan Page as a sales funnel for your business. Creating relationships is awesome and it can be really fun, but for business it comes down to your bottom line. Talk to fans in public, answer their questions, and laugh out loud. Behind the scenes you want to be working really hard to sell your products in a private space to really help you leverage these relationships. This concept is where you are going to see an impact on your bottom line.

My goal of this article is that you’ve learned one new thing you can being putting into action or testing out today!  Good luck to you and don’t hesitate to contact me with questions!

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Connect with me on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/kristen.hinman or with PXY Marketing on Facebook here.

Kristen Hinman is the owner and Social Media Strategist at PXY Marketing. She helps businesses build relationships and works with them to manage their social networking efforts, saving them time and money. Her team offers social media marketing, consultations, public relations, and web design to get you more business. I invite you to send Kristen an email to learn more: Kristen@pxymarketing.com or visit http://www.PXYMarketing.com

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Below are my top 10 Tips on How to Use a Facebook Fan Page:

From creation, to tracking, to execution and sales.

1. If you don’t have a Fan Page for your business, create one!

Why do you need a Facebook fan page? How is it different than a personal Facebook page? Although you may be the ‘face of your company’ and you think all you need is your profile, you want to have a Facebook fan page for your business too.  Use your Fan Page as an additional avenue for your customers to find you and do business with you.  Don’t forget, Facebook only allows you to have 5,000 friends before you can’t add anymore.

2. Fill it in completely

You want people to call you right?! Don’t make it impossible for your fans to reach you outside of Facebook.  Fill in all information completely including where you’re located, how people can get into contact you, what your hours are (if this applies), your website URL, anything they would need to do business with you.  Populate your page with pictures, videos, and start sending out daily posts!

3. Customize!

Your Facebook page, as with all of your marketing materials, should match the look, feel and branding of your business. Create a custom Facebook tab so people are directed to exactly what you want them to see, so they can quickly identify they found the right person.

This link explains how to create a custom Tab.  Please note: you may want to forward this to your web or graphic designer:

http://bit.ly/9TbnDa

Here is a great example of a custom Facebook fan page from Longboards Ice Cream.  If you continue on to their Twitter, website, etc you will see that all their material is branded in the same way.

4. Build relationships

The purpose of your Facebook Fan page is to form a real connection with people, then get them to start wildly talking about you and your products.  Treat your page as a community, not only as a bulletin board for your product or services.  Talk with people, ask them questions that engage them, respond when they give you a positive comment, if they give you a negative comment respond in a positive proactive way, run interactive contests that fans can participate in, and have the freedom to be creative with your posts!

5. If you know it, share it!

Fan Pages are an amazing avenue to share your expertise with your audience.  Show people why you are good at what you do, show them why you are considered an expert in your field, provide them with valuable information.  By providing your audience with information they care about and information they want to hear, you will keep them coming back again and again.

Stay tuned next week for the conclusion of this series…Tips 6-10 which covers tracking your progress and leveraging your Facebook relationships into sales.

You can connect with Kristen and the PXY Marketing team on Facebook.

Kristen Hinman is the owner and Social Media Strategist at PXY Marketing.  She helps businesses build relationships and works with them to manage their social networking efforts, saving them time and money.  Her team offers social media marketing, PR services, SEO, and web design + social networking integration to get you more business.   I also invite you to send me an email to learn more about our custom packages:Kristen@pxymarketing.com or visit http://www.PXYMarketing.com

There are many ways to go about getting fans and you need to experiment with what works and what you’re comfortable with.  You can suggest to your current Facebook friends that they ‘like’ your page.  This is a great way to get your friends and family involved and aware of what your business is up to.  Once someone “likes” your page they have the ability to suggest it to their friends.  Run contests or promotions that encourage your current fans to do this.

Another simple approach would be to ask!  Ask people that you have connected with, in real life or via social networks to check out your fan page.  Make sure that you have first established a relationship or connection with this person.  Nothing is worse than asking someone right off the bat to be a Facebook fan.  Would you walk into a live networking event and say “Hi become a Fan on Facebook?”

Next, integrate Facebook into your website and blog.  You can add the “Like” button directly onto your website or blog.  If someone browsing your site for the first time they don’t have to log into Facebook to find you, they can “Like” you right then and there.  You can find many plug-ins online that will allow your readers or visitors to comment on your website or blog by using Facebook.  This saves people the trouble of creating a whole new profile, and they will be more encouraged to leave you some love!

Make sure to add your Facebook fan page link to all of your correspondence.  Add a link to your email signature, add it to your business card, brochure, flyers, newsletters.  Make sure people can find it on your website.  This is an easy way to continue to let people know you’re on Facebook, invite them to connect with you!

The best solution to getting more fans is to provide your audience with content that people find useful and that they value!  Valuable content across all of your social networking sites is the best way to catch people’s attention.  Share with people why you are an expert at what you do, share interesting facts, frequently asked questions, and interesting articles you come across.  Providing this information to your Facebook fans (whether you have 15 people who  “Like” you or 500) will encourage them to share your information with their friends, who will then check out your stuff, and if they like what they see…Hey! A new fan!

How do you get more people to “Like” your fan page?

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Using social networks as a tool to enhance your marketing effort, you can position yourself and your company as an expert in your field.  The same things you can do in face-to-face networking with a room full of people, can be accomplished faster online.  You can network, connect, leverage relationships, trust, build relationships, get referrals, and grow your business.

If you aren’t on any social networking sites yet, I suggest starting with the big 3.  Facebook, Twitter, Linked In.  This is where the people are, and all 3 are valuable tools to work with to promote yourself and your company while building the relationships you need to succeed.

Start trying out these networks today.  See what you like and what you don’t like, and start seeing what works for your business.  There will be some trial and error involved, but don’t give up and learn from your mistakes.  Good Luck!

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Business owners need to approach social networking and social media as tool to reach your goals, rather than a quick fix solution.  I can’t begin to tell you how many times I have heard, “but I don’t want to hear what my friends had for breakfast”.  Trust me neither do I!  If that’s what they are posting about, let them, but they won’t be making any money or utilizing the powerful tools available to them.  It’s what you do with it that can make all the difference in your business.

Any good marketing effort has it’s roots in a well thought out plan.  Sit down with yourself, your team, or a consultant, to determine your goals.  Do you want to increase awareness, educate people, be positioned as an authority figure?  A specific long term goal can help you to develop a plan that will allow you to execute the day to day initiatives.  Sign up on all relevant social networking sites, I recommend Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In as a good place to start.  Start a blog.  Determine what actions you will take each day, on each site and make a list.  For example, respond to messages or posts, create a new post, add five meaningful/targeted friends a day.  Execute this list each day.  It may take you thirty minutes, it may take you 2 hours.  I recommend logging on once in the morning and once in the afternoon, in order to monitor the conversation.  Creating this list will allow you to stay focused while you are online, so you don’t find yourself wasting that precious time.

By creating a clear plan and strategy you can easily monitor how close you are to achieving your goals.  Along the way you will develop great relationships in your new communities.  I think you will find yourself surprised, as I often am, at the opportunities available on social networks simply by putting yourself out there.

Capitalize on social networking sites

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Check out their photos:

Grammy Photos: January 31, 2010

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