Social Network Advertising Tips: Get With the Social Network

Get With the Social Network

Humboldt County draws a lot of traffic, physically and digitally. We have a new crop of students moving in every year to attend HSU and CR, with a lot of them settling in locally after graduation. You better call ahead to get a table at Lost Coast Brewery during the touristy travel months of June through August, and in 2011 persons under the age of 18 represented over 20 percent of the Humboldt County population. And they are all sharing.

With some help of a good friend, we compiled a list of businesses in Humboldt County that are using Facebook. This list shows the current number of fans for each. For a numbers-in-marketing geek like me it was exciting to see where everyone ranks. But I was also a little disheartened. I believe technology and communications can be one of Humboldt County's biggest assets. But from what I can tell from the FB, we have some more work ahead of us.

The good news is the fix isn't a difficult one, and many of you have already found it.
Facebook is very specific in their terms of service that businesses sign up as "Pages" and not as "Profiles." They can nix your account for violating those terms at any time. The major differences between a Profile and a Page are people use Profiles, businesses use Pages. Businesses do not go to Humboldt State University, live in Eureka or have relationships that are "it's complicated." As it turns out, there are also a lot of Humboldt businesses in "open relationships," however I must assume those owners are just being funny. It was funny.

Profiles also top out at 5,000 friends while a Page supports unlimited fans. More than a few popular local businesses have exceeded 5,000 fans and dominate the top of the list, but we also have a number of local businesses stuck at 4,999 friends because of this error. They could be one of the top contenders but there is no way for their fans to support them. Facebook has set up a tool that will convert your Profile into a Page and you get to keep all of your friends! You may lose some posts and uploaded photos but you will be spared the daunting task of trying to individually convince each and every one of your current followers to "like" you a second time. Just do a quick Google search for "convert profile to page."

Now you have your business Page converted and ready to go, let's get to posting and let all of your fans know how great you are and what you have on sale! Please don't, for two reasons. As a fan I know you are great, that is why I am following you but please do not cover my Wall with your advertisements. I support local business and I "like" a lot of things, do not compete with my nieces for Wall space, you will lose. That means limiting the amount of posts you make as well as what you are saying and how you are saying it. A general rule of thumb is to not post more than a couple times a day, maybe less. More than three and that third one better be something your fans can't live without.

When you do post, be you. Do not talk like a salesman on Facebook, there is a place for that on the right hand side of the screen. On your Wall post things that your fans are interested in, Facebook is not for selling your product; it is for selling you, your brand and building a closer relationship with your fans. I was sharing a local beer with the owner of a popular local insurance company. She had good reason to think she didn't need a Facebook page because people do not want to hear about boring insurance stuff. She is right, they don't and I would "unlike" her business if that showed up on my Wall any time of day. But check this out, she represents a large number of Harley Davidson motorcycles in Humboldt County, think Harley riders don't FB? As of this writing they are playing host to 3.2 million fans on Facebook. So what should she be posting? Post about Sturgis, the Redwood Run and Sons of Anarchy. Post about the new bikes that come out every year and new technology. When they catch a glimpse from your post and check out that bike, they already have you in mind when they make the purchase; add another bike to the account. Facebook for business is not about what you are selling, it is about who you are and what you represent but most importantly it is about your fans.

That being said, this stuff is always evolving. A great place for information is mashable.com. They have a plethora of information to help businesses of all sizes succeed in social media. Below you will see the businesses that topped the list. If we missed you, get with the social.

Lost Coast Brewery: 29,003 fans; Humboldt State: 10,484 fans; Pacific Outfitters: 13,413; and Los Bagels: 7,893

T. Aaron Carter is the marketing director at Pacific Outfitters, founder of Spiderboldt New Media Advisors and board of director at North Coast SBDC. http://www.spiderboldt.com/

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What Is Social Networking?

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Social networking is the grouping of individuals into specific groups, like small rural communities or a neighborhood subdivision, if you will. Although social networking is possible in person, especially in the workplace, universities, and high schools, it is most popular online.

This is because unlike most high schools, colleges, or workplaces, the internet is filled with millions of individuals who are looking to meet other people, to gather and share first-hand information and experiences about cooking, golfing, gardening, developing friendships professional alliances, finding employment, business-to-business marketing and even groups sharing information about baking cookies to the Thrive Movement. The topics and interests are as varied and rich as the story of our universe.

As I'm sure you're aware, there are dangers associated with social networking including data theft and viruses, which are on the rise. The most prevalent danger though often involves online predators or individuals who claim to be someone that they are not. Although danger does exist with networking online, it also exists in the real world, too. Just like you're advised when meeting strangers at clubs and bars, school, or work -- you are also advised to proceed with caution online.

Once you are well informed and comfortable with your findings, you can begin your search from hundreds of networking communities to join. This can easily be done by performing a standard internet search. Your search will likely return a number of results, including MySpace, FriendWise, FriendFinder, Yahoo! 360, Facebook, Orkut, and Classmates.

Social network advertising is a term that is used to describe a form of Online advertising that focuses on social networking sites. One of the major benefits of advertising on a social networking site (facebook, myspace, friendster, bebo, orkut...and many others) is that advertisers can take advantage of the users demographic information and target their ads appropriately.

There are three major classifications of Social Network Advertising:

Direct Advertising that is based on your network of friends - This can be the most effective format but also causes the most controversy. An example is the Facebook beacon project.[5] Based on an action your friend has taken, you might see a message in your news feed saying 'Bob has just bought a 'RadioHead CD from MusicWorld'. This can be an extremely effective mode as often people make decisions to purchase something or do something based on their close group of friends. However, there is also a lot of controversy surrounding this as it can be considered exploiting the personal relationships you have with your friends and also raises privacy concerns.

Direct Advertising placed on your social networking site - This is a more traditional form of web advertising that is minimally effective. Just like you see banner ads on many other sites, this is a similar concept, except on a social networking site. You can see these - for example - as a brick in the top right of MySpace pages, or as a banner on the right of Facebook profiles and so on. There are two differences however - One is that these social networks can take advantage of demographic data on your profile and hence target the ad directly to you. Secondly, these types of ads can also be placed by individual developers on their application pages through ad networks. They have access to the same data and can generate income for application developers giving them further motivation to create apps and giving advertisers a more engaging way to reach out to these social networking users.

Indirect Advertising by creating 'groups' or 'pages' - This is an innovative marketing technique in which a company will create a 'page' or 'group' that users can choose to join. They will use this to build up 'subscribers' or 'fans' and use this to market a contest, a new product, or simply just to increase brand awareness. These groups can quickly grow in numbers of subscribers which can become a very effective marketing tool.

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