Facebook Pages vs Profiles- What, how & WHY to change

Posted on March 31, 2011 in Social Media in Wichita Kansas by JuggleMedia

Facebook, Pages, Profiles

Facebook has constantly evolved over the years and as savvy business people in Wichita have wanted to connect their brand in the world’s largest social network, sometimes “doing it correctly” has been a challenge. Facebook has two main types of “Pages.” First, an individual person like you and me, are supposed to have a Facebook Personal Profile. Here’s what they look like:

Facebook Personal Profile:

-Reserved for actual HUMAN beings. Not businesses, dogs, cats, babies (I know they are human, but not over age 13) or anything not classified as human being.

-Must click “Add as Friend” to create a connection. If both people approve the link, they are called “friends.” The connection isn’t instant as both parties must approve.

-The Info area at the top of the page includes work information, education information, birth date, current city, relationship status and age.

-The Wall, or main feed, allows the user to share personal information, pictures and stories.

Facebook Page (a.k.a. Fan Page, Business Page):

-Reserved for businesses, interests, brands and locations (i.e. not a person)

-Must click “Like” to create a connection. When the user clicks “Like”, they are called a “fan.” This connection to the page’s information is instant. (HUGE if you are a business.)

-The Info area is under the Profile Picture on the Left-Hand side allowing for the more immediate and recent information to be shared.

-The Wall, or main feed, allows the user to share business information, pictures and stories.

-Businesses can add custom tabs that can convert people that visit the page to fans before they see any other information. Also, one can add so much information they could treat their Facebook Page as their actual website.

Thanks to our friend Cindy Kelly, an article by AllFAcebook.com and our awesome team at JuggleMedia, here’s why you should change your business Profile into a Fan Page and more important, HOW.

Why Wichita businesses should change a Facebook Profile to a Fan Page.

Facebook says:

“Since profiles are for meant individual people, they aren’t suited to meet your business needs. Pages offer more robust features for organizations, businesses, brands, and public figures, which you can learn more about here.

Further, maintaining a profile for anything other than an individual person is a violation of Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. If you don’t convert your profile to a Page, you risk permanently losing access to the profile and all of your content.”

How Wichita businesses can change a Facebook Profile to a Fan Page (and keep your fans!)

Step 1: Download your information from your profile by clicking here or follow these steps Facebook requests:

>To begin this process, go to your Account Settings page, then click the “learn more” link beside “Download Your Information.” From there, click the “Download” button.

Step 2: Follow this link to begin your page migration or follow these steps Facebook requests:

>If you would like to convert your profile to a Page, click here.

Be aware that when you convert your profile to a Page, your profile pictures will be transferred, and all of your friends will be automatically added as people who like your Page. No other content will be carried over to your new Page, so be sure to save any important content before beginning your migration.

The account associated with the profile you previously maintained will be converted to a business account, which will be the sole admin of your new Page.

Finally, if you feel you jumped into the social arena without a plan, contact JuggleMedia. We’d love to visit with you, help you formulate that plan and rock Facebook, Twitter as well as other social networks in Wichita.

When to post: the science of timing

Posted on March 30, 2011 in Social Media in Wichita Kansas by JuggleMedia

email marketing, Facebook, Twitter

When to post your social media in Wichita

[LINK] Super Bowl ads mix old and new media. You can too!

Posted on February 4, 2011 in Social Media in Wichita Kansas by JuggleMedia

Doritos, Facebook, Social Media in Wichita Kansas, Social Media Strategy, Super Bowl, Twitter, Wichita

At JuggleMedia, we help you tame the social circus by bringing you tips on how to localize your marketing based off of what the big brands are doing. If there’s a few things we can learn from Budweiser spending $3 million for :30 seconds on Sunday, it’s that they are maximizing their time online to boost the outreach of this traditional marketing channel. You can too!

USA Today posted this article today about how the Super Bowl ads will mix old and new media together. Pushing people from the $3 million :30 second commercial to places like Facebook, Twitter, iPads, smart phones and custom websites.

How can you benefit from these social media and online marketing tactics here in Wichita Kansas? Creating a Facebook Page may be a step, but as these brands are leading, it’s not enough to build a Doritos page and hope people show up.

To get the most locally out our social media, here are three tips to consider.

1. Create strong, meaningful, content-rich and brand-appropriate social media channels.

You and I can both tell which local company had a professional set-up their Facebook Page and which one’s didn’t. Sure, we both know that you can get going on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube yourself, but what apps are you going to use? How are you going to transition people that visit the page to fans? How are you going to maximize what little attention you grab from your potential customers? Creating a strong, meaningful, content-rich and brand-appropriate channel requires a tremendous amount of thought that can’t be achieved by an intern on a Friday afternoon. Places like Doritos spend hundreds of thousands of dollars setting up their Facebook page and developing a specific app. Now, you don’t need to go quite that far, but we do encourage you to take it serious.

2. Integrate your old and new media marketing.

Integrating your old and new media marketing is not accomplished by putting a Facebook and Twitter logo on your newspaper ad. Sorry. Integrating is about connecting the dots and making the conversation last over all of your channels and not just one. Use your Facebook page as a place to connect to people and tell them when to catch, call, connect in person. Set-up Twitter relationships with influential people that can help you when it’s time to promote your next golf tournament. Realize, as that USA Today article states, that the new water cooler isn’t in the break room, but online, in your hand, on your iPad, in the coffee shop, on YouTube.

3. Know WHY you are doing it!

How many times do you see an ad in a local paper, magazine or even television commercial that says “Find us on Facebook”? Um, WHY? What’s in it for me?!? I don’t know you!

You see, social channels like Facebook are personal. Your business is trying to connect with me in my personal space. Intermixed with my friends, family and that creepy old high school “friend” is your business trying to connect. You simply must know why you are there and WHAT you are offering. It’s not enough to simple say connect. Creating a plan is a vital first step to connecting properly across even one channel, much less multiple. The guys at Sketchers have spent an entire year and millions of dollars to get Kim Kardashian ‘s private gym rocking, and for what? :30 seconds of fame? Nope, much more with her current twitter follower count of 6,148,629 followers. Sure the :30 second Super Bowl commercial may pull an audience of 100 Million, but its the added bonus of Kim tweeting before, during and after the big game that Sketchers is counting on (and has contractually signed. If not already in the sending que.)

At JuggleMedia, we help Wichita businesses make sense of this crazy social media circus to create actionable plans and campaigns designed to make businesses connect more effectively online. We with with your business to create, integrate and socialize your brands products and services. To contact us, drop us an email off to the right or call us at 316.747.9266 and we’ll help you Tame the social circus.

Use HootSuite to manage, well, everything (ish)

Posted on January 19, 2011 in Social Media in Wichita Kansas by JuggleMedia

blogs, Facebook, HootSuite, social media management tools, Twitter, Wordpress

When you first get underway managing social media accounts, many people get overwhelmed at the sheer amount of information they have to look through. Post on Twitter, Facebook, WordPress Comments, and a whole bunch of other stuff can be pretty nuts! Enter HootSuite.

Full disclosure, JuggleMedia is an affiliate of HootSuite only as a reseller of the program. Feel free to click the link to the left and sign-up under us. Same price, only we get a kick-back. Nice transparency huh!?!

HootSuite, all affiliation aside, is the best program that we have found at JuggleMedia to manage your local social media activities around Wichita. It’s a robust (and extremely inexpensive $5.99 per month) program that monitors keywords, tweets, Facebook Posts, Foursquare check-ins as well as the capibility to, er, dare-I-say schedule (GASP) messages. Shh, don’t tell anybody.

When it comes to scheduling messages, I’m going to give you a short speech and then it’s up to you. In a perfect world, I’d never recommend you scheduling messages as social media channels are real-time and important to monitor constantly. NOW, with that said, there’s reality in the small-business world. If you create a social strategy and you have key marketing messages that you’d like to promote at key times, by all means schedule, BUT know when they leave so you can monitor reactions.

Let me know if you have any questions about HootSuite or would like for us to show you how it works. It’s pretty darn cool if you ask me. It works, it’s powerful and we haven’t even gotten into the analytics and custom reports it offers!

6 Social Hopes for Wichita in 2011

Posted on January 3, 2011 in JuggleMedia Wichita, Social Media in Wichita Kansas by JuggleMedia

Facebook, facebook places, Foursquare, gowalla, social media wichita, Wichita Kansas

With 2011 finally in full-swing, I wanted to add my hopes for social media around the Wichita area. Notice I said hopes. These aren’t predictions. These are just 6 simple things that I hope happen in the next year.

1. Location-based social networks will draw me in

Many people are using popular location-based social networks like FourSquare, Gowalla and even Facebook Places, but in terms of businesses utilizing these as business opportunities, I feel Wichita could benefit. I WANT a restaurant to target me and use my location to market to me. I WANT to know what your special is on a night I’d like to take my wife and I out to eat. I personally WANT businesses to use this. It shows that you are thinking about your customer and you WANT me there. Not wanting me to stumble in.

2. I’ll know why to “like” you or follow you

I’ve seen so many more businesses create a Facebook Page or join Twitter (of course, I’m a little sensitive to this market) and then start to yell “FOLLOW ME,” “LIKE ME,” “LOOK AT ME!.” I’ve even see some companies using traditional streams to market their social channels, which I applaud. I believe many forget to answer “WHY.” Why should I follow you? Why should I join you Facebook Page? Why? Why? Why?

I hope that 2011 bring on the year of answering WHY!

3. My friends will tweet

I have friends on Twitter who have joined up and have yet to tweet. Bummer. I actually want to know what they are up to. What things they are interested in. I want to know where they are. I want to see all of their Christmas Pictures.

I see more and more and more businesses joining Twitter. It’s a great channel to spread short-burst communication with people if use effectively. Along with the “Why” question, I want to know what they are going to offer me. I know that sounds selfish, but it doesn’t have to be a free soda every time.

4. We’ll see businesses work harder to create creative content

Cool. You joined social networks and have an email newsletter. What are you going to say? Again, why am I here. Adding a social media component is like adding an entire multimedia department. Creativity wins and in a world of short attention spans, it vital. It’s important to record your CEO’s latest message, but I also want to see real creativity flourish. I’m looking for Flash Mobs, creative YouTube videos, fun Facebook Promotions, engaging tweet or best yet an email that entices me to buy. I hope that many Wichita businesses jump on the creativity train and show me some awesome stuff!

5. I hope to learn from other successful LOCAL social media campaigns

What Skittles and Old Spice do in the social world with millions of followers is sweet, but what about the local business with 2,000 followers on Facebook? What about making actual money with this stuff. More and more of our clients are having success with social media because we built an awesome foundation with them. We’ve engaged their audiences and we’ve had a lot of fun! I want to see more of these successes that allow us to be successful here. Successful now. Successful in Wichita Kansas.

6. Businesses focus on their true strengths

Being all things to all people is overrated. Thankfully small is the new big. JuggleMedia doesn’t want to be a website company. We can do it, but that takes us away from social media. I want to see more businesses saying no because its not their specialty.

The same holds true in social media within a company.  Sometimes Twitter is best, sometimes Facebook. Sometimes YouTube. I want to see more businesses using each technology effectively specifically for their business. No two social campaigns are the same, so I hope to see less and less copying and more and more creativity.

I hope each and every one of you can also use these technologies to better connect to your customers and activate them more frequently to purchase more often, making it a prosperous new year for you!

All the best in 2011!

More People Join Social Networks if Brand Asks

Posted on October 18, 2010 in JuggleMedia Wichita, Social Media in Wichita Kansas by JuggleMedia

brands, Facebook, social media wichita, Social Strategy, Wichita Social Media

In a recent article, eMarker.com found that more people become fans of a Facebook Page if a brand asks more than a friend’s recommendation.

“Most commonly, that outreach comes from the brand itself. Three-quarters of Facebook users worldwide who had “liked” a brand told DDB Worldwide and Opinionway Research in September 2010 that they had been spurred to do so by an invitation or advertising from the brand they followed.” (eMaketer.com)

So what does this mean for you and your business here in Wichita Kansas trying to reach more customers via social media?

Simply put, encouraging people to join the page in other manners than “Suggest to Friends” on a Facebook Page are crucial to increasing brand outreach. In a post by Mari Smith, she noted this tactic should be used sparingly, if at all. She goes on to list some of her top suggestions here. The research above shows that only 59% of people join pages by this form.

So how do you get people to connect? Easy. Take it off-line. When you started your website, you had to promote it. Facebook is just like another website, it’s just that we can now see how many people get to your information and actually stick around to enjoy it time and time again.

At JuggleMedia, one of the first steps we encourage you to do is to contact your current customers. Think of this as a way to get everybody together on one site and communicate effectively with them. (We’ll help you with that step too!)

Have a good one!

Facebook Automatically Hiding Page Comments

Posted on October 5, 2010 in Social Media in Wichita Kansas by JuggleMedia

Facebook, social media wichita, Wichita Social Media

I noticed while on Facebook today that there are changes to the way we see comments people leave on Facebook Pages.

Look at the graphic to the left. See where there are 4 comments and 15 likes? It used to be that individuals would see a comment stream with the most recent comments showing. It now appears that Facebook has limited to size of each post.

It is interesting to note that individual comments on friends posts are still expanded. There is a large Facebook Announcement tomorrow that we will let you know about. Usually, they roll out a few small features before a launch. Maybe this is an attempt to streamline the news feed to make it more user-friendly.

Vail Resorts Connects Skiers with Amazing Social Network

Posted on September 28, 2010 in Social Media in Wichita Kansas by JuggleMedia

Facebook, social media, Twitter, Vail Resorts Awesomeness, Wichita Social Media, YouTube

All you have to do it watch this:

Makes me miss Colorado all over again. This is truly amazing. I wish I was a part of it. This social network/application/awesomeness/altimeter/lift ticket will allow skiers (okay and you boarders too, blech) to stay connected on and off the mountain while monitoring a bunch of important info.

All I have to do now is pack.

[Link]- The Next 5 Years in Social Media

Posted on September 8, 2010 in Social Media in Wichita Kansas by JuggleMedia

Facebook, Mashable, online marketing, Twitter, wichita ks, Wichita Social Media, YouTube

Social Media has no-doubt become on of the most popular buzz words in the last 5-years. Starting with services like Friendster and MySpace, social media sites have come and gone and to some, some speculation on whether this is a fad or a powerful tool.

Internet blog Mashable posted an article on what the future holds for social media. As Wichita’s social media company, it’s our job to tell you what these world-wide phenomenons mean to you and your business right here in Wichita. To read the article, click here.

Here’s some of the most notable thoughts for you to consider. First, the concept of social media is becoming  more and more ingrained into our everyday lives. Most websites now are starting to add Facebook “Like” buttons and Twitter “Tweet-This” buttons to make information easier to share. The further this technology reaches and entrenches into our everday lives, the harder and harder it is to list it as a fad.

Second, we are constantly asked “What’s the next thing?” There was Friendster, then MySpace and now Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. We’d argue that there isn’t a “next thing” just that the largest networks are only going to get larger. Facebook, for example, has 500 Million ACTIVE users. These are people that log in and actively use the site, not just create an account and “play.” YouTube is also a monster, owned by Google and the second-larges search engine in the world.

PLUS- these larger social networks are very smart and have a lot of power. The barrier to enter the social marketplace is so large now. Facebook has a tremendous amount of power holding onto 1/12th of the world’s population personal information. Imagine the amount of money needed to get to that level starting from scratch. Facebook and similar companies won’t let that happen. They purchase these little start-ups and any network that gets attention and integrates the technology into their site. Very smart.

We will see social media become more and more mobile in the next five years. Devices like smart-phones and tablets like the iPad allow people to do business and be connected anywhere. Plus, mobile applications are a huge marketplace and business-specific applications are going to be a huge need in the coming years.

Finally, video will trump text. Sites like YouTube are making it very easy to upload videos and share information. As a society, text is becoming more and more boring. You need to keep a person’s attention and video communication tells more than just mundane text. Non-verbal communication ques will be more and more important as social technology grows. At least we hope so or we will all be impersonal robots.

So what does this mean for your business here in Wichita? Well, first you MUST be on social networks. Places like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are here and here to stay. Get on and start communicating effectively (we’ll show you how). Second, you MUST learn how to create a more open business structure. Yes, your competitors will be watching, but there are effective ways to discuss your business with audiences without giving away the secret recipe. It’s easy and we will show you how. Third, you MUST learn how to interact. Many, many, many, many businesses come to us AFTER they’ve started “communicating” on social networks because they’ve started but aren’t getting anywhere. They view it as a waste of time. Learning how to interact on these social channels is important and very vital to the long-term success one may experience in these social spaces.

At JuggleMedia, we help businesses start, understand and communicate effectively to audiences within these social channels. It’s a fun and rewarding process that takes time, knowledge and the proper start. Give us a call at 316-747-9266 and let’s see where you are and it we can help. You can visit us on our Facebook, Twitter and YouTube channels if you’d like.

It’s WEDDING WEEK!

Posted on August 23, 2010 in Social Media in Wichita Kansas by JuggleMedia

Facebook, JuggleMedia Wichita, MailChimp, Social Media Strategy, Twitter, Ustream, wedding, Wichita Social Media, YouTube

Usually, I try to keep the blog posting here on JuggleMedia.com about social media and how it pertains to companies in and around Wichita, Kansas. Today, however, I’m going completely off the reservation.

IT’S MY WEDDING WEEK!

Yep. It is. Boo-yah! I thought this day would never come!

So what does this mean to you, and more important, why am I writing about this here and not on my Facebook Page? Well, simply put there are some things that even businesses can learn about social media when it comes to the social channels we’ve set-up for our wedding

First, let’s start with our Wedding Website. If you go to ryanandkelsi.com, you’ll see it looks a lot like another site somewhere out there, say, oh, JuggleMedia. That’s because we use WordPress.org and the Mystique theme. Being that I know the Mystique theme pretty well, I didn’t want to spend hours and hours creating a site from scratch. WordPress gives you the tools to get online and pretty fast.

Instead of going for a “Save the Date” card, about 80% of our guests are on Facebook, so we opted for an event called “Ryan & Kelsi Save-The-Date.” We were going to call it Ryan & Kelsi Wedding, but we wanted our audience to know that this was something they were getting and it needs to be written down. That and Facebook Events offers some pretty sweet calendar export tools that allows our guest to click one button and they’ve got it down.

Now that the event is FINALLY here, we are using different channels to continue to promote how we’re doing. For example, our personal Facebook Pages have been an excellent place for our audience to interact with us. Also, we use our personal Twitter accounts to keep the wedding party up to date. We’ve even used GoogleDocs to capture our RSVPs and then we can send an email blast to all of our guest using MailChimp to update them on where they need to be and when. Finally, we’re still kicking around the idea of using my UStream channel to stream our wedding live to a few guests that can’t make it, like my cousin who is on the no-fly list because she is so pregnant she is about to pop. We’re still deciding for personal reasons if we want to do that. I’ll let you know.

All of these different channels connect a different segment of the audience that we need to communicate. It’s about overlap and not just picking one and saying that’s it. Not all of our guest are on Facebook (although that’s by far the largest portion) and not even there are they guarenteed to connect. Social Media is about using these channels together to get your message across while understanding your audience and who they are.

In business, it’s the same way. Setting up all of these different channels like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, UStream, GoogleDocs, MailChimp and the thousand other channels is important ONLY IF that’s where your audience hangs out. I still had to send my Grandma a paper invitation, but was able to talk to her over Skype about it. (Funny side-note- She did say that if she knew she was going to be on TV she would have put on more make-up. Pretty funny stuff!)

So when you are thinking about events, business meetings and marketing in general think about these different social channels and the audience. When you need help call me at JuggleMedia, Wichita’s Social Media Company after Labor Day. We help Wichita companies understand these channels, how to connect people and how to transfer the audience into actual customers. We have a proven track-record of successful campaigns and pages including one currently running that has gained an average of 40 new followers a day on Facebook. Enjoy your day!

Cancun, here we come!

Ryan