7 New Facebook Changes Impacting Businesses

Here is an overview of the changes and how brands can take advantage of some of the new features.

#1: Cover Photo and Profile Image

Obviously one of the biggest changes that we all knew was coming was the cover photo. No more photo strip across the top. You now have one large image to showcase your page. This image must be a minimum of 399 pixels across to be used as the cover photo. But you can have a photo cover designed to take advantage of the extra space you get. The cover photo maximum dimensions are 850 pixels by 315 pixels.

The new Timeline cover photo.

One of the biggest restrictions is the fact that you can’t have any calls to action in your cover photo. You can’t tell people to like or share your page or have any contact information at all, including your web address, phone number or mailing address. Get the full details about cover photos here. These restrictions will require some creativity in drawing attention to your business without some of the methods that have been used in the profile pictures recently.

The profile picture size has been changed to 180 pixels by 180 pixels. It appears next to every post in the news feed as a 30 pixel by 30 pixel picture. The profile picture is best used for your logo or other eye-catching picture without a lot of words.

#2: Larger, Highlighted and Pinned Posts

One of Facebook’s mantras during the conference was the way we tell stories with Facebook. To help you tell your stories, the pictures and videos are now larger and more eye-catching.

You can also highlight a story (by clicking the star icon in the upper right of a post) so that it spans all the way across the Timeline as shown in this Lexus post with a video.

Use Highlight to emphasize a particular post.

You can also pin the story to the top of your Timeline for up to a week. To do this, click the pencil icon in the upper right of the post and select Pin to Top.

Pin a story to the top of your Timeline for greater emphasis.

#3: Setting Company Milestones

Another thing you can add to make your Timeline more interesting is Milestones. You can tell people about big events in the life of your brand or company.

All you need to do is click on the line that runs down the middle of your Timeline and select Milestone. Then you can fill out the information as shown.

Add Milestones to tell your company's story.

Because the posts from your fans are in a separate area, your Timeline is now more focused on your story.

People may be spending more time reading your Timeline rather than just coming to your page to ask a question. The more visually engaging you can make your Timeline, the better.

#4: New Applications

One of the biggest changes is the removal of the default landing tab.

Applications are still available and if you have created a custom welcome tab or added any other special application, it hasn’t disappeared.

You now have 12 applications you can showcase and only the four applications that you move to the top row will appear prominently. You cannot change the position of the photos, so technically you only have three applications that you have control over in that top row .

Choose which apps you want displayed by placing them in the first three rows.

To move your apps around, first click the down arrow next to your top row of apps to display all of your apps. Next, click the pencil icon in the upper right corner of the app. Then select the app that you would like to swap positions with. As mentioned, you cannot change the position of the Photos app.

Change your app position.

Many people are lamenting the disappearance of the default landing tab, but the new app buttons give us an opportunity to be creative. You can change the photo that appears for the app and you can rename the app to give a call to action as shown on Holdren Design’s page.

Use an eye-catching image and rename the app to have a call to action.

Another good use of custom images and tab names.

To change your app photo, again display all of your apps with the down arrow button next to the top row of apps and click on the pencil icon. Scroll down to the Edit Setting selection and from there you can add a custom tab image.

Select Edit Settings to change the name of the tab and use a custom tab image.

Select Change to upload a custom tab image.

The custom tab image is 111 pixels by 74 pixels.

You can have an enticing call to action in your custom tab image.

#5: Facebook Offers

Only a few companies have access to Facebook Offers currently, but it will be rolled out soon. According to Facebook’s Offer Help section, they “expect to make Offers available more broadly soon.” Facebook Offers are like Facebook Deals on steroids.

The post is sent through the news feeds of your fans, which is much more visible. There are easy ways to share the Offer, both through the post itself and then when the Offer is claimed. Fans get the Offer by clicking the Get Offer link, see the terms and then click the blue Claim Offer button as shown.

Click Claim Offer to get the coupon sent to your email.

Because Facebook has everyone’s email address, they are able to individually email your Offer to the person who claimed it. Unfortunately, the page does not have access to those emails through which the Offer was claimed, but at least the word is spread about your Offer.

The person who claims the Offer receives an email showing how to redeem the Offer and the terms.

Facebook Offers could be a huge win for small businesses offering things like a “free webinar” or consultants offering a “free 15-minute consultation.”

The danger is making sure you have the bandwidth to deliver the Offer. There didn’t seem to be any way to cap the number of Offers that were claimed. Einstein’s Bagels had close to 30,000 people who claimed the BYGO sandwich offer. Not too difficult to fulfill if you have 500+ locations and you anticipate that some won’t redeem the Offer at all—but still, you don’t want to get into a bad situation with fulfillment problems.

Facebook gives some good tips on ways to make your Offer successful by telling us to “make discounts substantial”—20% off or even free—as well as setting a reasonable expiry date to “let people have a few days to see and claim the Offer.”

The other question is when Facebook Offers will be widely available. Facebook stated, “Offers are only available to managed advertising clients.” Once this is rolled out to more pages, it would seem that every page would want to create one if it was free. Plus it appears that Facebook may not be vetting the Offers before they go live. Offers may become too much of a good thing, but that remains to be seen.

#6: Facebook Insights, Admin Panel and Messaging

Another change with the Timeline is the location of the Insights. You can now access them by clicking on the Admin Panel in the upper right corner.

The Admin Panel tells you about new notifications and gives you access to the "back-end" of your Facebook page.

The Admin Panel has much different navigation than before, but everything appears to be there.

Access your Insights through the Admin Panel.

You will still be able to see the old-style Page Dashboard if you click the Manage drop-down menu and then Edit Page.

Click Edit Page to see the old-style Page Dashboard.

From the Admin Page, you can also invite your email contacts, invite friends, share your page and create an ad from the Build Audience drop-down menu.

Use the Build Audience drop-down menu to access several options on getting the word out about your page.

Facebook has done a nice job of giving us lots of options to learn more about the new page design from the Help drop-down menu. During the Preview, the Help drop-down menu links to tutorials, but once you publish your Timeline you will have access to some different options.

One of the capabilities will be to easily request a name change for your page. This name change is the title of your page, not the custom URL you may have set for your page. You can still access this form here. Great news for people who have changed their company branding, have had a misspelling in the name or have other tweaks they have wanted to make.

Request a name change for your page

One of the most interesting developments of the new page Timelines is that we can now get more information on other pages that have changed to the new Timeline. When you click on the Likes box, just underneath their Timeline cover photo you can see the most popular age group, a People Talking About This Trend graph and their most popular week.

You can now see more Insight information about any page that has the new Timeline.

Companies could possibly hide the Likes box by swapping it to a lower position than the top 12 apps that are accessible to the public. But that would also hide the social proof of how many people like your page.

Pages will also have the ability to receive messages from fans. The Message feature can be turned on or off from the Manage Permissions area of the Admin Dashboard.

Enable the Message button from the Manage Permissions area.

The Message button is enabled by default so if you want to disable it, you will have to uncheck the box. Messages can only be initiated by a fan—they cannot be initiated by the page to a fan. The page can reply to the message sent.

#7: Facebook Advertising

Another new announcement that was covered in the fMC Conference was some changes to advertising. The ads will be larger and the product names are the Reach Generator and Premium on Facebook. The Reach Generator is designed to reach more of your existing fans than you currently are reaching through the news feed.

Mike Hoefflinger, Facebook’s director of global business marketing, said that currently pages only reach about 16% of their audience each week with posts. With the Reach Generator ads, pages can reach 50% of their fans each week and 75% each month. Beta testing done by brands such as Ben and Jerry’s was able to reach 98% of fans and double engagement.

The Reach Generator ads are designed to connect to your existing audience and will include the Page Post stories. The ads will not be based on CPC or CPM models, but will be an “always on” ad. These ads will be shown on the right side of the page and they will also go into the news feed and mobile streams. Learn more about this product in Facebook’s Reach Generator Guide.

Premium on Facebook is designed to distribute your stories to new connections and will be shown on the right side of the home page, in the news feed, in mobile streams and when someone logs out of Facebook. Find out more in the Premium on Facebook Guide.

Read original article at SocialMedia Examiner or visit Hotel Marketing Argentina for information about Facebook para Hoteles

9 Facebook Marketing Strategies to Build Super Fans

Are you looking to attract high-quality and loyal fans to your Facebook page? Without quality fans, your Facebook marketing efforts can fizzle out quickly.

Keep reading to discover nine ways you can build loyal fans who’ll love your business.

Moontoast shows how a fan's level of interest with a brand can move from light to heavy engagement.

Moontoast says Super Fans are Facebook users who have given you access to their data via their Facebook profile, purchased from you and also encouraged another fan to purchase from you as well. There’s no doubt we all want an abundance of Super Fans!

So how do you move a Potential Fan all the way up the ranks to Super Fan?

For starters, it takes time. Facebook success rarely happens overnight and unless you are a huge brand like Zappos or Target, patience, persistence, and hustle are all required to create a successful Facebook page.

There are also specific actions you can take to create a thriving Facebook page full of Super Fans.

The following nine core strategies will help you streamline your Facebook activity and turn your Facebook page into a success story.

#1: Give your page a human touch

The most successful companies on Facebook are those that step out from behind their logo and let the people behind the brand represent their Facebook page. The goal is to communicate with your fans as though you were talking to your friends, and let your personality come through in each post.

One of the ways to do this is to step away from your niche once in a while and show your personal side through entertaining posts and photos. Change things up a bit and share details about your experiences and everyday life.

Have you taken a fun trip recently? Post some pictures of your vacation to let your fans see a different side of you. Or maybe you see something funny while you’re out and about—share it! Snap a photo of it and post it to your wall with a fun caption.

Guy Kawasaki, author of Enchantment, does this on a regular basis and his fans love it. The reason we are intrigued with Guy’s posts is because we get to see the real side of him, not just the author/expert side of Guy.

When you visit Guy's Facebook page, you'll often find posts and photos that give you a peek at Guy's entertaining journeys outside of work.

 

Quick Tip: Test out the 80/20 Rule. When posting to your Facebook page, 80% of the time focus on your business, and 20% of the time mix things up and show your fans and followers a different side of you—the personal side. Share with them photos and details of who you are outside of work. Remember, no one wants to do business with a brand; we all want to do business with real people!

#2: Become a content machine

Always make sure that your content educates, entertains and empowers your fans to keep them engaged and coming back for more. The key to a successful content strategy is to consistently create new content and mix up your media often.

For example, some of your fans might respond better to video than text, while others might be drawn to the images in your posts. To make sure you’re attracting the attention of your diverse group of fans, post your content in a variety of ways.

iPhone Life Magazine does a great job of always showing fun images with each text post. Images and videos are the top two types of content that Facebook users gravitate to the most.

One simple way to do this is mix up your blog posts by posting written blogs, video blogs and audio posts. Regularly drive traffic from your Facebook page to your blog to introduce your fans to a variety of content.

Quick Tip: To keep your team on track, create an editorial calendar to track when you will post content, the type of content you plan to post and who’s responsible for content creation. Check out this post by Denise Wakeman for instructions on how to create an editorial calendar.

#3: Cultivate engagement with two-way dialogue

Imagine this: You haven’t talked to your good friend in a while, so you call her up. When she answers the phone you say, “Hi! How’ve you been?” But before your friend can answer, you hang up the phone. That would be odd, right?

Well, essentially that’s what you are doing each time you post a Facebook update and then instantly move on to a new task before waiting for a few fan responses so you can engage in a conversation.

Make sure you never miss an opportunity to thank a fan for reaching out. Replying to your fans' posts shows them you really do care about what they have to say.

Real success on Facebook happens when you mirror real-life situations. Don’t “post and ditch;”  instead, stay around a few minutes to get involved in the conversation. True engagement happens in the “back and forth.”

Quick Tip: People love to talk about themselves, so craft your posts and questions around your fans to get them talking. Ask for your fans’ feedback, suggestions and solutions to challenges. You can learn a lot about your fans when you take the time to listen!

#4: Create consistent calls to action

Facebook gives brands the optimal opportunity to create genuine relationships with their prospects and customers. But it’s also a great platform for moving your fans to action. One of the best ways to move a Potential Fan to a Super Fan is to start out with simple calls to action.

To do this, start out by posting valuable content, such as interesting articles and videos related to your niche, and accompany this content with simple calls to action such as “click this” or “watch this.” The valuable content will show your fans that you’re an authority and consistently post good stuff.

Also, consider offering discounts and specials or ask your fans to sign up for your newsletter. These are all low-investment calls to action that will help you build trust and affinity over time.

Zappos does a great job of mixing up their calls to action on their Facebook page. Some include value-added content as you can see above with the call to "CLICK PLAY" to participate in the live fashion Q&A video. Others are more promotional, such as "Click here to check out our new summer flip flops!"

Quick Tip: Lead the way with free valuable content and later offer opportunities that require more of a commitment from your fans (such as giving their name and email in exchange for a giveaway or purchasing a product). Offering free webinars and teleseminars that provide training up front are great ways to promote your programs and services without having to sell too hard on your Facebook page.

#5: Make word-of-mouth advocacy easy

Studies have shown that social media users tend to trust their friends and peers more than they trust brands. It makes sense. If you were looking to try out a new restaurant, would you rather get a recommendation from a friend who just had a great meal or the restaurant that’s promoting its latest special?

Word of mouth matters, especially on Facebook. To get your fans talking about you, the key is to make it easy to spread the word.

One great way to do this is to create a contest or promotion that rewards fans for spreading the word. By using a platform such as Wildfire, you can track and reward the fans who invite their friends to join your contest.

This sweepstakes by Kudzu promises extra chances to win for every friend you encourage to enter the contest.

Quick Tip: Think of your ideal audience before you create a special promotion or campaign. What would get them excited to spread the word? When you make the experiences on your page about your fans rather than about your brand, your fans become more invested and engaged and in turn are more eager to tell their friends about you.

#6: Encourage fan-to-fan conversations

Enhance your fans’ experience by creating a community that encourages your fans to interact with each other. One surefire way to do this is to spotlight your fans. When you create opportunities such as “fan of the week” or recognize top contributors, you are giving your fans an opportunity to get to know each other.

Social Media Examiner regularly highlights a fan of the week on their Facebook page and always makes a point to link to their fans’ websites to give them free exposure.

Pinterest

Pinterest is now a top 10 social network (more traffic than Google Plus in November 2011!) that’s getting the attention of everyone from artists to the media to venture capitalists (who invested $27 million in the company). BrandChannel says “Pinterest is at the crossroads of social and style.” ReadWriteWeb attributes their success to the way the tool leverages everything that’s hot in social right now: great user experience, a clean retro visual design, content curation, social collaboration and subscription – and calls everyone who isn’t using it “a big dork.”

Of course, none of us want to own a “dorky” social media presence – so I wanted to put together a little introductory guide to Pinterest for hotels. I’ve had a lot of fun experimenting with this site recently, and since it’s likely to be a key social communications tool in the months ahead, I think you may enjoy exploring it as well.

What is Pinterest?

“Think of it as a virtual pinboard,” says the Pinterest team. Heather Allard explains the opportunity well:

If you had the opportunity to make your business part of someone’s vision board, would you do it? Pinterest is that vision board. Consider it a visual buffet—a look book—of all the things we crave in life….

By curating cool content through images, the tool provides a powerful way to visually communicate lifestyle messages that are so important for many brands in the hospitality business. Plus, it’s a powerful way to feel the pulse of what’s trending – and influence some of those trends.

“Pinterest allows us to see what trends and styles the community likes based on engagement – likes and repins,” Nordstrom’s social media manager Shauna Causey told BrandChannel. Creativity-online.com commented that “Images are a great way to share ideas and trends in the social media landscape.”

How do you share photos?

Pinterest provides their users with a number of toolsto make sharing easy, including a “Pin It” button for your browser and a free iPhone app.

I find this to be the easiest way to share things as I’m browsing the web….

Hotel websites can use the Pinterest “Follow” button to encourage subscriptions and the “Pin It” button to encourage pinning and re-pinning from their site. Since this is a photo-sharing network, it’s one more reason to use stunning photography on your website. Photos shared on Pinterest contain a link back to the source site – which can be a good source of inbound traffic.

“…Consider Pinterest a ‘visual testimonial.’ When users pin things from your site, they’re showing the world (and their Pinterest followers) that they believe in your company, your service or your product. The more Pinterest interest you get, the more word of mouth about you will increase.” – Heather Allard

How can hotels use Pinterest?

Think about lifestyle content you can share that would interest your core audience online. Co-founder Evan Sharp gave some examples of how other companies are doing this in his interview with Mashable: “A good example of that is Whole Foods. They’re not just sharing the produce available at Whole Foods, they’re sharing [images of] a healthy lifestyle. West Elm isn’t just sharing the furniture they sell, they’re sharing interior design tips. And the Today Show isn’t just pinning that day’s guests [to promote the episode]. For most consumer brands, the idea behind your brand makes sense on Pinterest.”

Let’s take a look at how some hotels are using Pinterest….

Gansevoort Hotels shares places, spaces and style they love:

SLS Hotel at Beverly Hills shares books worth reading, food worth eating, and more:

And finally, Hotel Indigo does a great job of “guestsourcing” – using photos that guests have tweeted or uploaded as a Pinterest board:

You can see more by visiting Pinterest.com. Joining the network currently requires an invitation from an existing member. If you need one, email me: josiah at reviewpro

So what is the difference between a Facebook page and a Google+ page for Hotels?

Hotels now can take advantage of Google+ 

• Google Plus has the +1 button, while Facebook has the like button;
• Google Plus has Hangouts, while Facebook has video chat and group chat with Skype; and
• Google Plus has Circles, while Facebook has smart friend lists.

You can create a Google+ page for your business right now if you want. We already have a post up on How To Create A Google+ Page. Once you do, use these 11 tips to get your business started and moving in the right direction.

1. Use Google+ as a Page

To manage, edit or cruise Google+ AS your page, simply go to your Google+ profile homepage and click on the small down arrow under your name.

2. Add Images To Your Photostrip

To add images to create a ‘photostrip’ effect, click on the blue ‘edit profile’ button and then click ‘Add some photos here’. (http://www.siliconbeachtraining.co.uk/blog/how-to-customise-your-google-plusprofile-page/)

3. Use Public Albums

Be sure to share photos with all followers, as albums in the Photos tab are visible only to people with whom they’ve been shared.

4. Use Photo Geo Location

If you want to show your hotel geo location information in newly uploaded albums and photos, be sure to check the box under the ‘Photos’ tab when editing your page. (Shown below)

Geo location check-box feature in Google+.

5. Fill Out Page Circles

As your brand page, you can start adding other Google+ members and pages to your ‘circles.’ In order to add people to your circles, they need to add your page to their circles first. The page circle options include:  Following, Customers, VIP’s and Team Members. There are several options allowing you to control what follower info users can view on your page’s sidebar.

6. Know How Comments Work

Your personal G+ profile can comment on brand pages, even if you haven’t followed them. However, I wasn’t able to comment on a brand page AS another brand page, whether I was following that brand or not.

7. Host a Hangout

Google is pushing ‘Hangouts’ or video chats for businesses. This feature allows your hotel brand to start live, face-to-face conversations with followers. The Muppets were one of the first to promote a live hangout on their Google+ page. You can see a video snippet about the event along with other Google Plus Hangouts here: http://www.youtube.com/googleplushangouts

8. Connect to Other Platforms

The ability to update Facebook and Twitter from Google+ is on the way. Google has given limited access to their Google+ API to developers and I’m sure additional access will be granted soon. All the API and geeky tech stuff you ever want to know can be found here:  Google+ Platform Developers - https://developers.google.com/+/overview. If you use Chrome, you can install one of my fave Google+ sharing apps, Publish Sync. This app allows you to update both Facebook and Twitter from your Google+ profile. Currently, the app doesn’t work for my brand page, but it could soon.

9. Disable Comments Option

You can disable comments on posts you share via your Brand page. When you disable comments on a post, other people will no longer be able to leave comments (but they can still +1 and reshare it).

10. Plus One or Circle

There are currently 2 calls to action for your potential followers: Have them ‘circle’ you (or add your brand page to their circles) and +1 your page. It’s unclear currently how Google will leverage those who are +1-ing your page as it appears simply taking that action doesn’t allow the user to get any brand updates.

As mentioned above, Google is calculating how many users +1 your page into their search results. And they are still the masters at search. So it makes sense that this will be important in Google Search. We will have to wait and see.

11. Custom URL

Google isn’t yet allowing for customizing your brand page URL. However, there have been several tools created for that purpose. I used this one to shorten my brand’s page: http://gplus.to/. 

—-

Read Original Article or visit Hotel Marketing Argentina

Export Email Addresses of your Facebook Contacts

There’s  a simple (and perfectly legal) workaround that can help you easily download all your friends email addresses from Facebook’s walled garden.

The trick, as you can see in the video, is actually quite simple.

Go to address.yahoo.com and click the Facebook icon. A login dialog should pop-up, just sign-in with your Facebook credentials and within seconds, you entire Facebook address book will be available inside your Yahoo Mail Account. Once the import is done, click this link to download a CSV file with the email addresses of all your Facebook contacts to your desktop.

You can then import the CSV file into Gmail Contacts, LinkedIn, your phone address book or any of the social sites where you want to connect with your existing Facebook circle.