Yesterday I received an email asking if I could develop a write up of how to “like” a Facebook page. This seems very easy to me, but I am extremely familiar with Facebook. What I didn’t realize is that there are still many people out there who aren’t.

Many businesses and organizations are including “Find Us on Facebook” in their advertising collateral. Some will include the URL to their Facebook page and others will say “search for…” and will have you search for their business or organization name. We will use The Discovery Communications Group as an example throughout this post. The first step is to make sure you are signed into Facebook! You cannot “like” a page if you aren’t.

Now that you are signed in, let’s start with a business that provides you with the URL. The URL for The Discovery Communications Group’s Facebook page is http://www.facebook.com/DiscoveryCG. Start by typing the URL into your browser:

Once you hit enter, the Facebook page will appear. At the top you will see the “Like” button. To “like” the page click the button.

Once you do this you will start to receive all of the updates that this business or organization posts to their wall in your news feed.

If you are not provided with the URL and asked to search for the page, go to the search bar on Facebook and type in the name of the business or organization you are searching for. For this example we will type in The Discovery Communications Group.

Sometimes the page you are searching for won’t appear at the top. If it doesn’t you can click on “See More Results for….” and continue the search. After you find the correct Facebook page you will follow the same steps as above and click on the “like” button.

Social media can be frustrating when you don’t understand what you are doing. Stick with it. It takes time, but if you put the effort in you will become more familiar with the way things work in no time!

-Lauren

Follow The Discovery Communications Group on Twitter: @DiscoveryCG

Facebook Places

On the other side of things, what does this have in store for marketers? Here are some potential ways marketers can use Facebook Places to their advantage:

1. Reach

Places check-ins, by default, will automatically post to a users profile and news feed (unless the user adjusts their privacy settings). That means that your business is reaching all of the friends of each user that checks-in to your venue. This not only helps people discover new places, but broadcasts your venue to the entire Facebook network. According to Facebook, “The Places product creates more ways for you to promote and grow your business on Facebook. By giving your potential customers the ability to check-in at your business, you give them the power to tell their friends about your business.”

2. Location Promotion

There are around 1.5 million business pages on Facebook. Businesses with an existing Facebook page can merge with their Places page by “claiming” it or also by letting Facebook know that the page belongs to them. Once verified by Facebook, every time a user checks-in from that location, the business will unintentionally receive exposure from all check-ins at their location.

3. Promotions, Discounts, and Offers

This aspect of the “check-in” game became popular on Foursquare. Though Facebook Places is attempting to take a different route by focusing on creating experiences for people and are more focused on people having memories of places and meeting new people with the same interests, it potentially could be used as a way of distributing promotions, discounts, and special offers to people within a certain proximity.

4. Data

Just as  Foursquare and other location based applications provide business owners with data, Facebook Places allows for the collection of this data as well. Business owners will be able to see how many times a user has checked-in, tips, advice, and comments. This can become extremely valuable since it can allow the tracking of customer activity, consumer persona, and competitor activity.

It will be very interesting to see how Facebook Places continues to develop down the road, especially when it is introduced to other countries other than the US (Facebook Places is currently only available in the US).

How else do you think Facebook Places can benefit marketers?

-Lauren

Follow The Discovery Communications Group on Twitter: @DiscoveryCG

Diaspora is meant to be an alternative to Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks allowing users to share content such as photos, status updates, links, etc. According to the project website, Diaspora aims to be a distributed network, where totally separate computers connect to each other directly and will let users connect without surrendering their privacy. The project developers refer to these computers as ‘seeds’. A seed is owned by the user, hosted by the user, or on a rented server. Once it has been set up, the seed will aggregate all of the user’s information: their Facebook profile, tweets, anything. The project developers are designing an easily extendable plug-in framework for Diaspora, so that whenever newfangled content gets invented, it will be automatically integrated into every seed.

The plan is to make it easy and intuitive for users to decide what content gets added and shared to their social sites.

What do you think of Diaspora? Will you make the switch from Facebook?

Twitter is all about building relationships with your followers, whether it be through a company account or personal account. Many small businesses have trouble gaining a following which results in abandoning their Twitter profiles. This is based on user error and how the account is managed. Users that lack Twitter knowledge and fail to put the time and effort into learning the fundamentals are usually the first to quit and decide to never go back. The secret to success on Twitter isn’t genius though, it is common sense. Small businesses need to put themselves in the shoes of their followers and try to add value to their lives. The following are some general mistakes on Twitter, which definitely result in not getting followed back or even unfollowed.

1. An incomplete profile: People on Twitter want to know who they are talking to. If your account lacks an avatar or a bio, you are more than likely not going to get followed back. Everyone likes to put a name to a face. By not having either of these you are basically telling people you don’t care.

2. Selling to your followers: This is a big Twitter no no. Check out my blog post Social Media Marketing is About Building a Community, Not Selling for a better understanding.

3. Random followers: When a random company or organization follows me I will almost always choose not to follow them back. When I check my list of followers a few days later, I notice that I have been unfollowed by many of these random companies and organizations. If you don’t know me and don’t have anything to do with my interests (you should be checking a user’s profile to see what they are tweeting about to make sure they are right to follow, why are you following me? And better yet, did you really think I would follow you in return? This isn’t a numbers game!

4. Unsteady tweets: I will never understand those users that ONLY retweet what other users are saying. If I notice that is the case, I automatically will unfollow you. Your tweets should be balanced between @replies, retweets, and conversational. You need to show that you are actually reading other people’s content, you care enough to share that valuable content with others, you converse with other users and actually spend the time reading what others have to say, and that you have the ability to provide your own valuable content. Your Twitter account cannot just be all about you and/or your company.

5. Automated direct messages: These are up there on the most annoying things to do on Twitter list. Do not send me a direct message after I follow you telling me to “like” you on Facebook, visit your website,  or go to your blog.

6. Cramming your tweets in: OK, so you haven’t tweeted in 3 days so you decide to send out 15 tweets in span of 35 seconds to make up for it. Please DO NOT do this. Space them out or schedule them using Hootsuite or another scheduling platform. Being bombarded with your tweets, no matter how good the content you are providing, is annoying and I guarantee the loss of followers.

I didn’t hit all the reasons on why you aren’t gaining followers, but these are some of the more general reasons why. What are some of the reasons you can think of?

Related post: Why Did You Unfollow Me on Twitter

-Lauren

Follow The Discovery Communications Group on Twitter: @DiscoveryCG

Under the NFL’s social media policy, a player is prohibited from posting messages on a social media site on game days during a period of 90 minutes before kickoff and ending when postgame interviews are completed.

Ochocinco was fined for possessing an electronic device and posting tweets on Twitter right before and during the Bengal’s preseason game Friday against the Philadelphia Eagles, according to the NFL’s website. The first of Ochocinco’s tweets was posted at 6:50 PM ET and the second was posted at 9:53 PM ET. The game kicked off at 8:07 PM ET.

Ochocinco tweeted twice about the incident today. In his first tweet he stated, “#OCNNnews I’ve been fined by the league a substantial amount of money for tweeting, 1^st time twitter hasn’t made me money by cost me money.” His second tweet was an apology, where he said, “Dear NFL I apologize for tweeting during the game but that was 2 monthsof my Bugatti payments you just took from me, I won’t do it again.”

What are your thoughts on this? Should Ochocinco have been fined?

Who better than your employees to assist with the social networking of the company? They are the experts and the voice of the company and industry. By allowing key employees to become involved with the social networking you are building brand awareness, managing your company’s image, expanding into new markets, creating potential business opportunities, inspiring and driving innovation, and increasing customer loyalty, among many more.

Social networking offers new ways to get marketing messages out and gives companies the opportunity to learn from their clients/customers. It is also a great way to provide customer service and confront any negative feedback before it has the chance to spiral out of hand.

Involving your employees in social networking also continues their learning process on the industry and keeps them up to date on the latest ideas, products, and breaking news. It also allows for them to be an industry expert, which gives your company credibility.

Participation from employees raises many concerns, such as the wrong thing being said or leaking private information. To solve this problem a social media policies and procedures document should be created. Employees should also be required to attend a training that teaches best practices of social media and how to interact on different platforms.

Social networking is a large part of marketing today in which every company needs not only a presence, but needs to be interactive. When contemplating whether or not to involve your employees, please take the above reasoning into consideration.

-Lauren

Follow The Discovery Communications Group on Twitter: @DiscoveryCG

When checking in with Facebook Places, users have the ability to tag friends they are with, just as they can tag friends in status updates or photos. In the “People Here Now” section users will be able to see who else has checked in at that place, giving them a chance to meet other people who may share the same interests. According to Facebook, there are privacy controls to opt out of appearing in this section. If users want to avoid being checked-in to places they prefer not to be checked-in to or want to avoid sharing their whereabouts, they need to make sure to set their privacy settings for Places. By default, only friends are able to see check-ins on Places. To customize who can see check-ins, visit privacy settings and choose the option for “Places I Check in.”

If a user tags a friend, a notification is always sent out. If a friend is tagged at a location, it is as if they have checked in themselves. And like being tagged in a photo, users can untag their locations.

On the business side of things, Facebook Places allows businesses to claim their business, just as Foursquare does. If the business has a Places Page, the owner can claim it by clicking the link. Unlike Foursquare though, Facebook isn’t focusing on offering rewards or incentives- they are focusing on three core elements: finding friends, checking-in, and building stories about places.

Compared to other location based marketing applications, it seems as though Facebook is attempting to take a different route by focusing on creating experiences for people. They are more focused on people having memories of places and meeting new people with the same interests. Other location based marketing applications have taken the path of offering users rewards and incentives. This is not to say Facebook Places won’t eventually develop into that, but it will be interesting to see other ways they plan to differentiate themselves from the crowd.

What do you think about Facebook Places? Do you plan on using it?

-Lauren

Follow The Discovery Communications Group on Twitter: @DiscoveryCG

1. Facebook pages that do not allow fans to leave comments. Hello! The point of being on Facebook is to create an online community for your company, brand, or whatever it is you are representing. How can you do this if you aren’t allowing people to interact with one another?

2. Comments on blog posts that are faceless and don’t leave a name. Oh and on top of that all they say is, “Very useful information… great content,” and then link back to their own spammy site. First of all, it is obvious you are a bot and I would hope at this point in time the majority of internet users have figured this out. However, there are some people that actually do leave the same type of comment, but with no reasoning. Back your comments up! I don’t care that you think this content is useful, tell me why, otherwise I am not clicking on your link!

3. Putting a #hashtag before every single word of a tweet… STOP! Hashtags are used as a tool to search Twitter and if your tweet is completely irrelevant then you are being annoying!

4. People @replying me in their tweets telling me I should buy their product/service. Leave me alone! I am not on Twitter to be sold to. Learn the best practices then tweet at me!

5. Complaining about your job, boss, family, etc. in your status updates. No one cares or wants to hear about it.

6. Posting status updates with every detail of your day. “So today I ate breakfast at 6:09 AM, got to work at 8:26 AM, texted my friend at 11:12 AM….” Thank goodness there is an option to hide whichever friends you choose from your news feed.

7. Not understanding best practices of different social media platforms. Each platform is different. Figure it out because the sooner you do the better off you will be.

8. Keeping the pet peeve above in mind, please remember that LinkedIn is NOT Facebook, so don’t connect with me if I saw you at a party but we didn’t actually meet. I may accept your friend request on Facebook, but certainly not your invitation to connect on LinkedIn.

9. Tweeting 10 times in a row within the time span of 3 minutes. Haven’t you ever heard of HootSuite? I’m sure your content is great, but not all at once.

10. When I comment on a post on your Facebook page or @reply someone and they don’t respond or even thank me. It is understandable that some @replies get missed because there are a few people managing a company account, but other than that there really is no excuse.

What are your social media pet peeves? Please share them below!

-Lauren

Follow The Discovery Communications Group on Twitter: @DiscoveryCG

Note: This post is an opinion-based piece of one employee of The Discovery Communications Group and does not necessarily reflect the stance of the company its other employees.

1. Build Your Network

The most basic step towards getting your message and brand out there is to build an audience. If you have no one to share the information with, what is the point? Start by creating a Facebook company page and Twitter profile for your company. Both of these platforms offer search options, making it easier for you to find your audience.

2. Use Many Social Media Platforms

There is much more to social media than Facebook and Twitter. It is impossible to learn everything in a short amount of time, but you should familiarize yourself with the bigger platforms such as YouTube, Flickr, Digg, Delicious, blogs, LinkedIn, and MySpace just to name a few. Not every platform is right for every company. It will depend on the demographics of who you are trying to reach.

3. Interact

Having a presence on social media is not enough – it is just a start. Your social media platforms need attention. You must post on a regular basis. Don’t post for the sake of posting though, you must provide your reader with valuable information. It is your job to engage and make people want to come back. If someone posts something or tweets at you it is your job to answer, whether it be answering a question or a quick thank you for visiting.

4. Provide Quality Content

Your social media campaign should be thought of as a community, not as a place where you can advertise to people. Be the leader in your community. Teach people things you know that they may not. Do not throw a sales pitch out there because this isn’t the place for it!

5. Consistency

In order for your social media campaign to be successful, you must be consistent. If you aren’t constantly posting or tweeting everyday you are telling people that you don’t care. You are also giving them a reason to not come back.

These tips are very basic, but are essential for any social media marketing campaign.

-Lauren

Follow The Discovery Communications Group on Twitter: @DiscoveryCG

My question today focuses on the other side of the equation, and may actually provide an answer to the first question. I’d like to analyze which users receive the largest return for their time invested using Twitter. I’ll highlight some of the uses and gratifications below (pardon my use of communications classroom jargon).

Small Businesses: From the start-up online entrepreneurial project to the mom and pop shop on the corner, Twitter provides a powerful advertising medium that costs nothing more than time. If used correctly for long enough a duration, a small business can exist exclusively online through social media and a website. By providing valuable resources and information through Twitter, a small business can show just how well they can compete-or beat- a corporate competitor.

Big Business: With brand recognition likely already in place for many large corporations and their products, social media campaigns have the potential to pick up steam very quickly. When a brand like Pepsi launches an interactive marketing tool, like a call for fan submissions for a new logo, the odds that they receive high traffic to the site which they are re-directing their fans and followers to are extremely favorable. Giving millions of people who know your brand a reason to visit your website can certainly yield the desired ROI

The Superstar: The top 10 Twitter accounts in terms of followers are all celebrities. And yes, I’m including President Obama, ranked #5, in that category. Their accounts allow them to maintain or increase their fan base and interact with the average fan in a unique situation; one that doesn’t require a team of bodyguards, and is instantaneous and (most of the time) unfiltered. Put it this way: if Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) responds to me directly, I’d forget all of his terrible acting performances and annoying commercials and be a fan for life.

The un-invested user: I was leery of using this term to categorize the average user who does not fit any of the above groups because any active user of Twitter is likely deeply invested in the site. Whether it is the hours of time they spend scanning Tweets, the increased phone bills they incur to feed their addiction to the blue bird, or the effects of replacing their standard news sources with Twitter, everyone is contributing or receiving something from their Twitter relationships. It can be argued that this population is the best to be a part of, as they can get news from the world, tips on virtually any subject they wish, and a look into the lives of their favorite stars (maybe even a conversation with them, too) without having their own activity on the site scrutinized by social media gatekeepers. Essentially this group can gain everything the rest can, without much, if any, risk.

I suppose I’d choose small businesses in the race for highest per-Tweet received/sent value, but it is a debate open to the masses. What groups did I miss, and which do you think gains the most value from its Twitter use?

Follow The Discovery Communications Group on Twitter @DiscoveryCG