Category Archives: social marketing sites

Google+ Business Pages

I just found out that Google+ is now allowing the creation of business pages. Until now, Google+ did not allow you to use its services for anything except personal posts. Their policy change means that Google+ business pages can now rivel Facebook pages – in fact, since you have an ability to target your audience through Google+ circles, they will be even better than Facebook.

Matthew Meyer has written a useful article here explaining just how easy it is to create your first business page on Google+. (If you have not already started using Google+, I recommend that you read Matthew’s article, since he explains how to get started.)

Once you have a Google+ profile and are signed in, you click on the “Pages” icon in the left sidebar to create your business page. Google has made it fairly easy to figure this out, but here are a few pointers you might find helpful.

Which Business Category

Google+ gives you a choice of five categories:

Local Business or Place
Product or Brand
Company, Institution or Organization
Arts, Entertainment or Sports
Other

Google does a good job of helping you to decide: if you hover over a category you will see a few examples. Check them and see which one best fits you. “Other” is a catch-all in case you don’t see a good match in the four previous categories.

Add your info

In the article, Matthew states:

This is important. Make sure you fill everything out completely. Use your keywords without stuffing. Tell everything about your business, including relevant links. Do not just skip quickly over this section. The information here is what will be used to find you in search. Chances are many searchers will find your Google+ page before your main website so pack this section with relevant info.

First, you will need a profile photo and tagline. Once you have this, you can edit your profile, including as much information and as many relevant links as you can. Finally, you add what Google calls a “photostrip” – five photos that will apear beneath your page name and tagline.

Using your page

Now that you have completed your business page, you will need to add content and “Spread the Word” using the link in the right sidebar. The cool thing now is that you can follow your fans and add them to your circles. If you add them to a circle for each topic they are interested in, you will be able to interact with them in a meaningful way.

At this point I should give you a link to my own Google+ business page, but the truth is that I only just saw the article, so have not built one yet. Let me know if you have one, and let’s share any results or ideas that you have.

Tabs for your Facebook Pages

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Facebook pages are the only way Facebook allows you directly to promote your business. As you know, promoting your business on your personal Facebook page can lead to accusations of spamming and may cause you to be shut down. Tabs for your Facebook pages give you the opportunity to creat sales pages, lead capture pages and most of the other things you can do on a regular website.

What Are Facebook Tabs?

Facebook pages (previously called “Fan Pages”) enable you to promote your business separately for your Personal page. Tabs are a means of leading to other pages associated with your main “Timeline” Facebook (fan) page. Facebook gets confusing because they change their terminology every now and then!

Why You Need Help

The problem with adding tabs to your Facebook pages is that it is such a convoluted process. You need to become a Facebook developer, create an app and go through the complex process of adding the app to your Facebook page. Then you need to create the content for the app: generally by this time I find that Facebook has changed something and I give it up!

However, I have found a program that makes the process really simple. There is a paid version that offers more, but I am using the free version at present, and have found that it makes the whole business quick and easy. I can create the tab and activate it in five minutes or less, leaving me time to build and edit the content.

Painless Facebook Tabs

So, if you’re sitting comfortably there in [imwb_cgt_cityName], [imwb_cgt_regionName] let me tell you about it. (If you’re wondering how I know where you are, leave me a question through the comments and I’ll tell you about another plugin I use.)

Before I give you the secret to painless Facebook tabs, though, let me show you some of the simple pages I created yesterday. Since I’m really only trying out some ideas, without any strategy behind it, they don’t show everything you can do, but they might give you an idea of how easy it can be to build your own tabs.

The sales page at http://a.pgtb.me/df00 took me just a few minutes to create. Most of the time was spent playing with the templates included in the program and changing colors in the text. Some time was spent editing the text, which I had created previously – please use the “Like” and “Share” buttons. You can also invite your friends from the link near the bottom.

The page at http://a.pgtb.me/dfcn was my first effort. I just took an existing lead capture page and plugged it straight into the program. The only other work I had to do was finding a picture for the tab and giving the tab a name! The bad news about this one is that it needs to be scrolled, because the original was too large for the Facebook iframe.

By now, if you have been paying attention, you will have seen the name of the secret program I used, since the free version places its own ad on the tab page. And yes, they do have a referral program, so please use my referral link http://zfer.us/PUVlp to contact them. Who knows, I may get some commission one day!

Build a Facebook Page

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BUILDING A FACEBOOK PAGE

Facebook Pages are a valuable tool for promoting yourself or your business. As you know, Facebook is not keen on your using your personal profile to promote your business – in fact they may shut you down if you do so. Fan pages (soon to change their name “Like Pages”) overcome this problem.

Since the name is changing, let’s just call them “Facebook Pages” for the rest of this article.

This week I “completed” creating a new Facebook Page. I say “completed” – is anything ever complete on the internet? Anyway, I gave a presentation to my business team on the subject, using that page as an example.

I had three topics on Facebook Pages:

1. Why You Need A Facebook Page

2. How to Build a Facebook Page

3. My Page as an Example of a Facebook Page.

SO WHY DO YOU NEED ONE?

This video, made by Dave Saunders a year or so ago, gives an excellent introduction to why you need a Facebook Page, what it can do for you, and how to build it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD6WDz3t52c[/youtube]

HOW DO YOU DO IT?

I followed Jo Barnes‘ free videos on her page Free Fan Page Templates. By the way, if you don’t know how to find pages on Facebook, the answer is just type the name in the Search Box! For your own pages, you click on “Account” and then “Manage Pages”.

Jo will send you six videos – one per day. You can just follow along with her, and after the first video you will have a fan page! The rest are concerned with how to use the page to promote your business.

WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE WHEN YOU’VE FINISHED?

Well, of course, Jo Barnes’ page is much better than mine! Still, to see what a first effort might look like, go to my page Alan Jenkin Solution 5. Let me know when you have completed yours, and I’ll click on your “Like” button, too!