Bewildered About Social Media?

The seven most pressing questions are answered about Facebook and twitter in this blog.What's the difference between a Facebook personal page, a company page and a group, and do you need all of them? Should you "friend" your customers? Can you really track a sales uptick back to your Facebook postings? Read on and educate yourself.

With a small team, it's difficult to keep up. What's the best way to make the most of what you have? How time should you invest? 
The biggest misconception of social media is that it is easy and free. In order to have a successful social media presence, you need to invest time and effort. However, once you get the ball rolling, it will become much easier and less time consuming to manage. Here are three tips to have you maximize the time required to maintain your social media presence.

The first is to set goals. Plan in advance what you are going to do when you log into Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and so on. Planning ahead will help avoid distractions such as reading the 25 comments that your uncles friends daughter got in response to a post about her new sneakers, chatting with your long lost pre-school teacher or saving your Farmville crops from withering. Usually your goal should be to post something, check if you need to respond to anyone and log off. When you have a little more time on your hands, its also a good idea to visit other related Facebook pages.

The second tip is to set aside a specific amount of time each day for social media. Aim for 30 minutes a day and , if possible, schedule it before noon. Posting early in the day gets you more exposure than posting in the evening does.
Lastly, use your down time for social media. Invest in a smart phone with an Internet connection and you can turn the time you spend waiting into time you spend checking Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. It's surprising how much time you spend waiting each day.


Is it recommended to use a tool to push tweets and Facebook posts from one place rather than each one individually?

It's not a good idea to push posts this way. Each platform is different and should be treated differently. If you push your Facebook messages to Twitter, they will more than likely be too long and get cut off. If you push tweets to Facebook, you can't take advantage of the different types of posts. When you tweet, you should be using hash tags and twitter handles to increase exposure and engagement. When you post on Facebook you should be using links, images, videos, notes and tags.

What is the difference between a Facebook page for business and a personal page? And how are they set up?

Setting up a Facebook page for your business is actually quite easy. First, if you have not done so already, open a personal Facebook account. You will use this account to create your personal profile. People often try to open a personal page under a company name. This is not recommended and it is against the Facebook terms of service. Facebook has been known to shut down accounts before. It's your decision if you use your personal profile page to interact with customers, but obviously, if you do, be mindful of what you post.
Once you have opened a personal page and set up your profile, you can then create a page for your company. If you want to create a page for your company but do not want a personal profile, you can do this by selecting "Create a page for a celebrity, band or business" from the Facebook homepage. You cannot friend people with a company profile. When you post, it shows up as your company. If you have both a personal and a business page, be aware of which account you are logged into before posting, commenting and interacting.
To set up a company page from your personal account you will need to search for "Create New Facebook Page" in the Facebook search and follow the provided steps. The two basic steps to get your page up and running are to upload an image and fill out your company information. However, there are many other ways to optimize your company page.

What is the difference between a Facebook company page versus a group?

A company page, also known as a fan page, is much different from a group. Groups are "for members of groups" according to Facebook. The main feature of a Facebook group is the ability to make them "invite only" or limited to specific networks. Anyone on Facebook has the ability to "like" a company page and view the page's content, but this is not always the case with groups. Groups can be limited to a network.

Should people "friend" customers and potential customers? 

There is not correct answer to this questions and the decision is up to you. Some people are friends with their customers on Facebook and very happy to connect with anyone with whom they work. Although, there is combination of personal and professional information that can be found in profiles - which is why you should be cautious.

It is OK for suppliers to advertise they on Facebook and Twitter in 2011 catalogs?

Advertising your Facebook and Twitter page is no different than advertising your website, which is common practice in the industry. In fact, if you are promoting your Facebook and Twitter pages correctly, there will be direct links to your pages to your web site. Much like a web site, it is important that suppliers keep all social media posts completely end user friendly, which means no contact information, no net pricing and no other references to any specific distributors.


How do you add custom information tabs to a business Facebook page?

In the past, HTML aor FBML was required to make custom tabs. Recently, Facebook announced that in order to add a custom tab to a page, useers must now do so with iFrames. This is exciting news for the more technical Facebook users, but it also means that adding custom tabs to a page just became much more complex for the average Facebook user.
The move from HTML/FBML to iFrames is monumental because now almost any type of content can be placed on a Facebook page. Using iFrame means that you can display content from a website or a web page designed for Facebook on your page. This would include elements like e-commerce, flash objects and more. Now, when someone visits a custom Facebook tab, he or she is technically not interacting with Facebook any longer, but rather with a specific web page. This means your traffic and user information can be captured in your analytics which is huge news. You can use this information in marketing plans and measuring ROI. Of course, the most important question here is how does someone create a custom tab with iFrame? There are different ways of doing so, but a good place to start is first creating a web page with the content you would to appear on your Facebook page. Remember that a Facebook tab has a width of 520 pixels, so be sure your website is constrained or it will automatically re size to narrow the width. Most people will have a web developer put the page together as this requires technical knowledge. Once the page is ready you will have to create an iFrame in Facebook and this is where things get a little tricky. Suggestion: Find a YouTube tutorial on how to set one up - or ask your web developer to do it for you. Since iFrames for Facebook are brand new, you can bet that we will see more features and apps created specifically to ease this process.