Facebook Graph Search is based on a social graph and currently handles four key areas: photos, people, places, and interests. Users’ Facebook search results are personalized based on their connections. When performing local searches in Graph Search, Facebook pulls places that your friends and connections have liked and visited.

Tips and Tricks to Optimize your Business Page for Facebook Graph Search

Page URL and Title

• Secure a custom Facebook URL (ex: www.facebook.com/435Digital)
• Be sure this is clear and a direct reflection of your name. The title needs to be relevant to your brand or business.
• You want to ensure users can find you. The best way to do that is to add your Facebook URL to your website.

Content – Images

• Sharing of content has become the key to appearing in Facebook’s Graph Search.
• Make sure your content is related to your business.
• Use high resolution images.
• Encourage people to interact with your content, but use this technique sparingly.

Engagement – Likes matter

• Likes and Check-ins are important for Graph Search.
• Check-ins are especially important for local businesses. Be sure if you are a local business you have the category ‘Local Business’ selected and provide your full address (street, city, state, zip).

EdgeRank – Facebook’s Algorithm

• This algorithm determines how, when, and if a post appears in a user’s News Feed.
• The more a user interacts with a page (liking, sharing, posting, commenting, etc.), the more that page’s content will appear in that user’s News Feed.
• If you fail to engage users, their ‘Likes’ are almost useless.

Profile
All of the following must be filled out completely:

• Category
• Subcategories
• Address/Location
• Short Description
• Description
• General Information
• Contact Information
• Food Styles
• Specialties
• Services
• Team

If you have not already requested Facebook Graph Search, maybe it’s time to give it a try. As a business, you should take advantage of how Facebook will be presenting controlled data and how you will plan to adapt to the changes. In some cases, it might mean switching up your social media strategy.

While ‘Likes’ are important to every business owner, you must also realize that engagement is going to be the driving factor of who sees your content. This means coming up with creative and reactive content that gets people engaged. As stated earlier, it’s effective to occasionally ask people for engagement. (Ex. “Like” this photo if you wish you were on vacation.) Just don’t do it too often or it may have the opposite effect. Driving those ‘Likes’ on posts will only help you rank more prominently in a search.

While Facebook Graph Search is still rolling out, take advantage of the extra time, think about how Graph Search will affect your business, and how you can benefit from its features.

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Managing a business’ reputation is a delicate act during difficult times. Many brands find themselves asking the question, “Should I post something?” There’s no universal right or wrong answer to this question. Every business will need to make its own decision based on what’s best for its brand during times of crisis.

Here at 435 Digital, it’s our stance to not post our regularly scheduled content while a tragedy is unfolding. We recommend immediately shutting off any scheduled tweets, Facebook updates, etc., as it looks insensitive. It has been our experience that many people find it disrespectful when brands post promotional content while everyone is concerned with the latest news on the event.

Your brand may have nothing to do with the incident, and sometimes it is best to be respectful and keep quiet until more information is released. If you’d rather not go completely quiet on social media during a tragedy, there are some posts that we find are more acceptable than pushing out the regular promotional info you usually share.

Two universal pieces of advice:

1. Make sure your post is well thought out and written clearly. This may seem obvious.

2. Whatever you write, keep it short. People mostly want to see the latest news, not a drawn out post by a business. You never want to make it look like you are taking away attention from the current happenings. You could offer your condolences or send well wishes, but be sure to keep things brief.

Examples of helpful brands who posted during last week’s tragedy in Boston:

American Red Cross: Offered comfort for those looking for loved ones, and assured everyone that many Red Cross volunteers and workers were there helping in any way they could.

McDonald’s: Acknowledged the pain with a considerate and simple message, and let their fans know things will be quiet out of respect.

Here are some content suggestions to show respect instead of doing the typical promotion post during a tragic event:

• Offer your condolences, but keep it brief.
• Post information on ways for people to support the victims of the tragic event (ie., charitable giving opportunities, help line phone numbers for people to find their loved ones, etc.).
• Show support for the community involved.

Some thoughts on things to stay away from during a tragedy:

• Consider leaving off any hashtags. A tragic time is not an opportunity to spread a promotional message. A simple sentence showing support works best.
• If you do choose to continue your scheduled, promotional posts, be ready for backlash. Some people will be very upset that your brand is going on with business as usual.

Most importantly, it’s up to your business to make the final call on what’s appropriate during a tragedy. Chris Boudreaux has compiled an extensive listing of social media policies – a great resource for researching what needs to be covered.

Every business should have a plan ready in case a terrible situation occurs and immediate actions are needed. Share the plan with all team members so that no one makes the mistake of posting something that differs from the company’s social media guidelines.

No one wants to have to think about tragic events before they happen, but it’s crucial that your business have a plan ready to provide clear guidance in the midst of any crisis.

The post Tragedy Strikes: What’s Your Social Media Plan? appeared first on 435 Digital.

Myth: Good Content is Enough to Build a Following

The biggest misconception that we often run into is that social media should be responsible for generating an audience all on its own and that good content will have people crawling over each other to ‘Like’ your page. It’s true that content is extremely important to attracting and keeping followers, but content alone can’t bring an audience to a page that they don’t even know exists.

It’s crucial in the beginning to reach out to your employees, friends, and family to build a base following for your profiles. Their new ‘Likes’ will then show up on their newsfeeds for all of their friends to see. This is an easy way to increase your reach and for potential customers to come check out your page.

Unlocking the Facebook Admin Dashboard with Likes

One thing a lot of people don’t realize is that it takes at least 30 ‘Likes’ on your Facebook page to unlock the admin dashboard, which shows you analytics related to what’s happening on your profile. This will show you page views, help you know what content is working, and reveal the demographics of your fans. Here’s a look at some of the info you’ll find in the dashboard:

The admin dashboard will also show you information about:

• Total likes
• Friends of fans
• People talking about this
• Weekly total reach
• Each individual post and its reach
• Virality
• % male and female
• Countries and cities of the audience
• Language they speak
• Page views per day
• And more

While asking friends, family, and employees to ‘Like’ your page is an excellent starting point to build your audience, it’s just the beginning. There are many other ways that you should be supporting your online efforts with some offline marketing to build up your social media following.

Ideas to Grow Your Social Media Following Offline

Again, it’s not enough simply to have a Facebook page. You need to drive traffic to it and increase likes to be seen as trustworthy and professional. It is critical that your social media profiles are linked from your website. Beyond that, I have several ideas to share with you on how to increase your audience using offline marketing tactics:

• Placing your Facebook Page URL on your receipts with a message that encourages people to follow you there for up-to-date info on your business.
• Creating flyers that you can display on your counters or registers that includes the URLs to all of your social media profiles. Restaurants should feature this info on their menu.
• Place the logos of the social media outlets that you use on your business collateral to let people know they can find you online.
• Promote your online promotions with in-store signage. For example, ‘Like’ us on Facebook for 20% off [insert product or service here].

Overall, social media should be something that is fun to do. It is important to be active on social media even if you think your activity does not drive bottom line results. The numbers show that social media is, in some way, growing your business.

• 67% of B2C companies and 41% of B2B companies have acquired a customer from Facebook
• Companies that use Twitter average 2x more leads than those that don’t
• 45% of marketers note social media has a below average cost-per-lead compared to other channels

Go out there and have fun with your social media. It will be contagious.

The post Build Your Social Media Following Offline appeared first on 435 Digital.

What Instagram Can Do for your Online Marketing

Does your brand have a presence on Instagram? Are you missing out on 80 million active users by not being on it? Instagram is an Internet-based program that allows people to share pictures with others for free. Users upload pictures they take from their iPhones and Android devices onto the Internet using the Instagram app. It allows users to apply a series of filters to their photos in order to create a vintage look for their images that resembles a Polaroid.

Photos are a key element, if not the main component, to a successful marketing campaign. Instagram has become an effective marketing tool because companies can quickly build brand recognition and consumer loyalty through photos. It is an easy way to show your product and company. Even the catchiest copy cannot grab the customer’s attention better than an eye-catching photo. A company may be able to attract new customers and raise the level and quality of shared photos about a brand.

Below are a few ways Instagram can help take your marketing to the next level.

· Quick and easy way to promote your goods and services.

· The days of boring stock images are through and it’s all about creative and live snapshots. You want to make sure you avoid exhaustion and keep your photos fresh. Experts recommend posting three to four times per day. Be sure to avoid posting the same picture twice and too much self-promotion. There are ways to push yourself out there, but with a twist.

· Discover how you are pictured as a company.

· Instagram encourages the use of hashtags, just as Twitter does. As a brand you can search for how customers are portraying your company by simply clicking on ‘Explore’ and then ‘Hashtags’. When you search, you’ll learn a few things about your brand. The first items you’ll notice are which hashtags are the most popular and most frequently used when talking about your brand. Second, you’ll get to see what kind of content your community is already posting and what kind of photos will resonate with them.

· Host photo contests.

· Photo contests on Instagram can be a free way to attract, interact with and convert potential customers. Try launching a photo-of-the-day campaign to keep followers coming back to see to the page. Keep followers interest and ask them to submit captions for the photos. In this free marketing tactic, you can ask people to take pictures and publish them with your hash tag. You can also lead them to your website, like your Facebook page, follow you on Twitter and other social networks.

· Creative event marketing.

· What better way to promote a major event than with fun photos? Have a dedicated Instagram photographer at your event. The photographer can snap photos of the guests at your event, giving them a reason to follow your Instagram account on the spot. Be sure to continue using your Instagram account between events to entice your followers to stay active on your account and to encourage them to attend another event.

Looking to build positive press about your brand or company? Get your brand on Instagram and start providing visual proof of just how great you are.

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