social media

Small Businesses Take Note! Three Facebook Updates Just For You

Facebook may have hurt you in the past – making it harder to reach your customers without advertising – but its recent changes are a win for small businesses.The social media giant has turned it’s attention to small companies and entrepreneurs with new tools to generate business on your page. These tools aim to make search easier to increase brand awareness and revenue. And because you want to make money, you should become adept at them.
45 million businesses use Facebook to reach and engage their customers. Unless you’re living in a cave with no WiFi (in which case we’d like to come over for a monthly digital detox), you know the platform is a critical tool to collect information on customers, gain feedback and build your online community. Now, Facebook can do so much more to drive business.

Let’s review three recent updates.

Call-to-Action Buttons

New call-to-action buttons like, Contact Us, Send a Message, and Call Now, now live at the top of your business page under the cover photo. These buttons are meant to drive business objectives and encourage engagement. By placing calls-to-action front and center on the page, customers can interact with your business more easily and be enticed to take an action with the click of a button.

Updated Pages

No one business is alike, so having a Pages section that fits one, fits all is impractical. Facebook put an end to this with the new sections for Pages. Different businesses can now customize their pages so their unique offerings are up-front and center. The new Services section allows businesses to highlight their services at the top of their page. So your coffee shop can list its different types of drinks, pastries, and other goodies right up front. That way, someone visiting the page knows exactly what you’re all about.

You’ve attracted fans with great social media content, now you have a vehicle to close a sale – Facebook’s new Shop section. This new section also comes with a Buy button, making it easy to purchase products and services, helping to drive online and local sales while increasing brand awareness.

Mobile

You’re always on the go. So are your customers. Just like you they’re looking for business information when they’re in the car. They’re scrolling through Facebook in the Starbucks line. That’s why Facebook has updated the layout of its mobile site, with tabs for customers to navigate between posts, services, shop, home, photos, and videos. In this mobile-driven age, these changes make it easy for people to find the information they want and need in a more simplified, direct way. And, the call-to-action buttons we mentioned above are bigger and more prominent on the mobile site. These mobile changes translate into less scrolling and searching (and we think, less bouncing) and more clicking and discovering.

As a small business owner, it’s important that you stay on top of social media updates, but more importantly, you need a strategy for consistent, quality social media content. If your goal is to grow your business and delight your current customers and clients, you’ll want to take an honest inventory of your social media so far.

Ask yourself:

Do I post consistently? (Once a day is better than four times on the one day a month you get around to it.)
Does my audience engage with me, giving likes and comments?
Do I engage with them, answering questions and replying to comments?
Is my social media a customer service tool or a burden to me?
Does my social media drive business?
Are my competitors doing it better than me?

If you answered no to any of these questions then your company’s social media is an unleveraged asset.

Let me be straight with you – you need to devote some time and money to social before it makes you money. You can DIY it and get some results, but if it’s not your jam (or your area of expertise) maybe it’s time to pass it on to a professional. At Rival we’re great at social media, pr, writing and marketing. We don’t know anything about bookkeeping, law or coffee roasting. We leave that stuff to the professionals because we’re serious about growing our business. We know know we make better progress when we concentrate our efforts on our areas of expertise. That’s our advice for small (and large) businesses too. Like mama says, Do your best, outsource the rest.

Public Relations: 3 Social Media Tricks to Tell Your Brand Story

If you’re holding a smartphone right now, you’re holding the greatest public relations tool this side of the press release.

The media have more vehichles for breaking news today than at any time in history, and as a news channel, social media is taking on a larger news role everyday.

In fact, 30 percent of American adults get their news from Facebook, according to the Pew Research Center.

You know how your heartstrings (and attention) have been tugged by all those feel good people and pet stories in your news feeds. If you dig deep enough, you’ll discover similar stories within your client’s company. It’s just a matter of being open to listening and discovering the human-interest and news pieces that attract today’s busy editors, reporters, and producers.

After you write your story and take some high-quality images and possibly some video, you’re ready to post and share your news on social. Now you need to connect to the reporters, bloggers and producers who can pick up your story.

Here are three social media tricks to grab the attention of the media who can amplify your brand story:

1. Tweet to meet and engage media sources.

In addition to emailing a release, engage in dialog on social media to build your media network. According to ING’s 2014 Social Media Impact survey, 57 percent of journalists consider social media to be ideal for contacting PR professionals and vice versa. Use social media to build relationships with journalists and bloggers to gain a better understanding of what they write about, when they need resources, and how they prefer to work with you.

According to a 2014 report from the Indiana University School of Journalism, 40 percent of journalists said social media networks are very important to their work. Over a third said they spent between 30 and 60 minutes each day on social networking sites. Twitter was the most popular type of social media used by journalists, and over half of those surveyed said they regularly use the platform for gathering information and reporting stories.

Use your website blog as a home for your story, images and video to live and use a tool like Hashtags.org to incorporate trending hashtags into your tweets for greater visibility.

2. Be in the know about Facebook’s new tools for media publishers.

Facebook recently introduced new and exciting ways for news accounts to target posts, remove posts that are no longer relevant and identify popular links that they haven’t shared. One widely anticipated and requested change is Facebook’s Smart Publishing tool, which identifies and publishes stories that are popular with people on Facebook. Once the setting is enabled, frequently shared links will appear more in the News Feed for people who like a publisher’s Page. Make sure to like news sites covering your industry and region to get a sense of the news stories being shared on their sites and thus popping up more in your News Feed.

Once you understand and follow how the media will be using the new tools, you can deliver producers and editors the type of content that’s being shared on social media. Facebook will regularly share announcements and tips on its News Feed FYI.

It’s wise to learn firsthand from Facebook and its content creators what’s trending in the news. Your research will give you a better chance of securing media coverage when pitching a story.

3. Proofread your social media story teasers.

Make sure to proofread your tweets and posts for accuracy and working links. Check the spelling of key names (brands, people, etc.) as well as contact information. Editors may use your release or blog post for the facts and as a potential resource for larger features. If you spell a name two ways or a phone number is wrong by one digit, this will frustrate the contact who has to get ahold of you to double check.

Here’s an example of a tweet with a typo from Grub Street, a blog about the New York City restaurant scene from New York magazine. Their fans were pretty accepting of the typo and appreciated the afternoon chuckle. I’m sure the editors, however, were pretty crabby about the error ;).

Social media is a great way to shine a light on the people and events that make your brand stand out, but getting the attention of reporters, bloggers and producers is getting harder. Just like you, they’re bombarded with information.