In March of 2009, Facebook made a few changes to the structure of their site impacting the differences between Fan Pages and Group Pages.  The core change was how people can suggest or promote their pages.  I hope this post helps to define when to use a Fan Page versus a Group Page.

FAN Pages:

Indexed by Google – Fan Pages are indexed by Google providing SEO benefits for any business looking to grow their digital footprint.

Adding Applications – Fan Pages allow the use of adding Applications or widgets that can enhance the user interaction with Fans and a Business.  A complete list of applications can be found in the Facebook Application Directory.

Strategic Updates – Fan Page updates can be sent by age, gender and location by text with hyperlinks included.

Homepage Streaming Messages – Fan Page updates will show as notifications on a fan’s homepage, but also will display as a status update in the friend stream on the homepage.

Facebook Insights – Internal Facebook system providing metrics for number of fans, unique visitors, number of reviews and total interactions.

Suggest to Friends – This new feature allows Fans to send a message to friends to suggest becoming a Fan.  This was a key feature change in March making Fan pages more viral.

Group Pages:

Group participation – Group pages can be Open, Closed, or Secret offering various levels of participation.

Bulk Invitations – Group pages can send bulk emails to friends inviting to become a member.

Threaded Conversations – Group pages offer conversations in a threaded format providing for a more organized process of publishing information about certain topics or issues.

Officers – Groups pages allow the addition of offices which can be a measure of goodwill or just for community building fun.

Not indexed by search engines.

No Applications can be used to enhance page.

Summary

Facebook Pages are primarily used to promote businesses, non-profits, celebrities and artists to Facebook users.  Facebook states that “only the official representative of an artist, business, or brand may create a Facebook Page.” In other words, Pages are intended to be an “official” web page for your organization on Facebook.

Facebook Groups can be created by anyone interested in promoting and organizing people around a specific interests or cause. All members of a group have the ability to contribute content that appears on the Group’s wall – photos, videos, discussion threads.

If you have already created a Group page and want to create a Fan page, it’s not too late.  In fact, you can send a bulk message to your Group to let them know and urge them to become a Fan! Before you make your Fan page, here is an article on The Five Elements of a Sucessful Facebook Fan Page.

Facebook Fan Page for Tallahassee Small Business using Social Media

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Despite the controversy surrounding Craigslist sections called “Casual Encounters” and “Erotic Services,” the fact remains that Craigslist is a peer to peer community driven web portal.  Created in 1995 by founder Craig Newmark, Craigslist has more than 20 billion page views per month and projected revenue of $100 million this year.

I think it is ironic that the Business (for sale) category is less than one inch to the right from the Casual Encounters category.  Craigslist defies all the rules of ecommerce when it comes to website design:  no banner ads; no Google Ad Sense; no big banana buttons that scream, click here.  So why is it so successful? I believe one of the central reasons for its success is the constantly updated content created by Craigslist users.

Automotive, Jobs and Real Estate are some of the top categories with large volumes of inventory.  As a Tallahassee small business digital media consultant, I have worked with automotive and real estate companies who have listed inventory and/or properties on Tallahassee Craigslist.  One of my clients who owns several rental properties has leased a property in less than one hour on Craigslist.  Another client lists their automotive inventory priced below $12,000, and receives multiple calls per day.

Similar to its cousin Ebay, the success in listing on Craigslist is photos, descriptions and multiple points of contact.  I have seen listing after listing with no pictures, poor descriptions and no phone or email listed.  Putting a link to your business website or blog is another “best practice” and allows for good web traffic tracking through tools like Google Analytics.

Tallahassee businesses posting job listings are reporting over 300 to 500 responses per listing! If you are looking to hire and are looking for a low cost alternative, Craigslist is a great resource.  Taking the time to write a good job listing, including detailed job description, educational requirements and skills needed will help reduce the number of unqualified applicants.

If you haven’t started listing your products or services on Craigslist, your competitor probably has.  One tool for monitoring Craigslist is CL Desktop.  CL Desktop is an application built on Adobe AIR.  This tool is a very well designed tool for searching and tracking listings by topic.  CL Desktop is a free application to download from Adobe AIR Marketplace.

Craigslist Social Media Monitoring Tool

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“Confidential Shredding & Recycling, Inc. is the premier mobile document shredding service which values client’s privacy and time.  Our mobile unit is equipped with a hydraulic lift system, which instantly feeds your confidential materials directly into the shredder.  With this state of the art equipment, our bonded professionals are able to shred your sensitive materials, hands free.  The shredding process may be viewed on our security surveillance camera system.  Clients’ are then provided with a Certificate of Destruction.” csrshredding.com

CSR gets it. Do a Google search for Confidential Shredding & Recycling in Tallahassee and you will find many reasons why they are deservedly the winner.  Take one look at their digital footprint and the evidence is clear: Social Media is an essential component of their marketing strategy.

Winner Small Business of the Year 1-4 Employees:

Website: Confidential Shredding & Recycling, Inc.

Facebook Fan Page for Confidential Shredding & Recycling

Twitter: http://twitter.com/CSRShredding

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/confidentialshredding

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/confidentialshredding

Trusteria.com: http://www.trusteria.com/csrshredding/contact

Blogger: http://csrshredding.blogspot.com

What makes CSR a winner in my book is not just the fact that they have tackled Social Media head on, but that they are very involved in the Tallahassee community.  Within the same Google search, one can see CSR’s involvement with the Tallahassee Red Cross, Keep Tallahassee Leon County Beautiful and the Children’s Home Society.

Congratulations Confidential Shredding & Recycling! I am a big fan and a follower.

Best wishes and prosperity to you and your staff!

#1 Tallahassee Small Business Leveraging Social Media

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A similar assessment might be taken in regards to activities and conversations within social media.  Thousands and thousands of updates about experiences at coffee shops, restaurants and grocery stores are posted everyday.  Each of those updates/comments are recorded and posted on blogs, walls and message boards.  These digital logs are a new kind of online account statement.  Each update is an informational transaction.  The insight that could be learned by these digital statements could result in valuable assessments for a company that was paying attention.

Recently, I was preparing a Social Media proposal for a new client who requested case studies to be included in the documentation.  I came across hundreds of studies.  Surprisingly, this kind of market research has been circulating since 2005.  Everyday the conversation of how do businesses engage in social media arises, to which I reply, it’s never too late to join the conversation.  I always recommend listening and observing as a starting point.

If you are in charge of marketing at your company or you are the owner of a small business and need more convincing that Social Media is a viable means to grow your business, I am including some of the case study websites that I have found extremely helpful in attempting to reconcile the online statements of social media.

Case Studies

35 Examples of Corporate Social Media in Action

Word Of Mouth Marketing Association – Comprehensive Case Study Library

Groundswell by Forrester Research – 65 Corporate examples and 25 full case studies

Social Media Statements Tallahassee

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Tallahassee Tweetup Warmup

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Social media is like conversations in a global coffee shop. If you are on Facebook or on Twitter, you are listening in on the conversation. Has someone on Facebook or Twitter ever helped you find a store, locate a bank or given you technical advice? Have you returned the favor? Did you send them a thank you note? Did you stay in contact with that person? Why not? Why wouldn’t you look to pay it forward?

Imagine if you could listen to the conversations that are about what you are interested in while turning down the volume on all the other unrelated voices. Current estimates show Twitter alone has 14 to 19 million users, and that number is growing every day. That is a bunch of conversations! The ability to chime in to just one topic is a powerful capability. Harnessing that information can provide valuable insight to companies and individuals. Tools like Tweetdeck and Seesmic are free applications that will allow you to key in on multiple topics and feed the results right to your desktop.

Search is probably the fastest growing segment of web technology today. Look at the huge success of Google; everyone is searching for something. Not everyone who searches is lost. With so many people looking, now is the time to invest in becoming an expert guide in your field of service or product line. Don’t try to be the one size fits all solution. The niche guides are the winners in this game. How do you know if you qualify as an expert? One benchmark is 10,000 hours of experience. Check out Malcolm Gladwell’s recent book Outliers for more on the 10,000 hour benchmark.

As a business in today’s digital media landscape, it is essential to have your ears open. If you haven’t dedicated a portion of your time and resources to social media, please consider it. Every Fortune 500 company spends at least 20% of its resources on research and development. Take three 15 minute breaks in your day and follow a conversation or two on Twitter. I recommend taking notes along the way. After a week of following conversations, compile a report of your findings and present that to your manager/owner. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. There is a global conversation about your business. Are you listening?

Art of listening in Social Media

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The debate is whether these sites are just a trend or are they new channels of communicating in a modern digital era.  Regardless where a business stands on the social media platform, the answer is that millions of new users are exploring these sites every month.  Social media users are not just teens, college students or businesses either.  It’s everyone from every demographic.

With the growing number of newcomers to the digital communities, the world has become a more connected planet.  The once essential long distance phone plan barrier has been removed and replaced with open lines of communication.

With keyword search capabilities built within Twitter, it is very easy to jump into the specific conversation topic you are most interested in.  Rather than having to search Google page after page looking for websites for information, keywords are now delivered straight to your desktop: Getting in on the latest trends and updates has never been easier.

If it is so easy to gain access to this information, why are some business locking the doors to these social media channels?  Just because people spend personal time on the phone, do you take the company phones off the hook?  Just because employees send personal emails from work, do you turn off the email servers?  Just because staff members often hang out in employee offices for long periods of time, does that mean you lock all the doors until 5pm everyday?

No.  In each given situation, a progressive company views each channel of communication as a way for people to connect with the business or organization.  A proactive company will develop a strategy of how to best use each channel and provide training for maximizing each channel.  Whether it is direct policy or an outline of best practices, the best use of communication tools should be developed and optimized.

If you have locked Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace out, who else have you locked out of being able to interact with your company or products?  One huge benefit of social media sites is the fact that they are open 24/7.  Leveraging social media can allow your clients and/or prospects to weave in and out of the purchase or service life cycle.  Just because the front doors are closed after 5pm, doesn’t mean the customer has to come back later.  In fact, they might just go down the street, or in the digital world just click to the next tweet if you keep them out!

What is your Social Media Strategy?

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for starters they are looking for stories.  Why are stories so important?  Because stories are the platform by which they interact with their readers/viewers.

I have to believe that the really good media outlets scan the radio waves and have designated staff trained to listen for specific words, phrases, or codes.  Maybe part of their training is reading over a list of code numbers like 10-78 (Send ambulance), 10-79 (Send wrecker), 11-80 (Traffic Accident – Serious Injury), or 11-82 (Traffic Accident – No Injury). Knowing the law enforcement language is essential to understanding what’s being communicated.  Otherwise, it may sound like random numbers being shouted out.

Now, take that analogy and think of it in ways to leverage social media.  On the surface what may seem like random status updates, can be categorized into useful information.  Knowing how to categorize and isolate keywords is the combination to unlocking the social media vault.

One of the emerging tools for analyzing social media content is Tweetdeck.  Tweetdeck can be downloaded for free using your Twitter user name and password.  It runs in the background, while you work on other assignments or projects.  You can have up to five keyword searches being performed at any given time.  Anytime a tweet or status update that contains your specific keyword is entered, it is categorized by subject, date, and time and displayed in its designated search results column.

Let’s apply this to your specific area of service or product line.  If I were a local Customer Service Manager for Best Buy, I would have a search for Best Buy Tallahassee, HH Gregg Tallahassee, and Wal-Mart Tallahassee.   Analyzing the search results for people who had a good or bad experience at any of those retail stores, I would then use that information to train my customer service representatives on how to handle a given scenario.  If the status or tweet was directly about my store, I would contact that individual directly and thank them for their business and ask for the opportunity to learn how to provide better service for their next visit.

Click Here to read another real world example of a large hotel chain that went over the top to provide a WOW experience for one of their guests by using Twitter. This is not a fad.  Social Media will not go away.  If anything, it will evolve into something more social and more interactive.  Look at EBay and Amazon; the reason why they are so successful is because at the core they are driven by user created content (information and reviews about the products).

There are many benefits and insights to be gained by reading and analyzing the content on all social media platforms.  Zappos.com, a clothing retailer, has over 300 customer service reps utilizing Twitter in addition to the traditional lines of communication in order to exceed their customer’s expectation.  If your Tallahassee business isn’t embracing emerging technology to move your business forward right now, you are missing out.  If you listen carefully, you can hear the sirens.

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Want to learn more about leveraging Social Media for your Business?  Visit Social850.com for a free “Lunch and Learn” seminar coming up May 19th!

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Seth Godin – The Tribes We Lead

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