Everything Internet Blog

CWS is pleased to announce the launch of the brand new Schmidt Goodman Office Products Facebook pages:

Schmidt Goodman Office Products
Debra Hosfield – Schmidt Goodman

Schmidt Goodman offers a variety of services to meet the needs of the home office, small business, and large corporation.  The goal for the Schmidt Goodman Facebook Environment is to reach out to customers and potential customers in a way that shows that this is more than your typical office products and furniture store (If anyone is looking for a really really big and unique lamp, Schmidt Goodman is the place to go).  For this project, not only does the company have their own Facebook page, but a custom page is also created for sales rep Debra Hosfield to reach out to her unique client base.

To create this environment CWS designer, Sarah Link and web developer, Furhath Arnob worked together to conceptualize and build the graphics and Testimonials custom tab.

Congratulations to Schmidt Goodman and your new Facebook environments!

Make sure to “like” the Schmidt Goodman Office Products page and Debra Hosfield – Schmidt Goodman pages to get their latest news, exclusive deals, and more.

Name:  Brian Borncamp

Tell us what you’re busy doing at CWS:  Upgrading equipment, adding new services, migrating accounts, troubleshooting client concerns

Describe Yourself Using One Word:  Alive

Hometown:  Buffalo, NY

Family:  Katie O’Sullivan (girlfriend)

Hobbies/Interests:  Agriculture, social activism, trends in technology, cycling, philosophy, non-fiction literature

Famous People You’d Like to Meet:  Martin Luther King Jr.

Somethings You’d Like to Learn to Do:  Political organizing, data mining

Favorite Website:  plato.stanford.edu

Favorite Travel Destinations: Where I’ve yet to go

Last “Gadget” You Purchased: Seedling heat mat

Favorite Reads: The New Organic Grower, Hybrid: The History and Science of Plant Breeding, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and many more

Favorite Foods:  Onion Bhaji, Chana Masala, Tamarind Rice, Posole, Burritos

Favorite Movies: Real Genius, Leon the Professional, You Me and Everyone we Know, The Departed

If you haven’t heard, this past week Facebook rolled out a new feature for pages that’s got Social Media interns everywhere pretty excited.  A little thing called Facebook Offers.  And if your company is marketing with Facebook, you should be excited too.  Why?  According to ExactTarget, 58% of Facebook users that like a page expect to receive discounts or promotions.

Now Facebook Offers is the easy way to give fans the exclusive deals they crave.

What Exactly Are Facebook Offers?
‘Offers’ are a quick and simple way to give a deal/coupon/offer to your Facebook fans.  The best part? This feature costs you a grand total of…nothing!

I should let you know that this feature is currently in beta and only available to a limited group of established Facebook pages listed as a Local Business.  If your Local Business wasn’t chosen, don’t worry, Facebook assures us it will be more widely available in the near future.

How Do I Set Up a Facebook Offer?
Setting up a Facebook offer is as easy as pie.

1. In the status box of your page select the Offer, Event+ option
2. Click Offer
3. Upload a compelling image (90×90 px)
4. Insert Headline Text (90 characters)
5. Set the Claim Limit & Expiration Date
6. Add Terms & Conditions (900 characters)
7. Click Preview
8. Click Post
9. Your offer is live!

How Does The Customer Claim The Offer?
If you’re on the other side as a fan, when a page provides an offer, claiming it is even easier than setting it up.  Here’s how it works:

1. Click Get Offer
2. The offer is automatically sent to the email attached up to your Facebook account
3. Check your email
4. Print the offer or show it on your phone

SkyVu Drive-In: Real-Life Example of Facebook Offers
SkyVu Drive-In is the only outdoor movies theater within 200 miles of the Red River Valley of Minnesota and North Dakota.  It is also happens to be owned by the father of CWS team member, Tom.

The weather was going to be bit chilly that evening in Warren, MN.  Not quite what you’d hope for at an outdoor theater.   As I sat at my intern desk, I overheard a call made by Tom suggesting that they try this new Offers thing with a Buy 1 Get 1 Free deal.  Keep in mind Tom’s dad is 70 years old and not quite sold on Facebook marketing.

Now I don’t know exactly what the voice on the other line said, but from the reaction I can only assume it was something along the lines of “I don’t know about this Facebook stuff” or “What if nobody uses it?” or “What are you, some kind of idiot”.   Despite Dad’s resistance to Facebook, the offer was placed and the experiment began.

Within the first hour about 20 fans had already claimed the offer.   Every time we checked the number went up and up.  By the time the offer closed, 89 people had claimed it (SkyVu Facebook page has about 2500 fans.  That is fantastic engagement for 1 post)

When all of the cars had finally rolled in, several people had their phone displayed or a printed copy of the Facebook Offer.

Would You Consider This A Success?
I would.  And here’s why:

1. 89 people engaging with a post is spectacular for a small business
2. Tom and his father estimated business doubled compared to other bad weather days.
3. The Offer took about 5 minutes to set up
4. With this many fans claiming the offer, it shows a high level of interest for the future.
5. Nobody goes to the drive-in with an empty car.  Though 1 person in the car got a freebie, each additional person inside the vehicle was a sale.
6.  This is most important. Each one of these claimed Offers can be traced back directly to the SkyVU Facebook page.  In other words Facebook Offers may soon be an important factor to determine the ROI of Facebook marketing.

I think it’s safe to say that with double the usual amount of cars for a bad weather day,  Tom’s dad is now sold on Facebook marketing.

For more social media news and tips visit our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/cws.mn

Sitting in front of your computer, on Facebook, and you’ve just come up with the greatest status update anyone could possibly fathom.  While typing in the status box, you’re in sheer anticipation of the unimaginable amount of likes, comments, smiley faces, lol’s, praise, etc. that you are about to receive.  Finally you click post.  Wait for the verification of your genius to roll in.  Nothing happens.  You decide to check your email, read a news article, grab a snack and after 20 minutes you check back on Facebook to marvel at how wonderful everyone thinks you are.  Nothing.  Check back 2 hours later, 5 hours later, 9 hours later and the only person that “liked” your blockbuster update was your 2nd cousin that you haven’t talked to in 4 years.  Finally you admit defeat.  No one likes your update and therefore no one likes you.

That might have been a bit harsh.  Hopefully you don’t need people clicking a like button in order to validating your existence.  But, whether you’re posting on Facebook for your personal profile or posting for a company page, the Holy Grail is to achieve engagement.  I’m talking about likes, comments, shares, and clicks.   We want to connect with our audience.  Spark enough interest and emotion to convince our friends or fans to give an electronic thumbs-up.

If your business page does’t have fan engagement, it’s just another 1-way marketing channel where you talk, but nobody’s listening.  Keep in mind, fan engagement is not impossible, but it can be tough if you don’t know the tricks to getting it.

If you’re that person staring at your computer, wondering why nobody is engaging with your content on Facebook we don’t want you to worry anymore.  Instead we want to invite you join us April 26th at 2pm CT for our FREE webinar, Facebook Posting Strategies That Get Fans Engaging.

In 30 minutes or less, we will teach you how to become a master of Facebook posting strategies to get your fans liking, commenting, and clicking.  We know that you will probably have questions, so we’ll set aside some time to get them answered.

And just in case you missed it, this event is FREE. But, you must REGISTER to attend.

Facebook Posting Strategies That Get Fans Engaging
Thur, April 26th, 2012
2:00-2:30pm CT

*By the way, if you missed our last webinar, Facebook Timeline For Business, you can watch it on YouTube

It has finally happened.  Facebook said they were going to switch all brand pages to the new Timeline format on March 30th and they did not lie (unlike when they said they would switch personal profiles to Timeline right away).  The new format brings new opportunities, new challenges, and new strategy for brand pages.

Get Educated:
We wanted to make sure your company was on the top of your game for the switchover.  Last week we hosted a free Facebook Timeline for Business Webinar to show what’s new, what has changed, and how it will affect your business.   If you missed the webinar, don’t worry, we recorded the whole thing. You can watch the video below or visit the webinar YouTube page and skip to specific parts.

Get Designed:
With the switch to Timeline format this month you could imagine that we might be a bit busy switching the CWS page and the pages of our clients.  But, when faced with a new challenge, many new ideas arise.  You can see a  few examples of how our talented designers adapted clients Facebook pages to Timeline.

Get Inspired:
Since Timeline was first announced, I have seen some interesting ways companies have used the new functionality.  That being said, I want to list a few of the most creative examples I have seen below.  And perhaps you’ll come up with the new great idea for Timeline.  Enjoy!

• Travel back in time with Fanta
• Coke gives fans riddles to solve
• Cover Photo/Profile Picture from out of this world

When it comes to search engine optimization you may be thinking that the more keywords the better. This method of “keyword stuffing” worked well about 10 years ago, but as with all technology, the search engines have improved and can easily see if you are writing content just for them. As you have probably heard you should write for your audience, not the search engines.

How do you tell if your content is written to target search engines and specific key phrases? Follow these 3 steps:

Step1: Read Your Site
You must actually read the content on your site. If you are noticing keywords that feel like they are being forced into place they probably are. Try to use a synonym or rewrite the sentence using different words.

Step 2: Count Those Keywords
Count the number of times your keyword appears in your page to find your “keyword density”. You can find this by taking the number of words in the document dividing it by the number of times your keyword appears. Ideally it should be between 3 and 5 percent.

Step 3: Sound like a Human
Does your content make sense and does it sound like a human wrote it? There are lots of places where you can have content rewritten into additional stories, however these “article spinning” websites do a poor job of actually making new worthwhile content. An article spinning site may turn a story about Salt Lake into Sodium Filled Body of Water (yes there are actual examples like this). This is no good for you or your visitors.

How Do I Balance Quality Content & SEO?
First, make sure your content is well written. If you can afford it, hire a professional writer or at least have someone proof read before you post it live. Second, be aware of how often you are using a specific keyword / key phrase. Finally, be sure that your content makes sense. You don’t want to waste an opportunity to keep a new visitor by giving them garbage information.