Social Marketing Tips

Influence. Leverage. Authority.

How To Convert Your Facebook Profile Page To A Fan Page

by Lisa Angelettie · 2 comments

Today I want to show you how you can convert your Facebook profile page to a fan page AND the pros and cons of doing so, based on a little experiment I did with my husband’s Facebook pages.

When Facebook opened up to the public and caught on with business owners we all began with a Facebook profile page. We all have one. Unfortunately for most of us, we were forced to mix personal use of Facebook along with business use and it made for a kind of “muddy” social media business model. No one really liked it like that. I didn’t want personal stuff from my friends pushed on my wall, and I’m sure some of my family members were like “What the heck is Lisa writing about today? We just want to hear about the kids!”

So in comes Fan Pages. Cool. We can use these for business. So now we have a profile page which if you used for business a lot, you still have a lot of those types of people sending you friend requests AND we have a fan page which up until a while ago we had a pretty good system for encouraging the “like”. With Facebook’s new timeline format for both profile and fan pages, that has changed a bit. But you either have just a profile page OR you have a profile and a fan page.

For example, if you do a search for “Lisa Angelettie Facebook”, you will see results for both my Fan Page and my profile page.

One day I accidentally ran into an article on Facebook on how to convert a profile page to a fan page and instantly became interested in what the benefits of that would be. Hey, I didn’t even know you could do that. So of course I didn’t want to experiment on myself! (LOL!) So I used my husband as a guinea pig and these are the steps that we took…

1 – Download all of your Facebook data on your profile page.

Go into the general settings of your page and you will find the link to download your personal data which will include your photos, timeline info, (see below). because once you convert to a fan page you will lose all of that data. The only data that is moved to your fan page are your friends which are now your FANS and your username. Uh, my husband was stubborn and refused to do this first step which he later regretted. So do this step!

What Personal Information is Downloaded During the Back-Up Process?

Personal profile information (groups, information, interests, contacts etc.)
Photos & videos
Wall posts
Status updates
Content that your friends have uploaded
Friend lists
Notes
Messages sent and received
Events that you have RSVPd for
Comments you have received and made on walls, photos etc.

Click Here To Read The Rest Of This Little Gem!

How To Add & Sell Your Products (And Services) On Pinterest

by Lisa Angelettie · 0 comments

Learn How To Easily Monetize Your Pinterest Page With Your Products, Books or Services In Under 60 Seconds…

Pinterest has been steadily climbing in popularity on the web and is now the 3rd largest social media site on the web (right behind Twitter and Facebook). That’s pretty impressive for a new kid on the block.

Now there’s another cool thing you can do on Pinterest, and that’s add your books, products, etc. with a cute little price banner across your image. Here’s how you do it in 60 seconds…

1. Identify The Items That You Want To Promote On Pinterest.

Remember that you should select items that you have good images for because that’s what Pinterest is all about –the visual appeal. You should also probably pick items that are your entry level priced products. For this example, I’m going to show you how I added a mini guide that I sell about How To Write Content That Google Loves on Amazon.

2. Add The Image Of Your Product

Add or Pin your image to Pinterest. When you add your images to Pinterest with this strategy, you are adding them to the “Gifts” category. This category is auto-filled with products by users who specify a certain price for their products in the description area.

3. Include The $ or £ Symbol In Your Description

In order to make sure that your product ends up in Pinterest’s Gifts section and that the price banner shows up across your image (like the one on mine above), you just need to make sure that you include a $ or £ symbol in your description. For example, I put $2.99 in the description area for my guide.

Make sure to add your payment links in the description and/or link area, so that buyers know how to purchase your product. Select the board category for your product and save.

And in 60 seconds you have a product up on Pinterest in front of all that daily traffic!

New to Pinterest? Read my tutorial on how entrepreneurs can get started with Pinterest

This article was written based on an article topic idea submitted by one of my weekly ezine readers. I try my best to include any and all input from my readers into my editorial calendar. So if there’s a topic you’d like to learn more about, please feel free to drop me a note over on Facebook (the fastest way I’ll see it).

How To Automatically Retweet Your Favorite Twitter Follower’s Tweets In 60 Seconds (or less!)

by Lisa Angelettie · 2 comments

“Attract New Strategic Alliances & Thank Your Existing Parnters When You Retweet Their Content To Your Community. Best thing is — it’s all on autopilot. Doesn’t look spammy. And you can accomplish it all in 60 seconds or less:)”

It’s really more important than ever to get social media “right”. One of the ways that you can use social media to your advantage, is to use it to build an inner circle of friends a.k.a. circle of influence who support you and your business and vice-versa.

This isn’t the average social media user we’re talking about. This is typically someone who you have identified as having a strong social media presence, someone who loves what you do and wants to genuinely support you on your journey, and someone who you feel the same about.

Once you’ve identified these people (and this is an going activity), there are going to be some folks who always have something good to share on Twitter and you’ll want to “retweet” that type of stuff because you like their content AND it will help strengthen your alliance with them. When they see that you are supporting them, they will more than likely do the same for you.

For those people ONLY, I like to set up the automatic retweet feature. Now don’t worry, you don’t have to retweet everything that they post, because that would be annoying and spammy looking. But with this quick trick I’m going to show you, you can be very specific about what you retweet from each person who choose to do this for. I’ve chosen to shoot a short video tutorial to show you how I set this up.

Resources:
1. Obviously you will need your own Twitter account
2. You need the Twitter handles of the people you want to retweet
3. The tool that I use to set all this up is TweetAdder.

While I do love free resources like Hootsuite, Tweetadder is a paid but very affordable social media tool that works on both PCs and Macs which I absolutely love. I’ve been using them for at least a year, I’m pretty sure longer though. I haven’t found a free tool that will allow me to do what I’m showing you today, and Tweetadder keeps the software updated regularly and there have been no issues between them and Twitter (like API stuff).

Watch the quick 5 minute tutorial below and set up your retweets in seconds!

How To Make A Facebook Timeline Fan Page: 5 Essential Steps

by Lisa Angelettie · 6 comments

Facebook is the #1 social marketing tool for small business owners to create a broad reach but stay really up close and personal with readers. It’s important that if you are a small business owner, service professional, etc. that you have a presence on Facebook with a Facebook Fan Page.

But guess what? Facebook is ALWAYS making changes to create a better user experience, and the downside to this is that they are frustrating a lot of folks along the way. The latest change to Facebook’s Fan Pages (business pages) Timeline format is no exception.

You may be grumbling, if you spent major time or money customizing a fantastic landing page for your Facebook Fan Page — but hey, times are a-changin’ and I want you to embrace the possibilities of what’s ahead on Facebook, that’s why I will walk you through the only essential changes you need to pay attention to when creating and/or updating your Facebook Fan Page. Lickity Split!

This tutorial begins with assuming that you already have a Fan Page for your business, but if you do not have one it’s pretty simple. Login to your Facebook account and click on the “create a page” link usually found in the general settings section of your account, then move forward with this tutorial…

Facebook Fan Page Timeline Essential #1 – Cover Image

So the most important part of your new and improved Facebook Fan Page is the cover image. This image is the first thing that people will see when they visit your fan page. This means that you can NO LONGER create a default landing page that people see first. Typically this page would create an incentive for folks to “Like” your page or opt-in to your list, etc. This was a major blow to the business owner, but I get it, Facebook is trying to maintain a certain standard. So we simply have to play by their rules.

This image is “public” which means that anyone who clicks on your page will see it, so it’s important that you do not use any images, etc. that will violate copyright laws etc. On another note it’s important that this image capture you and what you represent. What you love. What you do. People need to connect with you and your message. So for me, I chose pictures of me so people know who I am, pictures of my family, my dogs, and then a blurb about what it is I do.

Other things that you CANNOT include in your cover art are:

Price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website”
Contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your Page’s About section
References to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any other Facebook site features
Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends”

To show you what NOT to do, here is cover art that I used on my main Facebook account while I was playing around with the Timeline feature which currently DOES NOT adhere to the new rules, because I have two website addresses listed as well as a call to action on getting free content. I will have to take this picture down asap so that Facebook will not ban my account:

When creating this image, it must be at least 399 pixels wide, but optimally should be a JPG file that’s 851 pixels wide, 315 pixels tall and less than 100 kilobytes (although I used a PNG file). You can create this image in Adobe Photoshop if you own it, GIMP which is a really robust freeware, or use a shortcut like I did and create your image in a word processing document then take a screenshot of it with something like Jing.

Profile Picture

If you notice, on both of my timeline cover art photos I have left a little space in the bottom, left-hand corner. That is because that is where Facebook will show your profile picture. This is the picture that will represent your page around Facebook and it’s a good idea to add a logo here or a picture of you if you brand yourself. I’m always playing around with my profile pic, and that’s the great thing about this process, nothing is written in stone. Create images for both your cover art and profile pic and play around them. See what best fits your business and your brand.

Facebook Timeline Fan Page Essential #2 – About Page

The next most important part of your fan page is the About Page for obvious reasons. First people are going to look at your cover art and then scan down and they will see your About section. This is a section I really didn’t pay that much attention to with my old fan page because I let the old default landing page do all the heavy lifting, but now it’s important to get this right. Your #1 objective is to get a link in there to your website since you were not able to put it in your cover art.

To make this happen, all you have to do is write all your information in the small ABOUT section of the about page. You don’t have a lot of room, so make every word count.

Here’s how my old about page intro showed up in Facebook’s new timeline format. Notice the address and phone number info was prominent:

Here’s how my new about page intro shows up in Facebook. Notice that I have included what I do and a link to my website:

Facebook Timeline Fan Page Essential #3 – Highlight With Apps

Next to the about section you will see four apps showing, typically they will be photos, likes, and then two others. The photo app shows in the first spot and you cannot change that, but the others can be moved around. Typically I wouldn’t move the second section which is “likes” because first you want to remind people to like your page and secondly, you want to show your likes as social proof that folks are stopping by your page and liking your content.

You can show a maximum of 12 apps but obviously you want to put your most important ones first because the first four are the most visible. I’ve seen different companies do different things such as app links to Twitter, YouTube, their newsletter, a custom welcome page, a freebie, etc. In the future, I’ll probably add a button for a free chapter to the book I’m working on, but for now I’ve linked to my Twitter and YouTube accounts.

Do you like this FB tutorial so far? Let me know by sharing it on Twitter Tweet

Facebook Timeline Fan Page Essential #4 – Highlight Your Content

So here’s something cool that you can do now on your fan page which will help you highlight your content. Hover over an important post and then click on the PENCIL to pin it to the top of your page. This makes it a “sticky” post that stays on top under your app section.

You can also click on the STAR to make your post wider (double width). I think that these particular posts look best when you have a photo to highlight, here’s an example from The Gap:

Facebook Timeline Fan Page Essential #5 – Use Private Messaging

Now you can receive private messages via your Facebook Fan Page and notification for those messages will conveniently show up in your new admin area. Honestly, if you are on Facebook at least an hour a day it’s probably a quicker way of communicating with your community especially around support issues.

I have a support site, my main site, and various niche sites and it would be interesting to funnel all of my “support” emails via Facebook. Of course the person would have to have a Facebook account, so I am not sure about this one, but it’s something to think about in the future.

*Sidenote – Your New Admin Area

With the update to Facebook’s fan page interface, there is a new admin area complete with a list of the latest notifications on your page such as who has just posted on your timeline, a section for your messages, a section for who has recently liked the page, a section titled “insights” which shows you with a simple graph how far your reach is on Facebook vs. how many people are talking about your page on Facebook, and lastly there is a section with tips on improving your page.

Final Comments

As we build our Facebook Fan Pages together, I will be writing more articles on topics that I am interested in such as sharing content effectively using Facebook’s new timeline format and getting more Facebook fans using this new format. If you liked this article and want to stay connected with me, please LIKE my page and if you’d like me to visit and like your page, please leave a link to it in the comment section below. Also, If you have any article ideas that you’d like me to cover in the future, please let me know by contacting me directly on Facebook.

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