How to improve your Facebook page in 5 steps

Creating a facebook page for your business or organization is simple. However, your page should look professional. Follow these five tips to improve your facebook page:

1. Choose an appropriate profile pictures. If you own a business, add a picture of it to your facebook page - preferably with the opening times in the photo. If you operate an online store you should use your logo together with the URL as a profile picture.
   Your facebook profile picture can be 200 px wide and 600 px high. It should not have more than 4 MB.
2. Create a short URL, such as www.facebook.com/agadugu. To make your URL shorter, go to www.facebook.com/username/. Here you can set a username for your own facebook account and/or the facebook page of your association or company.
   It is best to use the name of your association or company, if it is not too long or already taken. Try to choose a user name that is easy to remember.
3. On your facebook page add as much information as possible about your business/organization, such as the opening times, locations and a brief description.
4. Add the links to your website and blog on your facebook page.
5. If you sell products, you can upload pictures of them under the tab "Photos". Of course, you can also add pictures of your events etc.

Facebook marketing: Why small businesses and organizations should have a presence in facebook

Currently, facebook has around 509,422,080 users worldwide. About 132,810,940 people in the U.S. are using facebook – that means facebook is being used by more than 43 percent of the U.S. population and about 58 percent of U.S. Internet users.
The rate of female and male facebook users in the U.S. is about 44 percent male to 56 percent female facebook users.
24 percent of facebook users in the U.S. are between 25 and 34 years old, another 24 percent are between 18 and 24, 17 percent between 35 and 44, 13 percent between 45 and 54, only seven percent between 55 and 64 and about six percent between 16 and 17 years old.

The brand with the most users in the U.S. currently is Taco Bell, with more than 2.3 million fans. Followed by Playfish, with about 2.2 million fans, Walmart with 1.6 million fans, Best Buy with almost 1.2 milllion fans, JCPenney with 945.00 fans, Verizon Wireless (925.000 fans), Southwest Airlines (913.000 fans), Six Flags (618.000 fans), AT&T (586.000 fans), and Macy’s (almost 500.000 fans)

(sources: checkfacebook.com, facebakers.com)

But what does all that mean for you as a small business, freelancer or organization?

Through facebook you get the possibility, to distribute news of your organization or company fast and easy. New products can be presented and tested. You can also share interesting news, links or videos with your “fans”. Your fans can also get in contact easily with you. And all this you can get for free. You can also create a facebook page easily.

On facebook, you can also run ads (with costs), to promote your facebook page, website or your online shop.

Also check, what your competitors are doing on facebook. If your competitors have facebook pages already, this could be a reason for you to get such a page as well.

Update your facebook page is much easier and faster than keeping your company’s or organization’s website up-to-date. However, you should make sure to keep your facebook page as up-to-date and relevant as possible. Of course, this can be a lot of work, as you will have to think about contents to post and what to answer to your fans’ questions.

Facebook (and other social networks as well) offers a lot of possibilities for small businesses and organizations.
However, it is also possible for people to damage your name and reputation.

In future, facebook will probably continue to grow and also gain relevance in advertising and communication.
As business or organization with a small budget, you have the opportunity to reach out and connect to more (potential) customers or members world wide.
There will also be new possibilities every now and then, since facebook is developing over time.

Does it really make sense for you as a busy business man/woman or director of an organization to jump into facebook marketing?
I can’t give you an anwer to this question ... you will have to find your for yourself.



If you should decide to start a facebook page for your organization/business, here are a few tips to make your facebook presence succesful:

• Post relevant contents. Contents that do not have any benefit (information, additional knowledge, entertainment ...) for users or your fans are useless.
• Encourage interactivity – through involving your fans in decisions. You can also test new products with the help of your facebook fans.
• Take your fans’ feedback seriously and act appropriate.
• Keep your facebook page up-to-date.
• Add new content to your page on a regular basis.
• Look at what your competitors are doing. Knowing this can be very helpful – it might give you new ideas.

Fast reaction with personalized videos through social media - Old Spice smells like great success

When advertising through social media, being quick is essential. There are not many companies that are fast and at the same time deliver appealing content. A company that was able to do so is Old Spice - with advertising for deodorant and body wash for men. Old Spice belongs to the Procter&Gamble group.

The clip „The Man your Man Could Smell Like“ by Old Spice with Isaiah Mustafa was first published on Youtube on February 2nd, 2010 and has had almost 15 million viewers since then. On June 29, 2010, the Clip „Questions“ was added. As the actor from the clip tells in an interview, the entire clip is one single shot without any CGI (computer-generated imagery). To build the set in Vallermo, California, took several days.

A week ago, an Old Spice hype started, as the company added personalized videos to its Youtube channel OldSpice. The "Old Spice Guy" from the commercials answered questions and responded to tweets - topless and just with a towel around the waste. Even conversations and flirts between him via video and (female) users via Twitter started. The Old Spice guy answered to random questions from users - almost in real time. Within 24 hours, more than 150 videos were created.

The video responses are between 20 and 60 seconds long and react to the users' comments (Tweets, Youtube comments, blog articles, facebook comments, reddit comments and others). The responses contain a lot of charm and humor and are also sexy.
Very funny are the video responses to the twitter question of @isaiahmustafa, the actor who plays Old Spice guy or also the question of Haley Mustafa (the actor's daughter) who wants to know why Old Spice guy looks so much like her dad.
One questions however remains: who is the actual target group of the Old Spice commercials?
Old Guy certainly speaks to the "ladies". Nevertheless, the products are for men. For sure, Old Spice guy is every woman's darling - maybe guys should become jealous? Or it speaks to women who should then go and buy Old Spice products for their men?

Is marketing through social networks a waste of time?

More and more small business owners spend more and more time online with social networking. Is time spent here wasted or is it useful?

For sure, blogging, twittering and facebooking takes time - a lot of time if you want to post more articles than just one every now and then.

There are some things online that you can automate, such as the update of your twitter account, that you can set up in a way that it will show your latest blog posts or facebook post. However, communication through social networks should stay personal. That means, not everything should or can be automated. If you really want to start interacting with people, you yourself will have to answer their questions or respond to their comments they might leave on your blog or facebook page.

So why do businesses and organizations even have blogs, twitter accounts, a fanpage on facebook, if it is so much work to keep it updated?

They do it to draw attention to themselves, to gain more and more subscribers or 'followers'. Of course, as a company or organization you also want to sell. Either your product or service or your organization’s purpose.
If you do not gain any new subscribers, ‘followers’, customers or clients with all your efforts, then you are probably just wasting your time.

Of course it will take some time (at least several months) until you succeed with your efforts in social networks. If you are not successful, you should reconsider your strategy. It might be better for you to target your audience through other channels.

How much time do you spend with social networking? Do you believe it is a waste of time?

Facebook-Ads – How to create an advertising campaign in facebook

Facebook offers a very cost-effective way of online advertising with facebook ads. These are ads that can be set to be shown only to a very specific audience.

For example, you can set your ads to be shown to just 40 year old, single, male facebook users who have kids, like hiking and live in Switzerland. This example is very specific. However, you limit the number of facebook users, who will get to see your ad. The fewer attributes you set for your target audience, the bigger your target audience will be and the more facebook users will get to see your ad.

In order to advertise on facebook, you already have to be a facebook user. If you do not have a facebook account yet, you will have to open one.



Go through the following steps in order to advertise on facebook:

1. Log in to facebook with your user name and password
2. Click on your profile, click on “Create an Ad” on the right side
3. Now you can start creating your ad
4. „Design your ad“: Under „Destination URL“, enter the website that you want users, who click on your ad, to go to. You can add the URL of your facebook page or the url of your website. Under “Title” you should add a title for your ad. The text of your add can not have more than 135 characters and has to be added under “Body Text”. Under “Image” you can upload a picture for your facebook ad. This is optional. However, pictures can not be bigger than 110x80 px.
   The last sentence of your ad should give an instruction to the viewer, such as “Order now!”.
   On the right side you can view your ad, while you input the text.
5. “Targeting”: When you put in details here, you will see that the “estimated reach” will decrease. Remember that not all facebook users make all information in their accounts and thus may not be counted as your target audience, although they should.
   Under “Location” enter the country in which the ad should be displayed. The ad can be seen in the entire country or in specific cities (“by city”) and the area around them.
   Under “Demographics” you can provide information on age, gender, relationship status and languages of your target group.
   Under “Likes&Interest” you can add certain styles of music, bands, movies etc.
   Under “Education&Work” you can specify what education it is your target audience should have. You can even add a company or organization.
   If you advertise your facebook page in your ad, you should add it under “Connections on Facebook” > “Target users who are not already connected to:”. Otherwise, facebook users who already like your facebook page will get to see the ad as well.
6. Under “Campaigns and Pricing“ you will have to decide whether you want to „pay for impressions“ (CPM – cost per impression) or „pay for clicks“ (CPC – cost per click). You also have to add your maximum bid. The maximum bid is the highest price you are willing to pay per 1,000 impressions or per click. Just choose “Use Suggested Bid” – this is the simplest way when you are just starting out with facebook ads.
   I recommend you use the model of CPC (paying for every click on your ad), as this is more cost effective.
7. Click on “Review Ad”.
8. You will now see your facebook ad and you can also assign a name. This is especially useful if you decide to run different ads.
9. The costs for your ad will be charged to the credit card that you have already stored in your facebook account. If you have not put in your credit card information, you will have to do so now.
10. If you do not want to change your ad, click “Place Order”.
11. Under “Run Status” you will now see “Pending review”. This means that facebook is currently reviewing your ad. You will receive an email from facebook once your ad is approved and active.
12. In this overview, you will later on be able to see how many people have seen your ad and how many actually clicked on it.

It is advisable, to advertise with different ads with slightly different texts and target groups, in order to get a feeling what the target audience likes best.

How to create a facebook page for your business or organization

Online marketing is becoming increasingly important for small businesses, organizations and also freelancers. Marketing through social media is becoming more and more interesting. Facebook is the social network, where most users have an account. Therefore, you should also take the opportunity to market your business or organization here. The start is simple – just create a facebook page for your business or organization.

• In order to create a facebook page for your business or organization you need to register with facebook and then log in with your username.
• On the left side click „Ads and Pages“, click on „Pages“.
• Here, you click the button „Create new page“.
• Depending on who you want to create the page for, you have different options: „Official Page“, „Community Page“ or a group.
• Official Page is meant for businesses, organizations and artists.
• Community Page you create when you are looking for people to share a certain topic with, such as „Recycling“.
• For your business, you should create an official page.
• Here you can choose from three different options: „Local business“, „Brand, product, or organization“ and „Artist, band, or public figure“. For each option, you also have to choose your industry/kind of business/organization/person.
• Add the name of your future page and then check the box „I’m the official representative ...“, to facebook’s terms. Click „Create Official Page“.
• Now you have created your facebook page.
• Now upload your company logo or a picture of yourself. This picture will be shown as a profile picture next to each of your entries. To upload your picture go over the grey question mark with your mouse, click „Change Picture“ and then „Upload a Picture“. Now you can choose a picture from your hard drive and upload as a profile picture. It is best to choose a picture that is squared, otherwise parts of the pictures will not show.
• Klick on „Write something about ...“. Now you can type a short text about your business/organization/yourself. A few words are enough here.
• Up in the tab „Info“ click on „Edit information“. Add all important information on your business/ organization/ person and then click „Save Changes“.
• In the tab „Photos“ click on „Create a Photo Album“ and upload photos of your business/ organizations/ person. These pictures can be seen by visitors of your facebook page.
• On the left side click on „Edit Page“ to set who can upload what to your page.
• Click „Suggest to Friends“ in order to invite your facebook friends to your new page.
• At the bottom on the left click the button „Share“ to pust your facebook page to your regular facebook profile.

Of course there are many other advertising possibilities for your facebook page. Just try out a few things and also do not forget about your competitors. Every now and then check what the competition is doing facebookwise.

Guerrilla marketing für NPOs with the help of facebook, youtube and traditional media

The non-profit organization (NPO) Greenpeace is known for guerrilla (marketing) campaigns. The organization recently called on to boycott the company Nestlé. Greenpeace activists infiltrated the Facebook fan page and bombarded Nestlé with calls to stop the use of palm oil in its products.
Background of the Greenpeace action is the use of palm oil in Nestlé's food. According to Greenpeace, for the cultivation of palm oil in Indonesia, valuable rain forest is destroyed. Without the rainforest, threatened species such as the orang-utan use their livelihood. At the annual meeting, Nestlé said to put a stop on the deforestation of the rainforest. However, according to Greenpeace nothing has changed so far.

It is amazing, how easily companies make friends and fans in the social networks (social media). These fans see exactly what the company does - and even voluntary. Fan pages on Facebook can be built within minutes. The company or organization can use these fan pages to publish the latest news, e.g. when a new product is launched. These messages can also be commented on and fans can also upload photos and video.
But this is also a delicate matter, as the sympathy of the followers can quickly turn into the opposite. This can happen, when the company does not do exactly what it promised her fans. Or, as in the case of Nestlé, when another group calls for boycott and undermines the Facebook fan page.

Greenpeace also got attention with the help of a Youtube video about the use of palm oil. This video and also others circulated on Facebook and other social networks as well.

During the annual meeting of Nestlé’s shareholders in Lausanne, Switzerland, in April, Greenpeace activists protested outside the building – in orang-utan costumes. Also posters were put up, in order to get the shareholders’ attention.

Another creative guerrilla campaign by Greenpeace activists was the protest in April infront of the Nestlé headquarters in Frankfurt. Here, Twitter messages from the Greenpeace channel were shown on a big screen – transmitted in real time.

Now, Greenpeace activists brought the matter out in the real world and resorted to a more traditional marketing tool: In several German cities, on to the well known Kitkat chocolate bars from Nestlé, activists put stickers on which a orang-utan calls for help. These actions led to a reaction of local newspapers, which means that even those who did not hear about the protests yet, had been informed. (article in the Halle newspaper, article in the newspaper Donaukurier, article in food-news, article in the newspaper Welt Online)

This shows that guerrilla marketing via new media such as Facebook and Youtube can be combined easily with a rather traditional guerrilla marketing, such as protests in front of corporate buildings and the large-scale distribution of stickers. The connection makes sure that those to whom the social networks on the Internet are still foreign and therefore have not taken notice from the ongoing actions on Facebook and Youtube will also get to know about the problem.

As a company, you should always remember that the Internet does not easily forget and that masses are being addressed through it. In future, companies hopefully will put capable employees in those positions that address marketing, communication and public relations for social media, in order for the company to react more intelligently. For Nestlé it is too late now: Nestlé’s credibility is gone and Greenpeace has probably managed to damage the reputation of the company and the brand Nestlé long term – damage to the image of the company can not be repaired easily.

Obama and the social networks

Social media are becoming increasingly important for advertising and PR. More and more organizations create positions for people that take care of communication with customers/members through social networks.

The American President, Barack Obama, already created such a position a while ago. Now, this position as a social networks manager is available, as Mia Cambronero does not want to do it anymore.

Getting paid for hanging around in facebook, twitter, myspace and others all day? That sounds too good to be true.
However, it is not completely clear, what qualifications are required for such a position. Of course you will need experience with social networks - but how much experience can anyone have with something that has not been around for a long time? Social networks are not yet matured and keep on developing. Those people having to do with social networks have to acquire new knowledge quickly, in order to make sure they do not miss any trends an are up to date all the time. Of course, you will need a certain experience in writing thrilling and motivating articles. Correct orthography and phrasing are always important in a job like this. Also, marketing knowledge and experience, as well as creativity might come in handy. You should be able to develop new social media strategies. Managing social networks is not a 9 to 5 job - you are always working...

But now let me go - have to send my applicaion to Obama real quick!

Test of company products as viral marketing campaign

Blendtec, a company from West Orem in Utah, that produces and distributes blenders, mixers and mills - both for commerical and private use - is very successful with its viral marketing campaign "Will it blend?".

The company has its own websites (www.blendtec.com, totalblender.com), uses twitter (twitter.com/blendtec) and facebook (www.facebook.com/BlendTec), has its own YouTube-channels (www.youtube.com/user/Blendtec, www.youtube.com/user/InsideBlendtec) and a video blog (www.blendtec.com/willitblend). The company also offers recipes and tips on healthy eating to customers and all those who are interested through its websites and facebook.

On the video blog with the name "Will it blend?" the company tests which products can be blended with one of their blenders. Tom Dickson, the founder of Blendtec, throws in different products in each video. Books, soft air guns, laser pointers, cameras, camcorders, paintings, car parts, light sticks, skis, but also fruits, vegetables and other food. The Blendtec devices blend everything - until dust is the only thing left. Dickson already blended iPhones - the YouTube-video of blending an iPhone has more than 8 million views, almost 4.5 million viewers wanted to see the blending of the iPhone3G. The latest video of the company, blending the Apple iPad is extremely successful already. After being put online only on April 5, almost 3 million viewers watched it so far.

All of the "Will it blend?" videos are set up according to the same scheme and also contain the company logo, which definitely increases the recognition value. The "Will it blend?" campaign has been running successfully since 2006. Since the beginning of the campaign the company was able to increase its turnover. Meanwhile, the campaign has its own page on wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_It_Blend).

Marketing in the clouds - green information and communication technology?!

The term "cloud" or "cloud computing" is based on an infrastructure or business model delivering data, entertainment, news and other products and services directly in realtime from the internet to the device. Data does not have to be stored on your own computer anymore, instead it can be retrieved from everywhere with a internet connection.

Google is probably the most famous example for an organization building in the clouds. The most known services by Google - such as Google Mail, Google Documents and Google Earth - are supplied from a cloud.

The cloud is growing at a time when everyone is talking about climate change and reducing emissions and also contributing to an increase in energy consumption. When the cloud grows and more and more data is being saved in the cloud, the energy consumption of the cloud grows as well. All the data that is being shown in realtime, virtual mountains of videos, pictures and other data have to be saved somewhere and also have to be available immediately. The "somewhere" are data centers - huge facitities saving data and eating big amounts of power. The ones making decisions on how the clouds are built rather care for making even higher profits, instead of taking care of reducing emissions or stopping the climate change.

Facebook for example gets its power from a supplier who gets most of his energy from coal power stations. These are the biggest source for greenhous gas in the US (Facebook group that wants Facebook to use renewable energies: http://www.greenpeace.org/coalfacebook). Yahoo! on the other hand has its own data center, powered by hydroelectricity, which reduces the carbon footprint.

Despite the economic crisis the cloud computing industry is growing. The data centers of the industry leaders are growing in number and in size. How much electricity is needed for cloud computing every year is not clear. It is also not clear, how much more electricity will be used during the next years.

At the moment, more and more companies in the cloud computing business are trying to reduce the energy consumption of their data centers - mainly to reduce costs. For most companies, the ecological advantages are of secondary concern.

If cloud suppliers really want to offer green and renewable clouds they will have to use their power and influence to make more investments in renewable energies possible and also promote laws associated with it. Also, we need much more investments in research and development of storage media.

Greenpeace started its “Cool IT Campaign” in 2009. With the help of dedicated companies and also the public, the campaign tries to put pressure on the information and communication technology (ICT) industry, in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, Greenpeace supports a policy that combats the climate change and increases the use of renewable energies.

It will take a while, until cloud computing becomes totally green. Until then, the advertising of cloud suppliers stays greenwashing (with a few exceptions)...

Social networks for small businesses and organizations

Every day we exchange lots of information through social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Youtube or Xing. So why not use these online communities as a marketing tool? Millions of people gather in social networks to share information or videos, and to make photos available for others. Companies and associations can also make their news and information available in these online communities.

Effective advertising through marketing mix

The most effective way to attract customers is a mixture of online and offline media - which connects real life with virtual life on the Internet. This combination could become your success!
A very positive aspect is that companies and organizations can create more personalized advertising through clusters (identification of groups). In the various social networks this could be distribution by age, gender, region, or interests such as hobbies, work, etc. Therefore, social networks should be used to promote niche products with very specific and individual target markets. It is not easy to sell everyday products with this approach. The identification of groups should be an easy task, since many people add everything about their lives in their profiles in online communities.

The average facebook user is not a teenager

According to a study by Royal Pingdom, about 25% of all social media users are between 35 and 44 years old. Only 24% of the users are under 25. The average user is 37 years old.

The company also looked at the age structure of facebook and found out that the averag age of facebook users is about 38, the average age of LinkedIn users is 44, and the average age of MySpace users is 31 years. The average twitter user is about 39 years old.

In another study the company conducted in 2009, it was found that 84% of all social network sites (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace,…) have more female than male users. 64% off all MySpace users are female. However, the ratio male-female among facebook users (57% female) and twitter users (59% female) is relatively balanced.

If you already advertise through social media, or you intend to do so in a near future, make sure to consider these statistics. Make sure, you really reach your target audience!