Now that Facebook has reached over 500m users it would be foolish for your business not to have a presence. Increased exposure and building a network of devoted fans should be good enough reason. There are many benefits but the purpose of this blog post is not to preach to the converted. I have seen countless times people/groups/businesses getting a fundamental step of setting up on Facebook completely wrong, which type of profile to select.

The main Facebook faux-pas seems to be businesses and groups setting up as a personal profile intended for individuals. It’s like trying to open a can of beans with a spoon, it’s the wrong tool for the job. Let’s have a look at what options you have.

When setting up a presence on Facebook you have 4 options:

• User Profile
• Facebook Page
• Community Page
• Facebook Group

When you first come to Facebook you will see the following page:

It’s not uncommon for people to go ahead and assume there is only one type of profile and set up a user profile for their business. The option you need is hidden at the bottom of the page. If you already have a Facebook profile you can also set up a page for your business or a group/community page by visiting an already existing Facebook Page/Group and selecting the link on the left hand side of the page called “Create a Page for My Business”:

Types of Profiles

User Profile

These are intended for use by individual human beings and not for a collective group or cause. This was the original foundation of Facebook and should only be used for this purpose.

There’s actually a serious privacy concern here. If you have your privacy settings set so that only “friends of friends” can see your information, as many people do, you could be exposing your private information. We have seen it happen, a person you don’t want to see you information will be able to access it by becoming a “friend” of a business you are friends with. There is now a link, which is easily obtainable, and that person can now see all your information.

If you are setting up for a business or group DO NOT USE THIS TYPE OF PROFILE if only for this reason.

Facebook Pages

This is the type of profile you want if you are a business, product, brand or public figure such a s celebrity, band or artist.

These profiles must be attached to a Facebook User Profile and you will be given the option to create one or login into your existing profile to complete the set up. You can also find a link on the left hand side of an existing Facebook Page when you are logged in saying “Create a Page for My Business”.

Facebook Pages are a way of communicating with your customers and fans. Any status update from these profiles will appear in fans news feed like a normal status update. Using this can be a powerful way to inform your fans of news, offers or updates such as new pictures and videos.

Anyone can become a Fan of a Facebook Page but users will not be given the option to post anything to the Page’s wall, unlike a Facebook Group which by default gives all users this option. This is an important feature of Pages as you often will not want people posting things to your wall, you will want to be in control of this. Users will be able to post comments to your updates which can create controversial conversations between fans, especially if someone posts something negative. You should not be fearful of this as there are ways and means of dealing with this. Something we’ll explore in a later blog post

Facebook Groups

Groups were created by Facebook to let users with a similar interest on hobby to communicate with one another. This might be a local book club or a paranormal investigation group.

Groups have members and like Facebook Pages anyone can join. Groups will give you much more control over administration of users meaning users have to gain permission to join. You can also make Groups available only to certain networks or make it a closed group.

You must be careful with Groups to ensure they are set up correctly as by default any member can post to the wall. This leaves it open to spam and can leave the group open to criticism. Although restricting this can be thought to go against the nature of a Facebook Group.

Community Pages

Community Pages were set up in 2010 as a way for people to share “the best collection of shared knowledge on a topic”. These were brought about because users were using Facebook Pages to bring users with similar interests on a topic together, not its intended purpose.

Community Pages have a similar feel to Groups by bringing groups of people with an interest around a similar topic but on a wider scale. At the moment there is little you can do with these pages other than add content once you have joined. You will see information pulled in from Wikipedia and also any posts posted by users around that topic.

These pages are not much use to businesses, at least not at the moment. As Facebook develops these we might start to seeing them being useful.

So remember

Make sure you pick the right type of Facebook profile when getting set up. Businesses, band, celebs and public figures should be using Facebook Pages!

Rant Over!

We’re very pleased to announce the addition of two very special clients to our online marketing client list.

Indulgence Cupcake Company

Indulgence Cupcake Company is one of Brighton’s best online only cupcake bakery and delivery service. They came to us to help them get their business online having no online presence. Find out how we helped them rake in the orders!

Just Perfect Wedding Cars

Just Perfect Wedding Cars is West Sussex’s premier wedding car hire company. This was the first venue into online for the company. Their brief was to build a stylist and simple website that would showcase their wedding cars. Once the site was up and running we implemented a paid search campaign to start driving high quality, targeted traffic to the site to start generating bookings.

An interesting piece of research from Flurry suggests that only 25% of apps installed on smart phones last longer than 90 days.

Further to this Revolution reported on the study, raising questions over the ability to use smart phone apps for brand building.

In our opinion, it only goes to confirm the fundamental rule when create any content for online. Make it relevant and useful to the user.

If you have ventured onto the iTunes App Store you will see that it is awash with low quality, “spammy” apps which are either being given away for a short period or for a low price (59p).

The viral effect of big brand apps such as the Carling iPint works wonders, but you don’t see Apple promoting it on the iPhone TV Ads!

“Want to look like your are drinking a simulated pint, instead of actually drinking a pint? There’s a app for that” No!

Why? Because it provides no added value to the iPhone other than a bit of a giggle.

To ensure that the your app is going to do your brand justice you need to plan your app with the following in mind:

• Long last engagement
• Short term, viral effect

Long term engagement

These are the apps that are going to last longer than 90 days.  Specific to a users needs, some brands are going to have to be very inventive to ensure people keep these on their phone for longer.

Examples of this might be, a major high street bank creates a money management app to help keep their finances in check.  Ora cinema might create an app to keep movie lovers up to today with the latest releases, showing times and offers.

Smart phones are the sexy, quicky cousin of the humble PC. They don’t want lots of little apps cluttering up their screens. Chances are they won’t last that long.

Short term, viral effect

If you are going after this market then expect these to be the apps that this research is talking about.  These kinds of apps with have a short shelf life as users become bored of the same functionality which provides little or no value.  Once you’ve bored yourself and all your friends with it, chances are you’ll be deleting it!

A possible way to increase the retention is to update the app with different versions to improve the appeal.  Pocket God on the iPhone is a good example of this, like a cyber pet you keep alive, each update has new features and quirky updates to keep people interested and engaged.

Reality is that much like a viral campaign via email, you will need to create a lot of smaller, regular apps and updates to keep it alive.

Own an iPhone? Please take this 3 question survey based on this research.

We don’t usually post tech based stories related to computer software or hardware. But it has come to our attention from the people at Silicon News that Microsoft will not offer cheaper upgrades to the European market for their new operating system, Windows 7. This is due to the recent anti-trust laws that were passed in the EU prevent Microsoft from packaging Internet Explorer (worst Internet browser ever created) with their operating systems. Given how terrible Internet Explorer is at, well, everything, this can only be a good thing.

Microsoft give their reasons for doing so, but it seems as a low swipe at the EU. You can read the full story here.

Personally, I am a Windows user, this is another thing that has made me seriously consider purchasing a mac.

And our recommendation, if you are reading this on Internet Explorer, is to download a proper Internet browser.

A news story broke this week of a serious social media faux pas by Habitat. In a nutshell, they used hashtags for popular trending topics, such as the crisis in Iran, to promote their business. This has created a backlash by Twitter users for this blatant abuse of Twitter.

It’s a great example of how not to do things using Twitter. That should be self-evident. Habitat have said that the use of these hashtags was not authorised, but did not say who had used them (Source: BBC News). They have since apologised for the mess up, but it seems the damage has already been done.

But it looks like people are jumping on the bandwagon and following suit.

Habitat Fail, others follow suit

See this very recent example of promoting products and services by using the conversations around the release of the Transformers 2 movie. There are many more like these on Twitter right now.

As with everything online, people will find a way to abuse the system for their own gain. Facebook went through the same, when they started letting third parties develop applications. People’s profiles were awash with invitations to “bite people as vampires”. Not today thanks, I’ve just had lunch!

So, we face a barrage of spam on Twitter against popular subjects. This erodes the credibility of Twitter and the people that tweet genuinely.

Let’s hope that Twitter do something to stop this, ASAP.

I promised not to include the term “facesquatting” in this post, for fear of cheapening our brand. But it’s too late now. Well I didn’t coin the phrase, so that should buy me some dignity.

For those who don’t know, “facesquatting” is term recently given to one person holding a Facebook vanity URL, that another deems does not belong to them.

I’m being facetious, but it brings up an interesting subject around personal brands online.

Read more »

If you have read our page on what is social media, you’ll know (or perhaps you knew already) one of the main reasons for investing time in social media is engagement with your customers.

Dell’s example sets a good benchmark on how a company integrates social media tools into their business. Their next challenge is to help “revolutionise” their business.

Read more »

Twitter has become mass market. Questions have been asked and debated around Twitter’s retention rate, but numbers are high and it can be a great way to get relevant followers and traffic to your site. Our advice is to use it responsibly, as mass-following or spam like activities are like to upset people and do more harm than good. Good, honest marketing is what we like.

Searching on twitter is more passive and recreational than using a search engine. People will be interested in conversations rather than actively seeking a piece of information. Thinking carefully about how you write your tweets and using the correct words and tone will help to promote your business.

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Thought I would share this great article on 50 iPhone apps for web developers. Thanks to FreelanceSw for the tweet.

Our favourites so far are the WordPress and Font apps!

Let us know what your favourites are!

It’s not uncommon in literature for the writer’s identity to be masked. It can serve many benefits; studies suggest that people are less judgemental of an article if they do not know the identity of the author. Some may distrust the source or validity of the article; it’s a subjective thing.

Blogging has brought about a new era of publishing. Anyone with with a laptop and internet access can get online and publish their thoughts, views and opinions to the world. Some will proudly stamp their name all over; some will hide behind the screen.

A recent court case over the identity of a controversial blogger in the UK has threatened that anonymity and could have implications in the future.

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