Creating a Facebook fan page from scratch is difficult.  Not the actual page setup, but the part where you actually have to get people to care about and "Like" your page.  Yea, that's kind of difficult.  Social Media Examiner has developed a list of ways that supposedly help you to increase your Facebook fan base.  

1. Embed Widgits On Your Site: Facebook has a number of social plugins that you can place on your website and blog.  The Fan Box widgit is now the "Like Box" that works to display your current fan page stream and a selection of actual fans.  

2.  Invite Your Email and Enzine Subscribers: If you have an opt-in email list you should definitely send out an invitation to your subscribers via email letting them know that your fan page even exists.

3. Add To Your Email Signature Block: It's the little things that count!  Promote your page via a Facebook link that will appear in every email you send!

4. Make a Compelling Welcome: The more attractive your landing tab, the more interested people will be in what you're trying to "sell."  Make it appealing!  What sets you apart from every other Facebook fan page?

5. Use Facebook Apps: There are many Facebook apps out that make your page interactive whether it be using polls, surveys, video feeds, etc.  Get your fans involved.  This will help create a word of mouth.

6. Integrate The Facebook Comment Feature: A great example of this is a T-shirt brand called Threadless.  On their landing tab, you can view and purchase t-shirts as well as "Like" and comment on any of the items and choose to have that comment posted to your own, personal profile.

7. Get Fans To Tag Pictures: Take pictures of everything!  Load these pictures and encourage your fan base to tag themselves.  This is great exposure!

8. Load Videos And Embed On Your Site: You can load video content to your fan page and then take the source code and embed it on your website/blog. When you do this a button to you fan page loads next to the video!  

9. Facebook Ads: You should be able to boost your fan count using Facebook's own social ad feature.  This is true even if you're working with a nominal weekly/monthly budget.

10. Link To Your Twitter: Link your Twitter to your Facebook and your Facebook to your Twitter.  This will make your life so much easier!

11. Use Print Media: Look at every piece of print media you use in your business.  Is your Facebook fan page clearly displayed?  It should be...

12. Display At Your Store/Business: If your business is run from a physical store (not e-commerce) put a placard on the front desk letting your customers know you're on Facebook.  Try to have a simple and memorable URL.  You might want to give our coupons promoting your Facebook fan page as well.

13. Add A Link On Your Personal Profile: Just under your photo on your personal profile is a section to write something about yourself.  Add a link to your fan page!  Promote YOURSELF!

14. Use The Share Button: Share posts, links and pictures from your fan page on your personal page.  Share it with friends.  By doing this you are reaching a completely different group of users than those just on your fan page.  

15.  Suggest To Friends: On each fan page is a "Suggest To Friends" button where you can send invitations to you personal friends to become fans of your page.  It's important to monitor who you invite.  Sometimes you might be doing yourself more harm by just inviting people to invite people. 

Well, lucky for everyone who is already as obsessed with Google + as we are, the geniuses at Google have already thought of a way to make our transition from social networking site to social networking site easier.

Enter move2picasa.com, the site that will move all of your pictures from Facebook to Google + with the click of about 3 buttons.

All you have to do is visit this site and download the extension.  Once you finish your business, simply uninstall the extension (if you want) and you're done!

Mashable.com says that Google is planning to retire several "non-Google name brands and rename them as Google products."  This would include move2picasa, which will all be done when Google really starts to push their new site. 

As of the moment, Google + is still invite only, but anyone who is currently running a profile on the site can invite you.  Ask around and get your invite because this might very well be the demise of Facebook.  

For any of your social networking site needs visit Times Ten Creative Marketing Solutions by clicking here, or call 954-533-7851.

Social media isn't killing anything, least of all TV.

In fact, after years of declines in live tune-in, Twitter, Facebook and some mobile startups appear to be luring audiences back to appointment TV.  While DVRs unglued us from TV schedules, the desire to tap into the tweets, posts and check-ins in real time may just bring us back.

"If you look at the tweets about a TV show, a huge proportion come from when the show is airing live, not an hour later," said Robin Sloan, who works with Twitter's media-partnership team.  During awards shows such as the Oscars and Grammy's Twitter has seen viewers complain that those events aren't aired live on both coasts.  To appease U.S. fans forced to swear off the internet for a month to save from British tweeters' "Doctor Who" spoilers, the BBC decided to air the show on both continents on the same day.

The most viewed TV event in history, this year's Super Bowl XLV, also broke a record on Twitter, too.  At more than 4,000 tweets per second during the final moments of the game, it had the highest volume of tweets for any sports event.

What's the allure exactly?  The peanut gallery.  When "Seinfeld" was the show du jour, we'd snicker in the office the next day about puffy shirts or Bubble Boy.  Now, with phones and laptops snuggled up next to our viewers on the couch, chatter about "American Idol" and Rachel Berry doesn't have to wait until the morning.

A whopping 86% of U.S. mobile internet users watch TV with their mobile devices, according to a Nielsen and Yahoo study published in January.  Of that set, 40% say they are using the devices for social networking, 33% are using apps and more than half are texting family and friends.  On the wired web with PCs and laptops, 60% of Nielsen panelists reported they simultaneously watched TV and surfed the internet at least once in March.

But chatter doesn't always translate to ratings.  Digital agency Wiredset recently launched social-media tracker Trendrr.TV to rank TV shows based on full-week volume of tweets, Facebook posts and check-ins for GetGlue and Miso, two mobile startups that aim to corral TV chatter.  On that chart, for the same week, "Idol" and "Dancing With The Stars" are top-three social-media shows; they also top Nielsen's list for most viewers.  However, "Glee," while No. 2 on Trendrr.TV, was No. 77 on Nielsen's top-watched broadcast prime-time list for the same week.

While the need to tweet may boost appeal for live programming, is it stealing eyes from commercials as folks tweet during spots?  Not if those advertisers pull in Twitter, too.  During its Super Bowl spot, Audi used the hashtag #ProgressIs and, at air time, mentions spiked to levels comparable when Audi paid to promote the hashtag on Twitter itself.

Other marketers are partnering with networks to be on other screens when viewers' eyes stray from the TV.  "We're observing and planning for consumers engaging with multiple screens concurrently so when they watch our content on TV, they are simultaneously going to our website and engaging on other devices," said Scott Kelly, head of digital marketing at Ford.  To bring more viewers to those ads, networks are also turning to Twitter and its cohorts to boost viewership.  In early April, for example, CBS launched TweetWeek, a week of TV stars from shows such as "Survivor" and "NCIS" tweeting during the live broadcasts of their shows and answering viewer questions.

"It's the difference between 43 minutes of exposure vs 24/7 exposure," said Jesse Redniss, VP-digital at USA Networks, which has a Chatter page for shows such as "Psych" and "Burn Notice" to collect web comments and tweets form stars and fans.  When Comedy central aired its roast of Donald Trump with the hashtage #TrumpRoast, the cable network saw its highest-rated Tuesday night ever.

Source: Advertising Age Online

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