7 Great Tips for Marketing Your Business Using a Facebook Fan Page

Written by: Wendy Kenney

Mashable.com recently announced that Facebook results will be integrated into real time search results on Google. This means that having a Facebook Fan page can become a huge opportunity for business owners to increase their visibility and get found by new customers. But if you don’t have a Facebook Fan page for your business, you will miss out!
In this post, I’ve compiled a list of 7 tips on how to market your business using your Facebook fan page. If you don’t know how to get your own Facebook Fan page, however, read this article first: How to Create a Facebook Fan Page for Your Business.
1. Give people an incentive to become a fan on Facebook.
Offer a special Facebook only reward to new fans. This could be a gift certificate, discount, or a special freebie offer on your web page. Note: An e-book, report, article, video, or podcast make great free offers! You don’t need to incur a large expense to give something away. I’m putting together a 3 or 4 page report on “How to Tap into the Power of Facebook to Market Your Business.”
2. Instead of using a business card, give out an invitation card to your Facebook Business fan page.
Make sure the invite card showcases your incentive. These cards can be done inexpensively. My graphic designer charges $150 for the design of a two sided-4 color card. They can be printed for less than $50 at UPrinting.com.
3. A picture is worth a thousand words. Post pictures weekly.
You can post before and after shots, photos of the “best” of what you do, photos of happy fans, photos of your work, photos of your store, your products, you at work, your staff, your events. You get the picture. Pictures engage your fans.
4. Add video.
Take the photo idea one step further. Make the video less than 3 minutes and jam-packed full of valuable info. You can post a “How to” video, or even just a moment in your day. Don’t worry about what you look like, or having the video professionally done; just make it interesting!
5. Have exclusive or “sneak preview” content.
Let people know that they will “see it on Facebook first.” I’ve got a new book coming out: Buzz: How to Tap into the Power of Social Media, Publicity, and Relationship Marketing to Get Customers. I’m going to put out a chapter as a sneak preview of what’s to come.
6. Use Facebook Ads to get the word out.
You can use a Facebook ad to promote your “Become a fan on Facebook” incentive. The cool things about Facebook ads are that they can be targeted to exactly the type of people that you want to reach and the ads are very inexpensive. You can set a budget of just $2.00 a day. I’ve used Facebook ads and have increased my fan page membership by 50% using my free e-book as an incentive.
7. Build a custom Facebook landing page welcoming your Facebook Fans.
This can really solidify your Facebook Fanpage. You could showcase your Facebook Fans reward, or even have a special welcome message. Here are some excellent examples of Facebook fan pages for business.

* Ritz Crackers Facebook Fan Page
* Nabisco Cookies Facebook Fan Page
* Southwest Airlines Facebook Fan Page
So how do you get build a custom Facebook landing page for your business? Find a programmer who knows FBML, which is the programming code for Facebook. You can find them and receive free quotes from qualified vendors right here on StartupNation. You can also find them on our classified ad board.
PS. Don’t forget to become a fan of 23 Kazoos on Facebook!!

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Inspiration for today

"A stumbling block to the pessimist is a stepping stone to the optimist."
-- Eleanor Roosevelt, Former First Lady

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The ABC's of SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

by Zeke Camusio

What business owner doesn’t want to see his or her website at the top of Google? We know that if we make it to the top, we can exponentially increase traffic and inquiries from prospective clients. In fact, many businesses that are lucky or skilled enough to be at the top of Google can barely handle all the business that Google is sending them.

So, the question is, how do you get there? How do you climb all the way to the top?

There is so much information about Search Engine Optimization
(SEO) out there that it’s hard to focus and not feel overwhelmed. The goal of this article is to demystify SEO for you. I want to make the core of SEO crystal clear for you in easy-to-understand terms, so you’re no longer confused about SEO and you have a roadmap forward.

Part 1: Keyword Research

The first part of SEO involves choosing the right keywords for your campaign. If you choose the right keywords, the ones that your target audience is using when they search on Google, you are creating a strong, solid and sustainable foundation for your SEO campaign.

If you choose the wrong keywords, you’ll spend the next months wasting your time and money. So make sure you get this step right. Characteristics of good keywords include:

Part 2: On-Site Optimization

The second part of SEO involves optimizing your own site with the inclusion of the keywords you have decided to target. The following are some of the places on your website where you should put your keywords:

* Page titles
* Meta tags (not very important anymore, but it doesn’t take a long time and you will get a small gain)
* H tags (H1, H2, etc.)
* Your URLs
* The body copy

You also need to make sure your site is built right. Among other things, this means:

* Avoid frames
* Use DIVs instead of tables for layout
* Avoid 100% Flash sites
* Don’t put your text in images
* Make sure you structure your pages and folders right
* Make sure search engines can follow your links (avoid Flash links and JavaScript links if possible)
* Use keyword-rich anchor text for your links

Eager for more Google SEO advice? Rocket to the top of Google with the Google Rocketship eBook Series, created by StartupNation and Zeke Camusio.

Part 3: Content Creation

Once you’ve optimized all the content on your site, it’s time to create new, robust, compelling content. Create amazing content so people tell their friends about it and their friends correspondingly link to your articles. The search engines feed on content and reward high quality links, so create as much relevant content as you can and make sure it’s of great quality.

And, don’t forget to include your keywords here and there whenever it makes sense.

Part 4: Link Building

The most important factor that determines which websites rank at the top of Google is inbound links (from outside of your own website). Make sure that:

* You get a lot of links from external sites (Easy, low-hanging fruit would be to get links from your business partners.)
* Those links contain your keywords in the anchor text
* You get as many links as possible from high-authority sites (you can check the PageRank of a site or its Compete.com ranking to make sure they are high-authority sites)
* You get as many links as possible from sites related to yours
* You get as many links as possible from blogs covering topics in which your target audience is interested
* (You link to your own pages from within your website using your keywords, too)

Conclusion

I hope you now have a much better idea of what SEO is and what it involves. I also hope you realize this is just SEO 101, and that there’s a lot more to SEO than this. I actually collaborated with StartupNation in creating the Google Rocketship eBook Series (3 eBooks in total), and encourage you to read the entire series to learn much, much further about how to get top rankings on the search engines.

Have fun optimizing your site, and I’ll see you at the top of Google!

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Recipe: Espinaca Dip Compliments Recipezaar

If you live in JOCO KS you undoubtedly have tried the Espinaca Dip at Mi Ranchito and/or Jose Pepper's. My daughter wanted this dip for New Year's Eve, and I finally located a recipe online for it, decided to try. Folks, this is the exact same one. Fabulous. Be sure that you heat it slowly in your crock pot, and you will probably need to add some milk to thin it a bit. Enjoy!

Espinaca Dip (Fabulous Appetizer) - 285570 - Recipezaar

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12 Quick Tips To Boost Website Sales In Minutes - Part 1

by Melanie Rembrandt

Happy 2010! To start the New Year off with more sales, there are several things you can do right now to increase the value and ROI of your website. Read more by clicking the link below:

12 Quick Tips To Boost Website Sales In Minutes - Part 1

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Now partnering with The Design Shoppe!

We are pleased to announce that we are adding yet another quality web hosting company to our list of web hosting companies. Free installation to your website hosted at TheDesignShoppe.com is included with your BoutiqueMama.com web template purchase!

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The Ultimate Home Business Resource List by StartupNation.com

When it comes to the US economy, there’s one vital sector that hits very close to home: home businesses. According to the Small Business Administration, 53 percent of businesses in the United States are based from home, and this number is expected to increase.

In recognition of their importance, we set out to create a Home Business Resource List that would serve the needs of entrepreneurs setting up shop from home. We asked experts, talked to home business owners and scoured the Internet, and this is what we found. Click on the link below to read more at StartupNation.com.

The Ultimate Home Business Resource List

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Now Partnering with GracefulHosting.com

We are pleased to announce that we are now partnering with GracefulHosting.com! We are privileged to work with such a great group of web hosting companies and know that each one will take excellent care of our customers.

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Welcome!

Welcome to the BoutiqueMama.com Blog! We are looking forward to using this site as a portal for announcements of new design releases, tips for building and launching a successful boutique business online, and to share ideas about balancing work and home life. Looking forward to a great new year in 2010!

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