Facing up to Facebook (for business)

Why not face up to Facebook with me?
If you don't already have a page go ahead and follow Step 1 and 2 below - we'll move along together. Post comments here and hopefully we can help each other out along the way.

I was fasincated to read on SimplyZesty's blog post recently that their Facebook (FB) page is their most successful tool for attracting readers to their blog and in turn, new business. The SimplyZesty blog has brought in over 80% of their business as a social media marketing agency.

To quote: "a whopping 18% of our traffic now comes through Facebook. That’s a fifth of our traffic or 200,000 uniques a year that we have coming from Facebook alone."

Impressive stuff. What was really interesting was to read their review of Twitter's usefulness (or lack of): "People obsess with Twitter as a traffic driving tool but here is a little secret for you that will surprise you…..It contributes 1.3% of our overall traffic. That’s tiny!"

Now I follow SimplyZesty on Twitter and they don't actually tweet very much. Certainly not as much as they blog (twice a day - very impressive!) In my opinion, this could help account for the low referral number, rather than Twitter as a channel overall.

However, given that Simply Zesty reached half a million blog readers in just 6 months, we need to pay heed to these statistics!

Having gotten up and running with Twitter (at long last), I'm now giving Facebook a try, and will post here over the next few weeks about how I'm getting on. Ideally, this will help you to set up your own Facebook presence easily and quickly, and start getting a good response. My mistakes will prevent yours, hopefully!


For the moment, here's the report on Phase 1:

I'm a regular enough FB personal user. I have a personal profile which I update every few weeks, and I log on regularly, mostly due a fascination to see what my friends have been up to, and to see photos of their exploits, their kids etc.

So I thought, getting a business FB presence should be quick and easy - as I'm used to using the personal interface the business side should be an easy learning curve.

Boy was I wrong!


Step 1:

Business users need a FB 'page' - a 'profile' is for personal users. There are rules about how to promote your FB page using your personal profile so be careful, and check them out. You risk losing your entire profile if you break the rules. Here's the FB guide to business pages.

I've used the link on the home page to set up a 'page' and this is linked to my personal profile. So now I have a basic page (which looks and feels very similar to my personal profile), complete with my logo, and a link to my blog posts.

However, I found the whole process a little illogicial - shouldn't I set up my page completely separately from my profile? Apparently not.


Step 2:

I want to promote my FB page but to do that I need the short URL: www.facebook.com/knowledgeworks. I'm assuming I will be able to use this to point people directly to my business presence rather than having to go via my personal profile. I don't want my personal profile to be visible to my business connections (as I'm guessing most people wouldn't). Currently I can't find any way to access by business page other than via my profile, so hopefully having a dedicated username will do the trick.

The FB rules say that I need at least 25 friends before they will allocate my username and give me that short URL. So that's the next step. I'll post again once I've reached that 25.


Problems so far

I can't figure out how to log directly in to my Facebook page (I'm currently logging into my profile and accessing it from there). Perhaps this option will appear once I've gotten my username.


More to follow soon.

To Tweet or not to Tweet? The KnowledgeWorks Journey...

Regular readers will know that I posted a few times earlier this year about Twitter. How to get started, using it regularly, and some of the more sophisiticated features.

I held off from giving my final opinion on how worthwhile Twitter is until now. This is because it takes months to get value from it.

And that's the first point I need to make: Twitter takes weeks and weeks of effort before becoming completely comfortable with it, and before building a good presence. It's essential that you allocate plenty of time for Twitter, particularly in the early days. As you build up more and more followers (and followees), and as you tweet more, and re-tweet, you'll eventually start to see a return on your effort.

Thankfully I'm now over the early stages of:

- searching out relevant people to follow
- reading up about them on their websites to make sure it's worth my while following them, and
- reading endless tweets (usually entitled "10 tips to Using Social Media for business" or similar)

I take time every few weeks to actively seek out new people to follow, but mostly for now its just regular checks on what's being posted and sharing information with my followers.

What's the verdict?

Well, (within the caveat of the huge amount of time necessary to spend first on getting to know Twitter) here it is:

• Twitter is a great way to network online, and to meet lots more people who are relevant to my business
• Twitter holds a wealth of valuable information: reading just a few of the daily links to great articles or posts helps build my own expertise rapidly
• Twitter allows me to share valuable information I've come across with my network. This might be referring a business colleague, promoting a training course, or pointing to a well-written and informative blog or article. [Much easier than heading off on a dark and rainy Monday night to a networking event in town (tho face to face has great value too of course)]
• Finally, Twitter has helped me to build my own online brand. It's an essential facet of the online marketing strategy of any business which hopes to connect with people online. My website is a useful starting point, but now people expect more: and building relationships, offering help and exchanging learning points through Twitter is a great way to deliver more.

Has Twitter driven sales for me?

The answer is Yes, and No.

No because I don't think anyone has gone online in the last six months, and actively looked through Twitter for a researcher such as myself.

However, what Twitter has done for me is to 'help' my sale. My business has a stronger profile through Twitter. People see my tweets and learn more about me. They are reassured about my expertise through the content I tweet. And they feel more confident that my business practice and processess are up to date, relevant and professional. I know that I've won several projects in the last few months, with the help of Twitter.

OVERALL: After nearly 6 months of testing, I would advise most businesses to use Twitter, if they can commit the time.

So, are you Twitter-phobic or a Twitterphile? Would you agree with my verdict? Is there a les time-consuming way to get the benefits of Twitter?

The last of the professional networks: Ecademy, Doostang, and SmallBusinessCan

Ecademy

This is a UK based site, with a third of members based there. The company itself says it has 12 million contacts, with 300,000+ unique users per month. However, independent sources give this figures as being just 400,000.

Nearly two-thirds of Ecademy users are self employed, indicating that many may be looking for project work, as well as pure networking opportunities.

There is a lot of irrelevant functionality on Ecademy which makes it difficult to navigate. Its layout is quite different to other online networks and overall it’s not very user friendly. If you’re looking to build your network in the UK, then this is a useful site – otherwise it doesn’t have much else to offer.


Doostang

This is a US based career building community. Membership is by invitation only, and it targets graduates from the top US universities. A hefty monthly fee (c. $40) allows these members to access job advertisements. Not a useful networking tool then, but interesting to see a niche like this developing.


Small Business Can

At last, an Irish based site, filled with Irish based members who are keen to maintain active discussions and network!

Sponsored by Ulster Bank, this site has an impressive team running the show, so we’re hoping for continued success as the site develops.

Essentially, the site is all about driving business growth. It has resources, blogs and community discussions to drive this. The site is littered with comments and inputs from members, so it’s interesting to view what other members have been saying. The look and feel is great, and functionality includes a forum for discussions, apps, groups etc.

While the site is still in development phase, with some sections awaiting content, it does have the potential to be a successful and active Irish networking site. Let’s wait and see.

...
That's it for now on online professional networks folks! I hope this guide has helped you to save some time and get the most that these have to offer.

More on professional networks: Ryze, Viadeo, Plaxo and Naymz

In my last post I selected a few (so-called) online professional networks and reviewed them. Here are some more: some useful, some not. This is not an exhaustive list, as these sites are constantly popping up. However, I will try to guide you through the dross to find the ones that work!

Ryze

This is a business networking site, and its functionality is similar to that of LinkedIn. It’s quite un-sophisticated though, and has only around 300,000 members, most of whom are US based. This site doesn’t seem to be going anywhere: although it’s been around a long time the look and feel are quite boring, and its offering is fairly limited. For these reasons, I won’t be using it.


Viadeo

This is an excellent site (which along with Xing) could prove a viable competitor to LinkedIn, particularly in Europe. It has a very strong presence in France, and acquired a network in Canada last year, bringing its member numbers to 25 million.

It charges fees of around €6 monthly for premium membership. The structure is very simple: users get access to all areas with premium membership, including contacting other members.

In late 2009, the Economist reported: “Last year LinkedIn had struck a deal with Apec, France's best-known professional-recruitment service, to offer search functions to its huge customer base of over 30,000 companies and 500,000 executives. But on November 17th Apec made a new deal with Viadeo, having noted that although LinkedIn could reach executives at France's biggest international companies, it failed to connect enough people in the country's thousands of smaller firms…

In Italy and Japan, LinkedIn is number one even though it has not translated its site into the local language in either place. In China, however, LinkedIn has to compete against the Chinese-language website of Tianji, the country's biggest professional network, which is owned by Viadeo.”


Plaxo

Plaxo sells itself as being an address book in the cloud. It has been around for some time: the company itself says it has 40 million members, although recent press reports quote 20 million. It launched ‘Plaxo Pulse’ (a true online networking site) but following its lack of success, Pulse has been rebranded and toned down to ‘Stream’ – which shows web-wide activity of a user’s contacts. Its functionality is mostly aimed at working with existing contacts and so it’s not useful for networking.


Naymz

Naymz is a little different from other networking sites in that it offers tools focussed on reputation, personal branding and identify verification. There is emphasis on the truth of the information on a profile, and members receive points on a reputation score dashboard.

Having said all that, Naymz has a slightly dubious reputation for being simply a scraper site that pulls names from other sites. Naymz appear to be completely US based, so will be of limited value to European-side networkers, especially at a basic fee of €25 monthly.

Which professional networks?

As you well know (and as previously discussed), there is a fine line between making effective use of online professional networks, and spending all day connecting, tweeting, commenting and blogging.

Who has all day to do this? Unless your job title is 'Online Marketing Specialist', then you'll need to consider a new network carefully.

Is it a useful marketing tool that will help win business? Or is it a time-wasting drag, devised by a clever techie start-up obsessed with bumping up their member numbers so they can make a quick buck with advertisers while dreaming of being the next Facebook?

Here's a high level review of some of the main networks. For more in-depth detail, or for some help on which are most suitable for your industry, contact KnowledgeWorks. More to follow in a few days.


Spoke

Spoke says it has 60 million users, mainly in the US. Basic membership is free but premium is costly (from $25 to $99 monthly). Most comments posted by members are dated from 2007 or earlier, so our guess is they’re not getting very many new users, or any up to date discussions. In any case, this is more of a 'people finder' than a professional networking site.


Xing

Xing is probably the most successful online professional network in Europe, after LinkedIn. It has 8 million members worldwide, with most of these European. Xing has strong corporate backing and this, along with with reasonable membership fees, is a good first step to a solid business model. Xing's functionality is very similar to LinkedIn – a blend of networking, discussions, and also job searches. It has yet to make a big impact in Ireland and the UK, but watch this space.


Zoominfo

This is essentially a US-based list broker. It claims functionality as an online networking site, but in fact it’s about accessing lists and contact details for people and companies. Zoominfo gathers data abut people and invites users to register in order to ‘reclaim’ your data and fine tune the profile that already exists for you. Even the free trial to premium level at Zoominfo requires that users share their entire address book (from Gmail or Outlook etc). Usually these sites allow you to pick and choose which of your contacts you’d like to search for, but Zoominfo takes it all. This site might be useful if you need lists from the US, but not for professional networking.


Jigsaw

This is a good US based B2B directory with contact details only. It has powerful search functionality, with a very detailed search engine, although data is likely to be scraped from other sources rather than contributed by the individuals themselves. Jigsaw charges for obtaining contact information. Again, Jigsaw could be useful for finding people and their contact information, but it's not useful for networking. Jigsaw has recently been acquired by Salesforce.com, the contact management business, and this could raise issues about ownership of data.

SME: Are you budgeting for market research?

A colleague commented recently that many SMEs don't budget at the start of the year for market research.

I've worked with a lot of SMEs, and I know these things about SME owner managers:

• you are dedicated to growing your business


• you expend every ounce of your knowledge and experience in bringing about this growth


• you constantly seek to expand your own skills by networking with others to learn more - in order to grow your business.

I also know that:

• in a small small team you must outsource: your pool of knowledge is by nature limited


• there are areas which can help to grow your business, which you may not until now have utilised - these can be a number of things: technological, operational, or market based research


• market research will always help you to stay ahead of the competition


• research is a pre-requisite to succesful expansion or business development

I've seen it time and time again. Companies operate within their comfort zone: they anlayse the hell out of the factors they're familiar with, such as the supply chain, manufacturing, quality control and so on. But with the best will in the world, ad-hoc necessities like research tend to fall much lower on the prioirty list - largely because they're outside an SME owner's area of expertise and experience, and because they're ad-hoc.

Allocate a small amount this year, and use it when you're tearing your hair out saying:

• Why am I losing sales to this new competitor? What are they doing that's new?
• I don't understand enough about this market to take this risk! Am I making a mistake?
• How can I estimate for stock levels when I don't know the size of this new segment?

It's a fact that regular research will help a business to step outside the box a little, shift direction, identify an opportunity and perhaps avoid a pothole or two along the way.

So the message is, allocate a piece of your budget for research - it'll pay off next year, wait and see.

Our personal lives revealed

The US has seen some growth in people search engines recently. Enter a person’s name and results show any personal information about them, including their Facebook pages, linked in page, website, etc. Some examples are Wink , PeekYou, and Zoominfo for business people.

Ok, it might seem like a ‘nice-to-have’, a bit like the google images search which restrict searches to results with pictures. Or an easy way to find a person’s LinkedIn page. Or an easier way to find a long lost friend or classmate (without all the Google Search results clutter).

However, there are more ominous uses! Most notable is the trend of employers using these search engines to trawl social networking sites to find out more about potential new employees (or partners, or suppliers, or contractors or consultants…).

Suddenly, that photo of you on your friend’s Facebook page where you’re dancing on a bar table with your trousers on your head might not seem quite so funny...

Until recently, it’s been fairly easy to keep personal information personal. Watch what you say, stay circumspect about life outside the office and no-one will find out about your personal peccadillos.

However, sites like these (as well as a regular Google search) mean that your personal life is increasingly on show. Now your professional connections can search and view and wonder, and maybe even think twice about that job offer based on what they see you doing in your spare time.

Like a lot of trends, 'people-check' is slowly making its way to our shores. Krishna De reported in her blog this week that 40% of European tech firms check social media profiles of potential employees. Krishna also reports that Irish SMEs are embracing social media marketing - and this means they’re likely to use it for people-check too.

Unsurprisingly, the US market has come up with a partial solution. Naymz is an online professional network which offers members the option of a Google ad which appears when their name is searched, pointing to their profile on Naymz. It's designed to encourage people to just look at the ad, get the information they need there, and ignore other Google search results.

Naymz used to also offer 'search engine flooding': camouflaging a web page that you don't want people to see. They create lots of related but postitive comment about you, and work to get that placed higher in the search engines. This 'search engine flooding' technique might eventually push the offending page to Page 2 of more of Google results, making it unlikely to be spotted. However, Naymz haven't been giving this the big sell recently, meaning it's probably not effective enough.

So, reader, the moral of the story is: be good, and if you can't be good - BE CAREFUL!