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.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
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:
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?
Thursday, July 15, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
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.
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.
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