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Facebook is good for business

Friday, November 13th, 2009

Facebook isn’t just for keeping in touch with old friends anymore. The social networking site, once used primarily by high school and college students, is now being used by companies to expand their online reach. Facebook has become a marketing force all of its own for businesses.

Facebook can be beneficial to your business in a number of ways.
• Increase customer awareness. It is a great way to increase customer awareness and engage your customers as well as maintaining current clients and increasing business.
• Create brand ambassadors. It is popular among a multitude of demographics so it is a great way to get your brand out there! Facebook allows businesses to create events, fan pages and groups which can help them promote themselves, contests, giveaways and up-coming sales.
• Build stronger relationships with customers. Facebook provides a place for businesses to build relationships with their customers by keeping them informed about their brand, their products or their service.

And with the fastest growing demographic of users being ages 35+, the benefits to companies will continue to multiply.

Tags: Benefits, Facebook, intern, Intern Diaries, Social media, wilmington nc
Posted in Talk | Comments

Things We Love 11/11

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

Debbie loves Grand Union Pub at The Forum Shops on Military Cutoff Road – Went to Grand Union Pub Saturday night for dinner and was delighted with the decor, the food and the huge, circular bar. The interior has been completely transformed with sky high ceilings, warm woods and exposed brick. The extensive beer selection of tap and bottled brews will satisfy beer aficionados. The veggie burger and sweet potatoe fries were great and the price was right. I will return often.

Shawn loves Trivial Pursuit’s new campaign which pits males against females – That usually never turns out well for anyone involved. But this is actually a great playful campaign complete with a hysterical video showing men and women caught in the act of stupidity as well as an interactive Web site. After logging on to defend my gender I got a little nervous with my first two wrong answers, but then I hit a winning streak and decided to call it a day. I did my part to defend the intellegience intelligence of men all around the world.

Susan loves the “Dislike” addon for Facebook – some days your friends post something on Facebook that really makes you wonder where the Dislike button is. Like, say if they cancel plans with you at the last minute, you want to be able to show your displeasure. But all Facebook will let you do it “like” it. Well now, my snarky friends, thanks to Firefox there is an addon that you can use that will squeeze a “Dislike” option into your newsfeed. The only caveat, your friends must have the addon too in order to see your justified thumbs-down opinion.

Tags: Facebook, Firefox Dislike addon, Grand Union Pub Wilmington NC, The Forum Shops WIlmington NC, Trivial Pursuit Experiment
Posted in Professional Development | Comments

How young is too young?

Friday, November 6th, 2009

Facebook, FarmVille and MySpace aren’t just for generation Y users anymore. A recent CNN article, “Social networks and kids: how young is too young?”, explores a social-networking trend among a much younger generation. Studies have shown that joining these sites at such an early age can lead to Internet addiction and could damage children’s relationships and brains. Since technology is at its peak children have become accustomed to computers, cell phones, and the internet. Most of these children are on social networking sites to communicate with friends but a small number abuse these privileges. Now children are growing up in an era where at age 10 they can’t live with out their cell phone. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that these same children are joining sites that are intended for a much older generation. Although most sites require users to be at least 13 there is no way to validate their ages. A growing number of children are signing on to these sites, which leads me to the question: How safe are they?

Technology is everywhere so banning it isn’t the answer. But adult supervision and sites with limited functions can help kids use these sites in an age-appropriate way. I don’t necessarily agree with Facebook and MySpace being used at such a young age, however, there are some sites that are “kid friendly.” Disney offers Club Penguin and the hugely popular Webkinz, which are both ad-free and offer safe chat features for kids to connect online.

You are never to old to join the world of social networking sites. But in my opinion, Facebook at age 5 is definitely too young.

Tags: Facebook, intern, MySpace, Social Networking Sites, wilmington nc
Posted in Talk | Comments

Register for Talk’s free Facebook 101 webinar on 11/19

Friday, October 30th, 2009

With more than 300 million active users, Facebook is a marketing force unto its own. Savvy business people are using Facebook strategically to build their brands and drive sales. Facebook fan pages attract more than 10 million users each day. To learn how you can use Facebook to help grow your business, register today for our free, one-hour webinar entitled “Facebook 101″ to be held at noon on Thursday, November 19. And to learn more about Talk, visit our Facebook fan page

Tags: Facebook, Facebook tutorial, Facebook webinar, Wilmington NC webinar
Posted in Webinars | Comments

Top five survival tactics for media outlets

Monday, May 18th, 2009

Everyday the headlines about news outlets seem drearier and drearier. Yes, this economy is rough, but many newspapers, magazines and broadcast stations have and will continue to be phased out, not because of the economic climate but because of their refusal to conform to new media standards. So in a time when all the big wigs are rethinking their strategies, here are my top five survival tactics that I think will be critical to the reinvention of the news media.

1. Go to where the audiences are: Sorry Wall Street Journal, but you missed the point when trying to advise your reporters on how to engage in social media. We will advise our clients to consider how they want their staff to participate in social media, but the WSJ policies inhibit instead of encourage participation. Coming from the negative perspective of “what’s the worst that can happen online,” WSJ leadership is missing out on an incredible opportunity that other outlets, like the New York Times Co., are taking advantage of.

2. Involve news consumers in news reporting: This week, Newsweek joined the likes of CNN and integrated its news reporting on Facebook in a major way this year. The magazine aired a live interview with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner through its Facebook page on Monday. Fans had the opportunity to submit questions and comments through Facebook, playing a primary role in the Newsweek interview. In a similar setup just this month, Arianna Huffington interviewed billionaire Sir Richard Branson on the maiden flight of his Virgin America for Digg.com. Huffington chose the most popular of the more than 1,500 reader questions submitted on the Digg Dialogg page. This not only made for a more interesting and unconventional interview (even for the outrageous Branson) but visitors on Digg had an actual stake in the interview, making its outcome more compelling to them.

3. Create a niche product: I’m always bragging about our local paper in Wilmington, N.C. Not only do they belong to the great New York Times Co., but they are so out in front of adapting to the changing media landscape, that I wonder if they’re not even ahead of their parent. The Star-News has created the new website MyReporter.com, where if you have a question about “life in coastal North Carolina,” you can ask it and have the local paper’s team of reporters find the answer for you. It’s a natural fit, right? Reporters spend all day researching and know how to find answers in ways the general public don’t. While the jury’s still out on the site’s moneymaking potential, it looks promising. “Site Sponsors” can also answer reader question that relate to their line of business, offering a unique opportunity for online exposure.

4. Become less reliant on ad sales: If there was ever a time we ever needed a new strategy for traditional ad sales, that time is now. Decreasing ad sales may responsible for the biggest hit media outlets have taken over the past year. Signs don’t point to a swift or simple resolution. But let’s think outside the box. There’s a reason Entertainment Weekly’s website content has grown richer and its page numbers have dwindled. Offer advertisers opportunities to grow, interact and engage with readers and viewers and that is a sound start.

5. Open up: This seems to be a major problem for TV networks and movie studios alike. Naturally, no one in their right mind thinks it’s OK for an unfinished $200 million super hero movie to leak on the Internet. However, if there is a funny clip or sketch on a cable or network program, the aggregation of that on the Internet will help you in the end, not hurt you. NBC and Fox got smart and along with other networks, signed agreements with Hulu.com so they can get some monetary value from their viral videos.

Photo by: j2taranto

Tags: Digg, Facebook, Hulu, Marketing in a Recession, NBC, New York Times, Star News, Wall Street Journal
Posted in Public Relations | Comments

Talk’s favorite social media posts

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

We’re hosting our first webinar tomorrow and in light of that we’re bringing you a short history of our favorite social media posts from TalkIncBlog.com. Enjoy! And in the meantime, be sure to sign up for our free webinar, “Talk Therapy: How the online conversation can grow your business,” by clicking here.

BLOGGING

Ten ways to build your blog readership

Building a blog is only half the battle. You have to keep content fresh and optimize it properly to attract a loyal audience. Here’s 10 simple steps anyone can take to build their blog readership.

FACEBOOK

How NOT to use a Facebook fan page

Facebook has a lot of priviliges available to businesses and organizations to promote their products, services or events. But everyday we essentially get “spammed,” because of their lack of Facebook fan page ettiquette. We offer a rundown of what not to do.

How to control your privacy on Facebook using Lists

The good news about Facebook’s recent redesign is that we finally have the capability to control which friends see what on our pages. Job hunting college students across the country rejoice! Here we tell you how to set up this vital function.

TWITTER

Principles of business networking applied to social networking

Let’s hope social networking won’t ever replace face-to-face networking, but let’s face it the two aren’t so different. In this post we highlight the key comparisons to help you be a better networker overall.

Can Twitter increase your business?

This simple answer is yes, if you know how to use it. With a little help from CopyBlogger.com, we point out the key ways you can get measurable returns from this social medium.

Five things I learned from my dog on Twitter

One of our most popular posts all year, our President Debbie writes about her experiences setting up Talk’s Top Dog Camden on Twitter and how it helped her to become a better Tweeter in the process!

Ten things every new Twitterer should know

New to Twitter and overwhelmed by what is seemingly a very strange language? We will help get you pointed in the right direction so that you can become an important part of the conversation in the Twittersphere.

PR, MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA

Outsmart your boss if he outlaws social media in the office

Here we outline the ways you can talk your boss into letting you sign into Facebook, Twitter and more in the office. Use our arguments and you will be building your business in the world of social media in no time!

PR pros have leadership role to play in social media

Good PR pros today are integrating social media into everything they do. It’s important to take on this role if they are responsible for the communications and reputation of their clients/company. We explain why you should take this responsiblity out of your IT department and into your marketing or communications department.

Be heard among all the online chatter

There’s no arguing that there’s a lot of noise online today. But, we’ll tell you some key ways that you can Find Your Voice online, and actually be heard by your audience.

An online marketer’s reading list

Need to get up to speed, or even better, get ahead in the world of online marketing? We offer a few of our favorite titles to get you started.

Tags: Branding in Wilmington N.C., Facebook, Internet Marketing Wilmington NC, Public Relations Agency in N.C., Social media, Social Media in Wilmington N.C., twitter
Posted in Internet Marketing | Comments

How NOT to use a Facebook fan page

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009

It’s hard to believe that Facebook is only 5 years old, especially when you consider that the site now serves over 200 million people across the globe. These numbers are shocking as I think of my first Facebook experience and how drastically things have changed since then. I created my Facebook profile in June 2005 after learning about the for-college-students-only site at my UNC-CH orientation. Since the early days, Facebook has been something unusually personal, where I can be myself and communicate with people who know me or want to know me.

Because Facebook has such a personal connotation to so many people, marketers and companies must be careful with how they approach potential and current consumers on the site. Facebook, despite having strict rules for advertising, has been fairly helpful to businesses by giving them options for speaking directly to their target audience through fan pages. These pages have undergone changes recently that help companies become more engaged with consumers, however some have taken these privileges overboard to become more of a nuisance than a welcomed friend. Here are a few things I advise NOT doing with a company fan page:

1.    Send promotional messages. – Some people use Facebook messaging like email. I honestly couldn’t tell you the email addresses of most of my college friends, but that doesn’t matter, because we have Facebook. Since these messages are like email to many of us, promotional messages give us the same icky feeling as spam. It is especially annoying, and inappropriate, when companies hire Facebook users to send these messages and pose as legitimate acquaintances.
2.    Give fans a daily update. – Facebook allows companies to send updates to their fans that appear on a users news feed just like friend requests, event invitations and wall notifications. These updates should be used to express big changes or events, not detail every little development. If the updates aren’t relevant or too frequent then it will be ignored and possibly blocked, so keep them to a minimum.
3.    Send invitations to random people. – The other day I received an invitation to be a fan of a park in another state that I had never been to and never heard of before. As someone who lives hundreds of miles away, I am clearly not in their target audience. Send invitations to users who fit the profile of a potential customer or have expressed interested in the company but might not have known about the fan page.
4.    Don’t update the company profile. – There is nothing worse than a company that creates a fan page, only to let it sit there for months and months without a hint of new content. The new fan pages offer a variety of applications that can link to a Twitter page, blog or newsroom as well as space to upload photos and videos. Taking a few minutes every week to add new content to the company page will help keep users engaged and encourage interaction.

Tags: Facebook, Marketing in a Recession
Posted in Marketing | Comments

How to control your privacy on Facebook using Lists

Friday, April 3rd, 2009

Let’s face it. On Facebook, not all people are created equal, so we might want to have some discretion for just who we want to be seeing what information about us (especially true for students seeking jobs). With this in mind, and after doing some research on just what kind of Facebook Privacy tricks there are, I put together a way of using Facebook Lists in conjunction with Privacy Controls that let’s you control just who sees what.

How to create a Facebook list
First, let me explain what you’re really doing: You’re creating a list of friends who are blocked from seeing parts of your profile. The control of what you can prevent people from seeing is fairly in depth, allowing you to be as specific as restricting friends to only being able to view a certain photo album, or a little more broad in preventing them from seeing all your status updates.

Step 1. Creating a new privacy list
When you first log in to Facebook, you’ll land on your stream page. If you look to at the left-hand column, you’ll see categories in your news feed like “News Feed”, “Photos”, and “Events”. Now, if you look at the bottom of that section in the image above, you’ll notice a link that says “+create”. Click that, and we’ll begin creating our first list!

The window that pops up will prompt you for the name of your new List. Let’s call our list “Business List”. Just type that into the edit box that’s available, and hit enter when you’re done.

Step 2. Add people to your new privacy list
As you can see from our new Business List list, Facebook gives you a nifty little area to add or remove people from your list. To start adding people to it by simply typing in their name. Once you’ve typed in their name, either click on the checkbox to check it, or hit enter and it will automatically add them to the list. When you’re done, Just click the “Save” button.

Step 3. Controlling the privacy of your new list
So far we have only created a new Facebook list and added the people we want to be on that list. Now is when we can actually control what the people on that list see. To do this click “Settings” then “Privacy Settings”

Here we can see a list of all the different areas we can block people from seeing. In this example, we’re just wanting to control what our new “Business List” sees on our profile, so click “Profile”.

Here I want to make it so anyone who is on my “Business Friends” list cannot see anything from my photo album. To do this, click on the drop down box next to “Photos Tagged of You” and then on “customize…”.

The image above should look something like the new window that will pop up for you. Look down at the bottom where it says “Except These People”. That is where you want to type the name of your privacy list, in our case “Business List”. You’ll notice it auto-completing for you. In addition to lists, you can add friends in this area, too.

Once you’ve done that, click save, then save changes on the “Privacy > Profile” page you are on, and you’re done!

Editing a previously created privacy list
Of course, one of those wonderful people in your “Business Friends” list might make it to your “out-side-of-work friends” category. In this case, you’ll want to remove them from your “Business List” privacy list. Fortunately, this is very easy!

Go to your Facebook Stream again, and click the “+create” link again. It will pop up that box again. When it does, instead of typing anything, click on your existing privacy list name instead of typing in the name for a new one, and then click edit.

Have any other Facebook tips? Let us know!

Tags: Facebook, facebook friend list, facebook list, privacy, social media privacy, social network privacy
Posted in Internet Marketing | Comments

Things We Love 4/1

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

Debbie loves Chuck, the cute nerdy (not) guy that comes on NBC every Monday at 8:00 p.m. and makes me laugh out loud for an hour – Zachary Levi stars as Chuck and he’s constantly getting in and out of close calls with super secret spy pal/love interest Sarah. I rarely get this attached to TV characters, but this is one of the few programs that I schedule my evening around. I’ve become a fan on Facebook and I’ve checked out their website a time or two. I usually post something about the show on Twitter or Facebook before or after tuning in. Sigh. I have a TV crush. Sorry dear.

Holly loves parents on Facebook – I know it sounds a little crazy, but I honestly love that my parents and their friends are starting to hop on the Facebook train. My Facebook profile has become such a personal, important component of my life over the last four years, and it’s nice that now my parents are able to take part in it. I no longer have to describe in detail the events I went to or the pictures I took, because all of that is for their viewing pleasure on my page. I’m excited we are learning how to use social media to stay connected as a family - I just hope they keep the stalking to a minimum.

Kelly loves the Wilmington Azalea Festival. By far the best party every year in the South, the Azalea Festival is a five-day celebration of local artwork, tours of amazing gardens, rich history and southern culture. With concerts, fairs and pageantry, there is something for the whole family to enjoy. I first attended the Azalea Festival shortly after moving to this beautiful coastal town five years ago and I have not missed one yet!

Kirsty loves “Living Social” is social cataloging for Books, Movies, TV Shows, Albums, Video Games, Beer, Restaurants and more. Its “Pick Five” is also the hottest trend on Facebook. The site touts itself as the the most comprehensive interest-based online community, helping more than 7.5 million users catalogue their interests, seamlessly integrating with Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, hi5, and Orkut. That’s for sure. Facebook friends across the nation have been bonding over the top five movies they grew up on, the top five albums of all time and the top five TV shows they’ve seen every episode of.

Nathan loves delicious – No, not tasty snacks, though he does love those, too, but what is considered a social bookmarking site. In other words, in the same way you can “bookmark” a page in your browser for viewing later, with delicious you can bookmark it online, allowing you to access it from anywhere that has an internet connection. What’s more, you can also share all of your bookmarks easily with your friends! For example, check out what Nathan has bookmarked recently.

Susan loves Clever design – Some people go through life plotting out stories based on random actions they see. Some notice smells wherever they go. Others see designs and patterns in even the most innocuous settings. And then I see pictures like this, where the latter of those types saw something and took the time to make it a reality simply because they could, and I just sit in awe a few minutes.

Tags: Events, Facebook, Graphic Design, humor, Social media
Posted in Graphic Design, Public Relations | Comments

Social media for non-profits

Friday, March 27th, 2009

In these difficult economic times, non-profit organizations have taken a greater hit than most. Donations are down, volunteerism is sliding, grant money is tight and banks aren’t lending. Although the forecast looks grim, there is a silver lining for non-profits in the form of social media, a resource that many have yet to tap despite the affordable price tag of free to pretty darn cheap. Non-profits can use social media to achieve goals like increasing involvement, finding and keeping loyal donators, publicizing events and communicating a positive message their communities. Below are just a few of the many possibilities of social media for non-profits and examples of great organizations that are using these resources.

Facebook causes page
Facebook makes it really easy to get your friends involved in your non-profit with a customized causes page. Put your missions, values, logo, fundraising goal, and links on the page, then send invites to your Facebook friends. Anyone who joins can donate to the cause, invite their friends and post discussions and comments. This creates a place for your non-profit to communicate with the people who care the most about what’s going on and keep them up-to-date on fundraising goals and successes. Check out the causes page for Project Pet Project for an example.

Blogging
Non-profits do so many wonderful things for a community, and most of us are often unaware of all that they are doing. A blog is a great way to connect with your audience to share success stories, event details and new initiatives without waiting for these stories to get picked up by the media. The blog for Carolina Canines for Service is an excellent example of non-profit blog.

Firstgiving.com
Fundraisers are often a major source of income for non-profits, and these days even solicitations for a good cause go unnoticed or unwanted. Firstgiving.com is a much easier, less invasive way to get donations or pledges to your fundraiser through personalized webpages for fundraisers or teams within a fundraiser. Participants can send their webpage link to friends and family or post it on other social media sites like Facebook or a blog. This makes donating super easy and accessible to anyone with a few bucks to spare for a good cause. To give Firstgiving a try, donate to Talk’s team page for the Walk for Those Who Can’t.

Tags: blogging, Carolina Canines, Facebook, Social media
Posted in Issues Management, Professional Development | Comments

Sept 24	Local SEO

Oct 22	Crisis Management

November 19	Facebook 101

Dec 17	Twitter 101

Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’

Things We Love 11/11

Register for Talk’s free Facebook 101 webinar on 11/19

Top five survival tactics for media outlets

How NOT to use a Facebook fan page

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