I thoroughly enjoy the knowledge John shares  on the web and in his books  Maybe it’s because what he says always make so much sense.  Or maybe it’s because our philosophies follow along the same lines. I realized that when I read his book,  The Referral Engine. I honestly believe that this book should be a must read for anyone in marketing, old or new.  Referral networking is by no means new,  but John has managed to put it into words that everyone can understand.  And it doesn’t come from a year or two of experience but many years of experience. He’s not an overnight “expert”.  (Sorry John, don’t mean to make you sound old, just experienced) Most everything he as written is common sense but it’s amazing how many people don’t put it into use.  John does a wonderful job explaining it and even makes it sound easy.  But it doesn’t mean that an old dog can’t learn new tricks. ((BTW, I’m the old dog here, not John)

We put so much effort now into Social Media  Marketing (Twitter, Facebook etc.)  that sometimes we forget that referrals start with building relationships.   Quantity can be good, but quality beats it every time. At least  I think so.  I don’t believe because someone has the most number of followers that it means they’re going to make the most money. And because someone follows me doesn’t mean I’m going to refer them to someone I know.  I love giving referrals to my clients and friends and of course I love receiving them. It’s kind of like that pat on the back that we all want.  That only comes with building relationships.

However, that relationship has to start somewhere.  Sometimes it isn’t a referral. Most people like working in their own backyard, so to speak. That means local businesses. That’s what John talked about  Wednesday during his webinar . Finding those locals we want to do business with and them finding us for the same reason.  In the past we used  telephone directories to look up companies or as a business owner paid for a directory ad. At least, that’s where we went if no one could give us a personal referral.  Ever do any cold calling for your business? I’m sure it wasn’t your favorite thing to do., but it was a necessary evil  (still is in some cases)  The internet has given us so many new marketing methods with the ability to drill down and make it as local as we want. The choices are many, which is what John’s webinar was about.

Local Search is Where It’s At

If you having a hard time believing that statement John posted some stats that are pretty impressive. It has to make you stop and think…at least it did me.

• 90% of online commercial searches result in offline bricks and mortar purchases (comScore)

• 82% of local searches follow-up offline via an in-store visit or phone call or purchase (TMP/comScore)

• 74% of internet users perform local searches (Kelsey Group)
• 61% of local searches result in purchases (TMP/comScore)
• 54% of American have substituted the internet and local search for phone books (comScore)
• 35% of all searches are local  (DM News)

These numbers really tell a story.  When was the last time you pulled out a phone directory to look for a company? If you’re like me, I get so tired of having them all delivered to my doorstep. First, there are too many, but secondly, it’s so much faster for me to go online because I can also look at reviews.

I’m not going to go into detail about everything John talked about because he will be doing a class in DuctU soon on this very subject. But the purpose of quoting the stats above is to make you think about it a little. (ok, maybe a lot!)

Take a moment and ask yourself these questions:

1.       Is my web page local friendly? (If you aren’t sure the answer is likely no)

2.       Can I be found easily on the web by my local community? (Have you ever looked?)

3.       Have I “claimed” all of my local listings? (Do you know which ones are available?)

4.       Have I taken advantage of the review sites?

5.       Am I listed everywhere I can be listed?

If you answer no to even one of these questions, then you should be adding local search to your marketing priorities. Many or most of these options are actually free to use.  That’s always what we want to hear, right?  But there is a right and wrong way to do it.  You certainly don’t want to put a lot of time and effort into it without it bringing any results.

I have friend who I convinced to at least try using Google Places. He was very skeptical but finally spent about an hour one weekend claiming his page and putting it together. Imagine his amazement when he had a call the following week from the page. His company’s website had never brought him any traffic because it hadn’t been updated in years. (That’s another story) He now updates his page regularly and gets a couple of new customers a month in residual income. Not a lot but as he says, the small ones make up his bread and butter income. BTW, he sells printer cartridges so you can imagine the competition he has. He’s now considering increasing his local presence through other methods also.

If this is something you are interested in doing, please contact me and we can develop a strategy for you. SLEEN Group can help you with your local listings.

“Why can’t I use my Facebook personal profile page for my business?  I’ve been asked this many times and the simplest answer is…. Facebook says no.  That’s right…according to their Terms of Service it’s a no-no.

“Profiles represent individuals and must be held under an individual name, while Pages allow an organization, business, celebrity, or band to maintain a professional presence on Facebook. You may only create Facebook Pages to represent real organizations of which you are an authorized representative.”

“Pages are for organizations, businesses, celebrities, and bands to broadcast great information in an official, public manner to people who choose to connect with them. Similar to profiles, Pages can be enhanced with applications that help the entity communicate and engage with their audiences, and capture new audiences virally through friend recommendations, News Feed stories, Facebook events, and beyond.”  From Facebook FAQ’s

I know, I hear so many people say “well others do it all the time.”  Yes, they do. But have you ever said to your kids, who use that excuse all of the time, “if so and so jumped off a bridge, would you follow?”.  Just because someone else is doing it doesn’t make it right.  Like it or not, this is the Facebook way of doing things.

So, a Page is Better. Why?

Let’s go beyond the fact that Facebook says no.  There are other good reasons why you shouldn’t do it and why creating an actual page is better for business.

• Pages can have unlimited Fans or Likes

We want our business to grow. Do we really want to limit our exposure to only 5,000 people on our friend page? Just this past week, someone I know who was doing business on their friend page, reached the 5000 limit.  All of a sudden he was trying to convince everyone to move to his new Business page.  Did they all go?  Who knows…but the time he’s spending building a new page and trying to convince friends to follow or  ”Like” the new page is time he could spend doing something more productive. He actually lucked out because the friend page was using his actual name and tougher for Facebook to realize he was not following the Terms of Service.  He could have gotten up one morning to find the entire page gone. Yes, they can do that and they don’t notify you prior to doing it. Imagine losing all of those friends and work, meaning no way to contact them to join your new page. What a colossal waste of time and energy.

• Pages have analytics, profiles do not offer analytics.

How will you know what working or what’s not working if you don’t use analytics of some sort?  Facebook Insights may not be the best but you can view all kinds of useful data about user activity on your page, including how many likes and comments you received each day, demographic break-downs and much more. This type of data can be really useful for understanding your customer base, and knowing which wall posts get the best reaction. Again, this data is not available to individual profiles.

• You can also embed a Like button and other applications into your own site.

This cannot be done on personal profiles and can be a major boost for businesses hoping to grow their audience on Facebook.

• Facebook pages are searchable!

Since pages are not behind the login, so they can be directly accessed whether the visitor has a Facebook account or not. Personal profiles are not searchable. This is important if you really want your Facebook page to be of any value.

• You can send “updates to fans”. whenever you want.

What a great way building a database of interested users. Send messages about new products, updated websites, etc.

• Third party applications are available on a “Page” while not on a personal profile.

There are so many of them that I’m not going to be going into them in this post. Instead, I will be doing a series of posts over the coming months to cover some key applications.

But, I don’t Want a Personal Page

Of course, the next comment is “I don’t want a personal page.”  Well, I guess you need to get over it IF you want your Facebook marketing to be successful.  Your privacy settings can be set so that no one but those you choose will know you have a personal page. Or lock your settings down so that no one can even find your personal profile. Yes, Facebook does offer a business page without a personal profile page but it doesn’t get searched so why bother? You also can’t view the profiles of users on the site.  Learn more here

It Boils Down to This

If you want  Facebook to be successful for your business, create a page. Don’t use your personal profile page to do so. If you don’t care that it could get shut down with no notice and you lose all of your work, then go for it.

So, which do you choose?

to talk about a Facebook or Social Media strategy.

You would think that working from home and spending so much time on my computer that it would be easy for me. Nope, not me.  I’d like to think it’s because I do work from home that I enjoy talking with a live body once in a while and I take advantage of it. Geez, if that was only true. I guess if I go way back, I’ve always talked alot. (even before the internet) Yet there are certain members of my family who thought I was very quiet. Go figure.

I could probably psycho-analyze myself, but let’s face it, I like to talk. I think that you learn so much by hearing the individual’s speech patterns and how they say something.  (Yes, I do listen also) When you write, it just doesn’t seem the same. Have you ever received an email from someone (or sent one) that you really wondered if they meant what they said in the manner in which it was written?  I’ve learned to re-read emails several times, especially if I’m angry, before sending it.  I sometimes wait until the next day before sending. But then there are those emails I send anyways that don’t always turn out the way I expected.

I know that I need to write more. I love to train and one great way to do that is to via the web.  Face-to-face is not always possible. Plus you can work with some many more students via the web.

So I’m going to make a concentrated effort to write more, talk less and “try” to impart some knowledge at the same time.  I love reading blogs and learn so much by following blogs. Thank goodness for my Google Reader.

So my friends on the phone (you know who you are), I promise to try and cut back on the conversation. I promise to blog more instead and also to Tweet more.  Will I stop talking…well, one can dream but I doubt that’s going to happen. I will spend more time though on my blog and re-creating my own site.  Of course, that’s in-between designing sites for my clients.

I promise!

This class will focus on the basics of WordPress. Using the existing theme Twenty Ten and some plugins we will show you how to create a site that is yours only.  Plugins can be extremely powerful but how do you pick the right ones to use? Which graphics and videos plugins can you use to give yourself the look you want?  All of this will be covered in this class.

In addition, we will talk about Social Media on your site, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as well as security.  All very important elements to creating a successful WordPress site.

To learn more about the class or to register.  Class is scheduled for October 17th.

We also offer one on one training if this class isn’t exactly what you want. Maybe you have your site up already, but just need help in a couple of areas. Give us a call and we will be happy to work with you.