Tag Archives: Facebook

Ted Adler

Determine your Social Media Strategy

The appeal of social media is strong. According to Econsultancy, social media and blogs are the 4th most popular online activities, even beating out email. The mystery of social media is almost as great as it’s appeal, however.

There are a lot of social media terms thrown around these days, and sorting through all of the jargon can be tough. First, let’s differentiate between the “big three” social networks.

Facebook logo

Facebook logo

Facebook is a social network site that connects friends, family, and businesses. People can share updated statuses, pictures, personal information, links, and more. With more than 250 million users in the world, 120 million of which log on daily, there is a large market to reach here.

Twitter logo

Twitter logo

Twitter is another social network/micro-blog that allows users to to send and read messages (or “tweets”). Tweets can be up to 140 characters, and they are shared on your personal page and distributed to people who choose to “follow” you. In the last year, Twitter’s growth rate surpassed 1,000%. The potential here to reach customers is huge.

Wordpress logo

Wordpress logo

WordPress is a personal publishing platform that works as a blogging service and as a web hosting service that is run on PHP code and a SQL data backend. Confused? WordPress.com offers a free blog hosting service that requires no PHP code knowledge and a user friendly interface that allows easy updating, customization, and built in widgets to add to your blog. 77% of internet users actively follow and read blogs, so this platform also provides great opportunity to reach and engage potential customers. WordPress isn’t the only blog hosting application out there; there is also Blogger, Vox, and more.

Now that we’ve covered some basics, let’s go into more depth…

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Union Street Media News

Facebook vs Blog: Where Should You Post Your Content?

This is the third installment of the Facebook for Business series.

As the number of businesses using multiple social media platforms continues to grow, the question frequently comes up:  Which content should go where?

Is it Facebook content or blog content?

Is it Facebook content or blog content?

The two platforms that provide the biggest source of confusion are blogs and Facebook. There is a purpose for both, and each is ideal for particular types of content. It is important to understand the intention of each of these channels.

So, should you put your next update in your blog or on your Facebook page?

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Union Street Media News

8 Ways Facebook can Unlock your Business Potential

social-media-peopleThis post is post #2 of the Facebook for Business Series.

Facebook this, Facebook that… You can talk all day about what you can do with this tool, but before getting into the details of how to use the site, we should first establish why to use it.

There are a number of areas where this social networking platform can help your business on and offline. Here are 8 reasons why you should take advantage of them.

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Union Street Media News

Facebook for Business

The Social Media boom may be bigger than you think; Facebook is at its forefront. Our “Facebook for Business” series will help you make sense of this powerful tool. You’ll learn how to tame the beast and harness it for your business. Follow our series during the next several weeks and:

  • Learn Facebook basics
  • Learn how to leverage Facebook to underscore your brand
  • Learn how to get fans (and what to do with those fans)
  • Learn how to optimize your Facebook page
  • Learn about applications and FBML (Facebook Mark up Language)
  • Learn how to measure your Facebook traffic
  • Learn how to effectively link your networks

With over 300,000,000 Facebook users, 120,000,000 of whom log on daily, the business opportunity Facebook presents cannot be ignored. According to Socialnomics, social media has claimed the number one web activity spot over the previous “less acceptable” contender. Facebook is a free way to improve your online presence. To increase your success online, your business must be part of this popular activity.

Leading companies have joined the crowd and are successfully using their Facebook pages to keep their customers happy and connected with with their brand.

Look at who is making the best of Facebook: 10 Successful Facebook Business Pages (from the Penn Olsen Social Media blog). With due diligence, and focused hard work, your business could be among the leaders.

Facebook logo

Facebook logo

A business Facebook page is different than your personal Facebook page.

  • You have “fans” instead of “friends”
  • It represents your brand, not you.
  • You have access to much more information about your traffic.
  • There is more customization for privacy settings.

The business page is built off of your personal account and gives you plenty of tools to reach the growing network of individuals using Facebook. You can run ads on the Facebook sidebar, track the demographics of your page traffic with Facebook Insights, create a badge or fanbox to promote your page, start discussion boards with the fans, add company information and events, and much more.

There are many ways to use these features and many ways to optimize your page; but to start, how do you create a business page?

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Union Street Media News

The Value of Real Estate Video-Bios and Testimonials

_DSC00924Image by gamerscoreblog via Flickr

In a new era of ‘social’ media and more direct communication with buyers, it’s important to remember to be sociable without the appearances of a hard sell. Realtors are very much used to the meet-and-greet with prospective clients so a natural extension of this is to display these skills on the web.

When we here at Union Street Media talk to our Real Estate clients, we frequently hear that before the dominance of real estate websites they received many more direct calls from perspective clients. These days, they say, there are so many more barriers before that initial phone call happens. Many potential clients want to avoid the pressure of a face to face meeting and are more inclined to make contact via email and contact forms. In this sterile online environment, the opportunity for the broker to display his or her knowledge and personality is limited, thus reducing their direct impact on the buyer. In effect, there is so much more run-around before the broker and buyer actually meet and make a personal connection. This is where the video-bio comes in. If used correctly, the video bio can break down these communication barriers to get across the knowledge and personality that you just can’t achieve through email.

We are proud to present our own video bio for Brian Boardman here, which we produced in-house. Clearly comfortable in front of a camera, you get to see a more personable view of him and not just a slick advertisement.

What are the advantages to video bios?

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Union Street Media News

The Evolution of Facebook and Twitter

Old peopleImage by ukemi_42 via Flickr

The graying of Facebook

Two articles that comment on the increasing median age of Facebook users, in particular the 35+ crowds. A recent one, ‘Facebook Users Growing Up Fast’ from mediapost.com, talks about how now over half their users are over 25 in part due to the aging of existing users and the influx of older users. It also discusses ways in which marketers are looking to serve this new group of users.

The second one ‘My Midlife Facebook Crisis‘, which came out a year ago,  is a hilarious day-in-the-life style article from the Wall Street Journal. It anecdotally makes the point that we’re all inescapably social net-workers now.

Twitter flying high

Twitter has been getting a lot more mainstream media attention lately, so we thought we’d post this article ‘Putting Twitter’s World to Use’ from the New York Times. Amongst other things it talks about the increasing interaction between businesses and their customers driving business decisions and as a research tool diving into the world’s collective mind.

It’s only upwards for the folks at Twitter.

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