3 Important Facebook Changes Every Local Business Should Know

Posted on April 21, 2016 by Laurie

Heads Up! Facebook is rolling out lots of new changes

Some of the changes are “available” now…meaning, they are live. You may have already discovered some of them, either with joy or consternation.

If you don’t see these changes on your page yet, just keep this as a reference, because they are coming. Or maybe not…some changes are based on the category that you selected when you created your page for your local business!

Let’s cover 3 changes that are immediately apparent right on your Facebook cover.

CREATE A FACEBOOK USERNAME

This should be a great help for people wanting to find your business on Facebook, especially if your name is very common–or very long. Now you can create a unique username.

This option was not available, at the time of this writing, on about half of the pages we are Admins on…and these pages cover a variety of page categories. Not sure if it will be in the future or not. So for now, we are showing a different page as an example.

But if you have the option, this is what you do:

Click on the link “Create Page @username”

A pop up window will appear that allows you to type in the username of your choice.

Some of the tips that Facebook provides include (our comments are in italics)

You can’t claim a username someone else is already using. so if you want your name, act FAST
Choose a username you’ll be happy with for the long term. Usernames are not transferable, and you can only change your username once. TRIPLE check your spelling!
Usernames can only contain alphanumeric characters (A-Z, 0-9) or a period (“.”).
Periods (“.”) and capitalization don’t count as a part of a username. For example, johnsmith55, John.Smith55 and john.smith.55 are all considered the same username.
Usernames must be at least 5 characters long and can’t contain generic terms or extensions (ex: .com, .net).
You must be an admin to choose a username for a Page.
Your username must adhere to the Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.

Once you have successfully created your Facebook Username you will get a pop up window that says “You’re all set!”

Your page can now be found by visitors by putting the following into the URL: fb.me/YourUserName (in this example that would be fb.me/NaturePhotoDigest)

If a potential visitor is already on Facebook, they can enter @YourUserName into the Facebook search field and find your business. Again, if your business name is long, or common, this can be very helpful.

People can also send your page messages at m.me/YourUserName

ADD ACTION BUTTON

When you click on this button a popup appears that allows you to Create a Call-to-Action Button.

You can select any of the actions in the list, and that action will come up on your Facebook page, where the “Contact Us” is shown above. The Contact Us button gives you an opportunity to link to your Website’s contact page

This feature can be great, for example, if you want people to be able to easily call you—choose the Call Now button. If you want someone to be able to book an appointment you can link to your scheduling page so the potential patient goes directly there by clicking Book Now.

The Send Message function allows someone to send a message to your via Facebook’s messenger. A word of warning: consider your business needs and your schedule before you decide to go with this one or you may find yourself inundated with messages, or be taken away from your other important tasks. For folks who want instant messages from clients and who can handle the work themselves or via staff, this can be a great tool.

Shop Now is another button that can take someone to your website. This may be great if you are a services business that also sells products. If you are a store, you may prefer to have a different Shop function that creates a virtual store on your Facebook page.

Sign Up is another button that can take someone to your website, you would direct them to your opt-in page.

3. USE AS MY PAGE IS GONE, GONE, GONE…sort of

One of the things local businesses have been frustrated about is the fact that Facebook has taken away the “use as my page” feature. (If you still have it, enjoy it…it won’t last!) There is a workaround for much of this, and it is under the 3 dots next to the Message box.

Click on the 3 dots and you will have several options including

View as Page Visitor, which lets you see what someone else sees when looking at your page. We think this is pretty neat. Sometimes as the Admin of a page you see things that you don’t want other visitors to see. This button allows you to double check that that is what is going on, or give you the opportunity to make changes if visitors are seeing things that you’d rather they did not.

The “Like as Your Page” action is for when you find a page that you want your business to like (rather than liking it as your individual page)…so in this case, we’ve found a photography magazine page that NaturePhotoDigest would like, so on THAT Facebook page, we click “Like As Your Page” and then if you are Admin on more than one page, you will see this message

Now you simply select the correct page from the dropdown list…note, if you don’t see your page on the list, it is probably that you have already liked it!

Going back to YOUR page and the 3 dots, there are other functions that you will be able to do from here, such as view your page’s Insights and even create a new page.

Of course, those features won’t be available to you for pages you aren’t Admin on.

Hold on to your seats. There are lots of Facebook changes that local businesses should know about in store.

Facebook Responds to Mobile’s Need for Speed

Posted on February 23, 2016 by Laurie

Instant Articles will be Available to All Publishers

Read about the benefits for you–as a reader and as a local business owner:

Slow loading time on mobile is the bane of all internet marketers at this time. So many people get their information from mobile devices that they cannot be ignored. As more and more platforms and apps recognize this, they are scrambling to increase the load speed.

This is great news for the mobile users. However it has also allowed them to become less patient and more finicky about how they received data. Since there are sources where the information loads quickly, the users tend to migrate to those outlets.

Bottom line: if you want to keep up, you have to satisfy the mobile users’ need for speed.

Facebook has been working on doing precisely that with Instant Articles.Touted as a way for publishers to get content to their readers more quickly, this program has, to date, only been available to a select group of publishers for testing.

The wait for the rest of the publishing (and marketing) world is almost over! Facebook has recently announced that on April 12th Instant Articles will be open to all publishers. Yep, ALL publishers. No size restrictions. No location limitations.

We built Instant Articles to solve a specific problem—slow loading times on the mobile web created a problematic experience for people reading news on their phones. This is a problem that impacts publishers of all sizes, especially those with audiences where low connectivity is an issue. With that in mind, our goal from the beginning was to open up Instant Articles to all publishers and we’re excited to be able to do that in a way that makes it fast and easy for all publishers to reach their audiences on Facebook.

This is a great idea for Facebook–they will be able to keep their user base rather than seeing them head for greener, and faster, pastures.

Here is what also sounds great for the publishers: publishers retain full control! Control over the content, control over how it looks, and control over the advertising! Facebook will even allow publishers to show content that has ads that are not part of the Facebook product line–without taking a cut.

With Instant Articles, publishers have full control over the look of their stories, as well as data and ads. They have the ability to bring their own direct-sold ads and keep 100% of the revenue, and track data on the ads served through their existing ad measurement systems, or they can monetize their content through the Facebook Audience Network. Additionally, publishers can use their existing web-based analytics systems to track article traffic or use third-party providers. They can do all this while accessing a rich suite of multimedia tools to create dynamic, interactive stories, that will load quickly everywhere on Facebook, regardless of where in the world their readers are.

Instant articles using the same technology that is currently used to upload photographs with speed.

And speaking of photographs, rather than being limited to the size of your mobile phone screen, users will be able to tilt their phone (yes, tilt, not swipe) and see more of the photograph. Users will be able to zoom into the photo and see an interactive map of where the photo was taken.

Videos will also run seamlessly with this technology. In all, it is an awesome user experience.

Although geared for media outlets, this technology will have a big impact on any local business who engages in content marketing. And let’s be honest, content marketing is an important part of being found on the internet today.

To learn more about the opening of Facebook Instant Articles, read Josh Roberts’ original post here

Facebook Takes Aim at Yelp and Angie’s List

Posted on December 21, 2015 by Laurie

Will Local Search Move to Facebook?

Read how Facebook may be preparing to become the local services search engine:

Local businesses have recognized for some time now they need to have an internet presence. The days when potential customers used the telephone book to find services, whether a doctor, restaurant, or plumber, are gone. (If you didn’t know that already, please read Why Local Search)

While there may have been a few telephone directories in the past, the options for your potential customers is more varied now. One of the biggest advantages for individuals looking for the best provider is that these options include “social proof,” also known as reviews.

Google has long been the major search engine for big business as well as local business. But that status is not guaranteed, especially as they keep changing their system, frustrating users and businesses alike.

Other options include services like Yelp and Angie’s List.

Facebook started moving into this territory as well. To conduct a search in their area, a Facebook user simply types in the URL Facebook.com/services and they will see a screen similar to the one shown above.

Although your home city (what you registered when you created your Facebook account) will be displayed, you can easily change that by simply typing in the city and state where you happen to be. That means if you are at work or on vacation, you can still use this new service.

Like many other directories, and most notably Angie’s and Yelp, Facebook has compiled a searchable directory.

Car won’t start? Use Facebook to find an Automotive Repair shop nearby that can get you back on the road.

This appears to be a silent test. No announcement has been reported coming from Facebook. But the word is leaking out…and here are out thoughts…

A Facebook spokesperson recently issued this statement about the feature:

“We’re in the early stages of testing a way for people to easily find more Pages for the services they’re interested in.”

The site is pretty easy to use. It is simple and straight forward.

Although many other sources are purporting this new service is only available on desktop computers, we had no problem accessing it from either an iPad or Droid phone. Clearly, not a conclusive test, but still a good sign for mobile users.

A user can find a business by clicking on one of the pictures or scrolling down to the list. At least for now, the pictures offering services was pretty weak. First, there were only 8 options offered. Worse, the pictures had little or nothing to do with the category–the “Medical & Health” category featured a picture of a local sports bar!

The challenge with the list method, “Explore other services” is that it could easily lead someone to believe these are the only categories that Facebook is serving up. This is not true, and we actually found that simply typing into the search box was the easiest method of finding the type of business you are looking for. Just start typing and a list will show up that you can choose from.

All Encompassing

What we like about this search method is that it appears to be all encompassing.

Facebook is not trying to specialize in only home services or only entertainment, or other limiting factors. That means we don’t need to switch between Angie’s List, Yelp, Hot Frog and any number of other directories to find the businesses we are looking for.

The restrictions?

Well, the business must have a Facebook page. You do have one, don’t you?

How are the results determined?

Since Facebook isn’t issuing a big announcement about this service we are left to wonder how they are serving up the businesses. It doesn’t appear to be biased towards the number of ratings. Or is it?

During our, non-exhaustive search our conclusion is that if you already like a business, it is going to come up first in your search.

On the other hand, if you have not liked a business page in that category then you are likely to be served up the highest rated businesses first. Now, how the algorithm determines the highest ratings seems to be a combination of the number of different ratings and the number of stars they were rated. *whew* That sounds like too much math for me!

Bottom line:

If you don’t already have a Facebook page for your business, it is important that you get one, pronto.

If your business already has a page on Facebook, be sure it is optimized so that users in your area can find you–that, in a nutshell is what local search is all about.

If you don’t know how to do either of these things, contact us and we can get that done for you.

Google Changes for Local Business (Yes, Again)

Posted on December 1, 2015 by Laurie

Google+ and Social Media Walls Tumbling Down for Local Business

Read the latest on changes the Google+ is making and how it might affect your local business:

image

Google Now Crawls Facebook

It has now been announced that Facebook is “allowing Google to crawl and index its mobile app.”

What does this mean for your local business? It means that Google Search results on Android devices will begin to show more Facebook information.

This is currently only in Beta and only available for Android devices, but if a customer or potential customer is using Google to search for something you carry, it is now possible that if you talked about it on Facebook it might show up in their search results.

Not only could it show up, there will be a link that will take them directly to the Facebook app.

Of course not every status update you make on Facebook will be indexed. Currently there is only a small percentage of Facebook information that is being indexed.

As is the case with all Google searches (mobile and desktop) pages with higher authority will be more likely to be indexed and served up.

Facebook claims that your PRIVATE info will not be indexed.

While it is too early to tell, there may be some added benefits for local businesses in terms of mobile search results.

This could bring more non-Facebook users to your FB page. It could also bring people in who are FB users, but not currently logged into their FB page.

One of the theories behind this shift is that Google has lost ground in the mobile search arena. Earlier this year they announced a deal with Twitter for search. Now Facebook. It may be that the social media walls are beginning to crumble, allowing for some transparency between the platforms.

Then again, this could all go away as Facebook improves its own search engine.

What should I do?

Keep posting on your Facebook page, talking about services/products/events that are important to you, your business, and your community.
Make sure your profile is optimized.
Optimize your Facebook pages.
Keep posting on other social media platforms that fit your business and community.

Google+ Redesigned

There have been rumors flying around for quite some time that Google was going to get rid of the Google+ pages.

While it doesn’t yet look like our local business pages (no matter what Google decides to call them) are going to disappear completely, we are seeing changes in the structure.

If you have logged into your page lately you probably will have noticed the change already. Touted as being simpler to use and more mobile-friendly, the big shift is that “Communities” and “Collections” are now the focus.

They are separating functions, removing things like Hangouts. G+ is also moving away from connecting with other people, in a Facebook sort of way.

You can still have a Google+ profile, but we are told that will be migrating to a generic profile called “About Me.” Anyone can create an About Me profile, and the G+ profile will not be a requirement for commenting on YouTube videos and the like.

What does this mean for my local business?

Don’t panic if something that you used to have on your business page seems to have disappeared. It may come back.

We will have to wait to see what the future brings on all things Google. It may be that we will start to make updates on an About Me page rather than G+.

What are communities?

They are like groups in Facebook. You (personally or your business) can join various communities which are centered on specific topics. The groups may be private or open. You can choose whether or not you want your membership in a group to be public on your profile or not.

What are collections?

Collections are a place where you can curate content. Similar to Pinterest with content not just pictures. Other people can follow (subscribe) to one or more of your collections.

So if you have a business that sells two (or more) distinct product lines, you could create a collection for each. If you are a hair salon, as an example, you might have a collection on hair styles and another on hair care products. A furniture company might have a collections based on rooms such as bedroom, living room and dining room. A candy company might have collections based on types of sweets, such as chocolates, hard candies, and chewy candies.

What should I do?

Don’t panic. Don’t despair. Don’t dump your Google+ pages. Remember, Google+ is part of Google and therefore connected tightly with Google Search.

This is a beta test. Google moves in waves, so you may not even see a difference yet. Even when/if you do, it might not last.

Become familiar with collections.
Think about how to create your own collections. This is where you will be posting ultimately if things go the way Google says it will. The content you post in your collections will be indexed.
Keep your profile current and optimized, but make sure your website and Facebook pages are as well.

Remember, Google seems to like to make changes for local businesses. In the end, their goal is to provide a good experience for their users. Those users are the people who are searching for your business! Does Google always get it perfect? Nope, but they do seem to be willing to say “mea culpe” and try to fix it.

Focus on your business. Use the tools you have that are working for you. Learn some new ones if you don’t have enough business or have mastered those.

Don’t try to know it all–be willing to admit that just maybe you aren’t perfect at it all either, and reach out for help if you need it.

Thanks to Social Media Examiner and Silicon Valley Business Journal for the intel!

Local Business Marketing Tips to Benefit from Facebook IPO

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Laurie

There are lots of pundits who are talking trash about Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, wondering if anyone but MZ will benefit from the upcoming IPO.

Some are already predicting the demise of FB, or at the very least a shift in how FB will operate. Anyone who has any experience in business, whether that is local business or internet based, knows that in order to survive today, companies MUST be flexible and be willing to change. So why is this necessarily a bad thing?

Facebook is currently making more than $3 billion in revenue by taking market share from Google and Yahoo…they are doing something right. Maybe this is why the Yahoo pundits are some of the harshest Zuckerberg critics!

As long as USERS still flock to Facebook, “Like” business pages, and click on ads, it is good for business.

Local businesses can benefit even without paying for Facebook advertising as long as they participate in the social aspect of the medium.

If you, as a local business owner or manager, expect to build your Facebook page and then never touch it again and still have people find you–and find you interesting enough to share with others–than you have missed the point.

Your Facebook page should not be the equivalent of a Yellow Pages advertisement…you know, the thing that is getting thinner every year and is used more as a doorstop than anything else.

Like all social media, Facebook is first and foremost, SOCIAL…that means you must interact with people.

As Facebook is forced to focus more and more on making money for stockholders (we have seen this over and over) the users will likely find they are seeing more and more ads. Facebook already sells users information (and according to it’s own figures profits $4.50 per user on that info…doesn’t sound like a lot? Multiply $4.50 x the 850 MILLION active users!) With the IPO it is expected that more information will be sold, at a higher price. (want to read more about how FB makes money, read this article on money.cnn)

The trick for FB is to profit from the users without ticking them off so much that they leave, which would leave Facebook broke.

Local Business Marketing Tips For Usine Facebook:

Build your Facebook page if you haven’t already,
Be social–interact with people, talk about what is going on in your industry, your neighborhood, your business, and yes…even your life!
Let people get to know you and trust you. Then they will then want to do business with you.
Be real.
Provide value…that can be your service, or just brightening someone’s day!
Ask people who come to your store if they’ve been to your FB page–and to “Like” it
Don’t focus on how many “Likes” you have, focus on what you can do for your customers

Facebook can, and (for most, but not all businesses) should be part of your internet advertising package that works for you. If you don’t know how to get started or you don’t know or want to participate in the day-to-day social aspects of it, then you can hire that out–just like you would hire out any other service you don’t have the skills or time for!

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Tag Archives: Facebook for local business

3 Important Facebook Changes Every Local Business Should Know

Heads Up! Facebook is rolling out lots of new changes

Facebook Responds to Mobile’s Need for Speed

Instant Articles will be Available to All Publishers