Sourcce - http://fbtut.com

There is something happening on Facebook that you might not have noticed. What you might have overlooked is the fact that a new term “F-Commerce” which is the social business of having your own online store on Facebook is now emerging and becoming a reality and is being embraced by brands both big and small.

If you visit the Facebook pages of the top 10 major music stars on Facebook, six have their own store on Facebook. Also other top brands such as Warner Brothers, JC Penney and Brooks Brothers are planning on setting up a shop on Facebook.

Smaller brands have set up shop on Facebook such as Vintage Marketplace and Grand Social and the opportunity for people to share their online shopping experiences makes the social commerce online store an attractive proposition for business owners. Is 2011 the social commerce tipping point? Some pundits are predicting that F-commerce on Facebook will reach as high as $1.2 billion in 2011.

Read the full article.

The post Create Your Own Online Store On Facebook appeared first on Max Online Marketing.

Ten food, beverage and household brands with revenues of $40m–$3bn a year and 100,000+ website visitors a month were also assessed, with the online experience found to influence between 1% and 35% of in-store sales overall. Consumers logging on to these sites had an average spend some 37% higher on the specific brand in question per month in bricks and mortar stores than was the case for “non-visitors”.

Moreover, this difference reached 53% in favour of people accessing the featured websites when it came to their level of category expenditure. The number of brand units bought by the web audience connecting with brands in this way was typically 48% greater than their counterparts who had not accessed these websites.

When it came to the category price per unit, the engaged online population paid 8% less than their peers, possibly because the group of enthusiastic digital shoppers regularly download coupons. In dollar terms, visitors to brand websites spent $2.86 on per month on the products covered by the research, versus $2.14 for non-visitors. These figures hit $6.86 and $4.83 respectively in turn for category expenditure.

Equally, the amount of “brand buying occasions” during a six month period stood at 3.2 for the first cohort, falling to 2.3 for the second. People viewing the websites for the ten best brands by buyer penetration levels spent over 200% more on the relevant products than non-visitors, paying a price per unit that was 2% higher than the norm. For the leading 25 platforms, 64% of sites actually received fewer than 100,000 visitors a month, while 24% bettered this total but fell short of 200,000 visitors. Just 12% of sites surpassed this benchmark.

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Together, social media channels and your website should work seamlessly to promote your online brand. However, if you’re like most businesses, you’re probably missing out on potential interactions, impressions and ultimately sales.

In this article, I’ll dive into a quick how-to guide to ensure your business website and social media platforms are working together to maximize your online exposure. I’ve included examples from small- to medium-sized businesses that specialize in a whole host of fields to illustrate that you don’t have to be one of the big players to take advantage of these simple tips.

1. Include Visible Social Media Buttons

This seems like a no-brainer, but double-check. Best practices suggest that social media buttons be displayed on the top, bottom or along the side of your home page. Links or buttons that remain in your navigation as the user moves from page to page are optimal.

To ensure that users don’t exit your web page altogether, you may want to create the buttons or links so that they open your social media pages in new windows.

Also, do not feel obligated to link out to all social media channels you’ve created or dabbled in. If you’re fonder of Twitter and have completely abandoned your Facebook page, there’s no reason to link to any outlet that is not being actively managed. In fact, linking out to inactive channels can ultimately cause more harm than good.

2. Integrate Social Where it Makes Sense

If you use social media to keep your customers or clients apprised of your recent happenings and are actively managing your outlets on a daily or bi-weekly basis, it might be wise to showcase your Twitter feed or Facebook posts directly on your website.

Linking out or displaying inactive social media channels will only cripple your online efforts. If you choose to go this route, it is important that you maintain your presence.

3. Include Up-to-Date Buttons

Social media changes fast—dare we say in real time? So if you added your buttons a year ago, they are probably palling around with the dinosaurs. Facebook fans morphed into Likes, group pages died, +1 is spanking new and LinkedIn improved significantly. Do research to find the most current social media terminology so you don’t get caught mumbling about “The Facebook” and “The Twitter.”

In order to maintain credibility within this ever-changing realm, it is important to stay with the times. However, staying up to date with your terminology does not mean that you need to jump on every platform that springs up. It is important to be tactful with your social media choices and do your research before blindly forging into unknown territory.

Read the full article.

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Brands that invest in building the right types of tabs on their Facebook Pages are more likely to increase Likes and achieve real engagement growth. However, simply throwing a tab up will not suffice. There are certain considerations and important steps to take in order to significantly increase engagement through a Facebook tab.

Understanding your audience is key to building a tab that will increase both Likes and engagement. “You should think about your audience and what interests them, then figure out how to build a relationship around those things,” advises Victoria Ransom, founder and CEO of Wildfire, one of the most widely used tools to build and manage Facebook tabs.

Audience-relevant tabs allow for delivery of on-point content and rich engagement. The great part about social media is that it eliminates the middle man. Each company can directly target and communicate with its customer base for inspiration.

Once you’ve done the research and determined the optimal strategy, it’s time to build an effective tab. Focus on including these features: a hook, fresh content and a rich experience. “The best tabs are the ones that have a hook to get people to come back to the page on regular basis, but at the same time, provides a real opportunity for them to engage with the product and share,” says Ransom.

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The post How to Increase Facebook Engagement Using Custom Page Tabs appeared first on Max Online Marketing.

The announcement, which was coupled with the introduction of a major redesign, will expand the number of brand pages on the platform.

According to a report in Advertising Age, such brand pages will let advertisers customize their headers to make their logo and tagline more prominent. Twitter’s Advertising Blog also notes that brands can “control the message visitors see when they first come to your profile page by promoting a tweet to the top of your page’s timeline.” The idea is to highlight your best content. The Promoted Tweet on a marketer’s profile page will appear auto-expanded to let visitors instantly see the photo or video content linked from a tweet. The new design also lets brands separate their @ replies and mentions, according to Ad Age‘s report.

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Google+ opens up to brands. After nearly 100 days since launching, Google+ is now accepting brands to host their own page on the social networking site.
Quickest off the bat has been Angry Birds, Burberry and Mumsnet, reports the Telegraph.
Bradley Horowitz, vice president of product for Google+, told the newspaper that this is “the biggest product launch” to date, allowing brands to finally take advantage of social networking features unique to this site.
The internet super power has spent the last few months fully optimising this platform especially for brands, with the help of Ford Motors.
Services such as Google Circles, group hangouts and full integration with Google-owned YouTube differentiates it from Facebook and Twitter, and will prove an attractive prospect to marketers.

Read here the full article.

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Already, small businesses’ spend on their Web presence has increased significantly — almost doubling between 2008 and 2010 — another indication that businesses’ digital presence is becoming critical to their advertising strategies.

While businesses’ online vs. offline advertising spend ratios depend on the types of products or services they sell and their target markets, it’s safe to say that small businesses should be putting a heavy chunk of their advertising dollars into the online space in order to keep up with competitors. It’s also important for small business owners to be familiar with online advertising options available to them.

Read here the full article.

The post How important will be Online Promotion for Small Businesses by 2015 appeared first on Max Online Marketing.

That’s for good reason: People are using an array of location-aware apps and online features, and some have been proven to provide social-media savvy businesses – especially businesses with a storefront or venue – with a boost.

Using Location-Based Social Networks in Business: Learning the Basics

The location-based services market is burgeoning, with check-in-based companies such as Foursquare, Gowalla,Yelp, and Brightkite leading the way (at last check, Foursquare is adding some 15,000 new users every day). More recently, the more established social players have entered the market. With the advent of Google Local and Twitter Places, Facebook has even made it clear posting a current location – not exactly check-ins, but close – is a feature it intends to offer soon.

“Looking at the big picture, location is where social media was in 2005 or 2006,” says Rob Reed, an industry blogger. “Location is growing so much faster than social media ever did. One year from now, we’ll see location jump the equivalent of three years social media time.”

Using geolocation for business isn’t just about the check-ins, which can feel a bit empty and redundant (say a customer walks into your bar. If they check in, will they buy more drinks? Highly unlikely). The act of checking in, while it’s the obvious first connection, is not where the value lies in these networks. It’s the data that checking in and the behaviors revealed about a customer’s patterns and habits that really add to the experience.

“If you’re a business who appreciates what Facebook and Twitter have done for you, location is going to be 10 times more valuable,” Reed says.

To appreciate part of the benefits your business can reap, think like a customer. By checking in, they’re in a sense affirming to a wide net of friends and online connections that they “like” your business. It’s a sort of endorsement. And, it can deepen the connection between the geolocation using customer and your business. Unlike mobile advertising, it’s all about engagement in these networks with both existing and potential customers.

Location and physical place is huge for businesses and marketers. It changes everything. By sharing your coordinates, you’re merging location and the Web, essentially sharing where you shop, what you eat, what you read, and everywhere you go. As a business, small or large, it’s time to utilize location-based social networks if you aren’t already.

Read here the full article.

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CMB asked 1,491 respondents to share their social media habits. The data shows that more than half of Americans over the age of 18 spend an hour or more each week on Facebook, and over a quarter of them are connecting with their favorite brands.

A number of details were revealed about why and how people interact with brands on the world’s largest social network, including:

• For the most part, respondents said they “Like” a brand on Facebook because they are a customer (58%) or because they want to receive discounts and promotions (57%).

• Being a fan is mostly a passive activity — the vast majority of consumers, 77%, said they primarily engage with brands on Facebook through reading updates and posts from the brands.

• Only 17% of those polled said they interact with brands by sharing experiences and news stories with others about the brand, and only 13% said they post updates about brands that they “Like”.

The study also revealed some promising data for businesses:

• 78% of consumers who “Like” brands on Facebook said they “Like” fewer than 10 brands.

• 56% of consumers said they are more likely to recommend a brand to a friend after becoming a fan on Facebook.

• 51% of consumers said they are more likely to buy a product after “Liking” the brand on Facebook.

The data also shows that 76% of consumers said they have never “unliked” a brand on Facebook. This is contrary to a February study by email marketing firm ExactTarget, The Social Break-Up, which concluded that 81% of consumers have either “unliked” or removed a company’s posts from their Facebook news feed.

Read the full article here.

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