This is a quick update about some news I received yesterday from Facebook on my Fan page. There are changes being pushed out to all fan pages on August 23 that could really change the design of your custom tabs. While many people using Fan pages don’t have custom tabs, there is a growing number of businesses that are taking advantage of FBML (Facebook Markup Language) to create custom landing and content tabs on their fan page.

The changes are as follows:

Fan Page Boxes

Facebook is removing Boxes from its feature set including on profiles and pages. I see this as just clearing up some real estate and not a real loss for anyone. Good move.

Fan Page Application Tab Width

The width of tabs is currently changing from 760px to 520px; a significant drop. While any dynamic width elements like paragraphs will just resize, what you have to watch out for are the fixed width elements like Image headers and tables with fixed widths. These must be updated by August 23rd in order to keep your visitors seeing what you want them to see. The good thing is that Facebook is allowing Administrators of fan pages to view the fan page in the 520px width so you can see the changes.

If you visit my Detroit SEO & Web Design Fan Page, you can see the welcome tab as it currently stands and you can see what it looks like after with the image below. While I only have a fixed width header, many of my clients have fixed width bodies, which complete cuts out their sidebar, not good.

As you can see the change is that they’re going to display the main fan page sidebar throughout each tab. The good thing is that it removes the need to put an image of the company or person in the sidebar of each page. The bad thing is that there’s still a need for more contact information or a newsletter sign-up form so we will still need to have a sidebar on the tabs. We will just have to make it as narrow as possible so it doesn’t take away from the main page.

I think the changes are coming to create continuity throughout the fan page with the sidebar and also for better mobile support. 520px is a lot easier to handle on your phone than 760px. You can view the official announcement at Facebook Fan Page Changes Announcement.

What do you think?

Jared Pomranky

Related posts:

1. Facebook Fan Pages for Business
2. Facebook Fan Page Design

Facebook fan pages have long been a great lead generator for business but I feel now more than ever, it’s becoming a necessity. Facebook has overtaken Google as the most visited website, they have over 500,000,000 users and they are growing every day. (reference Facebook Statistics). What this means is that your clients and your potential clients are embracing Facebook, which is changing their whole perception on how they interact with products and services on the Internet. You can’t take that ad that worked in the yellow pages or for direct mail, slap it on a website, and start counting your sales. Relationship marketing is here.

A fan page with Facebook is much more interactive, informative, and much less in your face than traditional media. It’s permission marketing at its best because it also utilizes relationships to increase your exposure and allow others to suggest the page to their friends. You have the potential to grow your fans and the reach of your product or service exponentially. You must provide good information, however, and not be seen as trying to sell people. If you’re trying to sell with marketing pitches, you will not get anywhere. If you provide good tips, good information, and ask good questions, you will have an interactive Facebook fan page that will make your company more money.

Setting up a fan page is easy. You can go to any fan page like the Detroit SEO & Web Design fan page, scroll down all the way on the left sidebar, click on “Create a page for my business”. You can pick out a name and create your page but I wouldn’t be so hasty. There are a lot of considerations, however, before creating your page.

Fan Page Name

Your fan page should be easily recognizable by your clients or potential client interested in your product and it should also include good keywords. Be careful with keywords, however. If you are too general (i.e. “Real Estate”), Facebook can make your page a community page and you lose all control. Also, if you stuff too many keywords into your page name, it’s going to look like spam and no one will click on it.

Fan Page URL

Once you receive 25 fans, you can select a custom URL for your fan page (like www.Facebook.com/DetroitSEOWebDesign) by going to http://facebook.com/username, clicking on “Set a username for your Pages”, selecting the page, and typing in your custom URL to see if it’s available. I would also warn you to not be too general in this selection either. You want to make it relevant to your users or someone that is searching for your product or service. Setting the name is great for SEO but it doesn’t help if you’re too general. A bad page URL is “RealEstateInvesting”; a good page URL is “DetroitForeclosures”. Be specific!

Fan Page Welcome Tab

There is a great opportunity on your fan page to target a message specifically for visitors that don’t “Like” your page yet. You can set the home page for people that aren’t a fan of your page yet to the Welcome page. On the welcome page you can give them a quick introduction to your company, let them know why they should be a fan of your page, and how they can become a fan.

What to put on my fan page?

You don’t want to overwhelm your fans but you also don’t want to drop out of site with your fans. I suggest adding 1 good comment or piece of information each day. Make it non-sales, something related to your business, and informative. You can also ask open ended questions like “What’s your best marketing medium?” or something that’s divisive like “I think that soccer is the best sport in the world.” to spur some replies and discussion.

Overall there is no easier way to get going in relationship marketing to a huge audience than with a Facebook Fan Page. You can get your page setup pretty easily but I definitely recommend utilizing a professional for help with your page name selection and for designing your Welcome tab and other secondary tabs.

Jared Pomranky

Related posts:

1. Facebook Fan Page Design
2. Current Facebook Fan Page Changes Affecting You
3. Detroit Business SEO

What can you say in 140 characters? If you’ve been using twitter, you’ll find that the answer is quite a bit! If you’ve been under a rock for the past couple of years, twitter defines itself as a “..real-time short messaging service that works over multiple networks and devices”. Basically they provide you with the ability to create short updates of 140 characters or less, follow other people’s updates, and have other people follow your updates. It’s a simple concept that has absolutely taken off!

As with an social media, the question eventually comes around to “Is this just simply a social medium or can it be used to enhance my business?” This answer for you is Probably… First off when using twitter for business you have to get out of your head the notion of advertising or you won’t be successful. twitter is about building relationships and sharing information. Businesses that are successful at using twitter to increase their online presence do not just simply “spam” their information out there. They build relationships, they interact with other users of twitter, and they share information. That information should include information about your company or services but for the most part will not.

First off when using twitter for business you have to get out of your head the notion of advertising or you won’t be successful. twitter is about building relationships and sharing information.

So how do I use twitter for my business?

twitter Username
Your first step is to get a twitter username. This is how people see you on twitter and will also be your personalized URL on twitter (i.e. http://twitter.com/JaredDetroit). It’s best to have a user name that can easily be recognized as you or your company as well as being easy to remember. This is not a time to create a clever alternate spelling or use cryptic words that can’t be remembered. Don’t create a sales pitch name (i.e. MakeMoneyOnlineNow)

Profile
You absolutely must fill out your profile to be taken seriously on twitter. Too many times I get someone following me that may be legitimate but they don’t have a picture and they don’t have a profile. Having your profile filled out lets me make a quick decision on whether I want to follow you back or not. Don’t try to cram everything into your profile. Keep it targeted and succinct. Say something about your business but have something personal or interesting in there.

WARNING! – If you want to be successful on twitter do not go out and follow 2,000 people on your first day without having any tweets. You WILL NOT get many followers back and you will look like a spam account!

Tweeting (after you have completed your profile)
It’s time to let the twitterverse know what you’re all about. They can see your bio, your picture, and your website address but their main opinion will be on what you tweet. Here are some quick tips:

• Download a client to get the most out of your twitter experience. I highly recommend Tweetdeck for organizing twitter
• Do not make it just about your company
• Put casual tweets out there (examples below) or questions
• Talk about someone else, your city or something your passionate about
• Shortening of words to get more space is very much accepted (i.e. your, you’re = ur, for, four = 4, etc)
• Follow a friend or a company that you like and interact with them
• Use the ratio of 1-10 for tweets about you and tweets about everything else for a rough measurement
• Try to keep your following-follower ration within 10% (unless you have more followers)

To be successful at following strangers, you should have at least 10 quality tweets. This will let you follow more than a couple of people at a time with success. Here are some examples of some good tweets.

• Talk about what you do over the weekend
• What do you think about @starbucks coffee
• What do you think about the weather?
• What’s a critical piece of advice for …
• Respond to someone’s tweet about …
• Tell a company what you think about their product
• Share a good article or website you found (use a URL shortener service like Bit.ly)
• Click on the Tweet This link at the bottom of this article

These tweets may seem silly or useless for business but it’s necessary to let people know you’re a real person and not just out to advertise/spam them. Now start following some people slowly to build your following. Start slowly and focus on people in your industry, people that interest you or people in your area. Don’t just blindly follow everyone. When someone follows you review their profile and their tweets and see if it’s someone you want to follow back.

Your now well on your way to building your twitter presence. Look for upcoming posts about about automating content in twitter and automating followers (the right way).

Jared Pomranky

Related posts:

1. How to Effectively Use LinkedIn for Business
2. Small Business Online Marketing
3. Facebook Fan Pages for Business

If you haven’t heard of LinkedIn or you haven’t signed-up yet, where have you been? LinkedIn has been around for quite awhile and has been mainstream for many years now. LinkedIn was described to me by Terry Bean of Motor City Connect as “your online business card”. It’s a great online network for making business connections and posting your basic business related information for others to find.

Guy Kawasaki, business genius, wrote about Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn. His 10 ways are:

1. Increase your visibility

2. Improve your connectability

3. Improve your Google PageRank

4. Enhance your Search Engine results

5. Perform blind, “reverse,” and company reference checks.

6. Increase the relevancy of your job search.

7. Make your interview go smoother.

8. Gauge the health of an industry.

9. Track startups.

10. Ask for advice.

Can you tell the four that I like the best? LinkedIn was described to me by Terry Bean with Motor City Connect as your online business card. It’s a way to get the stats of your company out there, what you’re doing, links to your websites, and a quick bio on yourself. This is good for people trying to find you and for people looking to make connections with what you’re doing.

Search Engine Results – This is all fine but it doesn’t work well if no one can find you, does it? Well, LinkedIn is always ranked high in Google. You will find that once you start a LinkedIn account, it will be on the first page (if you have a lot of content out there) or will most likely be the first result found. What does this mean for your sites that you put on LinkedIn?

PageRank increase – LinkedIn has such a high ranking in Google that when you put your website on there with relevant content, it will get a boost in ranking. This alone is not going to take your site from being listed on the 10th page of a search on Google to the first, but it will help. It also helps if you have good relevant information on your profile for what you want people to find you for and what your website is about.

A complete profile helps people find you - Your profile is very important to fill out and very important to have a photo. People like to see who they’re networking with and it will help to make more connections on people you have met before. Your Summary should be a good summary of your experience and what you’re doing. You can add some keywords in here that you want ranked high on Google but make it mostly about the content. The specialties area is a great place to put your keywords that explain your business and that people would search for to find you.

How to Use LinkedIn -LinkedIn is a great place to make connections. Seek out old classmates, colleagues, and friends using the search tool and add them to your network. Completing your bio will also help people find you and get recommended to you. As your network grows, you will be able to search through and meet new people in your industry or an industry you want to go to. It’s a great place for making an introduction.

LinkedIn Answers – Answers are a great place to ask questions and read good content but they are most importantly good for you answering the questions. This helps raise your visibility and will help you be seen as an expert in your area.

When you get signed up for LinkedIn (or if you are already), check out my profile Jared Pomranky and add me to your network.

I hope this helps you out a little in figuring out LinkedIn.

Jared Pomranky

Related posts:

1. twitter for Business: How to Make it Effective
2. Detroit Business SEO
3. Facebook Fan Pages for Business