Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’

How to claim your Facebook Places page

Written By Alerus Small Business Connect, August 16, 2011

Facebook Places allow people who visit your business to check in and share their location with friends. It can be a powerful form of word-of-mouth, and it can enable you to offer discounts and specials to new customers or your most loyal fans. But first you need to claim your Facebook Places listing so that you can control the content that goes on the page.

First, find your business’ place page on Facebook. Search for your business name and find a place result – most likely it will have the Facebook Places logo as its profile picture, and a preview of its street address.

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If you find multiple search results for your business, you may want to read our Small Business Connect post on How to make sense of Facebook search results.

Click on your business’ place page. In the left column under the profile picture you should see a link that says, “Is this your business?” Click the link and a dialog box will pop up.

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Check the box to confirm that you represent your business. Click Continue.

You may be asked to fill out more details about your business before you can verify your ownership.

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Or, you may receive instructions on how to verify by phone. Facebook will call the phone number associated with your business. When you answer the phone, Facebook will give you a four-digit PIN that you can then type into the dialog box to confirm you are an owner of that page.

If you are unable to receive a phone call, you may be prompted to verify your listing via email or by uploading a PDF of a utility bill or similar documentation. Phone is definitely the easiest verification method, because the alternatives can take up to a week.  

Once you have claimed your place, you can start offering Facebook Deals and specials to people who check in. Make sure you have a social media strategy in place so that you can measure the results of your social media efforts. Josh offers some tips in his post Get Your Social Media Operations Act Together.

Facebook has also created a great downloadable guide about Facebook Places for advertisers.

Do you have any more questions about claiming your business? Leave them in the comments.

 

 

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How to make sense of Facebook search results

Written By Alerus Small Business Connect, August 4, 2011

Searching for your business on Facebook can be confusing – why are there so many results? Who created these pages? What can I do about them? Here’s a breakdown of the different types of results likely to appear when you search for your business on Facebook.

First, you need to search for your business. Typing your search query into the top toolbar only gives you a limited preview of results, so get started by visiting Facebook Search. Then, type your business name into the search bar and hit enter. You’ll want to select “Pages” in the left menu so that you see only pages.

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Most likely you will see multiple listings for your business. The most common types of search results are:

  • Official page that a representative of your business created and maintains. This is the page that you maintain by posting status updates, links, photos and videos for your fans to see and interact with. This search result will have your profile picture next to it. This is also the page that has your customized URL (if you have set your page’s username).

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  • Community page. Another type of result you may see is a Community Page, which is a page automatically generated by Facebook. These pages are often created based on Wikipedia entries:

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Sometimes they are created when a Facebook user adds a company to his or her profile as an employer:

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Currently there is no way to claim Community Pages. Generally these pages shouldn’t be considered a threat to your official Facebook presence, since they are not updated or controlled by a third party. We do recommend  checking these pages every few months, as Facebook changes frequently and claiming pages may one day be possible.

  • Place page. If your business has one or more physical locations, most likely place pages will appear in the search results. These are usually automatically generated by Facebook based on Bing Maps, but they may have been created by people who have checked into your business using Facebook Places on their phone. A place page may have a “Friend activity” tab in the left menu, and the Facebook Places icon as its profile picture. It will also have a map in the Info area.

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Although place pages are not owned or controlled by anyone else, they can pose a threat to your official presence on Facebook if people check into them, thinking they are your official page. Because of this, we recommend that you claim your Place pages.

  • Page created by a fan. You may see that another page with the name of your business has been set up. These pages do not have a “Source” area at the bottom of the Info section the way a Community Page does. Unlike a Community Page, a page created by a fan may have status updates, photo albums and other content that has been added over time. This is an indication that an employee, a fan or someone else has created a page to represent your business, even though they are not affiliated with your company. If you see this type of page, you may need to contact Facebook to transfer ownership to an official representative of your company.

By knowing the different types of page results, you will have a better understanding of how to manage your Facebook presence. You’ll also realize the importance of sending people directly to your customized Facebook URL rather than directing them to search for you on Facebook, since the results can be confusing.

Are there any other search results we didn’t identify? Ask your questions in the comments.

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Get Your Social Media Operations Act Together

Written By Josh Lysne, August 9, 2010

When it comes to creating a social media strategy, there is one, often overlooked piece of the puzzle that falls through the cracks. The who is doing what piece of the puzzle.social-media-democracy(1)(1)

I work with clients to create communication plans and digital strategies that usually include some form of social media. I often get an objection when the social elements of the program are introduced. Something along the line of “we tried a blog but it wasn’t a success” or “we have a Facebook page, but it isn’t doing anything for our business.”

Who’s Doing What?

Digging deeper into the failure, many times it is because the business did not understand who is doing what. The blog was a failure because posts were not written on a regular basis. The Facebook page was a failure because they were not engaging their audience, they were just collecting names. As my colleague Jay Baer preaches, social media is not about collecting names, it is about activating your fans. That can only happen if you know who is doing what.

It can get complex depending on the size of your social media program, but here are some tips to help make sure you’re managing social operations appropriately:

  • If you are blogging, create an editorial calendar. You don’t need to know the what, just the who and when.
  • Again with the blogging, make sure your blogger or bloggers want to do it, if they are forced into it, you won’t get your posts on time.
  • If you have a Twitter account, set up a CoTweet account to help manage interactions, and define who is responsible for interaction.
  • If someone asks a question in a social space, make sure you have an expert on hand that can answer the question if it gets too technical for the day-to-day social listener.
  • If you are being badgered by someone that continues to post off-topic or negative comments in your space, what is the plan to engage them, and who is going to do it?
  • If you have a Facebook page, know who is responsible for engagement. Who is responsible for adding content? Photos? Videos? It might be different people for each task.
  • Who is monitoring social spaces where you don’t currently have outpost? There are tons of free and paid tools out there that help you to monitor the conversations taking place.

Take a look at the Social Media Responsibilities Worksheet we use at the Flint Group. Hopefully it will help you figure out who is doing what.

Social Media Responsibilities Worksheet

Josh Lysne is the Director of Digital Strategy for the Flint Group.

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