E-mail Marketing Best Practices | Build Relationships As a marketing tool, the e-mail newsletter might seem archaic compared with new media such as Twitter and Foursquare. Yet e-mail remains one of the most effective means of building relationships with customers and driving sales. "Most people look at everything in their inbox, even if it's just the subject line," says Stefan Tornquist, the U.S. research director of Econsultancy, a London firm that specializes in online marketing research. Make a compelling offer People need a good reason to add more e-mail to their overflowing inboxes. Send often—but not too often No business owner wants to gain a reputation as a spammer. That rule of thumb has worked well for The Girl & the Fig, which operates three restaurants and a catering business in Sonoma, California. Choose a clean design Be sure to include enough white space so each element of your newsletter is easy to find, says Tornquist. Encourage conversation In addition to surveys, offer subscribers regular opportunities to interact.
The Value of a Liker Facebook Updates Fan Pages (Finally Does Something Right) On Thursday February 10, Facebook made some much anticipated changes to their Fan Pages. For a good part of the day, confusion reigned supreme. Some were excited, some were mad and many were just plain confused. Let’s explore the changes and what they mean to you. There was a glitch that caused the pages to be truncated and there was a lot of speculation that the width of the tabs was being changed. We heard they were being reduced to 500 pixels, 491, 492 and 493 pixels. This reminds us that we are at the mercy of Facebook and you need to stay current on their changes and be prepared to maintain your page according to whatever changes they may make (with or without advance notice). Now, onto the other changes (most of them really good): The navigation (links to other tabs) is now on the left side. Another new change is pictures across the top of the page (like on the personal profiles). There are lots of cool tricks you do to play with the photos and how they appear.
How to get the most from the new Facebook pages If you missed the news, Facebook has rolled out the new page design that we initially spotted a few weeks ago. The new page sports a much cleaner design, some changes in its architecture and that ability to switch logins on the fly. If you’re the proud owner of a Facebook page, there are a few things that you’ll want to pay attention to. More important than the changes, though, is what you can do because of them. Since the pages essentially now look like the rest of the site, what you choose to do on it is going to help set you apart from the crowd. That said, here’s a look at the new page changes, and a few tips about how to make the most of them. Clean House The first thing you’ll probably notice is that the manner in which your photo banners appears has changed. So that means that your big picture on the side might look a bit funky if it’s only showing half of your face or part of a larger scene. Be Yourself No, this isn’t some psychobabble about how it’s better to be real. Show and Tell
Do You Market Solutions, Or Just Stuff? Do You Market Solutions, Or Just Stuff? People don’t really want your products. They’re not out searching for your service. They want easier lives. This, then, is how you sell to them with email marketing: solve those problems. Focus on meeting people’s needs in a way that positions your product or service as their solution. Selling Solutions These businesses had jackets, tickets, and memberships to sell. Style Every morning, most women, many men, nearly every girl and even a handful of boys stand in front of their mirrors and demand, “What should I wear today?” Usually, the mirror doesn’t answer back. With five new outfit ideas, shoppers need to find a way to recreate the looks themselves. Entertainment Instead of tickets, Brooks & Dunn present something fun to do with your pals. You don’t necessarily need a giveaway (though they’re a great way to ramp up interest). Time With the subject line “Could you use more time?” Street Savvy The best part? Kid-Friendly Recreation Adventure 1. 2.
Send Facebook Fan Page Invitations To Email List - Import Feedburner Subscribers Have a blog ? Changes to Facebook Pages – A Quick Guide Menu Oracle Social Spotlight Subscribe to email updates Social Cloud In the Mix: Social Chatter for Live Events If you frequent business events, you've probably noticed an increase of digitally displayed social media chatter. Read more Share Oracle Social Life Oracle Social Cloud Gives Thanks Thanksgiving is a day for family, football and food comas. Read more Best Practices 3 Must-Haves for a Successful Digital Transformation Last week, I flew to Chicago for CMS Wire's DX Summit, but my digital experience immersion training began before the event even kicked off. Read more Collaboration: An 'Outside' Job From guest author and Product Strategy Manager Sandy Yu: developing a rapport across virtual teams requires thinking outside the cube. Read more Product News It's Time to Connect Meaningfully with Your Social Audience We are thrilled to announce that as of November 9th, every Oracle Social Cloud customer with access to Engage will be able to leverage a brand new engagement... Read more Read more Contact
New Facebook Pages: Everything You Need To Know This afternoon Facebook began rolling out the upgraded page design and while there are mixed responses, it will most likely be seen as a general improvement. Below is a comprehensive guide to the new Facebook pages. A New Layout The new Facebook pages layout now resembles places, the upgraded profile, and the site’s homepage, with the navigation bar residing on the left-hand side of the page. With the navigation bar, the awkward line for profile images has also been removed. While the awkward line resulted in a lot of cool Facebook profile photos, the focus will now be on the five photos that reside at the top of the page. Switch Between Admin And Self One of the most significant changes to the upgraded Facebook pages is that administrators may now toggle between posting comments as themselves or as a page administrator. Included in this functionality is something much more significant: the ability to like and comment on other pages as your page. Browse Facebook As Your Page New Tab Width
Increasing the value of email newsletters | Locomotion I just finished reading the latest edition of Jacob Nielsen’s alertbox covering email newsletter usability . As many of our clientele have email subscriber lists we thought we’d comb through his tips and pull together a few key points and tips. Key Points / Tips: The full article is well worth a read, and provides a much more in depth look at the key points I’ve summarized above.
How to Create Fan-only Facebook Content Have you ever wondered how some Facebook pages show specific content or offers only to fans? If so, look no further. (Important Update: Facebook no longer supports FBML. Please refer to the articles on Facebook iFrame.) One of the most popular FBML tags is fb:visible-to-connection. A favorite of marketers, this FBML tag allows a Facebook page to show different content to fans and non-fans. This FBML tag is often—and erroneously—referred to as a “hack”; however, it was created by Facebook to do exactly what it does: ”to display the content inside the tag on a user’s or a Facebook page’s profile only if the viewer is a friend of that user or is a fan of that Facebook page.” Examples of Brands Using Fans-only Content There are many ways to motivate your visitors to Like your page. Levi’s promises “Instant access to exclusive content.” 1-800 Flowers offers a discount code for 20% off your next order. Teesey Tees keeps it mysterious: “See what the deal is.” You get the picture. What Is FBML?
8 New Facebook Page Changes: What You Need to Know Are you wondering what to do about the new Facebook page changes? This article will explore the important changes and what it means for your business. On Thursday, February 10, Facebook finally pulled the trigger and announced the updated layout of Facebook pages. They made the change to bring them more in line with the recently redesigned personal profiles and to provide a more consistent user experience. As with any major change to the Facebook user experience, the new design and features were accompanied by complaints, but overall, were well received. Let’s take a closer look at these changes and what they mean for your business. #1: Many Functions Are Changed One big improvement is providing one-click access to several admin tasks, rather than having to go through the “Edit page” link. Managing page admins is now accessible via clicking “See all” in the Admins area in the right column. I think these changes are uniformly excellent, resulting in a cleaner, less cluttered interface.
Facebook Launches Pages Redesign Facebook has begun rolling out a full redesign of Facebook Pages. The changes will make the Pages look and operate more like user profiles. The new Pages redesign was first seen in December, when Facebook accidentally launched it and quickly took it down. The update not only removed tabs, but it gave page admins the ability to post and comment on other Facebook Pages through a "Login as Page" feature. Those prototype features have made the cut for today's launch. The big difference everyone will notice will be the new layout. The right-hand menu has also been tweaked. There are some other notable differences between the new Facebook Pages and the old version, especially for page admins. "A page can now use Facebook as if they were an individual with the ability to interact with other pages," Dhawan said. Pages can't do everything a user can, though. The new design launches today as a preview for Facebook Page admins.
Over 25 great sites to submit your blog and get it noticed. - The Link Medic - Free Blogging Resources In the mood for some submitting are we? So you have yourself a blog going but the only person reading it is you it seems. You may be thinking about promoting your blog but you’re not sure where to begin. A good way to get the ball rolling is submitting your blog to the various blog directories out there. These can start to bring visitors with not too much effort after the submission process is done. Most of these are directories that accept free submissions. Submit it and forget it. The truth is the main thing that will help build visitors is CONTENT. Some are harder to get into than others. = Link Medic’s Top Picks = Easy Submission = Human Reviewed Updated Sep 21 – 2010 Blog Top Sites – Directory of the Best Blog Sites – – Very clean easy to use dashboard. – – Interesting idea for a blog directory. – – Super easy and quick well categorized blog directory. Blogorator.com – – Alows users to rate blogs for the directory. Link Back Link –
25 brilliant examples of Facebook brand pages I love to see brands generating innovative, engaging and creative advertising online. Yet, I’m always surprised at how little effort companies put into Facebook from a creative perspective, especially given the noise they make about using the platform and the levels of engagement often put in. Arguably, Facebook does have a static format that needs changing, but it’s not that difficult – or expensive – to come up with some great landing page manipulation through Facebook Markup Language (FBML)... And some brands are taking advantage of this, to great effect. Here are a few examples from our How to Create Amazing Facebook Pages guide... Here, I’ve skimmed through a few lists of top global brands and have picked 25 of the best. A lot of them are also American, which I also think indicates the current differences in transatlantic-Facebook adoption. 1.Abercrombie & Fitch A&F has a simple advertisement for a current competition. 2.Best Buy 4.Body Shop (USA) 5.Cadillac 6.Disney 7.Dunkin’ Donuts