Facebook Launches New Offers Product for Businesses A few select brands on Facebook are currently running tests of a new Facebook product for businesses called “Offers.” The most recent Offer, which generated a fair amount of buzz in the past week, was posted by Macy’s. Macy’s first posted the Offer on Thursday, February 23rd at 7:11am Pacific with an expiration date of February 26th. The Offer was: “Get 25% off your purchase of $100 or more.” The Offer jumped out at me in my News Feed last Thursday when a friend of mine (plus six others!) Macy's Facebook Offer - appeared in the News Feed when friends claimed the Offer Simple, one-click claim – INCLUDING on mobile! What’s super exciting about this new Facebook product for businesses, is the absolute simplicity and ease with which users can claim the Offer. One click on "Get Offer" and Facebook emails you details! Users can claim the Offer from the wall of the brand’s fan page. Or, users can claim the Offer from their News Feed. Einstein Bros Bagels Offer Redeem by email, share from email
A Guide to Facebook Timeline for Small Business Brands This week, Facebook announced a major change to how brands – including small businesses – can use Facebook to share their stories on the site. Facebook Timeline has been rolled out to individual user profiles, but now, businesses will also have the new look on their pages. As of this week, businesses can turn on Timeline; otherwise the changes will be automatically rolled out to all pages on March 30. But before you turn on Timeline, it’s important to understand all the changes that are coming. So, what does Facebook Timeline for brand pages mean? We tuned into Facebook’s recent live marketing event on what’s new with Facebook for brands, so here’s a rundown of some of the major changes you’ll see. Updated Layout, Experience, & Page Content Types The first thing you’ll notice when visiting a business page using Timeline is the new look and feel, characterized by the use of two images featured prominently at the top of the page. Here’s an overview of these elements.
Start Up, Small Business and Medium Business software - Microsoft Business Centre Welcome to Microsoft Business Whether you are classed as a small business, an aspiring enterprise, or an entrepreneur, Microsoft Business provides business hints and tips, various how-to guides and many IT solutions to help you with your business challenges. Many of these challenges can be overcome by using the power of technology: whether that’s to get more done, work better together, or you’re in need of the most up-to-date software, Microsoft Business is here to help you and your business become more efficient. Talking Business Starting Your Business Running Your Business Growing Your Business Planning to Start Up It's an exciting time to start your business. View Details Technology Basics As a newcomer to technology, or someone who has better things to do than get your hands dirty with it, technology might just be the best thing since sliced bread for your business. Top Devices Browse the latest powerful, professional Windows 8 laptops and tablets. Managing Cash Flow Keep Business Secure
25 Best Business Software Tools and Web Services Anyone who says their business "runs itself" probably owes a great debt of gratitude to a small army of software applications and Web services that tirelessly feeds the machine from behind the scenes. From creating and storing documents and staying on top of e-mail to keeping the books and getting teams working together, it takes a lot of code to run a business, or at least to run it well. But setting up your company isn't as easy as just fishing apps out of a barrel. You want the best you can get, and at a price that isn't through the roof. With capability and frugality firmly in mind, we rounded up 25 of our favorite software tools and Web services that we deem the best for powering small and medium-size businesses. Of course, not every business needs every type of program or service, but if your small business could use some help in any of the categories below, our list will give you a pretty good shot at picking a winner. Accounting Software Intuit QuickBooks Pro Backup and Recovery
Marketers Agree Facebook Is Vital, Facebook Ads Not So Much A few days before the big Facebook IPO back in May, the news broke that General Motors was yanking nearly $10 million worth of paid ads from the network, basically saying that they don’t work (that blow was later softened). Although marketers were talking about the effectiveness of Facebook ads long before GM pulled the plug, that news coupled with the worries about Facebook’s long-term strategy of mobile monetization has created a very uneasy culture around advertising on Facebook. Despite all the hubbub, only 4.3% of advertisers say they expect to decrease their Facebook advertising budget over the next year. And over half (56.6%) say they expect to increase it. That’s one of the main takeaways from an Ad Age/Citigroup survey of 658 marketers, agency executives, and media executives who refer to themselves as “decision makers” when it comes to social media marketing. According to the survey, 86% said they use Facebook as part of their marketing strategy – which should surprise nobody.
Developer Spotlight: The Guardian - Utviklerne av Facebook Today's developer spotlight is on The Guardian. OverviewThe Guardian built an app on Facebook to bring news, video and audio content to new and existing readers. The app gives each person a personalized experience by surfacing the stories their friends have been enjoying, as well as what’s most popular at any given time. The Guardian's goals are to reach a new audience on Facebook, increase engagement on their site and ultimately grow their base of readers through Open Graph. What The Guardian Did Well The app publishes actions across a range of content: news articles, videos, and even podcasts. They carefully modeled their data by linking each article to the authors who wrote it, adding object properties for the article's section, subject tags and correctly specifying the publish date, allowing the team to generate more meaningful aggregations. They also created lightweight actions 'agree' and 'disagree' for Opinion articles to enable people to share their sentiment on issues.
7 Business Uses for a Smartphone Cell phones in general are extremely useful for salespeople, who often spend a lot of time on the road and value being able to stay in touch. Smartphones take this convenience a step further by enabling you to have access to a wide range of useful tools and information. Here are just a few ways that salespeople can benefit from the luxury of a smartphone. 1. Your phone's GPS can get you to appointments on time, even if you're in a strange city far from home. 2. Many CRMs allow you to connect from your smartphone and pull out useful data on prospects and customers. 3. Salespeople endeavor to be early to every appointment. 4. When you've got six sales appointments lined up in one day, keeping them straight can be a nightmare. 5. Smartphones can make social media marketing a lot easier by allowing you to take a minute here or there to post updates and read comments. 6. When your prospect asks a question during an appointment and you don't know the answer, it's not necessarily a stumper.
1&1 Internet - Home Facebook Paid Status Promotion Platform Is Official Likes UP » Blog Archive » Likes UP: Facebook Offers February 29th, 2012 Posted in Facebook Pages, Likes UP, Marketing & Sales, Recommendations There’s nothing like an offer, coupon or discount to grab the interest of a customer or prospective customer. What caught my eye today on Facebook was an offer. It was from a big brand company, but what grabbed my attention was WHO was attached to the offer. It was the fabulous Jo Barnes, founder of The Social Networking Academy. See her video below on Facebook Timeline Changes. But, first about the offer: It’s a sponsored story highlighting a FRIEND. Here’s the email send by the brand; Must be acted on today! Facebook Offers are a Hot “Certain businesses, brands and organizations can share discounts with their customers by posting an offer on their Facebook Page. Offers are only available on some pages – those with managed accounts (i.e. with big FB ad budgets!) FB is working on expanding Offers to be available to more businesses. #LikesUP for Jo Barnes
The Average Cost of Small Business Insurance Insurance for a small business typically consists of coverage for liability, property damage and health. Various types of small businesses can purchase a small business package that will cover many of their insurance needs. Small business insurance can be customised to include additional coverage options, which can affect the price you would pay for the policy. The average cost of a policy can vary, depending on what a business requires for coverage. Property insurance Property insurance provides protection for various types of losses by the business, including fire, theft and vandalism. Liability Insuranace Liability insurance offers protection in case of injuries to customers or visitors to a small business. Health insurance Small businesses often provide health and safety insurance coverage. Deductibles A small business that buys a small business insurance policy can choose from various deductibles. Premiums More slideshows
How to Strategically Dominate the Facebook News Feed Getting someone to click “Like” on your Facebook Page is only the first step toward building a thriving community—because few (if any) of your fans will return to your Page by typing in its URL. Instead, it’s up to you to engage them with timely and consistent updates that appear in their News Feeds. But this is exactly where most brands fail. They grow their fan numbers, but engagement is low—which means fewer clicks, countless lost leads and zero marketing momentum. High engagement, on the other hand, is the secret sauce for Facebook marketing. Each time your fans engage with your Page, you get exposure in the Ticker. But the opposite is also true. To drive continuous engagement, you need to make regular and compelling appearances in your fans’ News Feeds. Strategy #1: Post 2-5 times a day—consistency is key. Instead, post several different types of content throughout the day; these can include short videos, quick tips, links and questions, to name a few.
Apps on Facebook.com - Utviklerne av Facebook To drive more traffic to apps on Facebook, we enable various channels that enable new users to discover your app as well as existing users to re-engage with your app. Each channel is designed to help engage users and our algorithms help surface the best content for each user. The current channels include: News Feed stories The News Feed is shown immediately to users upon logging into Facebook, making it core to the Facebook experience. Publishing stories When using your app, people can publish content to their friends' news feeds in several ways, by defining Open Graph custom actions, publishing via the Graph API, or using the Share Dialog. To help you decide on the best fit for your app, take a look at the Sharing guide. Share Dialog in Friend Smash Audience control On the App Settings Page users can control the maximum audience each app can share with on their behalf. Adjusting the audience for a specific app Timeline In addition the Timeline also showcases recent game activity for the user.
Electricity prices for smaller businesses can vary by as much as 220% Prices vary by as much as 220%, depending on contract status Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) each save on average £1,121 annually by shopping around, but barely 7% of firms switched electricity supplier in 2010 SMEs trapped into excessive charges by unclear contract renewal windows Want to reduce the cost of gas and electricity? Our Save More team want to help. Check your bills and find out when your current contracts expire. Close to £2 billion is being lost from the UK's small business sector each year by firms unnecessarily paying inflated electricity prices. Despite each small firm saving on average £1,121 annually by shopping around for the best deal on their electricity bill, barely 7% of businesses switched electricity provider last year, according to the research. "It is alarming that SMEs can pay such a vast variety of prices for what is essentially the very same product. Killer Watts (nice pun, huh?) Can Switch, Won't Switch Rollover Trap