Interesting to me was that Twitter and LinkedIn were tied. Google+ got only 2 votes which isn't too surprising since it's a very young network and no one voted for YouTube. That tells me most people use YouTube either 1) not at all or 2) as a secondary site for boosting visibiltiy and traffic. When I asked a similar question in 2010, Twitter came in second with LinkedIn well behind. So it appears LinkedIn is gaining ground as an important site for businesses to be using for their networking.

Of course there is nothing scientific about this poll. Asking one question doesn't provide a full picture of who and how businesses in my network are using these sites. The next questioni is: does your business cater primarily to other businesses (B to B) or to consumers (B to C)?

Another question might be: Are you getting results (traffic, leads, customers/clients, opportunities) from the time you spend on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn? How do you know?

Each network requires its own special form of attention to create visibility, attract new fans/followers/connections, and actually have meaningful engagement. 

In my experience, Facebook is the most challenging. With their crazy algorithyms, you have to work consistently and thoughtfully to build your fan base and get your content seen in their newsfeeds so you get the engagement that attract more fans and more engagment (I realize that's a long, run on sentence; it's how I sometimes feel about Facebook!). It's an endless cycle of experimentation. 

Last week I watched Amy Porterfield's excellent webinar on 7 Simple Strategies to Profit from Facebook Marketing. Even though I've been using Facebook since January 1, 2008, I learned quite a few cool tactics from Amy which I've been implementing for the last week. One tip – to ask simpler, short questions that require only one word answers – has increased "likes" and comments. Amy provided several examples which sparked some ideas so I'm going to post questions on a weekly basis. I'm also using more pictures with my status updates even though it takes a little more time to find an appropriate image. The result is a lot more visibility and therefore interaction, in the newsfeed.

If you haven't watched Amy's webinar, I highly recommend it (Pre-recorded and available daily through December 18). You'll get a lot of immediately actionable ideas. I also purchased her FBInfluence product and am impressed with the depth, detail and delivery and resources. It's way underpriced at $97.

Another recommendation for increasing interaction on your Facebook page, is to check out this article by Andrea Vahl on Social Media Examiner: Top 10 Facebook Apps for Fan Engagement and Building Community.  Andrea outlines a couple great apps for acknowledging your fans (Booshaka and Fan of the Week). 

By the way, Amy Porterfield and Andrea Vahl, along with Phylls Khare, are co-authors of the definitive book on Facebook for business: Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies. You've got plenty of ways to learn about how to master Facebook for your business!

Back to my question above, if Facebook is your primary social network for business, are you getting the results you want and how do you measure/track that? 

The post Facebook Continues to Dominate as Social Network of Choice appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

In an impromptu webinar on Facebook, Mari Smith shared a link to a white paper by Buddy Media about Facebook's EdgeRank algorithm and what you can do to consistently show up in your fans' news feed. I addressed a few ways in my post 6 Ways to Engage Your Facebook Fans. However the white paper goes deeper and explains EdgeRank which is a mystery to me.

The white paper (you have to opt in to get the download link) shares 10 tips with examples on how to optimize the content on your page giving you a better chance to stay in front of your fans.

With nearly 700,000,000 users on Facebook, it's a good bet your ideal client is hanging out there at some point during their week. If they are looking for and getting content they want on social networks, then you need to be strategic to get their attention so you're not wasting your time and effort.

The white paper will give you some ideas about what type of content you can create to get noticed. Then, you need a plan…

To create a plan, you need to be clear about the goals of your business and what outcomes you want from your business page.

Generate leads?

Build community?

Drive traffic to your blog or website?

Establish your business as a go-to resource in your industry?

Next, what type of content will help you achieve your goals? Certainly you'll want to mix it up using text, multi media like images and video, and directly engaging with those who actively comment and like your content.

Always, you need to be clear about what you want people to do: like, comment, go to your blog, download a report, etc. The key to staying visible in the news feed is to have engagement and action on your content. With some experimentation, you'll discover where you get the most action (remember people like to talk about themselves and their experiences so take that into account when crafting your plan!). For example, without fail, Brag About Your Blog Day always gets hundreds of comments and likes and shares. It's a win for my fans who get to promote their blog and I get to learn about what people are up to, what they're blogging about and yes, increase my visibility in the news feed.

My guess is though, that most small businesses do not have a Facebook visibility plan. Posting is haphazard at best and content is random (maybe that is the plan). While I support spontaneity and think it's important for getting time-sensitive info and current events in front of  your followers, it's also important to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and know how you're going to get it.

Do you have a Facebook visibility plan? If you do have a plan, how's it working for you – are you achieving the goals you set for your business on Facebook?

If you don't have a visibility plan for your business, let's set up a complimentary strategy session and figure out the steps to get you more visibility for your business!

The post What’s Your Facebook Visibility Plan? appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

5. Invite your fans to share links to their site/blog/fan page/twitter. My monthly Brag About Your Blog Day has become quite popular. Recently over 200 people bragged about and posted links to their blog. It was an awesome way to learn about what people are doing, what their interests are find potential JV partners and guest posting opportunities.

I just hosted another Brag About Your Blog Day and the results surpassed last month. Nearly 300 people posted links to their blog along with a short description about the topic of their blog.

This screenshot was captured about 24 hours after I initiated the event.

 As a result of this one day "event":

• Added over 130 new fans to my page
• Over 436 people clicked the link to my page in 24 hours
• Lots of people (I didn't count) tweeted about the event
• The post was shared on countless profiles
• I got a great testimonial from a former client
• Everyone was thrilled that they got to promote their site and said nice things about me which made me feel warm and fuzzy and happy! 🙂

You can do this too. It does not take a lot of effort and it's a lot of fun. I love seeing who shows up, what they have to say, and what they're writing about.

Here are the steps I took that you can easily model:

1. Come up with a clever hook. What can you invite people to share on your page? A picture? A link to their favorite xxxx? A link to their book? A tip on your topic? It's got to be about them for this to work really well, in my opinion.

2. How often will you host the event? I like making it a monthly (or weekly) event that people can look forward to. I started getting questions about when I was going to host the new Brag day. Since I'm actively engaged with the thread throughout the day, I prefer doing it monthly.

3. If you're creative or can spend a few bucks, get a graphic image designed to help draw   attention to your event. You'll be able to use it on blog posts, Facebook, twitter, your website.

4. Craft your copy and post it in the morning. I like to give BABD a full day of my attention (dipping in throughout the day). Be patience because due to Facebook's mysterious algorithms, you may not see activity right away. Click the like button and post your own comment to start the ball rolling.

5. Create a tracking link with budurl.com or bit.ly to use in your promotions so you can track your efforts. (click on the date/time of the post to get the unique URL for the post)

6. Let everyone outside of your Facebook network know what you're doing.

• Tweet about it (3-4 times thoughout the day)
• Post info to groups you belong to on LinkedIn and Facebook
• Got an email list? Send an announcement with a link to the direct wall post. This one tactic alone will net you new fans. In order to comment or like and contribute to the wall post, they have to like your page first.
• Post in discussion groups and forums you belong to
• Write a blog post

7. Participate. Once you start to get activity, pop onto your page throughout the day and "like" every single comment. Add a your own comments, respond to questions, thank people for playing. When you like and comment, a notification goes to everyone who has already commented. This brings them back to get updates AND increases your visibility in the Facebook News Feed (very important!).

8. Read every comment. I found a wonderful testimonial from a former client. That's gold so I did a screen capture with SnagIt in case I want to use it later. 

9. Follow up. Report on what happened. Feature some of the people you connected with. Write another blog post about your event.

Did I forget anything? What would you add for getting the word out?

A lot of people said they wanted to "steal" this idea. Hey, go for it! I don't consider it stealing. I'm sure I got the idea from someone else as well.

If you do host something like this on your Facebook Page, please let me know.

Need more ideas on how to boost your visibility on the web and attract more clients?
Click here to get a free 7 day eCourse with simple tips you can implement right now!

This article was originally published on Biz Tips Blog.

The post 9 Steps to Create Visibility and Buzz on Your Facebook Page appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

(6:02 min)

No matter how great your product, service or business is, if your prospective customer can't find you on the web, it's like you don't exist.

As you know, anyone who has access to the Internet (at last count, there were 1.9 billion people), uses it to find solutions to their problems.

Here's a three-step formula to get you started creating a visible presence on the web, resulting in more opportunities for your business: leads, prospects, sales, media queries, speaking gigs and joint ventures.
 

#1: Use Your Blog to Set the Stage

A blog is your foundation and starting point for strategically getting your message out to the world.  If you don't have a blog yet, the place to start your planning and preparation is this article: Top 10 Easy Steps to Starting a Business Blog.

Using your blog as your hub, or home base, not only provides a presence on the web where you can go deep and intimate with your prospects and customers, it's also a money-saving tool.  A blog is far less expensive to build, design and maintain than a traditional static website that may cost thousands of dollars.

Your blog is where you have the opportunity to demonstrate your expertise, expose your personality and give your audience the chance to get to know, like and finally trust you as you share valuable, useful content that makes their lives better.

Keep in mind that a blog is a search engine magnet. When you post consistently and constantly, the search engines tend to index your content more frequently. Using keywords relevant to what your target audience is looking for gives your content a good chance of being in the top results in searches. You become visible and findable on the web.

To target your message and/or campaign, publish a series of posts directly related to the topic you're promoting. Whether it's your new book, a service or a product, post content for several weeks prior to the launch date of your promotion.

If you don't have a specific promotion, create an editorial calendar and frequently post on the prime topic and/or keywords for which you want to be found. For example, if you have a book being published, start seeding your blog with excerpts and snippets about the launch date, book signings and other events and news.
 

#2: Use Facebook Strategically

There really shouldn't be a lot of debate about this. With more than half a billion users, you've got to have a presence on Facebook. As a business, that means you must have a page.

From a visibility perspective, this is essential because the content you post on your page gets indexed by the search engines. (If you're not convinced your business should be on Facebook, read this article.)

At bare minimum, syndicate your blog content to your page using the Notes application.  This app pulls your blog content to your page wall and ensures your deeper content is front and center for people who land on your page and aren't familiar with your blog. This one tactic will drive many qualified prospects back to your home base.  [see note below for more info on syndicating content to Facebook.]

Use the Notes app to pull your blog feed to your Facebook page.

But that is just the minimum. The true value of Facebook is the relationships you build that create the desire of your "fans" to take the step and click through to your content.

Make sure you're constantly growing your page by reminding people to join. Ask and answer questions with your keywords, send updates and let people know what you're up to between promotions.  The more active your page, the more visible it is because every action taken by a member of your page is posted on his or her own profile with a link back to your page.
 

#3: Do Not Ignore Twitter

With 40+ million Twitter updates every day, you want to make sure your message is on the popular microblogging platform as well. Tweets are showing up in real-time search results and with tools like http://search.twitter.com and Twitter management clients like TweetDeck and HootSuite that enable you to search and follow keywords, it's critical to have your content show up when your ideal client does a search.

Use plug-ins (Twitter Tools on WordPress) or automation services like twitterfeed and SocialOomph to make sure your blog posts and announcements about your programs are being fed to your Twitter stream on an ongoing basis. Ideally, this should be no more than 20% of your Twitter activity.

You do need to spend some time every week on Twitter, in real time, responding, replying and sharing great resources (that support your objectives). It's a smart practice to follow your own keywords in a dedicated search column (on HootSuite for example) so you can quickly respond to comments and queries related to your products and services.

Set up columns in HootSuite with each of your keywords searches so you don't miss opportunities to connect.

This isn't rocket science but many entrepreneurs, service professionals and small and large businesses don't integrate these tactics in their marketing plans or they are reluctant to spend the time to build their visibility. A social media marketing industry report recently revealed businesses that spend 10-20 hours a week actively working on a visibility strategy see the most rewards in terms of opportunity-whatever that looks like for your business. Those who work consistently to build an online presence will be profitable.

These are a few tactics you can quickly implement to start building your visibility on the web. Once these are in place, add one or two new tactics every week and soon you'll be hearing people say, "I see you everywhere!"

This is really just the tip of the iceberg. There are many ways to build visibility on the web.

*NOTE RE: FACEBOOK SYNDICATION: There are many applications that enable blog syndiacation to your Facebook page. However automated posts do not carry as much weight as manually posted content so you may want to manually post your blog updates on your Page. You will get more click throughs and engagement. See my post on this here.

Have you tried any of these tactics? What are your top tips for creating social media visibility?  Please comment in the box below.

Related Information:

Get a Free Ecourse with more visibility tips – 7 Simple Tips to Boost Your Online Visibility Now!

This article was first published on Social Media Examiner.

The post Create Visibility with Social Media in 3 Simple Steps appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

You can find the videos on Biz Tips Blog.

You can find them on my YouTube channel.

You can find them on my Facebook Page.

You can subscribe to them on iTunes.

Why so many places?

I’m leveraging multiple platforms so I can put my video content in front of potential clients where they are hanging out.

Someone who searches YouTube may find my channel and discover my content for the first time.

Someone who friends me on Facebook, may not know I have a blog (yet!).

Someone who does a search on iTunes, probably never saw my blog or my Facebook page.

Someone doing a search on Google for tips about creating online visibility will probably find my blog because it’s indexed nearly every day as a result of steady, fresh content and I’m working on dominating this keyword phrase.

One 3 minute video is leveraged over and over. A few viewers here, a few viewers there…it all adds up and sends prospects back to my sites, my mailing list and my programs. Of course the key here is making sure there is a call to action and a link back to your blog or landing page with an invitation to learn more.

None of this is difficult to do and it all produces results over time. Some tasks are automated and some can be done by a VA (virtual assistant).

I hope this inspires you with ideas about how you can leverage your own expertise and content.

Have a great day and blog on!

photo credit: HH-Michael

The post How to Use Online Video to Boost Your Visibility on the Web appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.