Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’

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Facebook Pages, Are They Professional

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

Several of our clients have asked if they should use Facebook as a way to connect with clients. If you have a personal Facebook account and like to “share” on it, continue to do so, just not with your clients. For your clients, set up a Facebook Page. The difference is that a Facebook Page is for a business or organization or band, etc. This is where you connect as a professional, so you can separate your personal and professional sides of your life.

I use my Facebook page to keep up with friends, Ribit’s Facebook page is strictly professional. For instance, when I post this blog to the Ribit web site, I will also post a comment on Ribit’s FB Wall (for those that don’t use Facebook, the wall is where you post your comments) that I have posted a new blog and suggest that Ribit’s Fans check it out. Yes, you have friends that connect to your personal account, but you have Fans that connect to your Facebook Page for your business.

I know it is all a little confusing separating personal and professional, but it is worth it. Once you have 1000 Fans for your Page you can get a vanity URL for your Page to make it easier for people to find your Page. A vanity URL is where instead of having a random set of numbers assigned as your page id, you can set your own id as long as no one registered it with Facebook before you did. Ribit still needs several more Fans before we will be getting our very own vanity URL.

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Posted in Marketing, Social Media | 2 Comments »

Are You Linkedin?

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

Linkedin is a great place to connect with your clients, potential clients, vendors, associates and anyone you would normally network with in the “real world”. You can use Linkedin to let the people you are connected with know what you are doing, what new projects you are working on, or even ask other professionals for their opinion on any given topic. I find it is a great resource for finding experts in any given field.

I personally use LInkedin as a way to stay to connected with and to network with people I know professionally. My Linkedin contacts may be clients, or vendors, or people I worked with in the past. I treat my Linkedin connections like any other relationship. If I don’t know the person, I don’t connect with them. I realize that for some people it is just about trying to get the most connections. I want people connected to me that if I ask them a question, I know that I can rely on their answer.

If you are using Linkedin, remember, that while it allows you to post comments similar to Facebook (What’s on your mind?) and Twitter (What are you doing?) you want to keep your Linkedin posts professional. The people that are viewing your posts may one day be a client, or your boss. You can check out my public Linkedin page.

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Posted in Social Media | No Comments »

Should You Be Using Social Media

Friday, February 13th, 2009

Is Social Media another “because everybody else is” event? Absolutely not, social media is yet another way to connect with your clients. You just need to use the correct tool correctly. Most of us already use e-mail, which is a form of social media, many of you are using e-mail programs such as Constant Contact or iContact to manage your database lists and to send a monthly newsletter to your clients. These types of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools, help you not only keep your customer list up-to-date, but they also help you to abide by the Can Spam Act of 2003. If used correctly these e-mail campaigns can help you stay in front of your clients so they will remember you when they need the service(s) you provide.

Social Media today includes Linkedin, Facebook, MySpace (though MySpace is losing ground to Facebook and MySpace is not necessarily the right place for most businesses) and Twitter. And when talking about Social Media, let’s not forget blogging. Just remember that for all of these media you need to relay information that will be meaningful to your clients, that will give them information about your company, products, or services that will make them think more highly of your offering.

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Posted in Social Media | 2 Comments »

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