More SEO? Facebook Personal Graph

Introducing the Graph Search by Facebook

Great, just want a bar owner needs! A new search option/way to be found online. What does this mean for you?

1. Well, people will now be able to search through you through their friends. 
2. The other big thing is that keywords/search profiles will be necessary in your business page.
3. My personal favorite though, is this: Businesses will not be able to reap any rewards from having a personal page

What are the 3 things you can do to ensure you're found more?

1. As always, good, engaging content is a must
2. Rewrite your "About" to ensure you have accurate keyword listings
3. Grow your network

We'll be setting up a class to discuss this soon, so keep your eyes open for an email next week. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please give us a call at ThriftyHipster, 612-246-4373. We'd be more than happy to help you work it out.

Fans. Fans. Fans.

I love this.

I saw it yesterday and thought I'd throw it out there to y'all.

Want to know how to get more fans and actually drive them to your business?!?!

• Do Cool Shit.
• Post Cool Shit.
• Support Local Businesses.
• Make sure you're visible.

That's pretty much all there is to it.  People don't want to be marketed to. They want to feel like you know them.  That is why, ThriftyHipster is just a few local dudes that hang. We know people, we try to introduce them to you.

Read this Post From THE OATMEAL

2012 New Offerings

Here are just a few things we have for the 2012!

New site, fully designed and customized to make new technology easy.  We have a philosophy here: Accessibility is king.

• When someone is searching for a patio in uptown, do they find you?
• When someone is on thriftyhipster.com searching for a 7pm happy hour in Nordeast, where you at?
• When someone is on Facebook and meeting friends later and is looking for your menu, do they see what they need?
• Is someone getting the tips they want from foursquare about you?
• Do you have time to manage your social media every day? Are you using it effectively?

The new ThriftyHipster makes solving these problems a breeze, and we'll forever grow with the technology.  We just want to say to you, you have a friend to help you deal with it all.

Tuesday Seminar Recap

Thanks to those that made it! Was a fun and informative session!

In case you need it, here is the handout: Timeline Cheat Sheet

Save a copy or pass it to your designer! This should be helpful as you start using the Facebook Timeline.

Customers Cocktails Handout Time Line Setup

Naming your Social Media

One of the biggest problems I see when working with local businesses is just simple name confusion.  MAKE SURE YOU GET FOUND! You want to make this easy for people, so you want to make sure everything matches and lines up.

NEW FOR TIMELINE! For those of you stuck with the wrong page name before, you can now change it when you launch your Timeline page! We'll walk you through this at class next Tuesday at Demand Quest 



You should get the option to change your name when you launch the page.  

(note: you can always change your name from this form, HERE)

Although you cannot change the URL, you can at least set one up and correct anything you messed up with the titling.

TITLE: choose the full name of your business.  They only time I would suggest NOT doing this is if you're known as something else, which, is just ridiculous anyhow.

ie. Shouthouse Dueling Pianos - should be called - "Shout House Dueling Pianos"

Vanity URL: Url is how people will find you.  Best practice = match site domain and twitter name.  (http://facebook.com/Vanity_URL)

ie. ThriftyHipster.com = @thriftyhipster = facebook.com/thriftyhipster

Timeline's Full List of Creative Sizes

Here at ThriftyHipster, we were trying to figure out what would make fan gathering the best... It all starts with a complete listing and visually attractive fan page for your business.

And don't forget about the event on 3/27 where we'll be going over all of this and even having a designer on site to help you!

Here is a complete list of all creative sizes. Designing images to this size will ensure YOU have the best looking Facebook page for your business!

A few new policies/constraints to remember when making your images:
We've summarized for you, but if you want to read everything, here is the link on facebook (downloads a pdf)

1. Cover Photos Cannot include:
1. Price or purchase info. Facebook does not want this to be an ad space, so saying something like "download it at our site" or "reserve a table on our site" will not fly.
2. No Contact info, that should go in the "About" section
3. Calls to action (arrows to "like" or "buy" are out)

What TO include on your images (recommendations)

1. Cover Photos - Make them extremely cool. Big photos, colorful, clean, and highlighting your space.
2. Milestones - What image really represents your accomplishments?
3. Profile Picture - Logo? Or does something else make sense?

Suggested Facebook Timeline Apps

How many of you are using Facebook apps now?  With timeline, there are going to be a limited number that you can use.  Here are some of our favorites:

MENUS AND HAPPY HOURS
Of course we have to give ourselves a shoutout here. These were customized and designed specially for bars and restaurants.
Sync your happy hour info, menus, and events from ThriftyHipster.com to your Facebook page. This allows you to have a full menu, events, and happy hour in your page, easily accessible to everyone on Facebook, and the best part is, no extra work on your part!
This app is free for all ThriftyHipster clients.

EVENT CALENDAR
Sometimes I find that the facebook event list is tough to read.  That's why, we built an event calendar that lets a user see when friends are planning on coming and lets them "attend" and share multiple events at once.
This is a free app for all ThriftyHipster clients.

IFRAME APP
What is an iFrame app?  It allows you to put images, html, or other things in to a blank slate in facebook.  This is an app everyone should have.  In the simplest format, you can put a large poster or monthly flyer, some add, or otherwise.
I like the Wildfire Iframe App. It's easy to use and comes from a credible firm.  In this example, you can see we used a large image and had a custom form below.
Of course, with the switch to Timeline, this becomes less cool, but still something to use.  We'll be following this vs. the map.  The simple IFrame app is free from wildfire and also comes with a "friend gate" (ie. "like" page to see another page)... But again, this becomes less relevant in timeline.

RECOGNIZE FANS & REWARD THEM FOR COMING IN
People love to be rewarded.  Build regulars and reward them for coming in, leaving comments on your wall, and more.  Now, you can reward them!
I like Booshaka. Booshaka analyzes your Facebook page and surfaces the top contributors so that you can recognize them. Fans earn points for the quality of their participationand ability to engage the community.

Anatomy of Facebook "Timeline" Page

As we said, the new timeline is here! Here is the creative direction you'll need to edit it.  We'll be discussing this and more 3/27/12 at Customers & Cocktails.

Here are some basics to get you started:

What's out?
Your old Fan Page.  After 3/30/12, your page will be no more!
Well, forget about the arrow that points to "like".
No more calls to action to try to get people to "like" your page.
No more linking direct to an app page. This is probably going to result in apps being less important...

Anatomy of the Timeline Fan Page

1. Cover Photo:  851x315 Pixels (Facebook Rules)
2. Logo: 180 pixels square
3. Timeline Apps Area: 112x74 - up to 12 (you can rearrange, but photos is always first)
4. Facepile: Friends see their friends and activity. Depending on number of fans, you will want to be cautious about this
5. About Area: Abridged area, keep your about line short and sweet
6. Message Options: New "Milestones" and more. (see below)
7. Posts:
1. Starred Post: After post is made, rollover and "star" it. This will display as the top message for 1 week on your wall.
2. Regular Post: like current... 
3. Milestone Post: Set important dates, like open, awards, etc.

Anatomy of the new Facebook Timeline Page

Facebook "Timeline" for pages... is coming!

Just when you thought you had social media figured out, Facebook throws "TIMELINE" at you.  Meaning there are lots of "apps" and new designs, and new ways to use it for your business page.

STARTING MARCH 30, FACEBOOK IS REDESIGNING THE WAY YOUR BUSINESS WILL USE FACEBOOK.  YOU SHOULD GET READY FOR THIS TO MAKE SURE YOU HAVE IT LIKE YOU WANT IT!

Everything is changing, but don't worry, ThriftyHipster has your back.  We'll be discussing how to use timeline and how to best use it for drawing in patrons, what apps to install, how to manage photos... This is going to take several posts.

But anyway, we wanted to introduce you to the topic.

To see what your page will look like in TimeLine, Click Here for Preview.

Branding

• Cover Image: A huge image across your page.  You want to make sure this is NOT an ad, but rather, something that showcases what you're all about.
• About Section: a VERY short, punchy description about your business
• Page Apps: Will now be found on the right side of the "About" section, otherwise, you'll have 4 above the fold.
• No Custom Landing Page: Sorry, this is out, so your specials and fan-grabbing pages will be tough to find (we've figured out a work-around)
• "Like" Customization: depending on who your fans are this might be an issue. We'll discuss this in a future post

Customer Service: New Messaging Platform!

This is pretty cool.  Timeline will allow users to send direct, private messages to your page.  It's important that you set up a channel to deal with incoming messages and a policy to deal with them so you're not perceived as ignoring fans.

Highlights Feed

Basically, greater personalization and friend response is what this will be used for. This is very different than your facebook page of before and allows users to read each feed, jump moments in time, and interact on a whole new level... Meaning that a good strategy with posts and images can really open up new fans and opportunities!
Further, you'll have less control over the friend activity section, so you'll want to make doubly sure to respond to negative feedback immediately.

Composing Updates/Videos/Links... And Milestones

This is probably the coolest new addition to this, is the Milestones.  Set important things that happened to the company, and allow a user to quickly navigate to different milestones so they can track your accomplishments, new product launches, and big events you want to pump up for the future.