No matter your business or your goals, Facebook can help you to: connect with influencers, generate sales leads, communicate with customers, network with experts, manage your contacts, and target your communications.  In honor of March Madness, I want to share with you 16 of the strategies I personally use on SocialGrow’s Facebook page which can help you to win your brand, company, or organization’s game on Facebook!




1. Content




On social networks and in social media marketing, content reigns supreme, and Facebook is no exception.  To paraphrase Seth Godin, remarkable — which I am defining here as original, unique, and thought-provoking — content is the “meat” on your Facebook page’s bones.  This meat consists of everything you post, including articles, status updates, links, pictures, and videos.




Timely, brand-appropriate content generates traffic because it engages your target audience. How do you create and curate great content? Try starting with what your people are already passionately talking about. You have a specific expertise, freely share it with your audience. Finally, take the time to rigorously analyze what’s happening in your specific industry niche. The angle that works well for me is focusing on actionable information that helps my audience to achieve their goals with social media, including, of course, SocialGrow’s own software application.




Here are two recent examples from SocialGrow’s Facebook page:




On Sunday February 6th 2011 at 6:30pm ET, the Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers will not be the only teams playing for the title.  Audi USA and Mercedes-Benz will be battling for the title of “King of the Social Media Ad Campaign”.

The Super Bowl used to be a football game, but advertisers are turning the upcoming gridiron event into a high-stakes social media game. Super Bowl ads play the social-media game (Source: usatoday.com)




2. Frequency



How often do you post to your Facebook page?  Hourly? Daily? Weekly?




The rule of thumb is consistency, without communicating so often that your content inadvertently becomes spam.  I post every other day, 3-5 times a day.




I want to reach people when they check Facebook when they wake up (not that I do that myself…), on their way to work, while they’re on their lunch break, on their coffee/smoke breaks during the day, and in the evening when they’re online after dinner. My goal is for my posts to hit their news feeds when they have the greatest chance of being read.




3. Media




Are you boring people?




No, not you personally, your Facebook posts. Think for a minute, when was the last time you posted something on your company or brand’s Facebook page other than plain text?




Photos and videos not only engage and excite people more than text, but also keep them on your page longer. Compelling photos and videos are also more likely to be shared. That “sharing” is your real-time feedback that you are creating content that is connecting with your audience.




I am always looking for opportunities to add both YouTube videos and Flickr photos to SocialGrow’s Facebook page. After all, part of the joy of being a marketer is that we NEVER have to be boring!




4. Metrics




I’m going to ask you the question your parents never did — do you know if anyone is visiting your Facebook page?




Continually publishing remarkable content is important, but you still have to know who is visiting your page, how often they’re visiting, where they are coming from, their demographics, and which posts they like best. With this information, you will better understand the audience you are reaching so you can give them what they want.




Analytics give you the insight you need to make decisions, decisions on what specific content best engages your target audience. Some of the analytic tools I use to manage SocialGrow’s Facebook page, include:




1. Radian6 – Watch the story on Radian6, and learn from CEO Marcel LeBrun himself.




2. Virhalheat- See what Viralheat Co-founder and CEO Raj Kadam has to say.




3. RavenTools – Note that They have a free 30-day trial.




4. SocialBakers – Learn more about SocialBakers.




5. Trackur.com -  Learn how to use Trackur.




6. Google Analytics – Don’t know how to use Goolge Analytics for Facebook?  Don’t know Facebook Markup Language?  Learn how here.




7. Facebook Insights – Automatically built into your page, free and basic. Allows you to track your page’s users and interactions including the number of visits.




8. Exportly – Free and easy to export into Microsoft Excel.

You can see our 10,557% increase in post feedback over the past four months in this example from SocialGrow’s Facebook Insights page.




5. News




Whether you sell baubles or trinkets or nobbins, you may not realize that you can [and should!] be THE source for your customers on what’s going on in your industry.




By definition, you are an expert in your industry (and if you’re not, you need a different blog post) that both your existing and target customers can turn to for news, information, and analysis on what’s happening in your niche, and the impact it has on them.




Your Facebook page is the *ideal* destination for your customers to learn from you by asking questions.




Be the media, post with confidence, and demonstrate your expertise!




6. Links




Have you ever read a really great post on a particular topic, and wanted more information — a deeper dive, or even the opposite point of view?




Make it easy for visitors to your Facebook page to learn more about what you’re posting. Share useful links that provide background, context, and even different perspectives so your audience can learn more about each topic.




Here’s an example of how I used links on SocialGrow’s Facebook page:


FINALLY!!! Facebook has updated its Insights analytics Tool. But does it still come short of Radian6, WebTrends, Exportly and others. To learn more, check out: Facebook Insights Gets Real-Time Analytics (Mashable)




7. Tweets




You tweet, but are you fully leveraging Twitter to invite your followers to engage with you on your Facebook page?




Give your tweeps on Facebook reasons to visit your page. Don’t forget to use brand-appropriate keywords and hashtags, and your favorite URL-shortener to make it easy for them to check out your Facebook posts.




8. Questions




If there is a silver bullet to engaging your online audience it’s questions. Rather than simply telling them what YOU think, ask them what THEY think.




Encourage your Facebook community to share their opinions with you (and with each other) by asking them relevant, brand-appropriate questions, and by allowing them to freely post comments on your page. This not only makes for a much more interesting page, but gives you real-time feedback to improve both your communications and your business. Enabling your visitors to discuss issues with each other also gives them one more reason to visit your page.




Remember to use open-ended questions, and to schedule time in your daily calendar to write prompt and personable responses to ALL comments and questions.




9. Tools




Do you know your Tweetdeck from your Hootsuite?




Tweetdeck and Hootsuite are not just for Twitter. They make managing your Facebook page easier, AND help you to stay organized as your traffic grows.




Also check out monitoring tools SocialMention and Booshaka to help you give more attention to your customers and fans.




10. Relevancy




Lady Gaga. Revolutions in the Middle East. Radiation in Japan.




Think VERY carefully before using trending topics in your Facebook posts. Ask yourself what they have to do with your company, your brand, and its value.




If your audience on Facebook view you as an expert in your industry, they are NOT looking to you to keep tabs on Justin and Selena.




11. Optimization




Are you just throwing up content on your Facebook page, or are you optimizing it?




As an inbound content marketer, Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a critical part of enabling your marketing voice to be “heard” by search engines Google and Bing.




Know, and use the most relevant, brand-appropriate keywords to help the greatest number of people to “discover” the remarkable content you are creating and sharing on your Facebook page.




12. Competition




Remember the proverb, “keep your friends close, and your competitors closer”?




Ask yourself. You know who your competitors are, but when is the last time you really looked at their Facebook pages? What can you learn from how your competitors are effectively (and ineffectively…) using Facebook to engage with YOUR target audience. Adapt what you like about your competitors to further improve your own page.




A good rule of thumb is that if your customers are checking out your competitors’ pages on Facebook, you should be too!




13. Friends


All of us have large personal and professional networks of friends, family members, colleagues, co-workers [former and present], vendors, and customers. Have you stopped for a moment to invite all of them to connect with you on your Facebook page? This audience wants to see you succeed, so take the time to ask them to connect with your page on Facebook.




14. Advertising


While it’s long been a given for entrepreneurs, more organizations are operating today on a near-zero budget for their marketing efforts. Even if you are marketing with very few pennies, consider using investing some of them for ads to promote your page and expand your audience.



Example:  Screen shot of how to setup your first Facebook Ad.




15. Likes


Think of “Likes” as personal recommendations. The more recommendations you have, the higher up your page will be in search engine rankings.




Photo Credit: Zedia.net




16. Tagging




When is the last time you received a shout out for talking about someone else on your Facebook page? When you publish your posts, be sure to tag (e.g., @SocialGrow) other people’s Facebook pages.  The Facebook tag will post your content to their Facebook page. This not only increases the number of people who view your post, but recognizes the Facebook pages of the people you tag. Think of it as the friendly hello that says hello back.

Photo Credit: http://shegeeks.net/facebook-tagging-update-mentions-now-live/




Now that you have all of SocialGrow’s tips for your Facebook page, it’s time to lace up your Facebook sneakers and get in the game.  Try our tips, grow your page, and share YOUR Facebook tips with us in the comments section below. And be sure to check out SocialGrow’s page on Facebook!





LORENZO’S EZ TWEET: Share this blog post now with your Twitter followers by clicking here.





Hi, my name is Lorenzo Dickerson. I’m a Social Media Marketing Director here at SocialGrow, and the real live person behind SocialGrow’s Facebook page. Have you had a chance to check out SocialGrow’s Facebook Page? Not yet? Well, here are five great reasons to check us out. If you find what we’re doing interesting, please Like our page.



1. The Latest on Social Media and Social Networking



The SocialGrow Facebook Page is chock full of great information for people interested in social media and social networking. Hear about the latest trends, breaking news and funny stories on topics you care about, including building your social networks, how to effectively network online and off, the best social networks, online contact management and technology.



2. Connect with Like-Minded People and the Members of the SocialGrow Team



Social networkers just like you visit the SocialGrow Facebook page to connect and discuss social media and marketing topics. Once you Like our Facebook page, you’ll benefit from meaningful discussions with the SocialGrow Team, as well as with other social media aficionados like yourself. Ask us questions about how to use our web application, the best way to build your social network, how to engage our consulting team or just stop by to read the latest posts. We want to meet you — your ideas and opinions are important to us.



3. ALL the Popular Kids are Already There


We’ve been adding content like crazy, and our audience is responding. Our Facebook Page now has more than 400 members and more than 40,000 post views. Our page has received an overwhelming 300% increase in new likes, and a 9,000% increase in post feedback in the past four months. Don’t miss out on this valuable mix of the best social media and social networking insight and ideas.



4. Updates on Cutting-Edge SocialGrow Products and Services



Of course, we will keep you up-to-date on SocialGrow’s products and services. We know that managing your social networks can be a drag, so we’ve built our social networking contact management system to be the easiest way to turn your real world relationships into social network connections. Our application automates the process of inviting the people you know to connect with you on your choice of social networks, like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. We want you to spend more time talking with the people in your social networks than you do managing them!



5. Me!


I have big plans for our Facebook page. I want to grow it into the premier meeting place for you to discuss your social networking and social media needs, complementing our blog, Twitter stream and other social media platforms. I will introduce you to our industry’s top thought leaders to share their ideas about contact and customer relationship management trends. You can expect discussions on hot news topics, company updates, and most importantly, to have your questions answered by the global experts in social networking.



Like us on Facebook, and experience everything SocialGrow has to offer for yourself!






LORENZO’S EZ TWEET: Share this blog post now with your Twitter followers by clicking here.




For many people, keeping all of your business and personal contacts organized is a drag – the process can be monotonous, time-consuming and frustrating. We, at SocialGrow, feel that maintaining an online contact management system does not have to be that way. We will show you how to make the process of building and maintaining your contact databases more efficient and less time-consuming.  Once built, you will have your contacts organized in order to be able to both leverage your network effectively and be able to systematically grow and improve it.



Getting your contacts organized starts with the goal of creating a master contact list. To do this, you will need to export the contact databases from your email programs and social networking accounts. Eventually, we will merge all of these export databases into Excel or Google Docs so you will have one spreadsheet of all your contacts. There are two good reasons to do this exercise. First, a complete contact list gives you comprehensive view of your relationships so you can begin to categorize and rank your contacts. Second, the list provides an essential backup of your contacts.



While exporting your data from a web service is typically a straightforward process, recent developments have made this exercise more difficult on some web sites. Over the past month, Google and Facebook have been debating policies regarding the export of user information. Google has always been about “open access,” while Facebook has chosen to continue to restrict the exporting of certain user data. This dispute is far from over and is one we should all pay attention to – learn more about it at these links:



• Google Warns Facebook Users of “Trap” Before Data Export
• Google to Facebook: You Can’t Import Our User Data without Reciprocity
• Give Us Our Data, Facebook


Here is the process to export your contacts from the top email programs and social networking services.



Facebook

While Facebook allows you to download your Facebook content, your Facebook export will not include your friends’ email addresses. As a workaround, Lifehacker has put together an effective trick using the Yahoo Address Book to export your contacts.



Gmail

Go to Gmail and click on Contacts. Choose More Options. Before you export, choose merge contacts first. Choose Export. Choose All Contacts and Google Export.



LinkedIn

After logging into LinkedIn, go to Contacts and then My Connections. At the bottom right side of the page, you will see Export Connections. From the next screen, you can download a CSV spreadsheet file.



Outlook

Open Outlook and go to File. Choose export, export to file. Create an Excel 98-2003 File. Choose Contacts as the export folder. Click Browse and give the file a name. Your export will download to a CSV file. If you choose Map Custom Fields, you can choose Default Map or select certain fields. To ensure you download all fields choose Clear Map and then Default Map. Name the file and click Export.



Twitter

Sign into MyTweeple using your Twitter credentials. Synchronize your account and choose Tools. Choose Export into a CSV.



Yahoo

Go to Yahoo Address Book. Click on View All Contacts and choose Tools. Choose Export and Choose Yahoo! CSV.



Unless you have another web service with your contacts, that is it – now you are ready for the next step to merge your contact databases together into one spreadsheet, which we will cover in the next post in the SocialGrow Content Series on Social Networking and Online Contact Management. In the meantime, let us know how these contact management tips worked out for you or if you have any suggestions on how to improve the contact database export processes.



My friends all know this of course. It’s not like it’s something you can hide really, especially when you help people to grow their social networks and to make better use of social media.



I received an e-mail this week from my friend Tim out in Phoenix. Wave “Hi” Tim, you’re about to be internet-famous. Tim and I went to B-school together, and he is in the process of closing down an e-commerce website. Knowing many of you have similar questions about social media, I asked Tim if he’d let me share my response back to him with you by blogging it. He said “yes” by the way. I always knew he wanted to be internet-famous.



Ken,



-Tim



Hey Tim,



You will no doubt be thrilled to hear that you do *not* have to relocate your family from sunny Phoenix to rural Montana. Most people have now heard the buzz about social media, and many have tried it for themselves, but are not (yet!) seeing the results they want.



Results are the right place to start. As a form of communications, the first question to ask — if you are using social media for anything other than entertainment — is “What do I want to achieve?” Take the time to identify what it is, specifically, that you want to achieve. Increase your revenues? Reduce your costs? Get new customers? Find a date for your sister’s wedding?



I read five questions (cries for help?) in your e-mail Tim. I will address each of them in order:



1. Why is social media important?

Social media is important — and I am defining “important” here as an effective strategy for individuals and organizations to achieve their objectives — because it makes it fast, easy, and [in most cases] FREE for you to create and share content.



For example, with traditional (”paid”) media, you purchase print, website, radio, TV, and/or billboard space, and then you pay someone else to articulate the value of your particular product/service in a compelling way to catch peoples’ attention — all in the hopes of persuading people to buy. With social (”earned”) media, you are no longer in direct sales (”BUY MY STUFF!”) mode. Instead, you are engaging your target audience by freely sharing the value of your expertise with people who are interested in it. And yes, along the way, you are letting it be known that your products and services are available for purchase. Earned media is not a magic cure-all, but an effective addition, and booster, to your existing marketing mix of paid and owned media.



2. What is the value of Twitter?

One of the values of Twitter is that it is a powerful lead generator. Each and every 140-character SEO-rich tweet is indexed by Google in almost real-time, getting you and your content on the first page of Google’s search results.



3. What is the value of Fousquare?

One of the values of Foursquare is that it enables you connect more frequently with your network live and in-person. When I worked for Realogy, our building had a central staircase between the first and second floors that everyone used. Arguably, more business was done on that staircase than in the rest of the building combined, because it facilitated people running into each other. Likewise, Foursquare exponentially increases the opportunities for you to “run into” the people you know.



4. What is the value of Facebook?

One of the values of Facebook is that it enables you to reconnect with people from your different schools, companies, and organizations. The personal and professional possibilities multiply when you are able to more easily stay in touch with the people you know.



5. What is the value of LinkedIn?

One of the values of LinkedIn is the ability to identify and connect with people you want to reach through “friends of friends”. Because of its near ubiquity among business professionals, it also enables real-time access to first-hand information about your customers, suppliers, employers, and employees.



You’re already following me on Twitter (http://twitter.com/socialgrow), connected with me on Foursquare (http://foursquare.com/user/kenherron), have friended me on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/kenherron.fb), and connected with me on LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/in/kenherron). So what is it that YOU want to achieve with social media?



-Ken



SocialGrow Blog Readers: Do *you* have social media advice that you would like to share with Tim? Please feel free to include your recommendations in the comments section below, both on the importance of social media, and how he should be using Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook, and LinkedIn.



Boston, MA. — February 26, 2010 — SocialGrow Inc., a Microsoft BizSpark program member, today announced that it has launched the alpha release of its patents-pending SocialGrow Application at http://socialgrow.com. The SocialGrow Application automates the search and connection processes across multiple professional and personal social networks. The SocialGrow Application also helps social networks around the world to accelerate their membership growth. At launch, the SocialGrow Application is compatible with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and MySpace, with additional global and regional social networks being added throughout the month of March.



“By automating the process of inviting people to join users’ social networks, SocialGrow makes it easier to connect with people you don’t know and faster to connect with people you do,” said Marsh Sutherland, President of SocialGrow. “Facebook and LinkedIn users know the larger their relevant networks, the more people their professional and personal messages will reach.”



“SocialGrow simply allows Rec.fm to grow our customer base faster,” said John Appler, President of social recommendations website and 2010 SXSW Web Awards Finalist Rec.fm (http://rec.fm/video). “By quickly expanding the number of users creating and using our ‘high fidelity’ product recommendations, SocialGrow has also accelerated our revenue growth. We are very fortunate to be their first business customer.”



SocialGrow was recently named Microsoft BizSpark’s most promising “Start-Up of the Day”, and selected by MassHighTech (The Journal of New England Technology) as one of their “Five Start-Ups To Watch.” Additionally, SocialGrow’s Chief Marketing Officer Ken Herron was named one of the “Top 5 Chief Marketing Officers on Twitter” by Systemic Marketing for his use of Twitter on @SocialGrow (http://twitter.com/socialgrow).



Twitter-Friendly Quotes



Microsoft BizSpark @SocialGrow today announced the launch of the Alpha release of its software application at http://socialgrow.com.



“We make it easier to connect w/people you don’t know & faster to connect w/people you do” – @SocialGrow President @marshsutherland.



“@SocialGrow allows @recfm to grow our customer base faster” – @SocialGrow business customer and @recfm President @johnappler.



About SocialGrow



SocialGrow Inc. is a global social networking software, consulting, and professional services company. SocialGrow’s flagship software application helps individuals, small businesses, corporate enterprises, government agencies, academic organizations, and non-profit associations around the world to more quickly and easily grow their social networks. SocialGrow was founded in July 2009 by Marsh Sutherland, Ken Herron, and Charbel Elkhoury. SocialGrow’s mission is to help people realize the value of social networks. For more information, please visit the SocialGrow website at: http://socialgrow.com, and follow SocialGrow on Twitter at @SocialGrow (http://twitter.com/socialgrow).