I was just reading this months Facebook Ads newsletter and read this great case study and had to share the information with you all!

Cathy Bennett launched an online scrapbooking service in 2007. Cathy’s marketing efforts have been focused on driving traffic to her website and increasing awareness of her company. In 2009, she decided to create a Page, the free public profile that enables companies to share their business and products with existing and potential customers on an ongoing basis. She soon realized that she had a wide variety of people joining the Page, from moms to high school students.

So, she started advertising her Page with Facebook Ads. Cathy discovered that creating seasonal ads that were specific to Easter and Thanksgiving, for example, increased clicks. Also helpful was Facebook’s anonymized targeting that let her reach potential customers based on specific “Likes and Interests” listed in their Facebook profiles. Since 2009, the company’s website has received over 200,000 visits from Facebook users.

Cathy’s complete story about her scrapbooking company on Facebook can be found here.

Facebook ads can help increase traffic to your fan page, your website, a free teleconference, a product launch…and so much more!

Have you used Facebook ads?

You may have seen this on some websites already, they’re pretty awesome. Facebook officially unveiled their Open Graph API and tools over a month ago. Over 50,000 websites have already started using this technology. I’m pretty sure this number will grow as businesses discover new ways to use these tools with their website visitors.

To install the wordpress Like button there are plugins that work very easily, for any website owner. Here are a few that I found:

Like – Let your readers quickly share your content on Facebook with a simple click. It supports multiple languages and has many options for you to customize.

Facebook Like Button – Adds the facebook Like button and has a nice admin panel. Also supports multiple languages.

Facebook Like Button Plugin – This plugin allows you to have global settings and be able to speficy what posts have the button and exclude it from other posts and/or pages.

These are only a few plugins. Look them over and see what one fits your needs best. Facebook has added many social plugins for you to use. I love all these new features!

How are you using Facebook on your websites and blogs?

So many businesses are seeing success with targeted Facebook ads. Facebook ads offer businesses flexibility and optimization of their ads. You can chose dates and budgets for your ads, as well as who you want to target.

What’s in an Ad?

The Title
No longer than 25 characters, is the bold blue headline. A strong title can include your business name, the name of a product, a call to action, or a target audience’s interest.
The Destination URL
Every Facebook ad must have a destination URL that is directly tied to the ad, so this may not be your home page. This is key to getting your ad approved. If your link is not revert to the ad you are likely to get rejected. If you want to promote something on Facebook (event, page, application or group) then you will need to chose the option “I want to advertise something I have on Facebook”
Image
It is highly recommended to add an image to your ad to make it more appealing to the eye. The ad system will resize any image you add to 110 by 80 pixels.
Body Text
This will appear just below your image and has 135 characters available. It should include details to your offer, product, service or event.

Targeting
The targeting options need to directly match your advertising goals. You can set a number of filters to assist you in reaching the best audience for your ad. Options include; Location, Language, Demographic, Education and Work, Likes and Interests, and Connection Targeting. As you edit each of these areas Facebook will update you on your estimate reach alone the right hand side.

The Like button on ads
Many ads will have the well known like button. This allows users to express their liking over ad. Their friends will also see this action on their version of the ad. There is an “X” in the top right corner where users can close the ad. These actions assist Facebook advertising improve their system.

Reporting
Once you run an ad you will have access to reports from Facebook on how you ad is doing. These reports include standard metrics like Impressions (the number of times your ad was shown) and Clicks (the number of times your ad was clicked on), and Conversion metrics. You will be able to view demographic and profile information on those that have clicked your ads, for example; age, gender, location, interests, books, etc.

Facebook has a webinar recording available to you on “How to harness the full potential of Facebook Ads and Insights”. Great information to those who want to run ads on Facebook.

If you would like more information on Facebook ads here is the resource center from Facebook.

A quick post to let everyone know that Facebook is making a change to size of your fan pages soon. If you have any customizations on your page you should get them updated as soon as possible.

The width of the pages are been shorten to 520 pixels, that’s down 240 pixels. You will more than likely need to do some redesigning to fit this new width. You or your fan page manager should make these changes right away.

For more specific information visit: http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Roadmap_Profile

Please let me know if you have any questions.

I have been testing out a few systems lately and asking questions to all the big brands and one has provided a solution. SocialOomph has now added the ability to schedule updates for your Facebook profile and any page your are an administrator for.

This makes me so happy, not only for myself but for my clients too. We can now streamline our tasks even better.

What can you do with the new Facebook feature?

• Schedule status updates — Free up time. Now you can keep your Facebook status updates fresh by scheduling them to appear on your Facebook account at the dates and times of your choosing.
• Schedule page wall updates — Be productive. You can schedule updates to be posted to the wall of any Facebook Page of which you are an administrator.
• Secure Facebook Connect access — Peace of mind.

This is only available to Professional members so get your free 30 day trail and see all the possibilites there are with SocialOomph.

Facebook’s Share Bookmarklet is a simple way to share websites on facebook with two clicks. When you visit the bookmarklet page along the right hand side you will see a “Share on Facebook” button. Click and hold on that button and drag it into your bookmarks bar in your browser.

Now when you’re researching online or just found something that will interest your friends all you have to do is click that button and you can instantly share that page.

Another great featuer that Facebook has labeled a “Pro Tip” is the Share Bookmarklet will recognize when you share videos and music, making them easy to play within Facebook.

I was turned on to Flock some time ago and I have loved it ever since. It not only helps my social media but it also helps me in the work I do for my clients. I put together this short screen cast of the basic features available on Flock. From blogging, to “Twittering” and “Facebooking” right in the browser no need to go to the actual website.

What do you think of Flock the social media browser? Any questions?

I want to share a short call I did recently on 3 things to remember for your new Facebook Fan Page. It’s only 5 minutes and I covered a lot of information quickly so if you have any questions please leave a comment and I will answer them ASAP. Enjoy the recording.