TommyWalker

This is post number six in a series of posts from Online Marketing Strategist Tommy Walker. If you have questions, leave a comment here or visit with Tommy on Twitter at@tommyismyname.

Are you a brick and mortar business owner?

Have you claimed your Place on Facebook yet?

If you answered no, I would like to take the next few minutes to give you a crash course education on one of the biggest free opportunities that you’re missing out on.

Mobile Facebook users are doing the heavy lifting for you.

There are plenty of reasons why you should be on Facebook, but if you’re a local business owner, Facebook Places should be number one.

Why?

People are already using it. Where 50% of Facebook’s users are mobile, a good percentage of them are creating and checking themselves and their friends into places in the real world.

Most businesses have to do virtually nothing to get themselves started.

When a user “checks-in” to your location, a story is automatically uploaded to theirs and their friend’s walls saying they at your business. If your Place isn’t already in Facebook’s database, most users will create the place just so they can check in. A check in gives your business that social proof that is so vital in today’s economy (more on that in a minute)

Most users will “Like” the Place Pages they check into, giving that  Place Page permission publish updates to that person’s News Feed. If you know how to stand out in the News Feed, you will have a great chance at getting people to interact with you not just online, but in your store as well. Note: You can only publish to fans News Feed if the Place Page is linked to your Fan Page. Fortunately claiming a Place Page takes about 5 minutes.

If you haven’t claimed your Place Page, you’re neglecting interaction with your most valuable customers- people “checking in” are physically at your location and promoting you to their friends. Don’t you think they might want to hear from you on a regular basis?

Facebook Places makes Deal delivery brainless.

If you aren’t familiar with Facebook Deals, Deals is an extension of Places that allows businesses to reward people for “checking in”, offering a number of “reward” systems, such as a loyalty program that acts as a virtual punch card, leaving a punch every time a user “checks in” and issuing a reward (such as a coupon) by the company. No punch cards to remember, just check in and that’s it.

This sort of hyper local, mobile experience can do some really incredible things for a business. Not only is the user getting rewarded for “checking in” but that checkin also gets published to their friends News Feed, offering that social proof that businesses are so desperately looking for in today’s online landscape.

Are you missing the two critical pieces of marketing?

If you’re running a brick and mortar business and you’re not rewarding people for “checking in” you’re easily missing two critical pieces of your marketing, customer acquisition and customer retention.

The acquisition comes from the ever increasingly important “Social proof” element we talked about earlier. Your customer’s friends seeing “John Smith checked in at (insert your business here)” lets people know that your business is a cool place to spend money. That check in acts as a vote and shows others that your business has value and it’s ok to spend money with you. Where people have become so acutely aware of their financial situations, that check in could mean the difference between gaining a new customer or experiencing another missed opportunity.

Likewise rewarding people for “checking in” gives people a reason to come back and ultimately continue to promoting your business. By saying “buy 5 crepes, get 1 half off” you’re giving a customer a reason to come back. You’re also further solidifying your chances of getting those 5 “check ins”, which should not be taken lightly.

The average user on Facebook has 180 friends, a good majority of them being people they went to high school with and other people whom they are locally connected. By rewarding that person to “check in” multiple times, you’re significantly increasing your chances of being seen by those 180 new people.

And that’s only by encouraging only 1 person to check in.

So what are you waiting for?

Stop neglecting your customers, and start rewarding those who willingly promote you.

Even if you don’t link your Place Page to your Fan Page, you can still reward people for doing something they’re already doing by hooking them up with Deals.

As a side note, By using Deals you’re also saving a couple of trees and a few orders of punch cards.

Look at you making people happy and saving the Earth and stuff.

Facebook has made changes yet again to their platform, again altering the impact of and opportunities for businesses with a Facebook presence. It seems like every time there’s a shift in the Facebook universe, fans and foes scramble to re-draw their line in the sand.

So with this series of changes, and the things you’ve learned about Facebook so far, are you using it to market your business?

Are the new changes awesome and helpful, terrible and a nuisance, or just part of doing business on Facebook?

Most importantly, our favorite part: tell us why.

This is post number four in a series of posts from Facebook expert Tommy Walker. If you have questions, leave a comment here or visit with Tommy on Twitter at @tommyismyname.

“No man is an island.”

Human beings do not thrive when isolated from others. Facebook Pages are no different.

Too often, while bringing their business online, people forget the importance of some of the most intermediate marketing principals, namely strategic networking and cross-promotion.

And while this article will focus on using Facebook as the vehicle for strategic networking and cross-promotion, these principals should really be applied to any of your online properties.

First of all: Here’s why you need to be doing these things.

Forming an alliance with a business that targets similar demographics to yours allows you to exponentially increase your exposure.

By aligning yourself with another entity with similar core values, the message of all parties involved is strengthened.

You see this a lot already and may not even realize it. It usually takes two forms.

• The one-off partnership
• The ongoing cross-promo partnership

The one-off partnership

The one-off partnership’s marketing usually takes the form of, “Company X teams up with Company Y to raise money for children’s home” (or to fight cancer, save the rain forest, send you to the super bowl, you get the idea.)

This partnership shows these two companies share core values. The goal is to deliver what is promised in the marketing message, of course. But whether the partnership continues depends on whether Company X and Company Y acquire a certain percentage of each other’s market.

On Facebook, you’ll see major brands do this in the form of “limited time only” sponsorships.

Coke did this with by doing a “cheers” drive in support of the Boys and Girls Club.

Pringles used its credibility to raise awareness for testicular cancer by partnering with Movember.

On the surface,  the brand is leveraging their audience to raise awareness of a particular cause.

The cause is more inclined to encourage their supporters to become a customer of the sponsoring brand, thus giving it a reason to sponsor again in the future.

But dig a little deeper. What else does this type of promotion do?

Promotions like this flesh out a brand, it makes them more human. It shows they are aware of more than just themselves.

On a local level, businesses can leverage their fan base to raise awareness of  a high school fundraiser, a local animal shelter, or the neighborhood children’s home.

Bloggers can leverage their fan bases on Facebook to support niche causes, draw attention to a program they support, or discuss big events that could have a major impact on their industry. (For example, I was just asked by Rutgers University to write about mobile marketing in order to raise awareness of their mobile marketing Mini MBA program.)

The key is to make sure that both target markets are a fit for the one-off promotion.

The ongoing cross-promo partnership

The very article you’re reading is an example of an ongoing cross-promo partnership.

Margie and I have both guest blogged for each other, and provided I don’t make her mad, there isn’t any reason why we won’t continue to do so.  You’ll also see Margie over on Stanford Smith’s blog, “Pushing Social,” quite often, and they both host #tweetdiner on Twitter over the weekend.

On the big brand level, you see this way more often than you realize.

You know how you see the commercial for the movie that shows the Big Mac, then cuts to the overflowing Coke and the camera pans across the fries? We then see a little extra trailer footage again, then the family gets the bag of food, a Coke, and pull out of the drive-thru in a Ford?

By the end of that commercial, whether you realize it or not, you’ve been exposed to 4 different products. And whether you want to admit it or not, that exposure may influence your next buying decision if you’re interested in any one of those 4 products being advertised. That’s the beauty of cross-promotion.

So what does this look like on Facebook?

At face value this promo appears to be Pringles and Coke, but dig deeper, check the description.

“…win incredible prizes, like a PlayStationMove Prize Pack or a trip to the American Idol Finale.”

What’s important to look at is the picture that this cross promotion paints… Take a look at the most relatable trigger words in the copy for this update.

• Coca-Cola
• Family
• Prizes
• PlayStation
• American Idol

Doesn’t this paint a complete picture of many American families?

Ethical arguments and personal opinions aside, this is a snapshot of these companies’ ideal target market, and if you’re in that ideal target market, the above offer is that much more enticing.

The way to do this for yourself is really quite simple.

On Facebook, you can show passive support for a Page simply by adding it to your Favorites.

You can also tag pages in posts, by typing the “@” symbol for a Page or Profile that you are personally connected to. Tagged posts will not only show up in your fan’s News Feed, but will also appear on the tagged Page’s wall. Most admins are obsessive about checking their Facebook Page, so this can be a really good way to get someone’s attention. (Warning: Do not spam!)

Also a surprisingly little used trick is just straight up linking to another Page on Facebook.

Of course, while these methods show you the actual mechanics of cross-promoting, the best way to actually work out cross-promotion deals is by good old fashioned email and telephone.

If you find another blogger whose core values reflect yours, reach out.

Leave insightful comments on their articles, share their stuff, find ways to stand out without being obnoxious. Buy their product, take or create opportunities tell people how cool they are, become an evangelist. It may not take much to get noticed, or it may take a lot.

But if you know your stuff is valuable to their audience, and their stuff is valuable to yours, don’t be afraid to ask them to check out your stuff and see if you might be able to work out an ongoing partnership.

Just remember, the key to cross-promotion is to paint the picture of your target market’s  lifestyle.

The more you can enhance that ideal lifestyle with cross-promos, the happier everyone involved will be.

Oh yeah – If you like that Margie has me writing articles on Wednesdays, share this as sign that you want to keep it going!