New Rules for Updating Your Facebook Fan Page Cover Photo

It’s time to update your Facebook fan page’s cover photo. How do I know this? Because last week Facebook actually relaxed its rules about the content of your Facebook cover image. As first reported by marketing guru Mari Smith, the following information that was previously not allowed can now be included:

• Price / purchase information
• Discounts
• Calls to action
• Contact info – website address, phone numbers, etc.
• Like or share buttons
• Arrows pointing to your page’s “like” button

One thing that has not changed is the 20% text rule, so this information can only make up 20% of your cover image. The dimensions are still 851 pixels by 315 pixels, but there are new tools that have popped up quickly to help you measure if you’re doing it right, like the Facebook Cover-Photo Compliance Tool by Paavo.

Also, keep in mind when designing your cover image that when the new News Feed rolls out, a portion of your cover image will show in the News Feed whenever someone likes your page. This is very exciting and holds a lot of opportunities for creativity, branding and conversions.

Good luck and happy creating!

Want to Remarket To People Similar to Your Customers?

Google Remarketing, also known as Google Retargeting, is a powerful internet marketing tactic. It allows you to reach people who have previously visited your website. With Remarketing, you can show these visitors relevant ads as they travel across the vast Google Display Network. For instance, let’s say someone visits the “pianos” section of your website but did not make a purchase – you can remarket to them. This means you can bring them back to your website with an offer that is enticing enough to get them to take a desired action, like a purchase. You now have a second chance to give them an offer they simply can’t refuse.

Did you know you have the opportunity to reach even more people with Remarketing’s “Similar Audiences” feature? By using this feature, your ads will show to potential customers that have browsing patterns similar to your current site visitors but haven’t actually visited your website. The logic is that these people are more likely to be interested in the same products or services since they have similar browsing tendencies.

The people on the Similar Audience lists are automatically determined by Google. Since browsing habits change regularly, the Similar Audience lists change on a daily basis, too.

Think of this feature as having a new audience that is prequalified from the masses. However, you must remember they may have no idea who you are. Be sure to craft your messaging with this in mind.

Because of the uncertainty of how this type of audience will respond, test this feature with a limited budget to start and gauge its effectiveness. Let us know how this test works out for you in the comments below.

Like this post? Connect with Erika Barbosa on Google+.

Image credit: ell brown

Our webinar with Audri Lanford visits productivity secrets for Internet marketers

Many Internet marketers are very frustrated that they never seem to have enough time to accomplish and achieve what they want... How do you get unstuck, reclaim your time and get more done -- without working harder or more hours? Fortunately, Audri Lanford, the co-founder at Paperitis.com,has the secrets, and she's willing to let you know! This webinar will teach you productivity secrets from some extraordinary people and millionaires as they are applied to Internet marketing, so there's no reason to fear the seemingly shortened 24-hour day ever again.


Click here to register for FREE(3/27/13 at 12:30pm EST):
http://bit.ly/YakAfH


About Audri G. Lanford, Ph.D.:

Audri has been a pioneer in the fields of going paperless, productivity and digital marketing, and has built more than a dozen entrepreneurial businesses, including an Inc. 500 company that helped Fortune 500 companies (like Procter & Gamble,Dupont and Johnson & Johnson) save millions of dollars by increasing productivity and going paperless.

Our focus:
We help entrepreneurs overcome their biggest obstacles and frustrations by boosting productivity and going paperless the right way so they can achieve their big dreams, earn more money and make a significant impact in world.

If you're an Internet marketer who's frustrated that you're not getting nearly enough done, you're up to your eyeballs in clutter or you're overwhelmed by information overload, we can help.

We've launched at Paperitis.com in 2012. (When you subscribe free to our free e-course and newsletter you'll get our free training series which begins with an Action Plan that shows you how you can have your clutter gone in 1 hour. It has a lot of entertaining cartoons by an award-winning cartoonist to make it fun.)
http://tracking.paperitis.com/SH1h


My husband Jim and I created our first website in 1994 - Scambusters.org - a public service offering useful,practical, and trustworthy information on Internet scams. We now have over 100 websites.


Click here to register for FREE(3/27/13 at 12:30pm EST):
http://bit.ly/YakAfH

The Importance of a Mobile Search Strategy

Increasingly, mobile’s importance in our lives is becoming more evident. Our mobile phones can essentially be considered a permanent fixture of our daily routines. Can you leave home without it?

In conjunction with Nielsen, Google’s new report, “Mobile Search Moments: Understanding How Mobile Drives Conversions”, attempts to decipher what triggers people to do mobile searches and when, what actions follow as a result and how marketers can utilize this intelligence. This report explains the measurable connections between mobile searches and their correlated online and offline conversions.

What are the main drivers for mobile searches? Speed and convenience, with 77% of mobile searches performed in a location (work or home) likely to have a PC available to them.

Here are a few additional highlights from the report:

• 45% of all mobile searches are goal-oriented and conducted to help make a decision

• 81% of conversions (store visit, call or purchase) triggered by mobile search occur within 5 hours

• 55% of conversions from mobile searches happen within one hour

As a key factor in the decision-making process, a mobile search strategy is an essential piece of your overall marketing strategy.

What mobile search opportunities do you see for your business? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.

Like this post? Connect with Erika Barbosa on Google+.

Image credit: Johan Larsson

Have Your Audited Your Content?

You may have heard that content is king and you need to your customers interested in your products and services by creating it - but how do you know that you're creating content that the customer wants? How do you know how much content and what types you have created, and if there are any holes in your content marketing strategy? Here is where a content audit comes in handy.

According to Christopher Detzi, a comment audit can be used to determine 4 things:

1. Reveal the true scale of the website’s content (there was less than we thought).
2. Clarify and refine the project scope (it took on a different focus than we had expected).
3. Facilitate strategic discussions about design objectives and direction (which were different from what our stakeholders had imagined).
4. Establish a common language for the team to use throughout the project (which was more complicated than we had anticipated).

Your analysis of your marketing content must be both quantitative and qualitative to be effective - that is, you need to determine how much content you have and what types of content you have. The content audit above is a great place to start when trying to determine the content types. You can further break your content down by what category it falls under (for example, internet marketing content might further be divided into SEO content, PPC content, and social media marketing content). This should help you get a clearer picture of what you already have and key areas you want to focus on that you may have missed, or don't have a lot of. After your audit, revise your strategy accordingly and don't forget to track it with your SEO tools to make sure that it's having the intended effect.

Have any personal tips on creating and curating content? Let us know in the comments.

This week with @socialjamie: Video Marketing Power: Strategize & Optimize for Success

For some time now, video marketing has been an influential part of how businesses manage their online campaigns. As trends tend to come and go in the Internet sphere, marketers must constantly change to adapt to their surroundings. However, video marketing doesn't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon, and this week's webinar should give you a better understanding of how to tie it into your own social plans. Ten Golden Rules' own Jamie Maloney is on board this week's Wednesday Webinar to talk about strategizing and optimizing videos for marketing success.

In this webinar, we'll teach you how to:
· Create strategies for marketing your videos online
· Optimize your videos for search engines (SEO)
· Generate new ideas for video content

Click here to register for FREE (3-20-13 at 12:30pm EST)
http://bit.ly/WQjj09

About Jamie Maloney
Jamie Maloney is an account manager at Ten Golden Rules. She has an MBA and over 12 years of experience in marketing and branding. Her love of agency work derives from her interest in learning the intricacies of different industries. Internet marketing is her passion with a strong focus on social media strategy and search engine optimization. Offline, you can find her playing with her tennis ball-obsessed Boston Terrier, Bruce Lee, and going to live music shows with her rockstar husband.

Click here to register for FREE (3-20-13 at 12:30pm EST)
http://bit.ly/WQjj09

How Will Video Ads Affect Facebook?

With video ads on the horizon, we can only wonder if this will be the end of Facebook. They have slowly rolled out additional ad products in attempt to monetize their free service. Mark Zuckerberg, Chairman and CEO, also expressed their eagerness to venture further into mobile during a recent earnings call:

“…comScore put out a report saying that Facebook is now 23% of all time spent on apps in the U.S., and one of the next biggest apps is Instagram at 3%. So, put together, we’re now more than a quarter of the time spent in apps. Today, there’s no argument. Facebook is a mobile company. As I’ve said before, there are three main parts of our strategy; build the best mobile products, build the platform and services that leverage the social graph, and build a really strong monetization effort engine.”

What does this all mean? In Facebook’s eyes, mobile is an untapped revenue opportunity. Now, monetization efforts will no longer focus solely on desktop ads.

With the advent of the “new” News Feed, the emphasis is clearly on visual content. According to Ad Age, the video ad product will be targeted to users’ News Feeds on desktop and mobile devices. The ads are expected to be capped at 15 seconds and will autoplay.

Are marketers excited? Absolutely. This opens up a whole world of opportunity for advertising to Facebook users. Are Facebook users excited? This one is up for discussion. Facebook has to be wary of introducing another new ad product for fears that it might be viewed as intrusive.

How do you feel Facebook users will respond to video ads?

Like this post? Connect with Erika Barbosa on Google+.

Image credit: birgerking

This week's webinar is with @mwooddy and his Blogger presentation

We jumped the gun a little bit, but don't you worry. If you're ready for an awesome presentation with Audri Lanford on productivity secrets for Internet Marketers, you don't have to wait too long. If you were registered for that webinar, you'll be happy to know that it's still happening, but the new date is March 27th. No worries, because Matt Wooddy's second part of his Creating and Sharing Exceptional Content on Blogger presentation is tomorrow! Part 1 of Matt's webinar discussed the basics of what you should and should not post to your business Blogger account, while Part 2 aims its focus at sharing and generating more page views. If you're struggling to form a healthy relationship with your fans on Blogger, this webinar is perfect for you!

Click here to register for FREE (3-13-13 at 12:30pm EST)
http://bit.ly/Zx8aN1

About Matt Wooddy:

For the last six years, Matt Wooddy has used his social wizardry to revitalize online marketing campaigns for over 200 brands. Understanding that social media is more than just a place to promote your business, he uses personal interaction and entertaining messages to improve the branding and interest of any given company. Some of his clients have included Art & Ink Publications, CustomUSB, Peachtree Social Agency, Motorsporting and a variety of entertainment companies. While studying Industrial Design at Auburn University, Matt sharpened his graphic design skills to better handle logo creation, website setup and other print media needs. He's also worked as Copy Editor, Lead Writer and Photographer for a handful of print magazines throughout the East Coast, honing his content marketing skills for a better tomorrow.

Click here to register for FREE (3-13-13 at 12:30pm EST)
http://bit.ly/Zx8aN1

What Is The Value of Google+ Brand Pages?

Now with over 400 million people using Google+, are you starting to think maybe your business should be there, too? If you are thinking along these lines, you are heading in the right direction. It’s critical for a business’s social presence to be where their community is. But, Google+ still doesn’t have widespread adoption like Facebook and Twitter. Why be on Google+ then? The SEO benefits alone might be more than worth it.

Over 1 million+ Brand Pages were created in the site’s first 6 months. In a study conducted by enterprise SEO company BrightEdge, their results revealed that Google+ is catching up to Facebook and Twitter in terms of numbers of top companies on the network. Three quarters of the top brands in the U.S. are now on Google+. So, what’s the bad news? Of the top 100 Brand Pages, only 15 million Google+ users have actually circled one of these brands in comparison to Facebook’s 481 million Page “likes”.

Despite the interaction statistics, I’m sure you are starting to notice more Google+ results in your SERPs. Google+ activity is incorporated even more heavily with Search plus Your World results thrown into the mix.

If visibility within the Google search results is your goal, your business should invest resources into building out a Google+ strategy. Leverage the tools Google+ offers such as Local pages and Communities to gain maximum exposure for your Brand Page.

Like this post? Connect with Erika Barbosa on Google+.

Image credit: Marco Bellucci

Social Media & Small Business: What NOT To Do During a Disaster

When it comes to social media for small businesses, most people think of it as just another channel for communication and promotion. However, it can also be a source of help or hurt during a natural disaster. During and after Hurricane Sandy, which ravaged the east coast earlier this year, we saw very specific examples of how social media can be a lifeline for some and also learned valuable lessons about what NOT to do during a disaster:

1.       DO NOT spread rumors on social media: This one can be a tricky one. During Hurricane Sandy, the campaign manager for a U.S. House of Representatives candidate was allegedly the source of a widespread rumor that the New York Stock Exchange had flooded. It was picked up by both CNN and the National Weather Service before it was debunked. Usually, however, “official” social media accounts at the local, state and national levels can be counted on for accurate information. Only repost messages from credible sources that have been verified, if possible.

2.       DO NOT use social media to promote your brand or product while people are in survival mode: American Apparel, Urban Outfitters and the Gap were all criticized for insensitive promotional messages on Twitter during the storm. If you want to help people by providing them with a discount, you should wait until the storm has passed.

3.       DO NOT just “wing it”: If you already have an online crisis management plan for your small business, consider adding social media as a secondary means of communication with your employees, vendors and customers. You can also use your social media channels to bring the community together as 13 restaurants did to provide Sunday dinner in one Sandy-ravaged town. If you don’t have a disaster plan in place, you should get one. Immediately. Read this Forbes article for some tips.

4.       DO NOT ignore social media: Now more than ever, people are turning to social media for information, and the more you can provide during a crisis, the more value you are giving. In some desperate situations, social media may be the only channel available for communication.

Hurricane Sandy showed us the good, the bad and the ugly of how social media can be used during a natural disaster or crisis situation. Let’s all take these lessons and learn from them, so that we are prepared for the next time Mother Nature decides to show us who’s boss.

How have you used social media to get through a crisis? Do you have a disaster plan that includes social media? Share it with us in the comments below.

This week's webinar with @JayBerkowitz! 10 Steps to Building & Promoting Law Firm and Professional Services Websites

We all know that each industry has a specific way to create and market a website, as the consumer demographic vastly changes between products. Law firms and professional services are no different, and if you're not focusing your efforts in the right places, you can truly get lost. Fortunately, Jay Berkowitz, CEO and founder of Ten Golden Ruels, has the knowledge and experience to help your planning. This Wednesday, join Jay as he reveals the ten steps to building and promoting law firm and professional services websites. 

This webinar will teach you:

• 3 approaches to develop and launch a new website
• Leading strategies to drive traffic to your site
• Create a relationship with a unique value proposition (UVP)
• Monetize a website

Click here to register for FREE (March 6th at 12:30pm EST)
http://bit.ly/163os6J

About Jay Berkowitz:

Jay Berkowitz is an author, an educator, an International keynote speaker and an award-winning thought leader. A senior online marketing professional with over twenty years of marketing experience, Mr. Berkowitz has managed marketing departments for Fortune 500 brands: Coca-Cola, Sprint and McDonald's Restaurants, and he has developed online and offline strategies for AT&T and leading health and fitness website eDiets.com.

Mr. Berkowitz is the author of The Ten Golden Rules of Online Marketing Workbook, the Founder and CEO of www.TenGoldenRules.com, a strategic online marketing consulting business based in Boca Raton, Florida. He is the host of the Ten Golden Rules of Internet Marketing Podcast, an Adjunct Professor with the University of San Francisco Internet Marketing Course and he has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal, The Business Journals and he was interviewed on FOX Business TV.Click here to register for FREE (March 6th at 12:30pm EST)
http://bit.ly/163os6J