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Many businesses create a Facebook profile (often referred to as a "fan page") and expect immediate results. While the potential for social media is great, it can't work magic by itself. Here are a few tips on how to optimize your Facebook marketing:

• Give out coupons promoting an incentive for becoming a fan, such as an exclusive discount or free product. Continue to provide discounts and special offers available to fans only.
• Run a contest to create interest. For example, post an intriguing question relevant to your business, and the first 10 people to respond receive a free gift card or desirable product.
• Take photos during any live events you sponsor, load them to your Facebook page and encourage fans to tag themselves, which pushes out into their wall and friends' news feeds.
• Offer a discussion-oriented approach where fans can ask questions and get answers from employees and other fans.
• Manage your online reputation by professionally acknowledging and answering all comment posts â?? good or bad.
• Secure a unique username (or vanity URL) that is short and memorable by using your brand name, company name, etc.
• Promote your Facebook presence on your e-mail signature, business cards, brochures, letterhead, newsletters, postcards, at the bottom of receipts, etc.
• Create Friend Lists to filter news feed stories and control who sees what information you publish. This may be useful to spread information to separate groups, including customers, prospects, colleagues, employees, competition, etc.
• Embed Facebook social plug-ins on your website and blog with a title encouraging visitors to click the "like" button and become a Facebook fan.
• Use Facebook Events to promote upcoming events and activities quickly without being intrusive.
• Keep your site up to date by posting interesting industry news and announcements, questions, surveys, relevant informational links, etc. Just be careful not to post too frequently.

If you're looking for other ways to creatively promote your business, stop by anytime. Our creative experts are eager to help your business succeed! Joe Gass @ Heritage Print & Visual 5900 Harris Technology Blvd, Ste G, Charlotte, NC 28269 * 704-551-0700 * www.hpvisual.com  22725 Washington Street, Leonardtown, MD 20650  * 301-475-1700 * www.heritageprinting.com Wide Format â?? signs, banners & banner stands, displays, posters, wall and window graphics, vehicle and floor graphics, decals, backlit signs, point of purchase, end caps and toppers, on-site installation and fulfillment Offset and Digital â?? newsletters, magazines, publications, catalogs, conference and meeting materials, brochures, rack cards, presentation folders and direct mail  Veteran Owned and Operated

Do you feel like you're missing out on Facebook updates from friends, family, and organizations you "like" on the social networking giant? You're not alone. Recently, Facebook updated its news feed options to allow users to choose between viewing updates from "Friends and pages you interact with most" or "All of your friends and pages." Unfortunately, it didn't bother telling people about the change. What's worse, rather than default to showing everything, the site chose to make the default "Friends and pages you interact with most" for many of its "500 million friends." Luckily, changing the setting to view content from all friends and pages is fairly simple. To get started, scroll all the way to the bottom of your news feed, and click the Edit Options link. This will bring up a box titled "Edit Your News Feed Settings." In it, you'll find a dropdown list to change your settings. The box also lists any applications, users, or pages that you've manually hidden from view. Click the "x" next to any of these to resume getting updates from those sources. Once you've tweaked your overall settings, hiding updates from specific sources is fairly easy, too. Just hover your mouse over one of the updates you've received from the user/application/company page you no longer want in your news feed, and click the floating "x" that appears on the right-hand side of the screen. A popup will appear, allowing you to hide just that specific post or all posts by that source. If you decide later that you want to resume receiving updates from that user/application/company page, follow the instructions detailed in the previous paragraph. For more great Facebook tips, visit http://www.insidefacebook.com. Joe Gass @ Heritage Print & Visual 5900 Harris Technology Blvd, Ste G, Charlotte, NC 28269 * 704-551-0700 * www.hpvisual.com  22725 Washington Street, Leonardtown, MD 20650  * 301-475-1700 * www.heritageprinting.com Wide Format â?? signs, banners & banner stands, displays, posters, wall and window graphics, vehicle and floor graphics, decals, backlit signs, point of purchase, end caps and toppers, on-site installation and fulfillment Offset and Digital â?? newsletters, magazines, publications, catalogs, conference and meeting materials, brochures, rack cards, presentation folders and direct mail  Veteran Owned and Operated

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Gotta question? Or maybe an answer? It seems more and more social media sites are listening. LinkedIn has long had a LinkedIn Answers feature, where people can ask business-related questions and get answers from experts in the community. Facebook added Facebook Questions late last year, and Quora, a relatively new kid on the block, is based entirely on questions and answers from members of its growing community. Question and answer features provide an excellent opportunity for finding information and for setting yourself apart as an expert in your field. On Quora, for example, members can view questions based on topic, follow specific topics that interest them to see what others are asking, follow specific questions to see new answers as they appear, and rate answers, so the best answers work their way to the top of the heap. The Quora website is built on a structure similar to Wikipedia and uses moderators to ensure content is appropriate. Starting out on any new social site can be a bit daunting. Before asking a new question on Quora, Facebook Questions, or a similar website, look for similar questions that have already been posted. With thousands of questions in place on virtually every topic under the sun, don't be surprised if your question has already been asked and answered. As you become more familiar with the site, start answering questions that fit your area of expertise. Engage with other users who share your interests, and stay involved. For more information about Quora, visit http://www.quora.com. To learn more about Facebook Questions, visit http://www.facebook.com/questions/. And to join the conversation at LinkedIn, go to http://www.LinkedIn.com/answers/.	Â

Joe Gass @ Heritage Print & Visual 5900 Harris Technology Blvd, Ste G, Charlotte, NC 28269 * 704-551-0700 * www.hpvisual.com  22725 Washington Street, Leonardtown, MD 20650  * 301-475-1700 * www.heritageprinting.com Wide Format â?? signs, banners & banner stands, displays, posters, wall and window graphics, vehicle and floor graphics, decals, backlit signs, point of purchase, end caps and toppers, on-site installation and fulfillment Offset and Digital â?? newsletters, magazines, publications, catalogs, conference and meeting materials, brochures, rack cards, presentation folders and direct mail  Veteran Owned and Operated

The continuing growth of social media marketing

Social media marketing is becoming an important cog in the wheel of many companies' overall marketing plans. According to HubSpot.com, U.S. advertisers spent $1.7 billion (that's billion with a "b") in 2010 on social media marketing. Of that, 53% was spent advertising on Facebook. Globally, companies spent $3.4 billion on social media marketing in 2010. Pepsi -- a staple of Super Bowl ads for decades -- has announced that it will not run any ads in this year's game. Instead, the company will invest more heavily in social media campaigns. So what are the most popular social media channels for large companies? HubSpot reports that 65% of Fortune Global 100 companies maintain a corporate Twitter account, 54% host a Facebook page, 50% have a company YouTube channel, and 33% run a company blog. Having a Facebook page, Twitter account, or blog is one thing. Keeping it active is something else entirely. Of the companies cited earlier who use Twitter, 82% post multiple tweets per week. Among corporate YouTube users, 68% upload at least one new video per month. On Facebook, 59% post at least once per week. And 36% of corporations with blogs update those blogs at least once every month. While HubSpot focused its research on larger corporations, social media marketing is ideally suited for small businesses, too. The cost of getting started is minimal, and commitment can grow and scale over time. If you aren't using social media marketing, I recommend you start. If you can't commit too much time, that's ok. Start small, and build your efforts as time allows. Begin with a Facebook page for your company, a blog (like this one), or a Twitter account. Make a plan for adding new content regularly. And engage with customers who engage with you online. Once you're started, include the address for each of your social media channels on your website. Add your Twitter name to your business cards. And begin to engage with your customers and prospective customers through social media. You'll be glad you did. If you'd like to see more from the HubSpot study referenced in this post, visit: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/8594/Social-Media-Marketing-By-The-Numbers-Infographic.aspx Joe Gass @ Heritage Print & Visual 5900 Harris Technology Blvd, Ste G, Charlotte, NC 28269 * 704-551-0700 * www.hpvisual.com  22725 Washington Street, Leonardtown, MD 20650  * 301-475-1700 * www.heritageprinting.com Wide Format â?? signs, banners & banner stands, displays, posters, wall and window graphics, vehicle and floor graphics, decals, backlit signs, point of purchase, end caps and toppers, on-site installation and fulfillment Offset and Digital â?? newsletters, magazines, publications, catalogs, conference and meeting materials, brochures, rack cards, presentation folders and direct mail  Veteran Owned and Operated