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This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

As social media usage continues to rise, it’s only natural that statistic correlations will be made about the individuals who use the medium. This isn’t a bad thing; it’s common to deep-dive into demographic information and behavioral data. While there will always be exceptions to the “correlations” that emerge from such data, universal truths about social networking usage and user behavior can be valuable.

The Ethics Resource Center (ERC) is the oldest non-profit organization in the U.S. dedicated to independent research and advancement of high ethical standards and practices in both public and private institutions. Since 1994, the ERC has produced the National Business Ethics Survey (NBES), available for free to the public, to gather information about employees’ perspectives of ethics in the workplace. Dr. Patricia J. Harned, president of the ERC, says the NBES is the only longitudinal study that represents the views of the U.S. workforce in business.

The ERC’s latest report is one of the first to explore the possible connection between ethics and social media. “Social networking has become very important in our culture, and we wondered if the technology is influencing employees’ views about ethics at work,” Harned explains. “Additionally, over the past few years, we have seen companies establish policies concerning social networking in the workplace, so this year it seemed fitting to add questions on the topic.”

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National Business Ethics Survey Results

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One of the most fascinating conclusions in the report is that “active social networkers show a higher tolerance for activities that could be considered unethical.” But Harned says the findings are not an indictment about the character of social networkers: “It appears that they are more willing to consider things that are ‘gray areas’ — issues that are not always clear in company policies as wrong; and that’s an area for further study.”

The report also points out that active social networkers are at higher risk for observing misconduct. Harned stresses that it’s observing wrongdoing, not necessarily participating in it. “You could also look at another set of our responses — particularly the high number of active social networkers who reported misconduct — and say that social networkers behaved appropriately,” she explains.

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Defining Ethics And Influence Factors

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In order to understand any potential connection between ethics and social networks, it only makes sense to step back and discuss what ethical behavior means. Jay Shepherd, author of the book Firing at Will: A Manager’s Guide, sums up unethical behavior with a sentence.

“It’s like pornography: You know it when you see it. It’s as simple as knowing the right thing to do, then doing the wrong thing.”

Harned adds that perceptions of ethics are influenced by many things. “One influence is the values that we learn as children. But another aspect is the influence of people along the way in our lives,” she says. “It could be that there is something about the conversations and the world view that comes through the connections of social networks that influences employees’ views about what is right and wrong.”

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Is There a Logical Connection Between Ethics and Social Media?

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There is some skepticism about trying to draw conclusions about ethics based upon social networking usage. Shepherd suggests the study perpetuates old-school thinking. “The idea that social networkers are more apt to be unethical is absurd. It’s just that you’re more likely to hear about it. In my experience, social media participants are likely to be more advanced in terms of relationships and thoughtfulness — not less.”

One definition in the study that drew attention was the classification of “active social networker” as one who “spends 30% or more of their work day participating on various social network sites.” Shepherd says his reaction was, “Seriously? That’s a ridiculous amount of time. Those employees aren’t even working; who cares what they think?”

Maybe it’s exactly this time-wasting factor that creates the perception toward connecting social networking and ethics. Dwane Lay, human resources director at Missouri Baptist Medical Center, also feels the connection might not be directly causal. “Social media tools are the latest in a long line of time-stealers in the workplace, following in the footsteps of March Madness brackets, afternoon golf games, morning water cooler gossip or cigarette breaks,” Lay explains. ”But social media like Twitter and Facebook are more visible from a distance (of both time and space), so they are easier to criticize and quantify.”?

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Should Ethics Blend Into Social Policies?

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Both ethics and social media are important in the workplace, so the question becomes: What is the best way to manage them? Should they be treated as two distinct conversations? Or should ethics be addressed in social media policies? Shepherd recommends keeping it simple. “My social media policy is just two words but covers everything: ‘Be professional.’ Unprofessional employees are going to act unethically whether or not they’re plugged in to social media.”

Kristen Fyfe, senior communications manager at training and development association ASTD, points out the component that both ethics and social media must have in common to be successful. “Clarity is the most effective element for both ethics and social media policies,” Fyfe says. “Companies that have not incorporated behavior expectations into their employee handbooks should make that a top priority.”

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Ensuring Both Ethics Compliance and Social Media Success

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Whether you choose to incorporate ethics into your social media policy or handle the topics independently, there’s agreement that setting expectations, conducting training and holding people accountable is necessary. Lay shares some practical advice on how to ensure employees are in compliance with corporate ethics, but it really applies to any policy, including social media.  

“First of all, read the policy. Not fun, granted, but educational,” he says. ”Second, remember that if you identify yourself as a member of a company or organization, you are always on stage. Act like it. How you respond online will have as much or more resonance than in person, so either be on your best behavior or don’t act as a brand advocate.”

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More Questions Than Answers

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Perhaps there aren’t any definitive conclusions about ethics and social media usage. After all, social networking is still in its relative infancy in the workplace. But we’re learning that social influence exists, and its true impact is just coming to the surface. Further exploration across the social landscape is needed.

What do you think? Are social networking and ethics connected in some way? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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More Small Business Resources From OPEN Forum:

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- Should Small Businesses Follow Everyone Back on Twitter?
- Are You Falling into the Pricing Trap?
- How to Innovate for Top Social Media Sites

Graphics courtesy of Ethics Resource Center: 2012. Thumbnail courtesy of iStockphoto, contour99

More About: business social networking, ethics, features, mashable, open forum, Social Media, trending

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This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

Marketers know that Twitter is a valuable tool used to reach out to thousands of customers. But it’s not just the output of content that’s valuable — the people and other businesses you follow on social media are of equal worth.

Unless your account is private, you have no control over who is following you (unless you block them). However, you personally select your followers. But as a business with thousands of followers, is it wise to follow every single person who follows you?

SEE ALSO: How to Turn Social Feedback into Valuable Business Data

“Don’t fall into the trap of something I call a ‘courtesy’ follow — that is, following someone that has followed you out of a desire to appear grateful,” advises Sheena Medina, community manager at Fast Company.

Medina, who says this “does nothing but fill your stream with noise,” cites President Barack Obama’s account, @BarackObama, which at one point was following 702,586 users — the most on Twitter. The account, overwhelmed by tweets, is in dire need of a bit of damage control. But, unable to dump seven hundred thousand followers at once, the admins must slowly reduce its followers in order to keep the President’s social media-friendly image in tact.

On the other hand, some say that businesses should follow back, so that their followers may DM them privately.

“Here’s a way to look at it — would you put up a web page without adding your email address or a contact form so that people could reach out to you privately?” asks Laura “@Pistachio” Fitton, inbound marketing evangelist for HubSpot, and lead author of Twitter for Dummies. “As a business, not following someone back means you’re telling them, ‘Thanks for your support, but you’re not important enough to us to be willing to listen to you privately.’”

Fitton says she tries to reply to all of the genuine direct mentions, and when possible, she will thank or respond to @-mentions and retweets.

“Above and beyond that, stuff like retweeting their content, asking them questions and truly listening to their answers, giving them interesting stuff to interact with are all good ways to engage your community,” she says.

Both Fitton and Medina encourage businesses to refrain from using an automated “thanks for following” mention. If you do decide to follow everyone, authenticity is key. Your followers will be able to tell whether they’re talking to a robot or a person — and a real person is always more valuable on Twitter.

If you do decide not to follow everyone on Twitter, Medina advises to be strategic about curating your stream on Twitter — knowing your audience helps, but you must also think about what sort of content is going to be useful and entertaining to you.

“We’re not one-dimensional people,” says Medina. “And increasingly, businesses are using Twitter to show how multifaceted they are. Your stream should reflect the dynamics of your personality and business.”

As a small business owner, do you follow every follower back? What ways do you show appreciation to your fans? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Image courtesy of iStock, matspersson0

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- Pinterest for Brands: 5 Hot Tips
- Community Managers Share Best Productivity Apps and Tools
- 4 Tools for Better Agency-Client Collaboration

More About: features, followers, mashable, open forum, Small Business, Twitter

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This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

Facebook has become a no-brainer for small business owners looking for an easy way to promote and interact with new and regular customers. But before a small business owner launches a promotion on the platform, there are several things to consider — and a couple things to keep in mind after the launch.

North Social‘s managing partner David Brody, who specializes in promotion strategy and creative concepts, says that a small business owner should always take the time to craft the right objective, strategy and motivating value-based idea.

“By thinking through your promotional effort from start to finish, you’re giving your promotion the best chance at achieving social success — sounds simple right?” he says. “But you can’t imagine how many promotions fail because they didn’t have a smart plan in place.”

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Building a Better Promotions Strategy

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Before you rush to put a promotion in place, yourself these simple questions:

• What am I trying to achieve?
• How do I plan on achieving it?

First you need an objective — do you want fan growth, someone to sample your product, purchase, data collection or usage?

Brody says there are three common strategies to achieve your goals: added value, price discounts and merchandising. More specific examples of tactic would be coupons, product samples, sweepstakes, contests and downloads.

Once you’ve mapped this out, you can determine the type of Facebook application you’ll need. Keep in mind that there are a lot of promotions guidelines set by Facebook that small business owners might not know about. One common violation, Brody says, is using Facebook features or functionality as a promotion registration or entry mechanism.

“The act of ‘liking’ a Page cannot automatically enter you in a sweepstakes or contest,” he says. “You must also not condition registration or entry upon the user taking any action using any Facebook features or functionality other than ‘liking’ a Page, checking in to a Place, or connecting to your app.”

If you’re not sure whether your promotion is compliant with Facebook rules related to “like-gating” and entry collection, you could use a Facebook-approved promotion app. You can read the complete Facebook promotion guidelines here.

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Are Contests For Everyone on Facebook?

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“The ultimate goal of a running a promotion on Facebook is to inspire action — not squander away your valuable page traffic,” says Brody. “But in order to inspire action — Likes, shares, engagement — you’ll need to first serve up a meaningful experience or offer up something of value.”

Keep your audience in mind when planning a prize. Small business owners don’t necessarily need cash, cars and vacation trips to entice consumers into your Facebook promotion.

Instead, focus on what’s valuable to your audience — informative and entertaining content. Brody suggests digital goods, such as coupons, group discounts, samples, VIP invitations and video previews.

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Things to Avoid When Running a Promotion

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Always remember that simplicity is key — entry to the promotion should be as simple as possible.

“The more hoops you make them jump through in order to have a chance a receiving or winning something, the less likely they’ll participate — or tell their friends about it,” Brody says.

Also, don’t rely solely on the fans you already have to push new customers to your promotion. The best-constructed Facebook promotions can still fail without the help of other traffic drivers. It is unlikely, even among the hundreds millions of consumers on Facebook, that users will stumble onto your Facebook Page unless you give them directions, along with an easy way to navigate once they do find you.

Brody’s advice is to consider the following: “Outside of Facebook ads, which are extremely powerful at delivering new fans, what other marketing touch points do you have at your disposal that could create more buzz for your promotion?”

For example, if you sell a product or service offline, you could print a Facebook-only offer on your paper receipts to attract more fans. If your store is online, your packages could include a strong call-to-action, asking customers to join you on Facebook to discover special offers.

“Don’t assume your current customers already follow you on Facebook,” says Brody. “In fact, most of them probably don’t.”

Finally, keep in mind that the Facebook promotion itself is not the end goal. There’s an ultimate goal behind it.

“Your first goal should always be to get a visitor to take action by ‘liking’ or sharing your Facebook Page, but your second objective should be to get them to return to your Page and interact with your brand or business on a regular basis,” says Brody.

Examples Brody suggest are to entertain and inform — filling their news feed with thought-provoking and valuable messages that entice them to participate with your business.

“If you don’t deliver ‘high perceived-value’ on a regular basis, you could find your fans using their own thumb to hitch a ride to your competition’s page,” he says.

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More Small Business Resources From OPEN Forum:

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- Pinterest for Brands: 5 Hot Tips
- How Klout Found Success By Focusing On Users
- Email Newsletters: Best Practices For Small Businesses

More About: contest, Facebook, features, open forum, promotions, Small Business, trending

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• Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

Often the most visible element of public relations, media relations is a tried-and-true tactic that can influence opinion, change behaviors, and generate new leads and sales. PR people have always built relationships with relevant journalists to pitch stories about clients. And as bloggers’ popularity increased, PR specialists began adding bloggers to their media lists in an attempt to secure product reviews, guest posts and other forms of editorial coverage. Industry insiders like to debate the merits of influence, but the truth is that virtually anyone has the opportunity to shape perceptions by creating and sharing content online. In fact, the New York Times recently quoted a tweet, helping someone with seven followers gain a much larger audience.

If you work in PR, here are some innovative ways to improve your pitches and hopefully, help you nab some buzz. Of course, the best way to generate buzz is to pair an excellent, tailored pitch with a stellar product.

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Incorporate New Platforms

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A #WarbyWalk Instagram by @deluda

As technology forces the PR industry to evolve, one constant remains true: Businesses need to incorporate the right mix of tools to deliver the right message to the right audience. That still involves working with reporters to secure stories in “traditional” media outlets. But nowadays, even traditional media roles are changing: Magazines and newspapers employ multimedia producers to create companion videos and slideshows that supplement the original print version of a story, and beat reporters are responsible for creating blog posts in addition to their “regular” stories.

To capitalize on this trend, don’t simply offer a story line when working with traditional media outlets. Instead, offer opportunities for reporters to generate “non-traditional” content. But remember: Innovating your media relations requires more than just securing digital coverage in traditional media outlets. It’s smarter — and more effective — to cast a wider net. Here are platform-specific examples:

Pinterest — Reportedly the fastest-growing standalone site ever, Pinterest is rapidly attracting brands and individual pinners. Some individuals have already accumulated hundreds and thousands of loyal followers. One byproduct? A new set of influencers for brands to engage. Start by identifying pinners with loyal followings on topics relevant to your organization. Like and repin their content, and connect with the individuals on their blogs, Twitter accounts or Facebook Pages. Look for natural opportunities to share your content with them, with the goal of securing a coveted “pin” on one of their boards. Proceed with caution, as this is new territory, and many pinners won’t want to be pitched. However, it won’t be long until brands and individual pinners figure out how to work with each other.

Facebook — Brands have created Facebook pages, some with success … others not so much. If your brand doesn’t have a strong Facebook presence — or if you need to connect with a niche group — consider tapping into existing communities. For example, identify Facebook Pages and groups that serve as a hub for people who would likely share an interest in your product or service. Take note of who the Page’s admin is, and try to provide that person with fresh content that the page’s members would find valuable. Remember, a key page admin responsibility is to spark engagement — mostly through Likes, comments and shares. If you’re going to pitch a Facebook Page admin, make sure you’re providing content that will help him strengthen connections with existing fans.

Instagram — A real-time, photo sharing network, Instagram is the largest mobile social network. As brands navigate mobile marketing opportunities, Instagram may be a natural network to explore. However, it’s safe to assume that most Instagram users wouldn’t be comfortable uploading a photo a brand emailed them. Instead, companies can create opportunities to connect with their online networks in offline settings. A few ideas:

• Host a “iPhoneography” photo shoot for local Instagram users, like Warby Parker‘s #WarbyWalk)
• Organize a “photo-a-day” meme and invite Instagram photographers whose interests align with your brand’s to participate
• Create a contest and invite users with relevant followings to spread the word and/or participate

YouTube and UStream — A couple years ago, “haul videos” were all the rage on YouTube. As video production becomes more accessible and simpler, more individuals are broadcasting shows on YouTube and UStream. Just as you’d pitch a television reporter, brands can connect with the hosts or producers of these shows. But be sure to think visually. For example, can you provide the broadcast with a high-level interview or behind-the-scenes footage?

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The Rewards of Relevancy

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When it comes to generating media coverage and engaging content creators and influencers, the most effective PR people are the ones who research each opportunity and develop a customized pitch. Be warned: If your pitch appears off-topic or feels like a “canned” message, it won’t pique the attention of traditional media, bloggers or this new set of online influencers. So, before you ask someone to pin your image or share content with a Facebook group, do your homework. Relevancy is rewarded.

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More Small Business Resources From OPEN Forum:

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- Pinterest for Brands: 5 Hot Tips
- How Klout Found Success By Focusing On Users
- Email Newsletters: Best Practices For Small Businesses

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, chris_lemmens

More About: Facebook, features, How-To, instagram, mashable, open forum, pinterest, PUBLIC RELATIONS, ustream, YouTube

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This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

You don’t have to be in the market for a Super Bowl ad to learn from the world’s biggest marketers. In fact, as a quick trip to Facebook illustrates, social media has a leveling effect: Whether you’re Coca-Cola or Jones Soda, your Facebook Page looks pretty much the same. Coke’s billions won’t buy a dedicated wing on Twitter, either.

With this in mind, the following social media campaigns from marketers big and small are designed to be idea generators. This isn’t a ranking of the most effective social media campaigns of the year, but rather the ones that have the most to offer an entrepreneur with big ideas and a not-so-big marketing budget.

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1. Kraft Macaroni & Cheese’s Jinx

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Last March, the venerable Kraft brand launched an interesting campaign on Twitter: Whenever two people individually used the phrase “mac & cheese” in a tweet, Kraft sent both a link pointing out the “Mac & Jinx” (as in the childhood game Jinx.) The first one to reply back got five free boxes of Kraft Mac & Cheese plus a t-shirt.

What you can learn from this: This is a low-cost way to track down potential fans on Twitter. All you have to do is search a given term and identify two people who tweet the same phrase at (roughly) the same time. In return, you’ll gain goodwill, a likely follower and probably some good word-of-mouth buzz on the social network.

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2. Ingo’s Face Logo

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When Swedish ad agencies Grey Stockholm and Ogilvy Stockholm merged last year, they wanted to get social media fans involved. The two agencies asked fans to participate by signing into Facebook to see the new name. Every time new people logged on to the dedicated site, the logo added their profile picture. With every picture, the logo got a little bigger, until 2,890 fan photos comprised the full name, Ingo, over a four-hour period.

What you can learn from this: This was another inexpensive way to get fans literally enmeshed with the brand. Another alternative is to create a real-life mosaic based on pictures of your Facebook fans, a project that Mashable recently completed.

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3. BlueCross BlueShield of Minnesota’s Human Doing

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What better way to illustrate the plight of the common man than an actual common man? That was the thinking behind a BlueCross BlueShield of Minnesota program last year that put Scott Jorgenson, a St. Paul resident, in a glass apartment in the Mall of America for a month. To demonstrate the recuperative effects of exercise, Jorgenson was put on a workout routine for the month that compelled him to exercise three to five times a day, in 10-minute spurts. In a social media twist, Twitter and Facebook followers dictated the type of exercise for each session.

What you can learn from this: Creating an event, especially one that involves social media fans, is an alternative to launching an ad campaign. Humanizing a problem for which your company provides a solution is also a good idea.

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4. GranataPet’s Foursquare-Enabled Billboard

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Pet food brand GranataPet earned worldwide attention last year for its billboard in Agenta, Germany. This wasn’t just any billboard, though. It was rigged so that if a consumer checked in on Foursquare, the billboard would dispense some of the company’s dog food. Someone from Granata’s ad agency filmed the billboard in action, and the video now has more than 50,000 views on YouTube (in various iterations.)

What you can learn from this: In the social media age, a single ad or a single billboard can generate images, press and videos, but only if it’s clever enough.

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5. Reinert Sausages’s Wurst-Face App

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Another German brand, Reinert Sausages, transcended its roots with a clever Facebook app that let users upload their photo and receive a “Wurst Face,” a graven image of themselves in cold cuts. The name “Wurst Face” comes from the extra piece of sausage that kids get for free at the butcher.

What you can learn from this: If you can create an app that’s social, fun and brand-appropriate, it will function more effectively than even a high-budget ad campaign.

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More Small Business Resources From OPEN Forum:

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- The Quick and Dirty Guide to Tumblr for Small Business
- Community Managers Share Best Productivity Apps and Tools
- 5 Tips For Using LinkedIn’s Mobile Site

Kraft image courtesy of Flickr, Lulu Hoeller

More About: Facebook, facebook marketing, features, mashable, online marketing, open forum, social media marketing, Twitter, Twitter marketing

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This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

With 845 million users, Facebook has become an increasingly useful tool for brands, and it’s important to have a strong presence on the social network.

Whether your brand is fully established or just starting out, launching a marketing campaign can seem overwhelming. But, it doesn’t have to be a timely or expensive process. There are several small and simple things you can do for your brand on Facebook. In fact, some of these marketing tactics are used by the biggest brands in the world.

Ready for your brand to get in front of the 845 million? Majestic Media, a global Facebook marketing agency, has come up with nine time-saving tips for marketing on Facebook.

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1. See if Your Vanity URL Is Available

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Before you launch your brand presence on Facebook, you need to make sure that your vanity URL is available — and that it’s simple and easy to remember.

Rather than going through the time consuming process of manually figuring out what’s available and what’s not, use a simple but powerful service called Name Vine. It checks domain names, Facebook and Twitter extensions in a matter of seconds to see if your desired vanity URL is available.

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2. Use a Third-Party Platform to Distribute Social Content

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Copying and pasting content, logging in from one social media network and logging out from another can be a time consuming task — but it doesn’t have to be. If you’re looking to push content to Facebook and other social networks, you can benefit from using a tool like HootSuite, which allows you to publish once and distribute everywhere. You can integrate your Facebook Page, Twitter account, Google+ page, LinkedIn profile and other social networks — all within one easy-to-use interface.

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3. Use an Application Publishing Platform

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For small and medium-sized businesses, social media budgets are nowhere close to those of global brands, which can afford multiple custom applications and promotions on Facebook. However, large budgets aren’t required to launch a lot of the basic applications seen on Facebook.

Services such as North Social and Pagemodo provide the kinds of applications that most businesses need. Also, most of these services provide a “freemium” model that offers some applications for free. Keep in mind that you won’t get a customized app, but you can manage the content and visuals within pre-developed apps that are available. This may be a good first step into the Facebook world if your budget is a main concern.

If you do decide to launch some of these applications, you should set up the following applications/tabs:

• A Welcome Page: This should be the default landing page that welcomes a user to an application. Typically, these pages are fan-gated, meaning the person is asked to “like” the page to unveil more content.
• A Contact Us Page: This is a great and useful tool for converting your fans into potential sales leads.

You should set up at least one or two tab applications on your Facebook Page, so users aren’t landing on your Facebook wall, but rather a page that’s informative, engaging and able to convert those users into fans.

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4. Utilize Social Plugins Wherever Possible

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The most underutilized (free) tools are Facebook social plugins. A new study from Gigya shows that users who visit third-party sites through Facebook Connect spend 50% more time on those sites. Furthermore, those users view twice as many pages. The numbers speak for themselves.

Aside from use on third-party sites, social plugins can also be utilized on Facebook apps to provide a deeper level of engagement, while driving traffic back to the application. Above, you’ll see the Facebook application Majestic Media built for Volkswagen, which invited users to participate in the next Volkswagen commercial. It was utilized to build meaningful conversations within the application, while driving new social traffic to the campaign.

It doesn’t matter how big or small your company is — leverage the social plugins on your blog, Facebook apps and on your website. They’re free to use and are a quick and easy way to market your brand or message through referral traffic.

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5. Find Out When and What to Post on Facebook

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If you’re looking to see what your fans engage with the most — and when to post it on Facebook — you can utilize a third-party service called Edgerank Checker.

This time-saving application grades your fan page and determines the following key factors:

• Most effective day of the week to post content
• Popular keywords that drive engagement
• What type of media is best for your audience
• How often to update

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6. Use Facebook Insights

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If you have to provide a report of Facebook metrics to your boss or a client — or maybe you just want to see for yourself — the best time-saving tip is to export the Facebook Insights data to an Excel spreadsheet. You can see which status updates performed best, whether your audience responds well to video and get a sense of what’s driving your Likes.

You can do this by clicking the “Export Data” button. In the pop-up that appears, select the data type and date range.

Once you’ve done this and downloaded the file, open it in Excel and apply a filter by going to the data tab and clicking on “Filter.” You have to make sure that your cursor is at the very top row. In the example, we’ve chosen the “Lifetime Post Total Reach” metric to filter by.

Once this filter is selected, you can quickly filter any key metrics in ascending or descending order, which is a very powerful trick when analyzing your Facebook marketing and engagement efforts.

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7. Provide Local Content

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Nobody wants to visit a Facebook Page with an enticing offer, only to learn that it’s not available in their region. Nor do they want to land on a brand page where all the content is in another language.

Here are some quick strategies for providing localized content:

• Give your fans an incentive to visit your business by providing them with a recent, active “walk-in” promotion in their area.
• Allow users to recognize that you are connected with their location by providing details and assets specific to where they are.
• Geotarget your posts even if you don’t have multiple locations — you wouldn’t want to offer a walk-in special to your fans in New York if your business is in Los Angeles

When you have to target languages, Facebook allows you to make status updates for users with certain language settings. So, Facebook users who have French or Spanish as their default language on the site will only see your content that’s in their native tongue.

• 1. Click on “Custom”

• 2. A pop-up will come up that will look like this:

• 3. Once you’ve entered your specific targeting information, you can hit “Okay” and proceed with your status update, geared for that specific audience. It’s local and relevant for those language settings selected.

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8. Create a QR Code for Your Facebook Fan Page

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Setting up a QR code for your Facebook Page is a quick, simple and effective strategy for small or large businesses to use. QR codes can be leveraged on napkins, menus, business cards, billboards, magazines, brochures and other forms of marketing materials.
Esponce is one of the most powerful QR code platforms on the market, and it offers a free tier that’s typically geared to small businesses.

The process takes no more than a few minutes to set up and allows you to:

• Create a custom QR code
• Embed your logo into the QR code
• Link your QR code to a dynamic URL — so you can customize and change the URL if you decide you want to later drive users to your website instead of your Facebook Page.

You’ll have the ability to view analytics so you can see how many people have scanned your code, their location and the type of smartphone that scanned the image.

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9. Buy Facebook Ads

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Buying Facebook ads is a wise, cost-effective solution that can help increase your brand’s visibility throughout the Facebook platform. Most people don’t realize how easy they are to set up or that you can buy in with a small ad spend. A budget of $50 per month would be sufficient for a small business to make some waves.

Facebook’s “Like” ads provide users the opportunity to “like” your fan page from any page they are on. If a user doesn’t click on the “Like” button, don’t interpret that as your campaign not working — these ads are relevant because they keep users engaged and informed with the latest in your marketing campaign. Think of them as a brand awareness play — just because they aren’t clicked, doesn’t mean they’re not acknowledged.

More recently, one of the best ways to invest in Facebook advertising is by leveraging Sponsored Stories. According to a study by TBG Digital, Facebook’s new Sponsored Stories ad units nabbed a 46% higher click-through rate, a 20% lower cost per click and an 18% lower cost per fan than Facebook’s standard ad units.

Do you have other tips for Facebook Marketing? Let us know in the comments.

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More Small Business Resources From OPEN Forum:

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- Pinterest for Brands: 5 Hot Tips
- Top 7 CES Gadgets for Your Small Business
- 8 Legal Steps for Starting Your Business

More About: Facebook, features, Marketing, open forum, Small Business

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This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

Have you checked out LinkedIn‘s mobile site yet? No, not the mobile app — the in-browser mobile site. It’s very powerful and very useful for connecting with LinkedIn’s 135 million users. After all, mobile page views account for over 11% of total visits to the social network for the professionally-minded.

LinkedIn released the updated mobile site (along with iPhone and Android apps) last summer. Mobile usage of LinkedIn has been growing quickly.

“We are seeing mobile grow at a very rapid pace, as high as 400 percent a year,” Joff Redfern, mobile product director at LinkedIn told The New York Times in August of last year.

Want to know more? Check out these five tips for using the mobile site.

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1. Share Useful Links and Information

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Did you just read an interesting article on your mobile device and you think that it’s something your LinkedIn contacts should see right away? That’s easily done with LinkedIn’s mobile site. The upper right-hand corner of the site has a speech bubble. Tap that, and you’re redirected to the update screen.

You can share a text update or drop in a link to content you’d like your contacts to see. Then, you can toggle whether or not that update will be sent out as a Twitter message as well. Finally, you have control of which of your contacts can see the update. That’s good, because you might want to send an update to your co-workers and not your entire network.

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2. Get Updates

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When you open LinkedIn’s mobile site, you’re greeted with a scrollable list of your connections’ updates. The menu is easy to navigate. Upon clicking a shared article, you’re presented with a quick synopsis of that article instead of being launched to the article itself. You can also use the synopsis page to load the profile of the person who shared it.

That smart design saves precious mobile bandwidth (and money, for those not on an unlimited data plan). If you decide the article is worth loading, you can then decide to launch it in a new browser window. When you’re done enjoying the article, remember to share it!

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3. Connect With a New Acquaintance

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Swapping business cards is so passé. With LinkedIn’s mobile site, all you have to do is pop in a person’s name. If they’re on the service, there’s a profile chock-full of their employment and education information.

The mobile site takes users’ full-page profiles and compresses them into easy-to-read miniaturized versions. There’s no feeling of profiles being stuffed or crammed into place — it’s almost like profiles were designed with mobile browsers in mind.

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4. Spend Time With Your Groups

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Even your LinkedIn groups are easily accessible on the mobile site. Want to follow the discussion on your favorite groups while you’re on the go? That’s easy.

After clicking the LinkedIn logo on the top-left of the screen, then “more.” Boom, there’s your groups. Discussions are easily read, and adding your own comment is next to effortless. LinkedIn’s mobile site makes it easy to keep up with your professional organizations and societies.

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5. Get Invited

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Do you find yourself getting overloaded with invitations to connect every time you load LinkedIn? With LinkedIn’s mobile site, you can manage those invitations on the go.

The site’s interface makes it easy to see how many invitations you’ve got and learn more about who sent them to you. Just tap the LinkedIn logo, then the “inbox.” If you’ve got new invites, a notification will appear that lets you know how many new messages are in your queue.

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Going Mobile

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LinkedIn’s mobile site is found at http://touch.www.linkedin.com. Point your smartphone’s browser over there and dive right in. Do you think that LinkedIn’s mobile website helps with sharing? Let us know in the comments.

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More Small Business Resources From OPEN Forum:

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- Is it Finally Time to Ditch Your Paper Business Card?
- Social Learning Trends to Watch in 2012
- 6 Things to Know Before Starting a Business

More About: features, linkedin, mashable, Mobile, mobile networking, networking, open forum

For more Social Media coverage:

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This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

In honor of Community Manager Appreciation Day on Jan. 23, we asked several leaders in community management about the apps and tools they swear by for their social media management.

Whether it’s filtering through mass amounts of content, managing a project or professionally presenting a company, community managers provide and mediate communications both inside and outside of the business. Fortunately, there are a lot of resources small businesses can utilize for better productivity.

Are there other tools or tricks you use to manage a community? Let us know your favorites in the comments.

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Organization

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“As a community manager, I find myself in need of a good way to create forms fairly often. Whether it’s sending our annual survey to our entire member base, sending targeted questionnaires or just collecting emails addresses for a certain set of people, Wufoo is a great solution. What it has that Google Forms doesn’t [is that] depending on how someone answers a certain question, you can determine what questions come next.”
– Sarah Rapp, community manager at Behance

“Shared docs, email and internal microblogging are great work, but combine all these and more to get the social work platform, Podio. Their apps market allows for wide range of project management and collaboration methods. They have an easy drag-and-drop interface for customization along with a slick mobile app. I think they are still free for up to 10 users. The biggest problem with Podio is transitioning users to a new platform.”
– Mike Fraietta, enterprise community manager at News Corp.

“I use TweetDeck for one reason only — it allows me to schedule my tweets for later. Also, [the ability to manage] multiple accounts is pretty handy. But the post later function allows me to do my social media gathering mostly in the morning and focus on other work later. Other than that, I keep a large folder of RSS feeds that I go through every morning looking for interesting things to share with the world.”
– Asa Alger, community manager and interactive designer at Luxurious Animals

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Analytics

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“One app I love is Simply Measured. With so much data flying around in social media these days, it’s crucial for us as CMs to help our clients by cutting through all the noise and delivering quantifiable results that lead to qualitative change. This approach is helping brands we represent better relate to their fans and creating new opportunities by making real-world connections. It’s a great example of using online technologies to deliver offline results. We’re also using this data to identify influencers in real-time and monitor specific conversations that are happening around a particular event or brand. A few clients that we’ve been successfully executing this for include Warby Parker, Delta and Evian.”
– Dave Brown, director of digital strategy at MKG, co-organizer of CMMeetup

“Sysomos allows me to measure the social buzz around my brand and its competitors. I monitor the conversations around keywords for each brand, and I am able to tell when there is jump in the amount of buzz around a specific brand. By looking at Text Analytics and Top Influencers provided by Sysomos, I am able to analyze why there is a spike in conversation. This allows our team to keep our clients informed about what conversations are happening around their brand and their competitors.”
– Christina Dick, community manager at The Martin Agency

“We’ve all explored the new Facebook Insights, but what’s fantastic about this iteration for community managers it to see how and why your content is spreading. It’s important to know — are we getting a lot of traffic from Facebook from what we’re posting to Facebook, or because users are posting it on their own? That can be found in the Organic vs. Viral graph in ‘Reach.’ This is valuable information to help inform your Facebook strategy.”
– Sarah Rapp, community manager at Behance

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Presentation

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“Screenr is a free way to record your screen for tutorials, demonstrations and to answer customer issues. The most important reason to produce and save screen recordings is for scalable learning, FAQs and detailed responses to your users. The drawback for Screenr is that it is only five minutes and has limited editing ability. For professional screen recordings, try ScreenFlow for Mac, Camtasia for PC and Screenr Pro.”
– Mike Fraietta, enterprise community manager at News Corp.

“Most community managers have some responsibility in customer service, and ZenDesk is a great solution to handle the influx of customer service inquiries. If your entire community is submitting tickets to one place, in the same format, you can quickly and easily assign these out to different members of your team or have non-visible conversations about a customer’s issue with another member of your team. It’s really customizable, so you can determine what fields people have to fill out, create reports, etc. Overall, it’s a really robust solution, and it makes customer service organized and efficient.”
– Sarah Rapp, community manager at Behance

“Not all of the ‘tools’ in my toolbox are in the form of an app or program. One idea that has served me well as the community manager for Fast Company is to never stop being the customer. It’s not a “tool” in the traditional sense, but I would consider insights like this to be of equal or greater importance in helping you do this job well. Tools come and go. But people matter most. If you can remember to stay focused on people, you’ll never lose your way.”
– Sheena Medina, community manager at Fast Company

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More Small Business Resources From OPEN Forum:

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- Pinterest for Brands: 5 Hot Tips
- Social Learning Trends to Watch in 2012
- Is it Finally Time to Ditch Your Paper Business Card?

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, romakoshel

More About: apps, community management, features, mashable, online tools, open forum, productivity, Social Media

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This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

Companies that rely on a visual or photographic web presence often find it difficult to convey their media on Twitter. Take, for instance, apparel brands that need to get social media eyes on their merchandise, or a design firm that seeks exposure. How can these types of businesses ensure that Twitter followers see their wares?

Ecommerce or design companies may prefer Facebook, due to its inherently visual and expansive nature. However, businesses these days can’t afford to bypass Twitter entirely — especially because many people keep their Twitter feeds open all day long.

Read on to discover four pillars of “visual tweeting,” or how to make sure that your Twitter followers get the picture.

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1. Twitter Voice Should Be Consistent and Relevant

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Obviously not all businesses can afford to hire a social media manager who monitors and shares across social channels full-time. However, try to keep the same individual tweeting most of the time so that your Twitter account’s voice and style remains consistent.

That said, people come to visual-centric brands for a reason. They follow these types of companies and individuals in the hope of discovering new clothing, products, design tips and inspiration in general. Therefore, be sure to provide that very thing.

Amazing new borderless display from LG. Now this looks like the future. cl.ly/D0TS

— Mike Rundle (@flyosity) January 2, 2012

Remember these two tips: Be descriptive and be relevant. If you want to share a new collection of animal print blouses or a fancy new gadget, explain as much about the product as you can in 140 characters. If you include detail, like in designer Mike Rundle’s tweet above, people will be more inclined to click when they’re intrigued by the prospect of a visual payoff. Then, either link or embed an image at the end of your description.

Inexplicable craving for Lucky Charms – does this ever happen to anybody else?

— Topshop (@Topshop) January 5, 2012

On the other hand, if your Twitter account represents a visual brand, don’t get too personal to the point of being off-topic (read: Lucky Charms?). People are following your business, not your personal account, for a reason. It’s a tough balance to strike, especially because people want to feel that a brand is relatable and human. A good rule of thumb is to keep every tweet related to your visually-pleasing products or personal brand, but to kill two birds with one stone by injecting a fun or off-beat voice at the same time.

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2. Favor Native Images

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Now that you’ve got a tweet’s description down, it’s time to attach an image. There’s no rule that says you must embed your images into your Twitter feed, but now that Twitter allows you to do it, why not make it easier for your followers?

Third-party photo apps like Instagram, TwitPic and yfrog allow you to attach images to a tweet that can be expanded immediately within a Twitter feed, so the user doesn’t have to jump to a photo app’s website. Keep in mind, however, that these apps perform differently on mobile. For instance, on Twitter’s iPhone app, Instagram kicks you out to a separate page, but you’re able to view a TwitPic image directly underneath the tweet. Perform a test-run to determine which app suits your business best.

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3. Pageviews Are Paramount

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Although embedding images into tweets is convenient and visually pleasing, you’re likely still clamoring for pageviews, and therefore, will want to link out to your site as often as possible. That means you’ll have to be more strategic than ever.

15% OFF for type lovers at @FontShop until Friday. Use ‘Veerle15′ in the promo code field. fontshop.com

— Veerle Pieters (@vpieters) January 4, 2012

Try putting attractive language at the beginning of a tweet that your followers can’t resist. Designer Veerle Pieters advertises a sale using caps lock, and then directs people to her site.

The Doctor is in. ow.ly/8jCMX

— NASTY GAL (@NastyGal) January 5, 2012

Above all, don’t be vague or else people won’t click through to see your product or design, ultimately losing you valuable pageviews. For example, women’s apparel company Nasty Gal may have a distinct and irreverent voice, but its tweets often do little to introduce attached links. How are we supposed to know that “The Doctor is in” refers to a blog post about Doc Martens?

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4. Backgrounds Still Matter

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Although more and more people are accessing Twitter profiles via simplified mobile design or dashboard applications like TweetDeck, you might still consider customizing your Twitter.com profile background.

Take a tip from Etsy, which set up a contest for users to submit a background design. Winning designs were featured as Etsy’s Twitter profile background for one month.

Or create your own background that reflects your product or design aesthetic. But be sure to take into account Twitter’s new profile design, which locates the tweet feed on the right-hand side of the page, and lists and suggestions on the left-hand side. Therefore, don’t let important images fall underneath your profile’s opaque boxes. For instance, can you spot the elusive third model in Topshop’s background above?

Instead of obscuring important information, create images that account for the placement and width of the Twitter feed, like designer Grace Smith, whose left-hand mini-bio adds a smart touch.

How do you or the brands you follow optimize a tweet to reflect its visual content? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, SteveByland

More About: design, ecommerce, fashion, features, Marketing, open forum, Twitter

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