SCORE Memphis

Facebook Revamps Page Insights

SCORE Memphis — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 23:18:08 +0000

Facebook Revamps Page Insights

Facebook Insights is an analytics tool which you can use to see how people are interacting with your fan page, much like Google Analytics. It’s a powerful and free tool which is provided by Facebook to give you a better insight into your following, and with the release of the new version, it’s better than ever before.

Facebook page admins now have a new improved FacebookInsights tool for better Facebook marketing.

Facebook Insights

Admins can find this new Insights tool in the left navigation sidebar once they opt in.

A link to the old Insights features is still found in the admin’s right sidebar
Facebook will begin phasing out this older version of Insights on December 15th.
Check out Facebook’s tutorial: Learn Page Insights.

Key Metrics

The first thing you’ll see is the four key statistics at the top of the page which covers the amount of likes you have, your reach, and how much is has changed in the past week. All of these stats have an arrow with a percentage going up or down, based on the changes in the last seven days, compared to the seven days before then.

Facebook Insights

The total likes is obvious, but the friends of fans is the amount of friends that all of your combined fans have – it’s the number of people that would potentially see a post if every one of your fans shared a link. ‘People Talking About This’ is the amount of people who have interacted with your page in the space of that week, whether it’s a comment, a like, or even a poll. Finally, ‘Weekly Total Reach’ is the amount of impressions that your posts have had – the number of times one of your posts have come up in a fan’s page.

Understanding Your Posts

Further down the page, you’ll see all of your page posts listed in the order that you posted them, although they can be rearranged. You do have the option to change the type of pages that you want to see, such as photo, video, post, or link, but I tend to look at all of them because a month long period really isn’t that long. You’ll see from the screenshot below that besides the date, you’re also provided with information such as reach, engaged users, talking about this, and virality. The reach is the number of unique fans that have seen a particular post, engaged users (which is a lot smaller), is the number of people who have clicked on any part of your post, talking about this is the interaction (likes, shares, etc.) and the virality is just the percentage of people reached who had an interaction (talking about this). This is what it looks like.

Reach

The first thing you’ll notice is that this page looks a lot similar to the Fans section, with a bar chart of the demographics, only this time it’s sorted by your reach. I won’t go into too much detail because after the section above, it’s all fairly self explanatory, and again, you’ll see all of the location info from before as well. Even though the reach is greater than the fans, I haven’t found that my overall results have changed by any noticeable amount, in fact, I expect them to stay pretty much the same for a while now.

Where it starts to get interesting is when you scroll down to see how you reached people. You’ll see from by screenshot below that Facebook kindly breaks up all of your traffic into sections of organic, paid, viral, and total reach.

The External statistics below show where traffic is coming to arrive at your Facebook Page. So from a Social Media Marketing point of view, it is interesting to see.

When you narrow down all the stats to a certain time range, you can see where they’ve come from and what they’re reacting to, which will help guide you in the future when you’re trying to create material that will drive traffic to your fan page. You need to have at least 25 fans in order to see insights.

Just as before, Facebook allows you to export your Insights. With the addition of these new and improved features, you can now pull a report flooded with valuable data that will provide you and/or your marketing team with key insights into the boatload of topics discussed above.

Goal Setting for Success

SCORE Memphis — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 19:12:39 +0000

There is a quote I try to remember as I go through life, “For everything one expects to get out of life, a person must also be willing to give something in return.” There are no persons who “have it all,” even though at times it may seem so. Each person must make hard choices throughout a lifetime which affect personal and business opportunities.

People outside the realm of business ownership often seem impressed and, or mystified by the accomplishments of a business owner, who either “makes it” or appears to “make it.” There is a sort of mystique surrounding a successful person, which makes others think there must be something special there and if only that something special could be defined, others could find the same success. Although I never thought of myself as extremely successful or “having made it,” I must appear that way to many others who wish for money and success. There always seems to be an overwhelming infatuation with business ownership and because of this I am often asked for advice from others contemplating a business start up or a purchase of an existing business. As a SCORE counselor for many years after retiring, I spend a lot of time in the company of people desiring help with business and craving success.

Anyone can be a successful business person, if he or she really wants it badly enough but there are many people who because of temperament, life goals or lack of and other responsibilities will be happier and more content working for someone else.

When asked for advice on whether someone should begin a business, I first try to force them to give serious thought to all aspects of what business ownership really means in both their personal and business lives. By asking the ten questions listed below, I can usually determine if someone is actually suited for business ownership:

What are your short term goals in life (six months)?
What are your long term goals in life (10 years)?
What are your family responsibilities (marriage, children)?
Do you and your family share the same goals?
Are your personal finances in order (no debt)?
How much knowledge do you have about the business in which you wish to invest?
How is your health and the health of your family?
Do you enjoy reading and studying?
Do you have a great sense of humor?
What will happen in your life if you fail?

– Susan Lane

The Hard Truth About Starting a Small Business

SCORE Memphis — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 21:49:54 +0000

Even though more businesses are being started today, the failure rate is still extremely high. Ninety percent of all small businesses will fail within ten years and fifty percent will fail within five years. Many of those that do not fail, “just get by” which means the owners could usually make the same amount of money working for someone else and have more free time. The best reason for the high failure rate is poor planning. Life savings, loans from friends and home equities are risked on business start-ups without full consideration of consequences of risks. People either enter a field for which they have little knowledge or experience or they just do not plan properly and gather all the information needed for a particular business. These people would do just as well going to a casino and betting their money where the odds would be a little better. I know entrepreneurs are known as “flying by the seat of their pants,” but the really successful entrepreneurs study, study, study and study more before they begin a business and continuously afterwards. In fact they never stop studying ways to make the business better and anyone not willing to put forth this effort should not go into business. I still teach small business classes at a local library where all sorts of people show up to listen and learn. One night I noticed an elderly man in the audience who was listening intently to each word I said and when I told the class about the failure rate he shook his head. The next time he came to one of my classes, he spoke up shyly and said he was from Iraq. He had started several businesses in Iraq that were successful so he had problems understanding why anyone would fail in this country where everything is much easier, with no war being waged. When I explained the lack of preparation by people was the primary reason for failure, he still had problems understanding but when I told him, laziness he understood. Anyone who will not spend the time to prepare is just plain lazy! No amount of money invested can overcome LAZY. Starting a new business or buying an existing business requires money, time, preparation and stamina (lots of stamina).

Susan Lane

SCORE Counselor

Social Media and Some Awesome Marketing Stats

SCORE Memphis — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 21:33:39 +0000

Social Media and Some Awesome Marketing Stats [Data] By Blair Evan Ball

The Internet and Social Media has fundamentally changed the way people find, discover, share, shop, & connect.

Did you know that 34,000 searches are conducted on Google EVERY SECOND? Or that 75% of Internet users never scroll past the first page of search results? Or that US Internet users spend 3x more time on blogs and social networks than they do on email?

FACT: Marketers are shifting their budgets away from “interruption” advertising.

86 % OF PEOPLE SKIP TV ADS
46 % DECLINE IN TECH TRADE SHOW SPENDING
44 % OF DIRECT MAIL NEVER OPENEDWorldwide, we conduct 88 Billion searches per month on Google.
PER SECOND – 34,000
PER MINUTE – 2,000,000
PER HOUR – 121,000,000
PER DAY – 3,000,000,000FACT: Ranking high on search engines is no longer optional, it’s critical.
75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results.

FACT: The more keyword-rich content you generate, the more search engines will find (and love) you.

Companies that blog have 434% more indexed pages.
Companies with more indexed web pages get way more leads.THE BOTTOM LINE: If Google can’t find you, neither will anyone else.
Social media has real business value.
LinkedIn drives the most referrals to B2B sites.
Facebook Drives More Leads for B2C.
Blogs keep growing —in volume & value.Most people read blogs more than once/day.
Blogging can really move the needle.
Companies that blog have 55% more website visitors.

B2C companies that blog generate 88% more leads per month than those who do not. B2B companies that blog generate 67% more leads per month than those who do not.

Now is the time to invest in Social Media Marketing, and increase your Sales and Brand Awareness.