A few ideas: How do you get more fans for your Facebook page?

As a thank you for creating my super cute blog header, I agreed to help my friend Andy get started on Facebook with his band’s Facebook page. By the way, you can find them on Facebook if you search StereotypeAtl.

With two days live, I haven't grabbed too many fans. The band's gonna have to track down their faithful fans. And the idea is that unless you're The Police, you're going having to put a little more effort toward building relationships with the fans at your gigs and other musicians. But here’s what I’ve learned from setting up a music fan page and it might help you, too:

• Send an e-mail out to your fan e-mail list and ask them to be a fan.

• Keep taking your e-mail sign-up list to all of your gigs and message new friends and ask them to be a fan. (But not at the same time, Facebook sees this as spam and will slap your wrist with a temporary freeze on your account.)
  

• Create an e-mail signature with a link to your Facebook page in your signature.

• Put the Facebook logo on all of your communications, print and pieces online with saying something like: You’ll find us on Facebook. Just type ______(the name of your band, or the name that would take them to your page) in the search box.
  

• Send some e-mails to your friends on my space and tell them you’re also on FB. Be careful not to send out HUGE e-mails, because you don’t want to be found guilty of spam.

• Build your own personal/musicish profile on Facebook and once you develop relationships online with your new friends, ask them to consider being a fan, too.

Anybody got more ideas? What else has worked for you?

Well, hello again!

The Online Marketer Blog helped me figure to ‘splain my absence on this blog. Click here for the post

By writing about why you haven't written, not only do people learn more about you, and what makes you human, you can promote the other cool things you’ve been up to.

So here goes:

- I’ve been thinking about what I really want to accomplish with this blog. That analysis includes reading more of what others write and figuring how I belong in this group of PR people online. I am still working on this.
- I begged my favorite graphic designer and friend Andy Meeks to help me with a better looking header. My old one was plain and was uninspiring. It's amazing what a little color and creativity can do.
- I’ve spent more time with my family. My parents are 50-plus and my dad’s been feeling a little puny as he lives with congestive heart failure. They live eight hours away so I’ve made two trips home and enjoyed being with them. This has done wonders for my emotional well being. I highly recommend reconnecting with your folks.
- Volunteering is something else I’ve slacked off on. And I’ve been working at a consignment shop (in addition to my full-time job) for mostly women and spending time with folks with developmental disabilities. This has also contributed to my overall health. Volunteering or reaching out to others is one of the essentials of life, especially for people with depression.

And now, I want to be connect more with you. What would you like to see me do better? What would you like to hear about?

Thank you Online Marketer Blog. I hope you aren't too mad about me stealing your idea.

Check out this perkier blog!

In hopes of having a better looking blog – I’ve asked my designer/music friend (www.myspace.com/stereotypeatl) Andy Meeks to help me out.

Thankfully he agreed and I agreed to help his band do a little social networking through Facebook. The idea is that this chick in this header represents me in my best form. Happy, thinking creatively and writing a lot. I think it brings energy to the page.

What do you think about it?

Facebook makes us nicer online

Maybe it’s because I have nice friends on Facebook but I think this Facebook thing is making people nicer online.

Know how much restraint it takes to not fire off a nasty e-mail because a friend is being just too much? And when we send an e-mail about a co-worker to a friend but actually sent it to the offender? That one is very hard to fix.

We self-edit with Facebook.
But with Facebook’s transparency, we self-edit the image we want to project to the world. That’s possibly thousands and thousands of friends, co-workers, maybe even potential love interests who can read any wall post, comment, and status update we write. Who wants to look like a jerk? We end up not calling out women who run off with our husbands or lashing out for someone doing other things that hurt us. We just focus our attention on other friends and they’ll write nice things on our walls.

Friends can help us, so we have to mind our manners.
See, having lots of friends on Facebook is the key for many and anything to jeopardize that is just stupid. Facebook has turned into a place where we not only stay in touch with friends and families but it’s a door to experts when you have questions, or even a pick-me-up after a bad day etc.

Let me know if you find examples that prove me wrong.

Here are summaries of examples of the closest things I could find to Facebook meanness lately:
- 2009 is a new year to start over and I don’t need some of you stupid people anyway.
- Mary Poppins, you are all that and a bag of chips, aren’t you?
- I have just had it with people, really.
- A colleague stole my idea and got credit for it. But I don’t want to say anything to him because he just lost his son. (Wow, think your other colleagues DON’T know who this person is? You sure are being nice, aren’t ya?)
- I am the alpha female and understand why certain women are jealous. And you know who you are.
- I am not working another extra hour or Sunday for The Man.

None of these are that bad.

One exception to this idea, however: A lot of Facebook pages are based on Super Heroes, fictitious people and TV stars, like this one: where some page owners write some gruesome stories about their characters and vent. But Facebook has been shutting down those pages.

Help me not make the Bad Pitch Blog :)

Our big State Games is coming up next weekend and now's the time for me to pitch a few human interest stories to a few reporters in the metro-Atlanta area. Below are the type of pitches I send out. Note: The blanks are where names and locations would be.

There's a well-known blog called the Bad Pitch Blog dedicated to crappy pitches. I don't want to make a headline there. So, how would you improve these pitches?

Pitch 1: Dear _____,

I thought you might be interested in a story about a local man who will attempt to break a world record next weekend.

Elliott English will attempt to break the 10-year-old record next weekend at (specific) State Games next weekend. The record, a 1,000 pound deadlift, was set by Elliot's teammate Mark Bigham at World Games. Elliott plans to lift 1,500 pounds at the power lifting competition.

English will remain in the (city) area until mid-week when he travels to the Games. Both athletes train at the ______. To find out how one and now potentially two athletes from the same agency learn not only life and work skills at the center, but how to break world records, please call me so I can set up the interview.

Pitch 2: Dear ______,

I thought you would you be interested a feature story about a group of older adults with special needs and how they stay connected to their community, when typically most in their population tend to live sedentary lives.

For several reasons, people with intellectual disabilities risk leading sedentary lives. The reasons: many are cut off from social activities and making friends; and some are not as likely as others to be employed or live independently, according to studies by the University of Massachusetts and Yale University. But this group of former ____________ who no longer compete, use music and performance to the odds.

With this special needs choir members perform for the community and at church and develop friendships. The choir sings and signs _______, ________, _______ and ________. Last year the group performed at ________ in front of their former teammates. And they wore medals too, given by the choir director.

To find out how the choir works in the lives of the former athletes, please give me a call.

Here are a few tips I picked up from other PR people and at conferences:

1. Pitch a story one to one reporter at a time. And tell them that. You can even say, "you're the only writer I'm sending this story to, so will you let me know by (day), (date) if you're interested in pursuing this story?"

2. Just like any writer would do, think of something you would want to tell your family over dinner. That's your pitch. Other families would like to hear these stories too.

3. Keep the pitch short.

4. Go ahead and tell the story as you would see in the newspaper: use a good lead and a nutgraph to show why the story is important.

So, PR people: What are your favorite tips for story pitching?

Reporters/writers: What works for you? What doesn't?

Twitter, Twitter, not so bitter about you anymore: Plus, a Twitter testimony from writer Melissa Oyler

I shrugged off Twitter this summer because I didn’t understand it. One, I couldn’t figure out how to find other public relations people on this social networking site to follow and two, why would anyone care “What I’m doing”? After messaging a few people and stealing some of their people to follow, I got it. You can keep up with friends and share information and interesting articles with your e-colleagues on Twitter. I think you should check it out, too.

I follow 62 people who are friends, other PR people or my newest favorite friends: social media experts. Some people follow a 1,000 people or plus, but I like to only follow a few people that know the most about PR and social media. Otherwise, the conversation gets too noisy for me. But you can connect with me here, if you like. ☺

Here’s what I learned during those first few months:
- Try not to tweet much more than providing an interesting link or a light-hearted note of what news is breaking or something funny heard in the office. And something encouraging to others is also very nice.
- It’s also very important to be quiet and listen first. Just like joining a new real person group or starting a new job, no one really likes a Ms. Smarty pants declaring undeniable truths without introducing herself gently first.
- Execs tweet about important meetings or newsy stuff. Or, they tweet about a new kick-butt product or their next TV interview time and channel.
You can also find out what’s being said about you and/or your company by using these links:
1. http://search.twitter.com
2. tweetbeep.com. Alerts will be e-mailed when someone mentions our organization.
3. Twitscoop.

I ended up with positive results.

With Twitter, I was able to connect with top-notch PR social media people, who otherwise may have been hard to reach, like the CEO of Zappos. Several of the people I followed reviewed my first social media strategy and offered help. They answered my questions about how to get You Tube to open as a TV screen on a Web page and what in the world ROI is. Still haven't worked on either of those things, but at least I sorta know what they are!

In an e-mail, I asked my a colleague and talented writer Melissa Oyler, who has her own blog and is working on her first novel, to share what she’s gotten out of Twitter:

Melissa wrote:
“What I expected to get out of it was some social networking that would hopefully lead to increased visits to my blog, www.melissaoh.com. What I didn't expect was for it to change my life.

I don't know most of my Twitter followers in real life. This makes it different for me than myspace and Facebook. I found followers based on common interests - graphic design, writing mostly. What has resulted is a huge outpouring of creativity among me and my new peers. When I was writing a novel in November, my peers provided encouragement and I was able to track my progress and theirs. It even helped me to jump start my new web site, www.poetryassignment.com, which I had thought was still a year or more out.

I was sick this week and spent a couple of days barely online. I found I was just as curious what my Twitter networkers were doing as I was my real-life friends. When I'm having a bad day, they are there to provide encouragement. We know about each other's families, likes and dislikes, jobs. Some of them are now my friends on Facebook and some of them I email and Instant Message with. When I say Twitter has changed my life, I mean it. I will never again lament for the days in which I have creative buddies again. I will never again feel lonely working from home. And yes, my blog has gotten more hits! Which in turn makes me want to write more because I know they are reading.”

You can follow Melissa here.

Need your help: Read this social media plan and let me know what you think.

(Note from me: I'm a general PR person working for a nonprofit and social media is relatively new to me. So I really need your help. This is a proposal I plan to submit to our nonprofit to bring us into the social media realm. Please take a look -- it's unusually long -- and let me know what you think. Let me know what I can nix and what I'm missing. Thank you!)

Social Media Strategy: Why start? How do we get in the conversation? What’s the plan?

I. WHY START?

We’re on YouTube now and will soon have an athlete blogging. And there’s more we can do to draw in more participation and donations. Here are the numbers we can eventually reach: Blogs in general receive 77.7 million unique visitors in the United States (source: comScore MediaMetrix (August 2008); Facebook has 41 million viewers, YouTube gets 10 percent of all internet traffic (Ellacoya Networks). We’re always looking for new supporters – this would open up our access. We could even e-mail some after developing relationships and ask if we can have their e-mail addresses so they can receive our monthly e-newsletter and e-mails from us.

II. WHAT ARE WE STARTING?

The biggest sites we should target are Facebook, Twitter, and Flikr all of which are offered for sharing on the Good 2Gether program. We should also try a fundraising site called Chip In for one or several small fundraising goals throughout the year.

About Facebook www.facebook.com Launched in 2004, Facebook is the second largest social network on the Internet. Users have profiles, where it’s recommended that even for organizations, to post a photo of the actual user instead of the organization so people aren’t turned off. You can add friends. You can post updates to what you’re working on or what’s happening, post photos and comments on other people’s pages. Users also post events and invite friends online where friends can RSVP. We can also post comments on friends’ pages, answer and ask questions, and hopefully friends (or “advocates”) will post good comments on our page. Every time either you or a friend posts, all of their friends and yours see the post. Users can also download blog posts. And as we join groups with similar interests and make comments on pages, our name gets out there even more.

About Twitter www.twitter.com Social media observers estimate 3 million people use Twitter, which debuted in March 2006. Industry influencers, press, analysts, celebrities, authors, politicians, businesses, consumers, and professional communicators, are on Twitter.

Twitter users are asked “What are you doing?” when writing a 140-character message letting people know about an event, or reinforcing your brand, or links to tips for your audience, a relevant video or blog of interest. This taps you into the community you want to reach by providing helpful information and not just making an ask.

We can link back to articles in the local media or our supporters’ blogs, and introduce potential story ideas about new programs or an athlete’s achievement.

About Flikr www.flikr.com Flickr is a popular image and video host mostly free Web site. Users share photos. Bloggers can also use Flickr and post a stream of photos on their blogs and Web sites. We can even get a Flikr badge for our Web site where people can click on it and see our photos. It also has a friend aspect to Flikr where your Flikr friends have access to your photos and they can make comments.

About Chip In (from Beth Kanter’s ChipIn Widget Fundraising Case Study http://widgetfundraising.org)

This is a site where nonprofit groups, especially small ones, can set and broadcast fundraising goals to friends in its social network. We create an account, fill out an online form stating what we’re collecting for, how much we want to raise and state a deadline. Organizations are required to have a PayPal account. We can insert the html of donation forms in our Web site or create a ChipIn page at specialolympicsga.chipin.com. The idea is to set small goals. We could do this on our event pages for something specific or just post one fundraising goal at a time. This isn’t meant for huge donation campaigns but still can be profitable. (Maybe Susan can spearhead this part of the social media plan??)

III. HOW DO WE GET INTO THE CONVERSATION? (From Social Media kingpin Chris Brogan

1. Find the constituent: Assign two people to build listening queries, daily update pages and regularly measure social media efforts (explained in section V).

2. Announce the new rules for employees: Create a one page outline of SOGA guidelines (and insert it in the employee handbook) for building employee profiles on social platforms like Facebook. Work with IT on firewall concerns. Determine a fair use policy during work hours.

3. Empower the person making the social media updates: Write a one page blogging policy (no more strict than the e-mail policy). Create policies on comments (including how to handle negative comments). Build a strategy on the types of posts, ideas for outreach, promotion and finding similar blogs and people in the space.

4. Shift Behavior: Demonstrate through case studies and pilot efforts how to empower employees to be helpful. Share examples and ideas on how these efforts can positively impact marketing/sales efforts.

5. Warm up the funnel: Build a way to report the multi-touch approach of using social tools to reach out and maintain relationships with prospects and customers.

6. Measurement: Improve current reporting to include the social elements such as comments, inbound links, search term value, etc. (Tools will be discussed in section V.)

IV. How much time will it take?

Recommended time it takes from Beth Kanter who helps nonprofits fundraise through social media. We can cut it down significantly and practice successful time management. J

- Listening to what is being said about Special Olympics Georgia, SO in general, pro sports and intellectual disabilities (through Twitter alerts, Technorati and others) 5 hours per week

- Participate and connecting with others online and communicating with bloggers first and then ask some of them to write about SOGA. 10 hours per week

- After we earn credibility and trust (by not making huge asks right off the bat) we can start spreading buzz. 10-15 hours per week.

More specifically:

Listening and updating Twitter 15 minutes per day

Facebook: Set up page 20 minutes; listening and updating 20 minutes per day.

V. How do we measure our efforts?

The results will be small at first but will grow over time with the more connections we make online. Every week we can listen to what people are saying about us through:

http://blogsearch.google.com

http://www.technorati.com

http://search.twitter.com

tweetbeep.com Alerts will be e-mailed when someone mentions our organization.

Twitscoop

(Tips for measurement come from Brian Solis and Chris Brogan.)

We’ll record findings monthly and report twice a year to CEO and possibly at staff meetings.

VI . What’s the plan?

(The action items listed each month isn’t everything. Also sprinkle in thank you’s during golf tournaments and tweet about check presentations and athlete stories that you hear about.)

December 2008: Announce social media rules to staff, give policy to comments and posts to social media updaters.

-Create Facebook page. Use your photo for the organization’s profile. May need to nix the Facebook profile page, and stick to creating and updating an organization fan page. Post photos of last year’s Winter Games and events, and start making friends.

-Create SOGA Twitter page. Mix in personal messages with work or issue related ones. Personal musings are good too, just remember you’re representing our company. Be mindful of tweets, updates and posts. For the profile photo, choose one from the person in charge of posting.

Stuff to Tweet about: personal thoughts or reflections that suit our brand, events, contests, reply to other people’s tweets, blog posts, also promote others’ blog posts (this is a good relationship building tool), announcements, funny things you overhear people say at the office, link to fun Internet games, and lyrics or quotes (This comes from the CEO of Zappos, who loves Twitter!)

-To find friends: Whoshouldifollow.com allows us to find friends based on keywords and certain networks

-Twubble http://crazybob.org/twubble/searches for people you know and recommends people you may want to follow.

-Ask CEO to create her own Twitter page. Comment a few times a week. She could post when she’s speaking at a conference or to a civic group, when she wants to thank a sponsor or company for anything or kudos to a company (sponsors) project or a headsup when she’ll be on the radio or TV.

Here’s what the CEO's Twitter page could look like:

zappos Following You follow zappos zappos's updates appear in your timeline. Device updates On Off Receive zappos's updates via SMS or IM (activate). Headed to Winter Park near Orlando because people keep telling me to check it out. Anyone have any restaurant or bar recommendations there? about 18 hours ago from txt Just got confirmation that Oprah will be airing the Zappos story next week on Thursday, October 23! Same episode as the Olsen twins. 5:20 PM Oct 17th from web Lunch at ANA conference with editorial page editor & various SVP's from New York Times. I'll be speaking after lunch to about 1000 people. 11:38 AM Oct 17th from txt Got into hotel late in Orlando so ordered room service. First time I've ever seen any place automatically add 21% for gratuity. 10:43 PM Oct 16th from web Spoke at @bif4 conference today, met lots of smart, passionate & interesting people! Now at Providence airport about to fly to Orlando. 3:38 PM Oct 16th from txt

January 2009: -Facebook and Twitter: Tweet about how great it is to be a fan in the stands at one of our events. Tweet about fundraising program for the month. On Facebook, invite people to the February event.

-Record company mentions and traffic.

-Tweet about athletes heading off to World Games. Tweet as a headsup of TV news stories, link to stories

February2009:- Create Flikr account and start inviting friends

- Post photos of Winter Games on Flikr, Facebook.

-Tweet updates of athletes’ competitions at World Games. Share photos.

-Group Tweet http://grouptweet.com/ allows us to broadcast and share tweets (messages) to a specific group. And it’s free. Group tweet about the statewide March event or link to Flikr photos from Winter Games.

-Remember to monitor organization mentions in blogs and on Twitter.

March 2009-Post a badge of Flikr linking to our photos on the company Web site. Also post a stream of photos on our Web site, possibly replacing the photo gallery

-Tweet and Facebook about the March fundraiser, post event photos on Flikr and Facebook.

- Wendy needs to visit Twittertise http://twittertise.com/ and see how we can advertise on Twitter and track the success of branded communications with our constituents. The platform helps us track technology to measure the effectiveness of our traffic driving ability.

-Post event on Facebook about the bocce fundraiser. Post a quiz on Twitter where the winner wins a free ticket to the event.

April 2009 – Follow-up with Facebook on possibly having a $1 free gift a duck or medal where a portion of the amount collected goes back to our company.

- Check into Chip In and create an account, also with Paypal. Consider either creating a fundraising goal for one event or for each event during the year. It might be better to run a pilot in one fundraiser in 2009. Possibly, post a fundraising goal for State Summer Games and link from several locations on our Web site. Also can post link or embedded donation form through Chip In for events for the remainder of 2009.

- Make an announcement about the Chip In campaign on blog, or note in Facebook and Tweet about it.

- If we choose to have a Chip In campaign for each event, the event’s organizer should e-mail contacts, letting them know about the new campaign.

- Remember to monitor and measure social media efforts with the sites listed in section V.

- Remember to add friends in Facebook and Twitter.

- Link video from last summer games to Flikr and Facebook.

May 2009-Continue to build relationships on Twitter, Facebook and invite more friends into Flikr. Post photos of Summer Games 2009 on Facebook and Flikr.

-Tweet links of Summer Games news stories

-Link to Dutch Walters site of Summer Games photos.

-Start tweeting, writing about Duck Derby in Facebook. Invite people to Duck Derby on Facebook.

-E-mail 10 people in each event (not the same people) to donate $10 each to help complete the Chip In campaign.

-Send e-mail thank you’s to people who donated through Chip In. Include photos in the thank yous.

-Remember to thank everyone in a blog and Facebook note when a campaign ends.

June 2009-Post Master Bowling event on events, tweet about it.

-Prepare a social media status six months report for CEO. Invite SOGA friends on FB to DSA.

-Invite people to Duck Derby again on Facebook. Tweet updates on duck sales, or where we’re selling ducks.

July 2009- Post photos of Masters Bowling on Flikr and Facebook; tweet about Masters Bowling.

-Tweet links of athlete news stories.

August 2009-Post some photos of DSA winners on FB and Flikr, tweet some of the sweetest moments.

- Post an event about the Duluth Tournament, maybe Tweet about how we’re doing on golfer numbers.

-Record results of media efforts.

September 2009-Post event about the DinoDash, tweet about a sponsor and or/product, post event about State Fall Games. Invite people to volunteer on Facebook.

- Post a note about the October golf tournament a Georgia golfer’s group page on Facebook.

October 2009-Post photos of Fall Games on Flikr, Facebook.

-Tweet some of the athlete’s accomplishments at State Fall Games in Statesboro, say something nice about Statesboro.

-Record results from social media measurements.

-Tweet about athletes preparing for the State Horse Show, Sailing Regatta and Powerlifting

November 2009- Post photos of athletes from the Horse Show, Sailing, and Powerlifting

-Prepare report to CEO on the year’s efforts in Social Media.

-Tweet some inspiring athlete stories.

-Write a status update letting people know they can make a donation in memory or in honor of someone.

December 2009

-Present the year’s report of our efforts with social media.

In 2010 check out BrightKite. It’s kind of a new type of social media like Facebook and Friendfeed. But is expected to be very useful later on.