Free tools for small business Facebook page

August 14th, 2010

appbistroJust like every business should have a website and an email address … every business now needs a business Facebook Page.

The good news:  Facebook Pages are free.

Even better news:  Now there are lots of free (and inexpensive) tools for customizing and making your Facebook page work better to drive you new leads.

Check out AppBistro for Facebook Page apps.

Posted in Business social media marketing | No Comments »

Adding Facebook “Like” buttons to your business website

April 23rd, 2010
Earlier this week, Facebook announced some significant updates which enable you to make your business website more social = more customer pass-around promotion.  And the great news is that it is very simply to add this to your small business website.

The best way to start is to add a Facebook “Like” button to each of your website pages.

You can see an example on a Facebook Like button right at the top of this article.  As visitors click “Like”, their name is added to the list of Facebook people who like your webpage!  Here is an example where 2 people have liked a webpage:

Screen shot 2010-04-23 at 11.57.43 AM

Now with one click (without having to login or anything on your website), a visitor (who is a Facebook member … there are only 500M of them now!) can indicate that they like your website.  This results in an item being posted on the user’s Facebook feed saying they like your business!  And with a link back to your business website!  Here’s an example of what is posted on a user’s Facebook page for liking a blog post and a website:

Screen shot 2010-04-23 at 12.22.14 PM

Getting your own Facebook Like button
Here’s the snippet of HTML code you can add to any web page to instantly add a Facebook Like button:

<iframe src=”http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http://www.mywebsite.com&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=true&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light” scrolling=”no” frameborder=”0″ allowTransparency=”true” style=”border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height:30px;”></iframe>

Notes on above:

  • replace the red text with the URL of the page you want to be “liked”
  • you can change the width and height if you’d like
  • you may be able to remove the <div…> and </div> tags

If you’d like to add to a WordPress site and have the Like refer to a specific page (e.g. a specific blog post), then here is the HTML:

<div style=”margin-top:5px;”><iframe src=”http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=<?php the_permalink() ?>&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=true&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light” scrolling=”no” frameborder=”0″ allowTransparency=”true” style=”border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height:30px;”></iframe></div>

Notes on the above:

  • the <?php the_permalink() ?> is replaced with the actual link to the blog post by WordPress
  • you may be able to remove the <div…> and </div> depending on your webpage
  • you will need to go to the Appearance / Editor and add the above code to two template pages — single.php and main index.php (note: these might have different names in your theme)
  • you can choose whether you want to have Like button appear at the top or bottom (or both!) of each post … I recommend that you paste in HTML code where you think it makes sense, Save and then reload your web page in another browser window to make sure it looks right.  If it doesn’t, then simply delete what you pasted and try again.

Here’s a good overview video:

Please leave comments on how this worked for you.

Posted in Business social media marketing | No Comments »

Get your own friendly Facebook business page name

March 30th, 2010
facebook fan pageSo, you’ve setup a Facebook Fan page for your business.

Great!  Now how do you get the link for your business page to be something friendly like:

http://facebook.com/joeslawncare

vs. the default of something like:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Joeslawncare/171239568405

which no one will ever remember!

It sure isn’t obvious how you get a friendly Facebook Fan page web link URL for your business!  It isn’t listed in Settings for your Facebook Fan page.

NOTE: The current Facebook requirement is that you have at least 25 “fans” (now called “likes”) of your page before you can setup a friendly page URL for your business page.

You have to go to http://www.facebook.com/username page

Then select the “Set a username for your Pages” link

You will then be able to select the Page you’d like to set a friendly name for.  That’s it!

NOTE:  You can NEVER change this name, so select carefully.

5 Twitter tips for local small businesses

March 22nd, 2010
twitterHere are a 5 tips for local small businesses about how to take advantage of Twitter:

  1. Setup separate professional and personal Twitter accounts if you want a e-”firewall” between your business “tweets” and your personal ones
  2. If you want to start an ongoing topic or event-based Twitter conversation, include a hashtag (e.g. #myconversation1) in the tweet which is both descriptive and unique.  You can confirm hashtag is unique and promote it at hashtag.org
  3. Twitter operates at a much faster pace than email, Facebook, blogs, etc., so you’ll want to subscribe to an alert service to see when other people re-tweet your content or send you a public tweet message.  Check out TweetBeep.com
  4. Use Twitter Lists to promote other people to follow and get them to pay back by adding you to one of their Twitter Lists
  5. Good article about finding your neighbors on Twitter

Please add comments for other tips on using Twitter!

HelpHive Overview for Businesses

March 4th, 2010
Here is a video describing how HelpHive can help your business generate more quality leads through your existing happy customers.
Learn how homeowners are using HelpHive:
Watch video of “How HelpHive Works” >

Every customer review posted on HelpHive.com becomes a FREE ongoing advertisement of your business to a LARGE highly targeted audience.

 

SPECIAL PROMOTION: Your Customers Get $10 Starbucks Card
When your customers post a review of your business on HelpHive.com, we will mail them a $10 Starbucks Card as a "Thank you!"

 

How to Get More Customer Reviews on HelpHive

Option 1: Email your existing customers and ask them to post a review of your work
       David Bleiweiss at House Doctor got 10 customer reviews in a week doing this!

Option 2: Hand-out "Review our Work" cards as you complete new customer jobs
       Need more cards? Email us and we’ll mail you more cards.

Yelp is charging exorbitant advertising rates

December 9th, 2009

We were just posting our special offer ($10 Starbucks gift card for posting a qualified review on HelpHive) on our business profile on Yelp and saw that Yelp is charging businesses $300-$500 CPM advertising rates.  If this is true (see for yourself below), this is crazy!  That means you’re paying $0.30 per impression!!! not per click!  Who would in their right mind pay these rates?  or what am I missing here?

Screenshot from our Yelp Business account page:

Screen shot 2009-12-09 at 1.33.33 PM

Promote special offers on HelpHive

September 1st, 2009

We just launched a new free feature on HelpHive which enables businesses to promote their own customized special offers to HelpHive users.

Special offers are promoted on the following places and link directly to your business page:

  • HelpHive’s home page
  • HelpHive service category pages (e.g. if you offer handyman services, then it will be promoted on the handyman page)
  • HelpHive city & neighborhood pages (e.g. if you are based in Tacoma, then it will be promoted on the Tacoma page)
  • HelpHive city/neighborhood service category pages (e.g. if you are HVAC contractor based in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle)
  • HelpHive homeowner monthly newsletters

Here is an example of how special offers are promoted on HelpHive’s home page:

home special offers

Setting up your free business special offer on HelpHive

On your business page, when you are logged in to HelpHive, before you have a special offer setup, you will see this block:

special offer initial

Click on the “Setup Offer” button and you can immediately create your special offer:

special offer example

Type in the details of your special offer along with an expiration date and then click “Save”.

special offer on profile

It’s that simple!  You can change (or remove) your special offer at any time by clicking “[edit]“.  So, you can create seasonal offers or try out different offers to see which ones work better.  NOTE: when you have an active special offer, visitors to your business page see the special offer without the “[edit]” link!  The [edit] links on your business page are only visible to you as the business account holder.

How do customers redeem special offers?

We’ve made it really simple … HelpHive users need to mention “HelpHive” to receive your offer.  So, if you are putting up a special offer, you need to be ready to honor the offer when it is requested by HelpHive users.

Posted in HelpHive Promotion | No Comments »

Promote your HelpHive reviews on your own website

August 23rd, 2009

We recently launched a new HelpHive feature which lets you show on your own website the latest reviews and recommendations which your customers have posted on HelpHive.

Benefits of HelpHive’s new Business Recommendations Widget:

  • Simple to Add. Simply copy’and’paste some web (html) code and paste into your web page
  • Personalized. It is personalized for your business only showing reviews and recommendations for your business
  • Direct Link. When users click to read more details on reviews/recommendations they are taken right to those reviews/recommendations details.
  • Dynamic Updates. As new reviews/recommendations are posted by customers on HelpHive, these are automatically displayed on your website.
  • Positive Only. Only positive reviews and recommendations are displayed/promoted on your website.

How to Add Your Reviews/Recommendations to your Business Website

Go to your business web page on HelpHive and click on the “Get Recommendations Widget” link

get reco widget

Then you will see the following page:

reviews widget edit

Click on the area which says “Copy and Paste…” and then select your browser’s Copy command to copy this text to your computer’s clipboard.

Then paste this web (html) text into the (HTML version of the) page on your business website where you’d like this widget to display.  That’s it!

You now have relevant, recent, independent reviews and recommendations of your business on your business website working to help generate more leads for your business.

Here is an example of a live recommendations widget for Box of Rain Landscape business:

Posted in Business website tips | No Comments »

New! Direct Phone Calls to Businesses on HelpHive.com

August 18th, 2009

phone-ringingWe just updated HelpHive to provide a more seamless process for customers to contact all 7,000+ businesses listed on HelpHive.com in the Seattle-Tacoma area.  And we’re already seeing a lot more calls being initiated which means more leads for businesses!

Phone numbers are now displayed right on each business’ profile page

So customers can call you even more easily.  Previously phone numbers were accessed when users clicked on the “Contact” button.

We’ve also provided a form for customers to contact you by email upfront on each business profile page.  So customers can start typing you a message without having to click any buttons!

Screen shot 2009-12-09 at 2.39.42 PM

Example of how phone number and send message box are on the front of business profile page

Phone calls are now being connected directly to your business

When a HelpHive user dials your number, they will be directly connected to you.  If your phone is busy or rings more than 6 times, we direct the call to HelpHive’s voicemail system.  You will then be sent an email with a link to hear the voicemail at your convenience.  Depending on your settings, you may also receive a phone call from HelpHive later delivering the voicemail to you.

Why are you showing HelpHive’s phone number rather than my business phone number?

It’s simple … in order to know when we’ve sent you a phone call, we need to be able to track and report to your business how many leads we are providing.  So, we’ve attempted to make the process as streamlined as possible and as affordable as possible to your business!  Right now, in beta, all referrals are FREE … you can’t do better than that!

We’re always looking for feedback, so please leave comments on this post or contact us privately.

Managing your online reputation for local services businesses

August 7th, 2009

nytlogo152x23Last week, the New York Times wrote an interesting article which started with…

Your customers are talking about you — and the whole world is listening.  Local review sites are reshaping the world of small business by becoming the new Yellow Pages, one-stop platforms where customers can find a business — and also see independent critiques of its performance.

Here a few more highlights from the article:

  • 84% of Americans say online reviews influence their purchasing decisions
  • Online search for local services grew 58% last year becoming more than 10% of all online search traffic
  • The more detailed you profile (on sites like HelpHive), the more readily your business will appear in search results
  • A negative review demands attention … start with a private response to see if you can resolve
  • Posting false reviews (of your business or your competitors) is a no-no (cause you will get caught)
  • Buying premium (advertising) services gives you more ability to “work the crowd”

Tip:  Setup a Google alert to be notified everytime your business is mentioned online

Posted in business reputation | No Comments »