Facebook Slams us AGAIN
Yesterday Facebook announced via the developer forum that Facebook Pages now need to be authenticated in order to have landing tabs. WTF, what the hell is this? This basically means any new visitor to your Facebook Page will not be able to land on a custom tab unless you have greater than 10,000 fans or the Page administrator has worked with an ads account representative. I don’t know how many of you have tried to get a hold of anyone at Facebook but it’s impossible. Why would they do this to us? This is going to kill small businesses. Hasn’t Facebook been telling small businesses to come to Facebook to promote their business? Welp, looks like they are screwed now.
This is a massive blow to Page owners who were looking to build their fan base organically on their own. I have found that landing tabs is critical in converting new visitors into fans and prospective customers. Here’s what was posted on the developer forum earlier today:
Hello all,
We apologize for not messaging this earlier. Facebook recently made a change requiring that Pages be authenticated before enabling the ability to set a landing tab beyond Wall or Info. To be eligible for authentication, a Page must have greater than 10k fans or the Page admin must work with their ads account manager. If you are already working with an account representative, please contact that representative to begin the authentication process. If you do not work with an account representative, you can use this contact form to inquire about working with an account representative.
Also, for advertisers who don’t have a representative or 10k fans, and want to run ads and land users on a specific tab, you can still do so with standard Facebook ads by making their Destination URL as the URL incl. your tab. Unfortunately, this currently will not work with “Fan” ads.
Thanks,
Matt Trainer
WTF? Is all Facebook is concerned about is getting more money. This move is going to kill them and kill Facebook Fan Pages. I hate this and am starting to HATE Facebook. I think someone should start a company that says something and sticks with it. Facebook, we are sick of your shit. I don’t know if I told anyone but we started a Facebook fan page 4 years ago called facebook.com/ilovemyfamily We had over 3 million fans. Facebook stole it from us and killed the page. It took us months to finally get an answer from them. Their answer was “it was to general” that’s all they said. WTF… We spend thousands of dollars on pages and had them taken away. Facebook needs to get their act together or people will rebel and shut them down. It’s US who helps Facebook grow, it’s US that keeps you in business. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
Social Media Gets Local
Social Media Gets Local
(1) Promote Your Business on Services On foursquare: Potential customers could be walking by your business and checking in on foursquare. They will see your business and if you’ve promoted a discount or special offer for foursquare users. Then they would be notified that there’s a discount close by and want to stop in.
(2) Follow & Comment on Local Blogs: Find out who is blogging about the local scene where your business is located. By commenting on local blogger’s posts you will start to build a relationship with them. They could even mention you if you have related news or let you suggest a guest post. This would be a great way to get additional local exposure.
Bloglines and Placeblogger are tools that can help you easily find local blogs.
(3) Attend Local Social Media Events On & Offline: Social media events like Tweetups are happening everywhere. Tweetups are a type of event or meetup of Twitter users who are interested in a similar topic. They are a great way to meet and network with people who have similar interests.
Twtvite makes it easy to fine local Tweetups or host your own. Meetup is a very popular tool for finding any type of local event. I have been to several of these Meetups and they are a lot of fun to go to. You will meet a lot of people that are very passionate about the same thing as you.
(4) Filter Your Social Media Advertising: When you advertise on social media sites you are given the option to filter who you are showing your advertisement to. Typically you can filter on country, state, city and sometimes zip code.
When you set these filters on Facebook you are provided with how many people you can reach with your advertising. The number of people you can reach decrease with each new filter you add.
(5) Join or Start Local Groups Online: Several social media platforms have group capabilities that let you create groups on any topic. If you are a running shoe store in Miami you could start a Miami running group and ask members to add their favorite runs or running tips. This will help build your local credibility.
The key to starting a local group is to find something that is related to your business but isn’t actually your business in order to get the maximum response.
If your business isn’t local, but targets a specific group or age range, many of these ideas can be re-purposed for that as well. Let us know if you try one of these ideas and how it works out for your business.