How do you do that? Here are some steps:

1. Use a profile photo that tells your followers who you are and what you have to offer: If you’re a single store location, it might even be advisable to put your store hours on the photo. Add URLs to other websites and social presences. Facebook’s limitations on photos vary; some say that they can successfully upload a 200×600 image whereas others claim that 180×540 is the current limitation. Experiment and see what Facebook allows you to do.

2. Choose a name for your page that your customers can identify with: Don’t be cute or silly. This is your brand’s page. Use the name of your business, and if necessary, add the city name as well.

3. Use a vanity URL that your fans may guess to find you: There have been many companies specifically sought out on Facebook by simply typing facebook.com/businessname. It is surprising that some of the business names actually pointed to personal profiles and not the business profiles. Instead, reserve the business URL for your business page. You can allocate a vanity URL by going to facebook.com/username.

4. Give your followers information about you: Fill out as much information as you can in the About box under your profile and on the Info tab, and make sure to offer keyword rich text so that your Facebook presence shows up for search engine queries for your business.

5. Personalize your page: One of the ways to do so is to create a Facebook page with FBML, Facebook Markup Language. This entitles you to add custom tabs. You can create tabs to invite users to connect, let people find your store locations, or offer exclusive features to your fans. Whatever you do, keep the engagement level high.

6. Tell your customers where to find you! You probably have a web presence, right? Make sure to encourage your followers to find you on Facebook. Add links to your Facebook profile (and any other major social presences) in your email signature. When an individual becomes a new Fan, it shows up in their news feed, so others can also find out where they’ve been — and this could potentially have a viral effect. Once you’re found, the rest is up to you. Being actively engaged is a critical part of success on Facebook. Once your fans are there, make sure they stay by giving them reasons to regularly participate.

Tamar Weinberg is an internet marketer who specializes in social media strategy. She is the author of The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web and is Mashable’s Community Support & Advertising Manager. Follow her on Twitter at @Tamar and read her blog Techipedia.

If you want to discuss some of these strategies, please drop us a line or call Hawthorne Media Group at 503-238-4024. Thank you!

Most of you may not know the difference between Outbound Marketing and Inbound Marketing. It’s not any more complicated than it sounds. Outbound Marketing consists of what I used to call Conventional Marketing Techniques: trade shows, seminar series, email blasts to purchased lists, internal cold calling, outsourced telemarketing, and tv/radio/print advertising. We have begun to refer to them as “Push” marketing techniques. It casts an extremely wide net, hoping to catch enough fish to justify the massive expenses needed to support it.

Inbound Marketing is a concept forwarded by the two creators of the enormously valuable Hubspot.com Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah.

It is the process of setting yourself and your business up to “get found” by people who are already shopping in the industry for services offered by professionals just like you. It’s much easier to grab the attention of (and secure new business with) a potential new client (who is already looking for you) with a targeted and specific message and specific CTA (Call-To-Action) than to hope to hit the bull’s eye of an indifferent and moving target with a generalized and diluted message.

Obvious, right? Then why does it seem like such an original and forward-thinking philosophy? That one is easy. Because of the internet, businesses are now able to gain access to potential new clients around-the-clock and around-the-world immediately and, in most cases, at a very low comparative cost to conventional marketing. With the effective use of search engines, social media sites, and a presence on (or at least an awareness of) industry specific blogs, you can set your website up to be a “hub” for your industry, and promote yourself as the expert that you truly are.

Instead of wasting time and money trying to reach and sell to the people who are already trying to screen your calls, block your “junk” mail and filter your spam, why not spend some time on your website, its content an how effectively you can use it to communicate with interested potential clients? Instead of interrupting your prospects’ lives with ineffective and way-too-general message, just be standing there, bright and bold, offering quality information and content, a path that is clear and focused, and open arms and a smile, instead of sneaking up behind then and tossing a net over their heads.

I quote Brian Halligan:

“The best analogy I can come up with is that traditional marketers looking to garner interest from new potential customers are like lions hunting in the jungle for elephants. The elephants used to be in the jungle in the ’80s and ’90s when they learned their trade, but they don’t seem to be there anymore. They have all migrated to the watering holes on the savannah (the internet). So, rather than continuing to hunt in the jungle, I recommend setting up shop at the watering hole or turning your website into its own watering hole.”

More great information from the two chaps mentioned above can be found in their book “Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs.”

A QR Code is a matrix code (or two-dimensional bar code) created by Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994. The “QR” is derived from “Quick Response”, as the creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed.

QR Codes are common in Japan, where they are currently the most popular type of two dimensional codes. Moreover, most current Japanese mobile phones can read this code with their camera.

Although initially used for tracking parts in vehicle manufacturing, QR Codes are now used in a much broader context, including both commercial tracking applications and convenience-oriented applications aimed at mobile phone users (known as mobile tagging).

QR Codes storing addresses and URLs may appear in magazines, on signs, buses, business cards or just about any object that users might need information about. Users with a camera phoneequipped with the correct reader software can scan the image of the QR Code causing the phone’s browser to launch and redirect to the programmed URL. This act of linking from physical world objects is known as a hardlink or physical world hyperlinks. Google’s mobile Android(OS) supports the use of QR codes by natively including the barcode scanner (ZXing) on some models and the browser supports URI redirection which allows QR Codes to send meta-data to existing applications on the device.

Users can also generate and print their own QR Code for others to scan and use by visiting one of several free QR Code generating sites.

Please visit Island Graphics’ BIZNIK page at: http://biznik.com/join/david-sparks

Everyone’s linking in these days. But is anyone really connecting?

If you’re someone who thinks about business networking in terms of community rather than tool, Biznik is for you. Biznik combines the best of social networking with the best of real-world connection in a way that helps you:

* Get Real - Members meet online AND face-to-face at member-hosted events.
* Get Noticed - 93 percent of Biznik’s top members rank on page 1 of Google for their name or keywords.
* Get Published - build your professional reputation.
* Get Business - meet your next client or business partner.
* Get Current - keep up with the latest trends in business at member-hosted workshops and seminars.

Biznik is a business community for independent business people who are passionate about what they do and want to be part of a community of like-minded folks interested in seeing each other succeed.

–David

TRY REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY!

To think that you can “Think ahead” for every potential client that comes along is not only a recipe for disaster, but is also, at the very least, impossible. Trying being who you are as a business and not saying anything. Put ALL of your efforts toward making sure that when potential new clients approach you that you are damn prepared to be exactly who they have been looking for.

I just discovered REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY MARKETING, by Indrajit Sinha and Thomas Foscht. Here are some excerpts from the book. What an amazing modern philosophy:

Traditional marketing is now being turned on its head… The ideas of marketing and branding strategy that passed for conventional wisdom before do not hold true today. A small but growing number of innovative firms have adopted radically new and differentiated approaches based upon reverse psychology marketing, reflecting a clear and unmistakable change in the global culture. In this era of globalization and the Internet the consumer is behaving in a radically different way and is no longer susceptible to the timeworn ploys of push marketing.

The present times call for a new game – one that strays from the prescriptions that traditional marketing theory holds dear, indeed that sometimes works in a way that is counter to it (what the authors call ‘anti-marketing’) and that lays focus on network-building and ‘pulling the customer’ above all else. Many experienced hands in corporate boardrooms are oblivious to these shifting sands and evolving trends, and are paying the price as a result.

This book, supplementing ideas and insights with numerous engaging and topical anecdotes, will show you how to understand and connect with this change.

‘Don’t run after customers, let them discover you instead…’

Shops without signs, brands with no advertising, tourist resorts that actively shun publicity, ‘slow food’ restaurants, and plain-looking models are but a few of the present-day developments that can bemuse observers who learned their marketing from the MBA ‘bibles’. Today there are firms that don’t claim to satisfy their customers, adopt a ‘take it or leave it’ attitude, and still attract a following. Others act as ‘nanny marketers’ dictating what customers can or can’t have and still have buyers come in droves.

This book shows why these developments are taking place and why they are proving to be successful. It points out the flaws and fallacies of conventional marketing thinking and how that has led to the self-destructive practice of over-marketing. It highlights the present marketing zeitgeist and how brands like Coach, Samsung, BAPE, Tchibo, Red Bull, and Pout have understood it better. In many industries the middle market is hollowing out creating a ‘Wal-Mart and Ferrari’ type of situation. The book offers prescriptions and insights to cope with the changing business dynamics to establish authenticity and a dedicated customer network.

In keeping with the spirit of this book, the authors have not sought outside endorsements.

1- Get Out of Your Comfort Zone
Remember when Facebook was just one of many niche communities popping up and competing for our attention? Sometime in 2010, Facebook will surpass 400 million registered users worldwide, though the notion of “Facebook fatigue” is being circulated (probably wishful thinking by some of their competitors). Yet there are still plenty of social networking sites and communities that cater to more focused targets that we, as marketers, cannot ignore. YOU NEED TO BE OUT THERE (NET)WORKING!

2- Be a Better Listener
Sometimes talking less and listening more can provide greater value to an overall marketing strategy. Whether you engage them or not, customers and potential customers are talking about your brand and products in online communities.

Understanding what they are saying and where will help you to make a more informed decision about how to interact. Involve community members in your process, be willing to put some control in their hands and listen to the feedback from your “virtual focus group.”

3- Think Global. Act Local.
Social communities dominated our computer screens in 2009. But 2010 could be the year that both new and existing technologies will take over our smartphone and PDA screens. Just a year ago, only a handful of early adopters were talking about the potential of Twitter as a marketing tool. Now look where we are!

4- Do Good for Your Fellow Man
As you plan for 2010, keeping your bottom line in mind is obviously important. But what if you can meet your objectives AND do some good in the community at the same time? Many companies and brands already have existing philanthropic programs, but tying it to social and partnering with your customers can amplify and maximize the measurable impact of your contribution. Step out.

5- Get Back to the Gym
Okay, so this one has nothing really to do with marketing, but if your holiday was anything like ours, the cookies, candy and other sweet treats were always around and, well, you’re a little rounder as a result. Next year, please just send virtual cookies and help us cut back on the calories.

Honorable Mention(s)- Lighten the Hell Up!!! and Be More Supportive of Others
‘Nuff said?

Good luck with these… and of course, if you have any trouble adhering to our resolutions, feel free to give us a call. Happy and healthy New Year to all!

It seems that every time you look around, you find more complex solutions to the most simple marketing problems.. reaching your audience, effectively communicating, and helping customers advance their business forward.  Let’s see if I can simplify it for you.