Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

When blogging first got going the idea of writing a blog post and then pinging the RSS and blog directories to notify them of your update was standard operating procedure. Fact is, it still is, but it’s become automated by services like Feedburner.

Now that social networks like Facebook have begun to enter the small business mainstream, users are looking for practical ways to extend their conversations and open up new access points through the many features and functions available. Part of the trouble with this is that it can be a bit overwhelming. The cool thing about Facebook is that it can do so much. However, lots of choices can also lead to paralysis for the newcomer.

One very simple and powerful way to get more mileage out of your Facebook presence is to note and tag. (The blog and ping equivalent) There is a default Facebook application simply called Notes that is terribly underutilized. The Notes application allows you to write a note. There’s nothing too sexy about that, right? Here’s where I think it gets interesting. You can also automatically create notes using any RSS feed. So, if you have a blog (please tell me you do) you can republish your blog content right into your Facebook notes application. (Of course you can also add a delicious feed or a custom RSS news feed of any sort.) This does several things. You get automatic content creation for your new outreach and your profile gets updated with every new blog post or note. In addition, Facebook friends can comment on the notes much as they might on your regular blog posts.

One of the core marketing strategic objectives of social networks is to expand your reach and open up new avenues of networking. Adding tagging to the above Notes strategy really helps this objective along. Once you post a note you can tag anyone on your friend list in the note. This causes them to get a notification that they were tagged in a note and it posts the fact that they were tagged into their profile for all their Facebook friends to see. Now, first the disclaimer: Don’t use this as a way to spam your friend list. Write legitimate blog posts and notes that have some relevant or direct mention of your friend and then tag them. Pointing to their blogs posts or media mentions of them and writing a note is a fine use of this tactic. (Tagging photos and videos in this manner has the same impact)

Of course one of the keys to making this work is that you have people in your network that you have reason to tag in a blog post or note. Reach out to journalists, authors, speakers, and other industry and hi profile folks and send them friend requests so that you can utilize this powerful feature. They won’t all accept, but many will and if you then start utilizing this practice in a sincere and meaningful way you will find that your network will begin to respond to your communications. If you’ve been holding back because you didn’t know why you would do this, now you do.

By the way, here’s my Facebook profile, send me a request if you would like to get started. Of course, then you can write a blog post mentioning some brilliant marketing point I made and then well, tag me in your post on the Notes application. You know, just as an example!

Posted by: John Jantsch on Jun 24, 08 | 3:03 am
Category: Facebook, Feedburner, Social Marketing | Tags: