marketing – Stay N Alive

Category: marketing

Growth Hacking: How to Target Ads to the Followers of a Public ("Follow") Profile on Facebook

Posted on by jessestay

I shared earlier on this blog the benefit of using a personal, “Public Profile” on Facebook over a Fan Page on Facebook to personalize the experience and grow your network. I encourage each of my clients to, when they have the choice, choose the public profile over the Fan Page for personalities in the company for the reasons I shared earlier. It personalizes the company better, and I think the opportunities to grow organically are stronger.

There has always been one downside though – you can’t advertise to the followers of public profiles. It turns out there is actually a way to finally advertise to the followers of a traditional profile on Facebook with a “follow” button. It involves just a little Graph API knowledge (see my book to learn!), use of Graph Explorer, and a Facebook Page for your brand that you can use to create the ad. Here’s how you do it – let me know if I can help your company or brand do the same!:

Using Graph API to Get the User’s Followers

The trick involves just a little Graph API (the Facebook developer platform used to get data out of Facebook). To start, open up Graph Explorer from the developers.facebook.com “Tools” section.

Give your user the “user_subscriptions” permission by clicking on the “Get Access Token” button and checking the box under “User Data Permissions”.

Now, type in the following path next to the “GET” drop-down:

jessestay/subscribers?fields=id&limit=5000

You can replace “jessestay” with the id of any public user. The limit=5000 lets you traverse through the more subscribers at a time. Hit “Submit”, and a bunch of data will be returned.

Now is the part you need to figure out, and where a little programming knowledge might help (I may upload this as a tool on SocialToo.com at some point if it makes sense). Each page has only 5,000 subscribers listed, but there is a “next” link at the bottom that takes you to the next 5,000 subscribers. Your job is to traverse through this list, follow all the “next” links until there are no more, and extract a list of facebook ids in a text file (csv or txt). You can do this either manually or through an automated script that you create

This script took me about 15 minutes to write on my own, so it’s not too difficult a task if you have a little programming knowledge. Of course, this is also a service I provide to my clients so let me know if I can help! Once you have this file, you’re ready for the next step!

Uploading the Followers to Ad Manager

Now that you have your file, you need to upload it to Ad Manager as a “custom audience”. This used to only be available to Facebook’s Power Editor, but it’s now a native piece of the Facebook Ad management experience.

Start by going to http://facebook.com/ads/manage and make sure the account you’re using is selected (for those that might manage multiple accounts like me). On the left is a link that says “Audiences”. Click on that.

Now, click on “Create Audience”. A dialog box will appear – select “Data File” from the dialog box.

Now name your audience whatever you like, and choose the file you just created in the above section. If it’s a text file that has a Facebook ID on each line of the file it should work. Also, make sure you select “advanced options” and “user ids” so it recognizes your ids as Facebook ids and doesn’t try to read them as email addresses. Click “Create Audience”, and now your custom audience should be created! Pretty quickly you’ll start seeing the number of potential people you can target show up next to the audience stats on this page.


Creating Your Ad

Now that you’ve created your custom audience out of the user’s subscribers, you just need to create an ad that targets this custom audience. This is where you’ll need an existing Facebook Page for your brand (Not the user themselves – to me Facebook Pages are for brands. Facebook Profiles are for users!) if you want to do a promoted post. If you don’t want to use another Facebook Page you can just do a right-nav ad that targets a URL and that will work too.

Start by creating a promoted post using Ad Manager, or on the Page itself (don’t use the “boost” option!). You can make this visible or invisible to your fans – it’s up to you. Include a link if you like, just text, or whatever you want. Maybe even put the image of that user in the post so it’s recognizable to the fans of that user. Another option is to have your Facebook Fan Page share a post of that user, and then you can promote that!

Then in your targeting options, select the custom audience you just created. You can further refine the audience if you like, should the post be needed to target a specific subgroup of that audience (allowing for much stronger micro-targeting and perhaps even better results for less cost). Set all your bidding options, submit the ad, and now you have an ad targeting all the followers of a specific user on Facebook!

The great thing about this is you don’t have to limit it to subscriptions – it works with any data your user has access to. You can access your friends, your friends’ friends. You can target the attendees of an event you’re going to. Or members of a group you participate in. You also don’t need to limit it to your own user if you’re targeting just followers. Because public profiles are public, you can target the followers of any user that has their profile marked as public!

Just a side-note: I did notice a bug in Facebook’s Graph API that doesn’t return all of the subscribers. I think it excludes subscribers that are subscribing to you through Facebook lists. It will return most though, which makes an ad campaign totally worth it!

So when you think you have to use a Fan Page because you can’t advertise on a public profile, think again! You indeed can target subscribers of public profiles on Facebook, making the use of a public profile even more powerful, and something every brand should consider!

Let me help your brand! These little “Growth Hacks” are the core of our business, and how we excel against other marketers and firms in this space. If you want to get an advantage against your competition that other marketers can’t touch, send an email to jesse@staynalive.com!

Oh, and like what you see here? Did it help your marketing strategy? Please consider sending donations to paypal@staynalive.com (Paypal), or send me Bitcoin!:

Address: 19AdCAbjshRuEFhx4py1Ny7i48s1d6RFi


Your Constantly Evolving, Constantly Changing Social Media Plan

Posted on by jessestay

When I was younger things were simpler. TV, Print News, and when the internet, even websites would remain pretty static. My, how things have changed! In a world of “Generation Me”, with Millenials being raised on the internet and using technology and social media for most of their lives, marketing, and technology is so much different! As a marketer, your audience expects change, and they expect it fast.

It’s for this reason that social networks evolve so quickly. I remember numerous companies rising up on the backbone of Facebook, only to find out Facebook’s rules for their platform changing and completely going out of business as a result. I learned this the hard way with my service, SocialToo, which, based wholely on the premise of a user’s social graph on Twitter alone, and the ability to auto-follow, was quickly overrun by changes in Twitter’s API policies which rendered my business model obsolete.

Am I bitter? Maybe a little, but the fact is I’ve learned my lesson. In this ever-changing world of social media, marketers and business owners need to be willing to adapt very quickly, and look to the future, expecting these technologies to change fast, and the rules that go with them. What works today will likely not work tomorrow.

Facebook is already making this evident in their changes in News Feed policy, suggesting they will begin punishing “memes” and “calls-to-action” in posts on Facebook Pages. In the past, this is what performed best because it produced the greatest engagement, and in fact still does! Marketers are looking towards a sore wake-up call if they are not preparing for these changes.

In every presentation I make, even in my recent course on Facebook Ads (you can download it here!), I always tell people not to believe me. Always test, test, test. What works for me may not work for you, and most of all, Facebook is in a state of constant flux and change due to the ever-changing attention spans of its users. Marketers need to study these early, and study them often, and continually test the strategies they employ on social networks or their social strategies will not work.

The strategies and techniques I share in my courses and consulting and speaking work – I’ve tested them, and they have produced results for me. But a Social Media Marketer needs to be on their toes. What works for me may not work for them. A good Social Strategy needs to be constantly evolving, constantly changing, and forever in flux. There should be no end in technique and growth of that technique. That is where you will see your greatest success – constant change.

YOU Get a Free Book! And YOU Get a Free Book! How to Use and Make Money Using Facebook Ads

Posted on by jessestay

I mentioned last week that I was launching a new webinar on Facebook ads. In this webinar I’m going to be showing you one of the biggest questions I get in my consulting and coaching for my clients – how you can MAKE money instead of SPEND it on Facebook ads! From my experience, so many business owners are afraid of Facebook ads, or seeing little success because they’re focusing solely on fans and traffic and not revenue. In this already successful, pitch-free course I’m going to show you how to focus on revenue, and increasing that revenue by thousands to tens or even hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars by utilizing a strong Facebook ad campaign. And if you order this week I’m giving you a few perks – FREE stuff!

I’ve spent my career learning how to build massive audiences for multi-national organizations and growing some of the top presences on Facebook. I’ve learned a lot over that time, and it turns out you don’t have to spend much to build an audience on Facebook. And even more – you can use Facebook to actually MAKE money instead of just grow audiences through ad spend. I’d like to show you how.

I don’t want to do it like just any other webinar out there though. In many of the webinars I’ve seen, you pay $200, $300, or some times more to get a little information only to get a big pitch at the end for more information, asking you to spend more to get the full picture! This webinar is going to have NO PITCH. I’ll add you to my list and you can learn about future events, but I want this webinar to be 100% CONTENT. The focus of this webinar is VALUE, and MAKING YOU MONEY through the use of Facebook ads, not pitching you on other products! Not just that, but I’m only charging $150 for what could be THOUSANDS of dollars in revenue you generate from Facebook ads!

This week I’m adding a few more perks though. First, for every person that registers for the webinar by end of this Saturday (Mountain time), YOU GET A FREE COPY OF MY MOST RECENT BOOK with Jason Alba and Rachel Melia, “I’m on Facebook–Now What???” 2nd Edition! On top of that, for all those that register by the end of this week I’ll WAVE THE WEBINAR DOWNLOAD! For those that already purchased the download and would like to upgrade to the live webinar let me know and I’ll arrange an upgrade for you to get both at the $150 price. For those that purchased the download and webinar together I’ll refund your download immediately!

LARGE GROUPS – I can give you a group rate if you contact me. Just contact me at jesse@staynalive.com and I can arrange a group rate for your organization.

There’s ONE MORE THING. I want to let everyone have a chance at hearing this message – it’s important to me. I know there are individuals and businesses that can’t afford this course right now. Or, maybe you know someone in this situation. For that reason I want to choose 5 individuals to give the webinar and download, and a digital copy of I’m on Facebook–Now What??? FREE OF CHARGE. All you need to do is pitch why you think you, your business, or your friend needs to take this course, and post it somewhere that I can see. Post in the comments of this blog post. Post in the comments on my Facebook posts. Write a blog post and tag me in it. I want to hear your stories! Consider this seed money, a gift, to get you going in making THOUSANDS in revenue from the knowledge you’ll learn off this course! So let me know your story!!! This will expire the Wednesday before the webinar.

This webinar is the best way I know to impart knowledge to as many people as possible and get the word out to as many as I can. I want all of you to learn what I’ve learned. I truly believe that ANYONE can be a Marketer! I want you to learn too, so GO SIGN UP NOW! (and share this and tell your friends!) I need your help to make this a success!

ANYONE Can (and Should) be a Marketer! My New Business and Focus

Posted on by jessestay

About 7 years ago I was sitting in a full-time job, developing software as a senior engineer for UnitedHealth Group. I loved writing software, and began writing a few tools on the side just for the fun of it. I couldn’t build an audience though! I was stuck – great software, with nowhere to go. I’ve heard this over and over again from other software developers, small business owners, executives, product managers, and the like, all lacking the proper skills they need to grow an audience successfully and do it without paying an expensive marketer or social media professional. I feel your pain!

I spent the next 7 years experimenting and trying new methods I learned from friends of mine and other marketing experts to where I finally think I’ve come up with the optimal process in growing audiences and revenue from those audiences. I ended up writing 6 books from my experience. I began to take some of my software development skills to take things I learned writing documentation for Facebook, Inc. and turn that into a concept I call “social design”. I learned perfect methods for Facebook, and Google+ Page growth. I learned ways to advertise on Facebook that many Marketers today still come to me asking about. In all honesty, I don’t share any of this to boast, but to show the learning process I went through.

You’ve probably seen me lately trying to figure out “my next thing”. Do I look for a job? Do I consult? Do I build a product? I’ve been meeting with a lot of people, and received some amazing advice. Today I’d like to announce what that next big thing is!

Today I’m announcing my “Everyone a Marketer” program with a series of webinars, online training curriculum, corporate retreats, and individual coaching all catered to showing anyone from the software developer, to the business executive, to even the marketing department itself how to grow significant audiences, and how to grow revenue from those audiences. The idea is that I want to show you, and every one of you how to become a marketer. I want to show you how to grow audiences. I want to show you how to sell to those audiences. I want to show you how to target to specific audiences. I want to show you how to learn who your audiences are. I want to show businesses how to engage their employees as marketers and social assets for the organization!

I’m kicking it off TODAY with the announcement of my first webinar in the program! I’m calling it, on this same theme, “Everyone can Learn Facebook Ads! How to Build Fans and Revenue With FB Ads”, or “Mad Facebook Ads!”. I’m spending 1, jam-packed hour to show you techniques I’ve learned with the organizations I’ve worked for, and clients of mine that will grow Facebook Pages using Facebook ads at a very low cost. Have you ever seen $.002 (that 2-tenths of a cent folks!) per like in your Facebook ad campaigns? I have! I want to show you how.

Registration is fairly cheap considering the value you’re going to get – for $150 you get access to the webinar and the Q&A for 1/2 hour afterwards (That’s half of what I charge for consulting!). This is potentially thousands of dollars in savings you’ll get from the knowledge you’ll receive in the webinar! My hope is for you to get much, much more out of this than you put in – I’m extremely passionate about this subject, and making YOU successful! If you don’t want to attend the live webinar, you can download for a reduced price the recorded version after the webinar is finished.

YOU CAN REGISTER FOR THE WEBINAR HERE! GO NOW! 🙂

It doesn’t stop there! I need your help! If you want to join me in growing this webinar, I have set up a simple affiliate program for you to help me promote the webinar. Each affiliate gets 33% of any ticket sales they refer, which is pretty good for an affiliate program in my experience! Will you please SHARE this webinar with your friends and family? TO SIGN UP AS AN AFFILIATE, CLICK HERE! This is a great opportunity!

I’m limiting this to just 100 people per day (2 different days, same webinar), so act quick – I’m predicting this will sell out quick! Again, GO HERE TO REGISTER! This will sell out soon!

Oh, and STAY tuned for more! I’ve got much, much more planned for this program! I want YOU to learn what I’ve learned! If you want to learn more, GO HERE AND SIGN UP TO RECEIVE UPDATES!

"Be a Mormon!" – Making Things Go Viral

Posted on by jessestay

I’m sharing this partly because I’m excited Mormons were mentioned (I am in charge of much of the social technology integration and strategy for the LDS Church as one of the many things I do), but also because there’s some truth to it.  As Mormons, we get Marketing and Social Media, but I argue it’s not because of process – it’s natural.  That’s why it was exciting, but no surprise to see Jonah Peretti, founder of BuzzFeed and co-founder of Huffington Post, talk with Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch, sharing his “Five Rules for How to Make Things Go Viral“, listing the fifth as “Be a Mormon, Not a Jew”.  Of course, as he said, his statement was a little tongue-in-cheek, and as any good Mormon will tell you they admire and respect the Jewish people and faith (and perhaps more than many Christian religions, we take the Old Testament almost as seriously as any Jew – we love and respect their law, as it sets much of the foundations for what we as Mormons believe). Peretti’s statement was that “Mormons are better at evangelism”.  Mormons are, quite simply, whether better or not I’m not here to debate, but they’re naturally great marketers and it shows by the exponential growth shown since the 50s in the graph Peretti shared.

As a Mormon, I served a mission in Thailand when I was 19 (yes, I speak, read, and write fluent Thai, which I was taught in the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah for 2 months before I left to Thailand).  When I was a missionary I was taught to teach a message, follow up on that message, and “build relationships of trust”.  As members of the Church we follow Jesus Christ’s direction to “come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men” (Mark 1:16-18 in the New Testament).  We love the message we’ve learned, and we feel compelled to share that message.  Building relationships is also something we love doing, again, not out of process, but because relationships, to us, are a core of what we believe in.  We are taught about the origins of God’s family before this earth, and we believe we are all literal brothers and sisters in God’s plan for us.  We enjoy the relationships we have with those around us, and more importantly, we believe most strongly in building a true relationship with God.  It is these “relationships” that, in my opinion, make Social Media, and modern-day marketing a natural fit for every Mormon, whether they realize they are doing it or not.

It’s because of this that the Church tries to enable members to share this message in ways they are capable of doing.  Just to feature some of the highlights of what the Mormon Church does, from my perspective:

  • Mormons send over 50,000 missionaries worldwide to help evangelize the Gospel.  Most of these are under the age of 25.  And when you think, “oh, these are those white-shirted young men (featured in the picture in Piretti’s presentation) going from door-to-door”, we’re not quite even that any more.  While we still have many going door-to-door, you’ll see missionaries sitting in call-centers, answering questions and chatting with you on Mormon.org.  You’ll see missionaries volunteering on service missions, helping out the poor and needy in places like Haiti (which efforts you can donate to over there on the right).  We’re even taking some more modern approaches like in New York, where Missionaries are even using Facebook and Twitter to reach out to people.  Imagine the potential of those 50,000 people, rather than going door-to-door, using technology instead to share the Gospel in a more modern, less-intrusive, more targeted fashion and reaching those that are truly interested in the message.

  • The Church just launched a brand new Mormon.org, featuring members as the main focus.  The Church wants its members to speak for themselves.  In Social Media this is crucial and necessary for the focus to be on the individual and not the organization.  Now, you can go to Mormon.org, find people of similar race, gender, ethnicity, or even locale and learn what they believe.  You can even follow them on Twitter or Facebook or read their blog.  We’re allowing you to see what a real Mormon is, and not just from a big organization standpoint.  You can peruse articles and share them on Facebook and Twitter via like and share buttons.

  • The Church has Youtube Channels, the most popular being “MormonMessages“, which, no matter what your faith, you can get some pretty inspirational messages encouraging you to do better and grow.  Each of those is embeddable on blogs and shareable on Facebook and Twitter and elsewhere.  Mormons are encouraged by leaders to share what they believe, and are provided with the tools to do it.

  • The Church has mobile apps where you can read the Old and New Testaments, as well as The Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price (3 books that Mormons believe are also Testaments of Jesus Christ and are provided through modern, prophetic, revelation).

  • The Church has Facebook Pages and Twitter Accounts that members, as well as non-members can subscribe and learn more about the Mormon Church, gain inspiration, and discuss that content with other members and non-members.  I love reading the comments of these Pages because you hear such great messages of peoples’ lives being changed from this message and the best part is these stories are just coming from every day members (and non-members)!  They are unedited, spoken from the heart and the soul.  That’s what Social Media is about and the core of who we are.  It’s all about technology that allows us as humans to bare our souls.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.  Technology has enabled Mormons to take the “marketing” Peretti mentions to an even greater level.  I think we’re pretty good people.  We’re genuine.  Social Media and modern marketing have enabled Mormons to share who they are to the world, and they’ll continue to do so.

Mormons are considered a peculiar people.  Maybe it’s because of our history of polygamy (discontinued way back in the 1800s).  Maybe it’s TV shows like Big Love that give that perception.  Maybe it’s the fact we don’t drink Coffee or Tea or Alcohol, or that we don’t smoke and live a generally pretty healthy life.  Maybe it’s because we’re taught not to have sex before marriage, and, at least for active Mormons, we have long and fruitful marriages and we love having children.  I don’t think that’s much different than any other good religion out there.  I’m totally excited and stoked that technology is enabling us, as Mormons, to finally share with the world who we are, on a global and massive scale and we can finally be completely transparent about who we are.

What I do know is that Peretti’s statement is true, but it’s not at all because we teach “marketing” by process – it’s because as Mormons we’ve got a great message to share.  We’re great people to be around, and we’ve got nothing to hide.  I’m stoked that technology is enabling us to show that to the world.

See Peretti’s great video below.  Also be sure to check out his presentation:

http://player.ooyala.com/player.js?width=630&height=354&embedCode=xlaDluMToim9U0Mmz7xDG-kQdX34Rp9s&deepLinkEmbedCode=xlaDluMToim9U0Mmz7xDG-kQdX34Rp9s

Be sure to read more about this on NewYorkMag.com and AllThingsD.

Disclosure: In my day job, I am currently working as the Social Media Architect for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While they are currently my employer, this article by no means represents any official announcement, declaration, proclamation, or doctrine on behalf of the Church.  All claims or topics written are solely my own opinion and not the opinions or official word of the LDS Church.  To be clear, regardless of my day job, I am still a member of the Church and I still believe its teachings and will always have beliefs to share surrounding the Church and its teachings.  What I write here should be considered as such.

Hey Businesses, You’re Using Facebook Wrong

Posted on by jessestay

You're doing it wrongRobert Scoble just finished a great blog post on why he thinks Twitter is worth much more than people give it credit for.  He cites its ease of use for businesses and open nature as an easy way for businesses to target customers.  He and I had a conversation about this on FriendFeed, and while I still feel Facebook has the upper-hand here, it definitely has to open up a little more in order to be completely on par with Twitter.  However, there is a side of Facebook businesses aren’t yet fully utilizing and they need to start – it’s a wealth of information and user connections at their hands if they just embrace it.  The part of Facebook businesses are completely missing is Facebook Connect.

In my conversation with Robert we were discussing whether Facebook or Twitter had a better UI.  I think our conversation may have been moot, since in the end the part of Twitter most people see is via a desktop client of some sort.  Many of us are seeing trends via TweetDeck, or friend lists via Seesmic and similar.  Or perhaps we’re searching via PeopleBrowsr. There is a majority group of people out there that simply aren’t aware of the basic UI Twitter has on its own Twitter.com website.  Yet at the same time I don’t think developers are coming anywhere near close enough to what they could be embracing with the Facebook API for desktop clients – there is so much developers are missing when it comes to Facebook!

Regardless, even if you take the plain-Jane websites and compare them with each other, Twitter, while much more open and easier to find archives than Facebook out of the box, pales in comparison to Facebook when you compare UIs.  Facebook has threaded conversations.  Facebook has friend lists, and you can sort your feeds by friend lists.  You can completely control who sees what you post on Facebook.  You can’t do any of that with Twitter.  Facebook has likes.  While Twitter has favorites, I can always do the same on Facebook and “share” a link or similar to my profile and anyone can always reference it later under my links.  I can separate my links, videos, and photos (which appear in-line, not via 3rd-party service) from my main status update stream if I want to.  You can view just my links, just my videos, or just my photos, and for links even download the stream as RSS.  You can do real groups in Facebook – on Twitter you have to hack it with hashtags.  You can organize true events in Facebook, and store a full profile about yourself or even your business.  Keep in mind that most of this is also available to your business as well.  It seems to me that the ONLY thing Facebook lacks is a decent way to search (while they do have that too, it’s still limited), and a fully open version of the site that businesses can easily embrace like they do Twitter. It would seem Twitter still has a lot to catch up to.  Yes, that’s a big thing, but much more simple to put in place than all the other things I mentioned above.

Now, back to my original point about Facebook Connect.  On FriendFeed Robert said to me, “I’ve talked with dozens of businesses and they all say Facebook isn’t working as well for them.”  I believe he’s seeing that.  I think the majority of businesses are using Facebook wrong though.  Even though I say that I also know, consult, and talk to dozens of businesses in which Facebook is working for them.  Some businesses are using it right.  Ask Digg how they’ve done since integrating Facebook.  Ask Huffington Post how well they’re doing now that they’ve integrated Facebook.  What about FriendFeed’s integration?  Heck, even my SocialToo saw a huge spike since we integrated SocialToo Status into our product line, utilizing Facebook.  Or what about Geni, or iLike, or Flixter?  All these businesses were still businesses before Facebook.  Facebook is what has given them an incredible boost since their integration though.

Businesses aren’t integrating Facebook Connect as they should.  Here’s what Facebook Connect is – with just about 3 lines of HTML-like code (it’s called XFBML in Facebook terms) and a small snippet of Javascript that you can basically just copy and paste, you can have your site’s users logging into your website (didn’t have a log in before?  Well now you do, along with your very own social network of 300 million people.) with hardly any effort whatsoever.

Now, let’s get a little deeper.  Facebook Connect, with the help and just a few hours time of one of your own coders, can take your existing database of users and find out how many of them are already Facebook users.  My bet is most of them are (remember, there are near 300 million Facebook users on the planet!).  Now you can prompt those users to begin telling their friends about your brand to their closest friends and relatives, using just the tools Facebook provides, ALL ON YOUR OWN WEBSITE. Oh, and even better – unlike Twitter, your users never, ever, leave your website when authenticating with Facebook. You simply won’t get that intimacy between your brand and customers on Twitter.

Have social features already on your website?  Look at what Digg is doing with Facebook Connect.  Every single user that joins Digg through Facebook Connect, or associates their account with a Facebook account for the first time through Facebook Connect, AUTOMATICALLY has their Facebook Friends who have also done the same added as friends on Digg.com as well.  Automatically, with no work on your users’ part, you can associate your users with their already existing social graph on Facebook, let them communicate, send stuff to their wall, their friends’ walls, and more, all simply via the Facebook API, ON YOUR OWN WEBSITE.

Twitter pales in comparison to what Facebook can do for businesses. The majority of businesses are just using Facebook wrong.  If you manage a business’s marketing or brand management campaign and only have a Facebook Page, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG.  The power of Facebook isn’t about Facebook itself, but about the vast set of APIs Facebook is providing to you and your business to get your brand into the most valuable place of all – that intimate setting between a customer and their close friends and family.  You can’t do that with Twitter.  You can with Facebook.  This is why if Twitter is worth $5 billion, Facebook is worth at least 2 or 3 or more times that. Your business needs to get in and use Facebook right if you’re going to stay ahead of the game.

Robert Scoble is giving Mark Zuckerberg free consulting (his points of which I agree with) – I hope this bit of free consulting for your business was helpful too.  If your business is to see even more value than they are on Twitter, you MUST be using Facebook Connect. That is the way you embrace Facebook as a business.  Contact me if you need any more help than this. As a software developer on both networks, this is why I got into Facebook – it’s why I’m still bullish about the network.

Now to get back to coding…

Learn More About Facebook With Upcoming WebCasts

Posted on by jessestay

FacebookI’ve been invited to do 2 WebCasts in the next 2 weeks that I think you might be interested in.  As always I’ll try to post my slides on SlideShare if it makes sense to do so.  I really like an interactive presentation so most of the time my slides don’t make sense.

The first is for the Marketers in the Audience.  It’s about gaining Business value from Facebook, and I’ll discuss how to give your business legs using the Social Network.  I’ll cover how to create an effective Facebook Page for your business, when and how to use your personal Facebook Profile for networking, do’s and don’ts on the network, advertising, the tools you need, and more.  That Webinar is hosted by Marketing Coalition, and is $149 per individual, and $129 per individuals in groups of at least 3.  You can register here.  The Webinar takes place on Thursday at 1:30PM EST.

The second WebCast is free, and hosted by Safari Books Online.  It will target developers new to Facebook development, and in it I’ll cover the basics of what you need to get started in Facebook Development.  We did this last year and I think everyone really enjoyed it that attended.  The first people that register get a free Autographed copy of my book, FBML Essentials, and everyone else gets a free 45-day account on Safari Books Online to read FBML Essentials.  Did I mention how much I love O’Reilly?  You can register here.  My slides from the last one of these I did are up on SlideShare.

There will be a Q&A after each session, so come with your questions and I’ll do my best to answer!

Louis Gray to Join the SocialToo.com Board of Advisors

Posted on by jessestay

I’m very proud and excited to announce that Louis Gray, my publisher and fellow-author at LouisGray.com, will now be part of my company, SocialToo.com’s, Board of Advisors and helping us to further build out our strategy in the near and long-term future. Louis comes from a strong PR and marketing background, and when not blogging, he works in corporate marketing and public relations for a private Silicon Valley technology infrastructure company, and is an advisor to ReadBurner, Inc. Louis is a UC Berkeley graduate, holding a degree in Political Science and Mass Communications. He’ll serve as a great help in building out strategy for SocialToo, which I believe is a tool for Marketers, to a mass audience.

Louis approached me with several great ideas which I hope we can implement soon, and which we’ll be working to integrate into the already rich set of tools which SocialToo provides. His transparency in what he does I think will serve well in keeping us a responsible participant in building tools that work to meet the needs of all users on social networks our users belong to. Louis himself has quite the following, and has introduced the likes of Robert Scoble and others to FriendFeed – I’m sure you’ll be seeing more from us on that service now with him on board, especially as we branch out to other services beyond Twitter.

Louis was first to recognize and report TweetDeck, the now extremely popular Twitter Client. He was first to cover Social Median, which recently sold for several million dollars under a year. He’s covered many other very successful services and clients, and he’s one that knows a successful company when he sees it. I’m very honored and excited to have him on board, and plan for much, much more thanks to his advice and involvement in SocialToo going forward. Welcome, Louis!

Presentations Available With Audio

Posted on by jessestay

Just a quick update – I’m posting my Ignite presentation below, dubbed with audio this time. It should be a great primer to get you started in Facebook Development. Also, scroll down and you’ll be able to listen to the panel I joined at Global Entrepreneurship Week Utah 2 weeks ago.

Facebook Development in 5 Minutes[swfobj style=”margin:0px” width=”425″ height=”355″ src=”http://static.slideshare.net/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=fb-development-5-minutes-1227159742206508-8&stripped_title=facebook-development-in-5-minutes-presentation” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true”]

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: city lake)

Here is the GEWUtah Panel (taken from http://www.utahpulse.com/featured_article/unleashing-ideas-conference-viral-marketing-secret-weapons-a-down-economy-panel-dis):

[audio:http://www.utahpulse.com/files/GEWViralMarket.mp3]