Saffire Blog

Creating Photography That Pops, Part II

In our last Dirt we shared some tips on Creating Photography That Pops, with suggestions for tricks to use when taking pictures. This week we wanted to share some of our favorite online tools for editing those pictures to help take them to the next level of interest and intrigue. Check out these tools to … Continue reading “Creating Photography That Pops, Part II”

In our last Dirt we shared some tips on Creating Photography That Pops, with suggestions for tricks to use when taking pictures. This week we wanted to share some of our favorite online tools for editing those pictures to help take them to the next level of interest and intrigue. Check out these tools to easily add filters & text to any photo, and to size them appropriately for social media posts.

Canva: One of our favorite new tools to use this year has been Canva. It provides several options for different types of layout templates for you to choose to start from. Whether you’re creating social posts, blog article graphics or presentations, Canva allows you to choose from a variety of free or very low cost layout templates, that are already sized appropriately for the type of project you’re working on. From there, you upload your photo, and then have fun changing text, backgrounds, borders, shapes and colors. It’s a great way to take an ordinary image and turn it into a call to action in your social posts. Check it out here: https://www.canva.com/

Pixlr: For a more advanced option you can check out Pixlr, for tools very similar to Photoshop. This is a great resource for resizing images, eliminating red eye, correcting blemishes in the photo, adding text and many other items. If you have some experience with Photoshop but no longer have access to Photoshop, you’ll feel very comfortable navigating around this tool. But beware, it’s not quite as sophisticated as Photoshop so adding many layers to the image can start to make the image look a bit distorted. Check it out here: http://pixlr.com/

For mobile photo editing, we’ve bit the bullet and spent that coveted $0.99 on a few great apps, but there are some Free options as well.

Afterlight ($0.99): We used this great tool in a recent campaign as we counted down the days to Opening Day of the Fair. With their easy-to-use overlay options we were able to spark a fun series of posts for social media. Check it out in the iTunes App Store.

Pic Stitch (Free): This app helps you build fun collages of pictures helping to add a little interest to normal snapshots. We like to use this app as we’re visiting our clients to capture the feel of the whole day. Check it out in the iTunes App Store.

A Beautiful Mess ($0.99): For a hand drawn touch, this app allows you to add doodles, borders and fun phrases to your images that are hand-drawn by Elsie and Emma, creators of the award-winning lifestyle blog, “A Beautiful Mess.” We like to use this tool for adding a personal touch to some of our “behind-the-scenes of Saffire” photos. Check it out in the iTunes App Store.

Creating Photography That Pops!

The popularity of sharing photos on the web makes photography one of your most important online marketing tools. But, if you’ve ever been to an event or venue, you might have noticed that shooting photos can be tricky because there is so much going on that you want to capture it all! Fortunately, there are … Continue reading “Creating Photography That Pops!”

The popularity of sharing photos on the web makes photography one of your most important online marketing tools. But, if you’ve ever been to an event or venue, you might have noticed that shooting photos can be tricky because there is so much going on that you want to capture it all! Fortunately, there are simple things you can do that will allow you to capture all of the excitement without sacrificing the quality of your photos. Here are some of our favorite tips and tricks to help you take photos that pop:

Rule of Thirds. Picture a tic-tac-toe board on the lens of your camera and then put the subject of your shot along those lines. This is especially true when you’re shooting with one singular subject such as a person, a monument, or a skyline. This is a basic composition tip that will make your photos look more visually appealing than when your subject is dead center.

Keep it simple. A common photography mistake is trying to capture too many things in the lens at once. Unless you’re going for a shot of the landscape, you should focus on one major element because too many elements can be distracting from the main point of your photo. If you can find a cute kid or a cute animal and capture just that, you’ll be off to a great start!

Light it up. Pay attention to the lighting around you before you take a shot, because bad lighting can make your photos look grainy or blurry. Unless you’re going for a silhouette effect, it’s usually best to shoot your subject with the sun behind you (the photographer). The sun emphasizes shadows, and this can help to create some really awesome dramatic effects to your photos!

Get close to the action. Elbow your way in if you have to, but try and get up close and personal with the subject of your shot. You don’t want to miss out on awesome photo opportunities by accidentally capturing distracting elements in your shot because you were too far away. Putting in a little extra effort to get closer can open up the possibility of getting an unbelievable photo!

Consider using angles. Think outside of the box when it comes to the angle that you’re shooting from. Choosing a different point of view can help add an interesting perspective or extra drama to the subject of your shot. But of course, use discretion with this tip because the beauty of it is that it’s not used too often—consider it your smoking gun!

Maximizing the quality of your photos is a major way that you can improve your online presence, and these five tips can help to get you on the right track. People are always going to be sharing photos on the web and on social media, so you definitely want those photos to represent your event in the best way possible!

Social & Email: They Go Together Like Peanut Butter & Jelly

Have you noticed a drop in your customer’s engagement on social media over the past few months? Are fewer people seeing your event or venue’s posts than ever before? Whether you’ve realized it or not, the unfortunate reality is your business Facebook page is likely suffering from both of these issues. In December, many brands … Continue reading “Social & Email: They Go Together Like Peanut Butter & Jelly”

Have you noticed a drop in your customer’s engagement on social media over the past few months? Are fewer people seeing your event or venue’s posts than ever before? Whether you’ve realized it or not, the unfortunate reality is your business Facebook page is likely suffering from both of these issues. In December, many brands saw an average 44% decrease in organic reach to their content and engaged users dropped over 35% from 16% to 3%.

Regardless of how many fans have “Liked” your business page, Facebook has implemented an algorithm to determine how many of those fans will actually ever see an individual post from your event or venue in their news feed. They test whether it’s a “good” post by showing it in a small fraction of your fans’ news feeds and see what their engagement is. If the post receives lots of likes, shares and comments, then they’ll increase the number of people who can see that post by continuing to place it in other fans’ news feeds. The more engagement it receives the larger the audience it will reach.

So what’s a business to do? Here are some tips for this new world:

Mimic what your audience is already talking about. If your fans are talking about the Super Bowl, mention your favorite ad. If there’s a new development in your city or county, get involved in the conversation. Having a lot of content is good, but these days, context is king. Your fans will be more engaged if you’re talking about the same things they’re talking about.
Share “jabs,” non-direct to what you sell. Aim to hit an emotion so hard that the customer wants to share it because it will say as much about them as your event. We think of jabs as continuous ongoing blurbs to stay relevant in your fans’ news feeds, so when you deliver the “punch” of an actual marketing message, they’re already used to seeing your event or venue’s brand, and are more open to hearing what you have to say.
Be a real person, like a friend. Share things that will make them laugh as well as useful information they can utilize. Leverage pop-culture by sharing the music you’re listening to and the shows you’re watching. These can easily transition to the artists performing at your events.
Advertise. In today’s new world of Facebook, it is becoming a necessity to pay to have your posts seen. There are lots of options for boosting your posts, be it individual posts or every post. We strongly suggest you consider devoting a small budget a day to increase the number of people seeing your posts to increase the chances of engagement. Even $3/day to boost all posts could go a long way.

So how does email fit in the picture? Unlike social media, you own your email lists. Facebook will continue to regulate the type of interaction you can have with your fans in their environment, but via email, you’re able to control your own destiny. You determine how often your most loyal customers hear from you, and what message they will receive. Social media will continue to be a mainstay of your marketing plan, but we don’t want anyone to lose sight of this valuable tool. Checking work and personal email remains the number 1 activity on mobile devices, so hit your customers where they are. Cross-promoting between social and email is also crucial. Include an email sign-up option on your Facebook page, and link your emails to your social sites. Increasing awareness between the two will continue to boost your fans engagement.

Top 5 Resolutions to Market your Event Year Around in 2014

Be bigger than yourself: Show people that you care about more than just your own event. Community outreach, supporting good causes, and promoting other events in the area are a great way to get involved and keep your event’s name relevant to the community year-round. Not to mention, this gives you something interesting to … Continue reading “Top 5 Resolutions to Market your Event Year Around in 2014”

Be bigger than yourself: Show people that you care about more than just your own event. Community outreach, supporting good causes, and promoting other events in the area are a great way to get involved and keep your event’s name relevant to the community year-round. Not to mention, this gives you something interesting to add to your emails and social media posts!
Be active on social media: Don’t just be active, be engaging, because the best way to get your content to go viral is to make it highly interactive. For example, creative Facebook contests are a fun way to encourage followers to interact with your posts.
Use teasers to your advantage: Don’t announce all of your event’s entertainment at once. The performers you’ve booked are one of the most exciting aspects of your event, so keep your audience hooked by releasing entertainment announcements once or twice a week. This will encourage event-goers to frequently check their emails and visit your social media sites because they’re always left wanting to know more.
Keep your email marketing alive: With all the social media talk, it’s easy to forget that email marketing isn’t dead. The truth is, it’s inexpensive and can give you some of the fastest results and highest revenue (even above social media). Strategically plan when you send your emails and who you send them to, you may be surprised by the results!
Have promotional giveaways: Everyone loves feeling like they got a good deal, and that’s no different when it comes to your event’s tickets. Have a one-day sale, or give away tickets at some of your outreach efforts. Kids will always need to bring an adult, so you can almost guarantee that if you give away a kid’s ticket for free, it will be matched by one or two paying adults.

5 Tips for Running a Successful Facebook Contest

Facebook recently announced that they’ve changed the requirements for running promotions on their site, making it even easier to administer contests for your event’s fans. They’ve removed the requirement to use a third-party app, and now allow entries to be collected via comments and “likes” on your page posts as well as using “likes” as … Continue reading “5 Tips for Running a Successful Facebook Contest”

Facebook recently announced that they’ve changed the requirements for running promotions on their site, making it even easier to administer contests for your event’s fans. They’ve removed the requirement to use a third-party app, and now allow entries to be collected via comments and “likes” on your page posts as well as using “likes” as a tool for voting on your page. With these changes in mind, here are 5 tips for running a successful Facebook contest.

SET GOALS: As you prepare your Facebook contest, consider what you’re trying to achieve prior to getting started. For many events you’ll be looking to gain interactions on your Facebook wall including Likes, Shares and Comments. All of these interactions not only increase the awareness of your event as fans spread the word to their friends exponentially growing your audience, but they also have an impact on your site’s search engine results. If increased Facebook interactions is your goal, then the new promotions rules will be perfect for you as you ask your fans to either “Like” or “Comment” on a post to enter for their chance to win. This will be especially helpful in the weeks leading up to your event as you create a fever-pitch of anticipation and excitement.
However, if your goal is to increase your newsletter distribution and you want to collect email addresses as part of the promotion, you may still want to consider using a third-party app to help administer the contest. Keep in mind the more information you require the greater the barrier to entry. Requiring your customers to enter personal data will decrease your response rate, but that may be a calculated decision in an effort to collect more valuable data. Consider this tactic after your event is over and you’ve created even more loyal fans willing to take that extra step.

CONSIDER YOUR AUDIENCE – Think about who your event appeals to and how you’d like to attract that audience. This will be important when determining the prize package to ensure it garners a response, but it also may effect the times that you post about your contest. According to Zephoria, highest traffic on Facebook occurs mid-week between 1:00 & 3:00, while Thursdays and Fridays have much greater engagement; but you want to reach your fans specifically. Facebook has improved their reporting of data on your page, and this information should be utilized when running promotions. By clicking “See All” in the “Insights” box at the top of any Facebook page that you administer, you will find a wealth of information regarding your posts and what your fans are responding to. The default view is the “Overview” tab but by selecting the “Posts” tab, and the “When Your Fans Are Online” option you’ll see both a chart of days of the week as well as times of day that your fans are on Facebook.

Click for more information on using your Facebook insight data.

DETERMINE THE CONTEST TIME FRAME – In a recent study by Wisemetrics, a post had about 2.5 hours to reach 75% of its maximum impressions. However, Facebook has recently announced a new change called “Story Bump,” which pushes posts back into fans’ timelines if the post received a lot of interactions, giving your posts a slightly longer life span if your audience is engaged. This is great news for marketers as each Like and Comment entry to win increases the odds that even more people will see the post in their news feed. With this quick engagement, fans typically expect a similarly quick turn-around in results. Consider running a new contest each day in the weeks leading up to your event. A single post that asks fans to vote for their favorite attraction, food item or musician by the end of the day for a chance to win a prize package should garner a quick surge of engagement, and by continuing to run similar daily contests you’ll keep fans checking back to your page on a routine basis.
For more in-depth contests that ask people to submit personal information, consider a longer time frame with multiple posts reminding users to enter to win, over the course of a week or two.
Read more about Story Bump here.

CREATE A PRIZE PACKAGE – As event and venue coordinators you have a unique advantage in having access to lots of things that people really want. Individual tickets, multi-day passes, VIP access, concessions or ride vouchers and merchandise are just a few options to consider that would come at a low cost to you with a potentially high return in Facebook fan engagement. Keep in mind the level of interaction you’re asking of the fan and let the prize package reciprocate their effort. Asking fans to Like or Comment is quick and easy and the prizes can be smaller to reflect that. If you’re requesting more information, offer a larger and more desirable package to encourage fan engagement.

PLAN THE FULFILLMENT – This final step is often overlooked, but is crucial for maintaining your fan loyalty. Knowing how you will quickly deliver the prize to the winner will prevent the possibility of turning an elated Facebook fan into an angry Facebook fan. Consider the size of the prize, shipping or pick-up options, and timing of contest compared to prize’s expiration date.

5 Social Media Goals for Your Next Event

As the summer event season starts to kick into high gear, we know it can be a little daunting to keep up with the latest social media trends to keep your event fresh and relevant as it competes for your customers’ attention this summer. Here are 5 goals you should try to accomplish this event season. … Continue reading “5 Social Media Goals for Your Next Event”

1) Ensure your social media links are clearly displayed on your website. As people search for information about your event or venue they will inevitably find themselves on your site. Make it easy for them to link seamlessly between that and your Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram accounts, etc. Use the standard icons that are easily recognizable by almost everyone, and display them prominently near the top of every page.

2) Create a specific #hashtag for your event and encourage your volunteers, performers, sponsors, student organizations (4-H, FFA, etc.), scholarship winners, and any supporters to use it as often as possible. #Hashtags are now used in Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, allowing customers to see all content that shares that same unique identifier. This makes it easy to find everything being said about your event with a simple click.

3) Give Instagram a try. I know what you’re thinking, “not another account to keep track of,” but as Instagram gains popularity with teens and young adults it’s a great way to get visual content from your event or venue out there to generate excitement and desire to attend. Perhaps more importantly, it easily sends images & videos to your Facebook & Twitter accounts so posting to Instagram can automatically generate content for your other social media sites at the same time. And, it’s actually pretty fun! Just keep in mind everything crops to a true square shape, so leave some space on the edges of your pictures to allow for cropping.

4) Take some videos! According to MarketingProfs, 76% of marketers say they plan to use online video but only 23% of national brands are actually currently acting on it. With smartphones today, taking videos couldn’t be easier, and with apps like Vine and Instagram, sharing these videos on your social media sites is a breeze! For some quick video tips, check out Social Media Examiner’s suggestions for Instagram Video.

5) Keep the conversation alive! You probably have your smartphone on you at all times, right? So there’s really no excuse to not interact with your customers where they are already spending their time. Set up your event’s social media accounts on your phone to be able to quickly answer questions and comments and to post photos, videos and news throughout your event. While it’s often difficult to calculate the actual ROI on social media, it’s hard to deny that establishing a personal connection with your customers will increase their loyalty with your event.

Facebook, Twitter and Instagram Adding New Tools

Twitter adds Analytics to Track Performance (and it’s free) Twitter has had analytics for any advertising that you may have done on their platform, but now they have opened up those tools for use with your regular tweets and to look at your followers in more depth. To access the analytics, go to ads.twitter.com – … Continue reading “Facebook, Twitter and Instagram Adding New Tools”

Twitter adds Analytics to Track Performance (and it’s free)

Twitter has had analytics for any advertising that you may have done on their platform, but now they have opened up those tools for use with your regular tweets and to look at your followers in more depth.

To access the analytics, go to ads.twitter.com – the advertising platform on twitter. Login using your Twitter account login. You will click on the Analytics tab on the left part of the navigation. You can select either Timeline Activity or Followers. (Followers only provides information when you have a large enough group of followers.) Selecting Timeline Activity displays a dashboard like this:

You can choose to view All, Best or Good. Best shows you the top 15% of tweets with some level of engagement within the date range you are viewing. Good shows the top 66% of tweets with some level of engagement within the date range.

You can now easily gauge referrals now since the tool shows you how many people clicked on a link in your tweet. You can even download the data as a CSV file to track behavior over a longer period of time and use it to build compare with other tools and data.

As Twitter continues to figure out ways to make money with advertising and other options, I’m certain that the analytics will get more extensive, but this at least gives a nice, easy way to track performance and help determine engagement with your tweets. And best of all, it’s free.

Facebook introduces Hashtags

Facebook has stated that they will be rolling out more features to help surface the larger conversations and topics that people are talking about. The first of these will be the use of hashtags.

Thankfully if you have already been using hashtags on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc., you will just continue those same efforts now on Facebook. They will be used the same way to add context to your post or indicate that it is part of a larger conversation. (If you haven’t started using hashtags, see our blog post, Hashtags – They’re not just for breakfast anymore, to help you get started.)

According to Facebook you can:

Search for a specific hashtag from your search bar. For example, #NBAFinals.
Click on hashtags that originate on other services, such as Instagram.
Compose posts directly from the hashtag feed and search results.

As always, you control the audience for your posts, including those with hashtags.

As an event marketer, the benefits are that you now can begin to see similarities and differences in the behaviors around your conversations across all of your primary social media efforts. #lovesimplification

Instagram adds Video Functionality

Instagram launched an update for their app which now includes video support. The new feature allows you to take video from 3 seconds to a maximum of 15 seconds, apply filters similar to how you have always done with photos and share out on Instagram and other social site. Another cool feature is built-in image stabilization to take out the jitters from moving your cell phone around. You can select a still image from within your video to represent it rather than being stuck with just the first frame.

We had mentioned Vine, Twitter’s 6 second video sharing service, a while back. This is Facebook/Instagram’s competitive response. With as popular as Instagram has become, I’m sure this will take off like crazy.

Techcrunch put together a nice comparison on Vine and Instagram:

The great thing for events is that rather than adding yet another social site, you simply can start sharing more rich content with the same services that you likely have been focused on.

6 Key Metrics to Track with Pinterest’s New Analytics

One of the best things about working with events is seeing all the fantastic photos from each event. It truly makes you feel like you are at the event while visiting the website. As we have touched on before, Pinterest can be another fantastic way to showcase your event photos and attract potential customers. Mom’s … Continue reading “6 Key Metrics to Track with Pinterest’s New Analytics”

One of the best things about working with events is seeing all the fantastic photos from each event. It truly makes you feel like you are at the event while visiting the website. As we have touched on before, Pinterest can be another fantastic way to showcase your event photos and attract potential customers. Mom’s love Pinterest, and as we can all agree, control the pocket-book in many families. So even though you should keep your razor-sharp focus on Facebook in your social media efforts, it might pay to spend a little time making sure your Pinterest page is up to snuff.

Pinterest now has over 49 million users who spend an average of 14.9 minutes per visit to the site. That’s a lot of time checking out, curating and organizing photos and ideas! By having great photos on your website and Pinterest page, Pinterest continues to be a great way to showcase your event and drive traffic to your website.

As you may have heard Pinterest recently announced the addition of analytics to their site. This gives you an easier way to determine the impact of your images on your website and the contribution of Pinterest users to your traffic. To get started, you’ll need to convert your account to a business account in order to access the analytics dashboard. Go to business.pinterest.com. It is very easy to convert. Just need to make sure that you input some basic information and description. Likely you already did this when you set up your site the first time. (Company UserName, About You Section, Reference Link, Differentiate your Pin Boards) Only slightly tricky step is verifying your website. Go to Settings >> Click Verify Website>> Download HTML Verification >> Upload this to your webserver in a subfolder (super simple for your tech person) >> Click “Click Here” on the verification screen (once code has been uploaded). Once verified, then Pinterest analytics begins tracking what is being pinned from your website. You will see a check mark next to your site name and you will have the option to select analytics from the dropdown menu.

Once verified you see the check mark next to your URL and have analytics as an option in the dropdown.

Key Metrics to Watch:

Pins from your site (Site Metrics tab) – Informs you of the daily average number of pins from your verified website. Helps to determine whether the visual content is interesting enough for your visitors to pin to your boards.
Repins from your site (Site Metrics tab) – Informs you of the daily average number of pins from your website that were repinned. Helps to determine whether your visual content is resonating with your Pinterest audience. Repins give your content a chance to be seen by people that don’t follow you directly.
Reach – (Site Metrics tab) – Informs you of the success of your content. Helps you understand how large an audience your content reached for branding purposes and as a comparison to how much traffic did or did not generate to your website.
Visitors/Visits to your website – (Site Metrics tab) – Clicks is visits to your website and Visitors is the total number of people who visited your website. Some pins drive engagement on Pinterest and others will drive traffic to your website. You want engagement on both. Comparing Clicks to Repins helps determine what types of action your different content helps to drive.
Most Repinned – (Most Repinned tab) – Informs you what content is resonating with your audience the most. This tab shows actual pins that were repinned for that specific date range. Look for patterns in your content which will help you determine what types of content to create in the future. Try new things and experiment; then use the report to see if it was successful.
Most Clicked – (Most Clicked tab) – Informs you what content drives the most traffic to your website. If you are selling online, this could help you to understand the potential to generate revenue from Pinterest (concerts, merch, etc. ) Helps determine if the Pin It button on your website is driving your visitors to pin specific images to their boards.

All of these are easily accessed from the dashboard that Pinterest provides.

By watching your Pinterest analytics, you’ll gain insight into what types of content is resonating with your customers which can help guide you on providing more of what they like. As with any of the tools in your marketing toolbox, Pinterest Analytics now gives you one more tool to help you determine how your website content is performing.

The Ever-changing World of Twitter and Facebook

Sometimes it’s hard to keep up with the fast pace of changes in the social media world. This week we thought we would let you know about a few that are here now and some that are in the process of rolling out. Vine Twitter has inspired us to creatively speak in 140 characters or … Continue reading “The Ever-changing World of Twitter and Facebook”

Vine

Twitter has inspired us to creatively speak in 140 characters or less; now they have launched Vine which is teaching us to deliver creative looping video with only 6 secs! My first reaction was like most: “How can you show anything in 6 seconds?” Well remember that it’s pretty exciting and a lot of things can happen in the 8 seconds a cowboy is riding a bull. I don’t believe this will replace your efforts with YouTube content, but there will likely be a growing amount of times where just a little video shows things off better than a photo. It can be quirky, fun and offer little windows into your event and life in the event industry. The service has taken off among celebrities, actors, comedians and Twitter iOS users who share clips, skits, stop-motion and increasingly creative videos.

To get started:

1. Download and install the Vine app from iTunes for your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. Sorry, no Android support yet.

2. Create a Vine account using your Twitter profile or email address.

3. Find people to follow by going to your profile and clicking the People icon at the top right of your screen. You can also go to your settings and use the Find People option under Friends.

4. Connect your Facebook account to share videos on Facebook as well (personal profiles only).

5. Click the video camera icon to start recording videos. Tap your finger on the screen to record and release to stop recording. 6. When you’re finished, click Continue to share your video on Vine, Twitter and Facebook.

As of March 31, you can even embed the video into your blog or website easily from the app.

Try it out – deliver quick experiences, build excitement, and share the moments of your event.
https://vine.co/v/bDVpIUFww9r

This is the Easter Name-That-Tune Contest Vine that Dorito’s ran. (Mouse over it and click it to get it to start. You’ll need to click the speaker icon to turn on sound. By default, Vines load with the sound off the first time.)

Facebook Graph Search

Graph Search is Facebook’s new way to let you search for connections to people and places. In other words, Facebook has taken all of the data that people have entered and put a searchable context around it. Previously when you entered a search term in Facebook, it would show you any Pages for that term, People with the term in their name, any Places that’s name was that term, and then offer to search the web. Now you will have the ability to add some context to your searches with terms like: “Friends that like,” “People who like,” “Photos of.” Basically you can use natural language to search with rather than specific terms.

As this grows and Facebook improves it, this feature will become more and more important to local businesses since you will be able to quickly search for a type of business and see which of your friends like it and any other feedback on the business. It certainly places a new emphasis on building Facebook profiles for all of your business’ brands and locations; adding to that the importance of enticing your customer base to ‘like’ you on Facebook. To prepare and improve your event for Graph Search there are a few easy steps to take: 1) Add key information to your About, Mission, and Company Description sections Make sure you include your URL and a good description of your event. Include important keywords that search engines like. Include your phone number and physical address in the Basic Info section.

2) Customize your Facebook URL By default, Facebook will give you a URL that includes a number. It will look something like this: facebook.com/pages/yourbizname/123123123. You need a minimum of 25 Likes to before you can change it to something like: facebook.com/yourbizname. To make the change, go to Facebook Username. 3) Encourage Sharing Not a new concept, but insure that your posts, photos, video, contests, etc. are things that your customers will want to share. The more that things are shared, the further that your site will spread across the “graph” and be found by others. Just as before Graph Search, remember that Facebook is all about connecting with people. The update has been rolling out for about a month or so; some people have it and others are still waiting. It will be interesting to watch how customers adapt to searching in Facebook.

Facebook News Feed

In the next few weeks, Facebook will be releasing a new look to your News Feed. The revision will make the News Feed cleaner, emphasize photos, and allow Facebook users greater control to customize their experience. Photos and mobile are the emphasis for Facebook since 50% of News Feed posts now contain a photo; up 25% from 2011. As mobile phone’s cameras continue to improve, sharing photos and videos are become even more of the focus on people’s Facebook posts.

Today you have the choice of viewing your News Feed by Top Stories or Most Recent. You can setup a few limited separate feeds for Close Friends or Friends from your college, but with very little customization. With the new revision, you will have much more control over what you see. They liken it to a personalized newspaper. Like a newspaper, the News Feed will feature a prominent ‘front page’ divided into a variety of new sections. Featured, in a menu, will be the option to filter your feed to receive content only from specific sources. These options include: All Friends, Music, Photos, Games, Close Friends, Following and any of your Interest lists. The Following sub-segment is what is most interesting for events. This is where people will be able to access information from pages they are following; which is mainly business pages, celebrity pages, and news.

The ability for the user to view just the news updates from pages they are following should give events and businesses more visibility. It will also place more importance on creating content that is engaging. Failure to keep the users engaged will result in the limited use of the ‘Following’ sub-segment of the News Feed and will result in dramatically less visibility and consequently traffic to event pages. With the better quality and highlighting of images, images will become more important to garnering user attention and generating traffic. This change will favor events able to create enticing, striking images able to better grab attention. Additionally, with the segmentation of News Feed, sponsored stories may become more important and more targeted as people will be able to navigate to specific News Feeds based on any of their interests.

Continue Practicing the Basics

Even with all the changes, the basics of social media with Twitter and Facebook really haven’t changed – deliver content relevant to your audience, use photos and videos to encourage engagement and sharing, and continue to realize that these are tools in the marketing toolbox that can be leveraged across your various efforts. Events, by their nature, have an advantage because there are so many things that people enjoy and experience when they are there in person and crave seeing when they are online. Now you have a few new tools to deliver those experiences online.