facebook

The scariest thing that businesses fear is the negative post.  With most businesses I talk to, they fear someone saying “This place sucks.” 

For those unfamiliar with the check-in, this is a term used by Facebook and FourSquare.  When a person goes to a business, they can "check in" at your business to let their friends know about their location.  I've personally done this at many different places, including airports, dentist offices, restaurants, and "Puppy Playtime" with Bella at the local Petco.

24-hour news cycles reporting on stories, friends and family posting on Facebook, techies tweeting their opinions on what they see - there is no escaping the onslaught of scores and results from the Olympics.  You can hide, unplug everything, and wait for NBC's primetime coverage to start before plugging everything back in.  You can run to Buffalo Wild Wings as the staff struggles to find the channels that the Olympics are on (true story), or you can follow these steps to use your social media while still not getting "spoilers" about the Olympic coverage.

So, nobody’s talking!

The goal of Facebook, Twitter, and the other social networks is to get people to be social!  This helps get your brand across to their friends and followers … acting as an indirect reference of your business.

Starting conversations is a key component of getting this viral effect, but sometimes, your audience just remains silent.  A lot of this depends on the demographic makeup of your audience, some people just don’t like to express their opinion online to a public group. 

Here is a great infographic from The Drum (UK), featuring data from Online MBA, that highlights the social media demographics of many different social networks. 

It's hard to remember when I first heard the term "Groupon."  I'm guessing it was about a year ago, as I heard about a way to get a really great deal for a local Chicago restaruant.  More and more people heard about the discounted site, where you could get 60-80% off of different businesses.

Then IPO's and competition came about.

Sixteen percent.

This is the number, according to Facebook, of people that will see your single posting on Facebook.  Basically, 1 out of 6. 

Why is that?

Did you know that your business/organization could actually be on Facebook without your knowledge? 

i'm letting that sink in a second ... and this is my way of doing a dramatic pause via written text ...

Did you know that your business/organization could actually have multiple Facebook pages?

Did you know that someone could claim your non-used Facebook page?

Facebook Groups
Facebook groups are, well, groups on Facebook.  You can have public groups that anyone can join, as well as private groups that are invite-only.  Just like real life, eh?