JAY PEETE.com

Banned by Facebook?

At first glance at the title of this post you probably thought to yourself that I was talking about your standard run of the mill Facebook account getting banned, and you’re right!

You see, every person or company is supposed to have a personal Facebook account and then you add a fan page to the account.  So if you lose your fan page, the possibility does exist that you could also lose your entire Facebook account if they feel you are doing things that are against their Terms of Service (TOS).

An example of this is with a mastermind of people that I speak with on a regular basis.  We talk about different social media tactics that are working and also things that are not.

With Facebook you have two primary routes that you can take to build a following and ultimately make money.  Both of these methods use the “Like” button but work differently to build an audience.

The first tactic is to grow an organic following using the free method.  This method takes longer and that’s why it’s free.  You spread the word socially about your fan page to people that are interested in what you have by getting people to click the “Like” button.

Getting people to click the “Like” button will get your message in front of potentially thousands and even millions of people.  It works because each person that likes something automatically shares it with all of their friends, and then when one or more of those people likes something it gets put into the news feed of all of that person’s friends.  This keeps going because most people hang out with the same type of people that like similar things.  That’s how your page can spread virally.

The second method is the paid method and is much faster but it costs money but this is where the Facebook ban can come into play.  A lot of people don’t read the Facebook TOS and that can get you into trouble.

Like Google, Facebook is beginning to crack down on advertisers that are creating a bad experience for their users.  If you do things that are misleading or unethical, they not only will not approve your ad but they can ban you from Facebook all together.  I’ve seen this happen to many of the people in my mastermind and it sucks!

The key with paid Facebook advertising is to get people to click on the “Like” button in your ad so that they can be added to your fan page.  That way all of their friends can see that one of their friends likes something and your fan page can begin to grow organically and for free after the initial advertising push.

The moral to this post is to read the Facebook TOS thoroughly because they can reject just your ad, reject your ad and remove your fan page or ban you from Facebook altogether.  The TOS is very important so take the time to study it if you plan to make money using Facebook.

Tags: Banned by Facebook, Facebook Marketing

Secure Facebook Fan Pages

If you have a Facebook Fan Page you might have heard that as of October 1^st, 2011 you will need to make sure that it is secured with a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate.

An SSL Certificate is how web servers and web browsers communicate securely.  It is the “https” instead of just the “http” in front of the web address where a website is located.

Why is this important?  It is important because the “s” symbolizes that a website is secure.  You will find this mostly when you log into a website that performs a business transaction or that contains sensitive information; like banking information.

Now Facebook is requiring everyone that has a fan page, AKA a business page, to use an SSL.  One of the biggest reasons is to weed out scammers and hackers.

Facebook wants to protect its users with SSL because fan/business pages use iFrames to display its content to their users.  An iFrame is like an open window that is placed on one website where you can see and do things on a completely different website without ever leaving the first website.

So on the 1^st of October, Facebook will require all of their “Pages” to use SSL on them so that their users will have a better chance at an improved experience.

It would seem that this step will bring them one step closer to their ultimate goal for their over 750 million users to never have to leave Facebook.

I recently heard something that I couldn’t believe in the beginning but now it doesn’t seem so absurd.  That is that Facebook will one day have users (children growing up right now) that will think that the Internet is Facebook because you will be able to do everything from your account without ever having to leave…

One thing is for sure; Facebook is trying to make sure that they will remain a dominant force in social media for the long haul and not die out like Myspace did.

Tags: Facebook Pages, Facebook Users, Fan Pages, Secure Facebook Fan Pages

Facebook Marketing Tips

Here are a few Facebook marketing tips that will help you get a very low cost-per-click (CPC).  Before we get started, I have to say that I must give all of the credit for these tips to my friend Mr. FBX.

Facebook Marketing Tips – Tip #1

If you have ever used pay-per-click (PPC) you are probably used to always setting up your campaigns using PPC instead of cost-per-metric (CPM).  For those of you that don’t know, CPM means cost per 1,000 impressions.  In the PPC world you must really know your metrics before you ever go near CPM or you could lose your shirt even more so than with PPC.  With CPM you pay when your ad is seen 1,000 times, whether people click on your ad or not!

Unlike Google and other search engines the better way to go is CPM because you will get a much lower CPC because you are going for “Likes” and not sales.  Sales will come after you build your Facebook fans up to a good amount of people.

Facebook Marketing Tips – Tip #2

Most people can’t help but to go crazy with targeting when setting up a Facebook ad campaign.  They try to get a bigger and bigger reach (the amount of people that will see their display ad) because they think that will increase their chances of a successful campaign.

Stop!  Putting in a lot of Facebook likes into your campaign will hurt, not help it.  You need to only put in one targeted like into your campaign.  I know that it is tempting to put in more when you see the reach grow each time that you do it but don’t; it will only hurt your campaign’s performance.

Facebook Marketing Tips – Tip #3

In search marketing you would put in a lot of countries in order to get lots of traffic to your offers, but you want to do the exact opposite within the Facebook ad platform.

When using Facebook ads, you only want to choose one country and that’s it!  If you put in lots of countries it will hurt your campaign and ultimately increase your CPC.

If you use the tips that I’ve just outlined here, you can actually get clicks for a penny or even less!  So if you’re planning on using the Facebook ad platform, try these tips out and you’ll be amazed how well they work.

Tags: Facebook Marketing Tips

Google +1 or Facebook “Like” Button?

What is Google’s new +1 feature that we are beginning to see?  Take a quick look at Google’s explanation in the video below and then read on.

Does the Google’s +1 look familiar?  It is just like the Facebook “Like” button in my opinion.

Google is attempting to connect people that like the same things socially.  By it being launched in their search engine as well as on individual websites, it has the potential to be even bigger than the “Like” button.

Unfortunately in the past Google has failed to produce something themselves that grows virally; an example is the failure of Google Buzz compared to the success of Facebook and Twitter.

That is probably why they prefer to acquire other companies that show promise.  Unfortunately for them they just don’t do well with social media.  Just look at what happened after they acquired MySpace.  It has pretty much gone from a social site to surviving on music alone.

What impact do you see Google’s new +1 feature having on the internet?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Tags: facebook like, google +1, google plus 1

Brilliant Bronx Zoo Cobra Marketing

Most everyone has probably heard by now that a large cobra escaped from its habitat at the Bronx Zoo in New York last Friday March 25, 2011.  It got a ton of media attention and someone even created a Twitter account and a Facebook page.

This is brilliant marketing because as you can see in the picture below the Twitter account amassed nearly 200,000 followers in less than a week!

Unfortunately for the person that started the social media craze on the cobra he was found on Thursday March 31, 2011 as seen on the New York Fox News website picture below.

The Facebook page wasn’t as popular with “likes” only coming in at a little over 4,500 but as you can see in the picture below people don’t want the cobra to go away even though he has been found.  Robin C. Copeland wrote on the cobra’s wall to tweet about life in confinement.

The person that was smart enough to jump on this cobra story using social media probably made a small fortune in advertising endorsements while this story was hot and judging by the Facebook comment there is still marketing life for this cobra.

Most people were probably oblivious to the fact that the cobra was tweeting about things such as Saturday Night Live, H & H Bagels, New York Hilton, etc.  Big companies like these pay celebrities as much as $10,000 dollars for a single tweet!  I say slither on cobra, slither on…

Tags: bronx zoo cobra, bronx zoo cobra marketing