Self Employed Success

If you’re seriously interested in using Facebook for marketing, you may be heading for trouble.

The solution is easier than you think.

If you make class announcements, offer products or services, or in any way do marketing for your business on your personal profile, Facebook could remove your account completely.

According to the Facebook Terms of Service, you are not allowed to use your personal profile to post commercial messages. They say, “You will not use your personal profile for your own commercial gain.”

So if you’re using Facebook for social media marketing, be aware that your Facebook account could get terminated (ouch!), and you’ll lose all the Friend connections you’ve made and all the content you’ve posted.

So what’s a biz owner to do?

The answer is Pages.

I’m going to be offering a free webinar next month on this topic and share my Page strategies and examples with you, but in the meanwhile I want to give you some tips to get you started.

(I’d love to know what questions you have about creating Pages and using them as part of your overall marketing strategy. Please post your questions here and I’ll answer as many questions as possible in my webinar.)

To get you all warm and fuzzy about Facebook Pages, here are some tips:

1. Think about the reason you’re using Facebook and Pages for your marketing. Typically biz owners say, “To communicate with and form a relationship with my audience,” and that’s one great reason.

But another great reason is to build up a fan base and then offer them a freebie in exchange for their email address, thus building your mailing list and allowing you to do greater email marketing.

Ask yourself, “What business and marketing outcome(s) do I want from my Page?”

2. What will you name your Page? You only get one shot at this, and you can’t edit it later, so choose wisely. If people know you and your name, then you might want to use your name. However if you’re also trying to promote your business name, or the type of work you do, then you might want to include this in your Page name. For instance, here are some I’ve seen lately:

• Karyn Greenstreet – Passion For Business (personal name plus business name)
• Nancy Marmolejo – Online Visibility Expert (personal name plus area of expertise)
• Louise L. Hay (personal name of a celebrity or someone well-known or when your personal name is your brand)
• The Big Brand System (product/business brand name)
• Solo-E.com: The Solo Entrepreneur Lifestyle via Multiple Streams of Income (business name plus tagline)
• Think and Grow Rich (book name)
• Breakthrough with Tony Robbins (name of a TV show, internet radio program, etc.)

3. What strategy will you use to get people to “Like” your Page? Here’s why it’s important: If people Like your Page, it will show up in their Newsfeed; but if they don’t Like your page, they’ll never be automatically reminded of the new posts you’ve added. One of your key strategies must be to get people to Like your Page.

My strategic thinking about Facebook Pages

One of my key Page strategies starts with a “Like Gate.” A like gate is software you place on your Page which allows you to offer exclusive content to people — but ONLY to those who Like your Page.

Remember, whatever you put on your Page Wall is visible to everyone, even those who have not Liked your Page yet.

So if you want to offer exclusive content to your true fans who have Liked your Page, don’t announce it on your Wall. Instead, use special coding or apps that allow content to remain hidden until someone Likes your Page…a Like Gate.

(Pages are different than your Personal Profile. In your Personal Profile, you are able to set Privacy Settings to indicate who could and could not see your Wall. In Pages, everyone can see your Wall.)

In my case, the free, exclusive offering to those who Like my Page is a 1-hour video training class on Personal Branding for Small Biz Owners:

http://www.facebook.com/KarynGreenstreetFan

When you go to my Page, watch carefully how the graphics change pre-Like and post-Like. That’s what a Like Gate will look like to the visitors of your Page.

My thinking is that I’ll first get my 3,900 “friends” on my personal profile moved over to become “fans” of my Page, by announcing the free Personal Branding video training and posting a link to my Page on my personal profile Wall. This should encourage people who want to continue to follow me on Facebook to Like my Page.

I’ll keep the fans happy with exclusive coupons, contests, free content, free classes, etc.

The power of marketing and communicating on Facebook

I think there’s more power than ever in using Facebook for staying connected to my community. My tribe seems to prefer Facebook over Twitter; I’ve tested it for a year and watched the results. There’s much more (and deeper) conversation on Facebook than on Twitter among my community.

Now I want to leverage that power to build it into my overall marketing strategy. How about you?

I have so many more tips and strategies to share with you about using Facebook Pages! I’m putting together a free webinar in July with my special guest, Michele Quinn, to share more great ideas. Please post your questions and comments about Facebook Pages here. I’ll gather up the comments and questions, and answer as many as possible in my free webinar.

I just got back from my very first guitar lesson – FUN! And here’s what I learned for all of you who are teachers out there.

I have a renewed commitment to my students to help make my business and marketing strategy classes simple to understand. I’ve been a marketing teacher for 15 years and I’d forgotten what it’s like to be a student to a brand-new topic or set of ideas: it’s a little confusing and overwhelming at first.

I know that I’ll understand this finger position, fret and string combo thingie eventually, but after my first lesson I’m feeling like I have a TON of practicing to do. Even doing scales will be a challenge. She also taught me 4 simple chords and I’m figuring if I don’t practice them right away, I’ll forget how to do them. But over time, I’m convinced this will become second-nature to me and I’ll absorb this new material into the muscle-memory of my fingers.

I can tell you this: the next time I’m teaching one of my marketing teleclasses, or any topic that’s really new to my students, I’m going to have complete empathy with them. Things that come easily to me because I’ve been doing them since the early 1980s will not come easily to my students the first time they hear about it, or the first few times they practice it.

But like my guitar teacher, I’m going to (strongly) encourage my students to practice, practice, practice between class sessions. It’s not enough for me to just go to my weekly lesson, learn my chords, and not pick up the guitar until the next lesson. So I’ll be adding MORE exercises and action items into my classes for my students, and encouraging MORE in-class discussion, to help solidify new topics into their everyday business lives.

Plus I’ll tell them, “I’m a student, too. I know it can be overwhelming. I’ll try to give it to you in simple, bit-sized chunks of practical topics. And I’m asking you to tell me if you don’t understand something, or if you don’t know how to apply it to your real-world business.”

In this way, we can all be students together, joyfully exploring new terrain, and having fun while taking the journey.

I saw a great article today, Purple Envelopes:How to Grab Your Prospect’s Attention. It’s a great marketing tip, and a great example on how being YOU can really help with your marketing success.

Even if you don’t do paper mailings, read the article. How can you apply this concept to your own marketing techniques?

No! No! No!

I got an email from a student the other day who said she wasn’t going to launch her class because she found out that a competitor had a similar new class.

Do not give up on your dream just because someone else has a twin idea. There’s even a word for it: Zeitgeist. It means that the culture and climate of the times often produces ideas that are in alignment with each other. Time and again I have seen two or three products come on the market at the exact same time that eerily resemble each other. No one “stole” the idea from the others; it was just the right idea and the right time — for more than one person.

There is abundance all around us. You will draw the right students to your class not just because of WHAT you teach, but WHO the teacher is (that’s you!).

Come with your ideas and questions, and walk away with a class design of your own!

A good class design allows:

• students to learn with ease
• teachers to speak with skill, comfort and centeredness
• both to build a trusting business relationship which can continue long after the class ends

For many years, I was the International Director of Education for a software company and creating new educational class was what we did, day in and day out. I have studied the structure, process, and psychology of good adult educational design and am happy to share my knowledge with you and to help you create an outstanding class for your own students!

In this 4-week teleclass, you will learn:

• the psychology of how adults learn
• how to design a structured, multidimensional live workshop or teleclass
• how to construct lessons and lesson plans for optimum student learning
• the art of creating powerful exercises
• how to discover the needs of your students
• how to make your lessons interactive so adults won’t be bored
• how to conduct post-class evaluations to give you valuable feedback
• the easy way to convert lessons and exercises from a live class format to a teleclass format (and vice versa)

Come with your ideas and questions, and walk away with a class design of your own, ready to teach!

Two Bonuses!

1. You’ll get access to my private Student Website, where you’ll have even more information on all aspects of designing, great workshops and teleclasses.
2. Personal input from me on your homework assignments…apply what you learn each week, submit it to me, and I’ll review and give comments & feedback.

This 4-week teleclass series begins June 20.

Instructor: Karyn Greenstreet
Registration fee: $169
This class WILL be recorded, so if you miss a session you will be able to download the recordings and listen at your convenience.

For more information and registration:

http://www.passionforbusinesslearning.com/dewt/

Looking forward to hearing from you in class and learning together!