2013 New Year's Resolution Time!

[Duekster]

I have yet to see a citation or link on bing or google webmaster tools to FB

[headz77]

Originally Posted by Duekster

I have yet to see a citation or link on bing or google webmaster tools to FB

As I understand it (just a novice here) links get reported in those tools- not citations. Citations are fairly important to local search results, and it only takes a few minutes to set up FB- so why not?

That's just me. If FB rubs you the wrong way it certainly won't sink your marketing to ignore it.

[Duekster]

Originally Posted by headz77

As I understand it (just a novice here) links get reported in those tools- not citations. Citations are fairly important to local search results, and it only takes a few minutes to set up FB- so why not?

That's just me. If FB rubs you the wrong way it certainly won't sink your marketing to ignore it.

I have one set up and I have my website link on it. Just saying that even if I search for my company or use the webmaster tools... not once has FB showed up either way. Linked In however does show up in the search results.

[tonygreek]

Originally Posted by Duekster

I have one set up and I have my website link on it. Just saying that even if I search for my company or use the webmaster tools... not once has FB showed up either way. Linked In however does show up in the search results.

That's odd. I have no problem finding various LCO's FB pages in the results. When I add your business name and Facebook to the query, I do find yours, as well as that there are quite a few same name companies to yours, including a couple on FB, so knee-jerk thought is that could be part of the issue.

As Headz points out, I agree with him and recommend a FB Page for businesses, but whether it becomes an integral part of your marketing is up to you and your plan. I'm less keen on it, and really not keen on Twitter at all unless you make a real go of it. Unless you try a Facebook ad campaign (which I do recommend as a test), it's not at all a cold lead gen tool, and the painful 16% issue that Papercutter and I have talked about, are the biggest issues.

[PaperCutter]

In theory, a FB ad campaign sounds like it should be great. You can control a lot of demographic variables for who sees it so you can really drill down. I was underwhelmed though. I ran a campaign last spring and while I picked up 40 or so likes, none of them converted and I don't think any of them ever even interacted with any of my posts. Still, I don't think I spent more than $125 if I recall, so if you have a newer page and you're looking to boost likes simply to add legitimacy to it, it may not be a bad way to go.

I agree with Tony on Twitter. You really have to work it to see any sort of result. If you do nothing but log on, tweet "I DO LANDSCAPING!" and nothing else, you may as well not even bother. You really have to engage with people, become part of the conversation, and treat it like networking. It's hard, and I put significant effort into it for a while and didn't land any business from it. Now that said, I did make some great connections with other professionals, but those pretty much poofed when I stopped tweeting. I'm not sure how seriously I'll retry twitter this year.

Anyone seeing success with LinkedIn?