My Take-Aways from BizTechDay - Part 1

I recently attended the two day event, BizTechDay, which brought together hundreds of entrepreneurs, techies, social media networking gurus and the media. I was looking forward to learning more about how to use social media networking to really connect with other like-minded people and to promote our business. I learned a lot!

Facebook Fan Pages

I got a lot of extremely valuable information about Facebook Fan Pages from Hazel Grace Dircksen of SocialBees. Here are some of the suggestions given:

• Be sure you start your Fan page with the intention to consistently post daily
• To help you remember to post, set it as your home page in your browser
• Post a maximum of three (3) times a day
• Don’t “over-share” — i.e. overly personal comments
• Post about business needs and information
• Make all posts relevant to your brand/purpose/mission
• Make content very exciting - Don’t try to directly sell
• Offer your fans exclusive benefits and perks
• Simple contests are very good for engaging your fans, but avoid video contests — they’re too complicated
• Create custom tabs for ads
• Above all, have fun!

SocialBees services include building Fan pages for clients. They know all the Facebook apps that can be used on a Fan page, and how to make the page both visually attractive and effective. I’m going to have them do this! I have an Alive! Whole Life Fitness Studio Fan page, but it is not nearly as effective as it could be, and I wasn’t ever quite sure how to make it better.

I was very impressed with Hazel; she’s articulate, extremely knowledgeable and gracious; a winning combination.

Brand Building on Google Local Business

Before I attended #BTD, I had forgotten I previously used Google Local Business -- now I intend to really use it . It has some great features, namely:

• Your business will get found on Google and Google Maps
• You’re able to control the information on your listing and keep it up to date
• You can add your logo, photos, videos, coupons
• Add a thorough business description; select all appropriate business categories
• Add freeform information like a complete description of your services
• A version of Google Analytics specific to Google Local Business is available from your business’ Dashboard

In subsequent posts, I’ll share what I learned about viral video and virtual work teams. My last post on #BTD will be about Michael Gerber’s presentations. They were the best and contained the most valuable information of the entire event. He got a standing ovation and he deserved it.

I hope you find value in these posts, and I encourage you to post comments and questions. I will answer each and every one.