The Benefits Of Becoming A Partner:

The idea behind becoming a SMB partner is that it will allow the company’s customer base to expand and deliver better, more direct and reportable results to the advertisers. Since only a chosen few highly qualified companies become Premier SMB Partners, that is why becoming a partner will help companies stand apart from the crowd. When a business will partner with Google, they will be able to deliver the solutions the customers are looking for. Apart from the boost one can expect from the Google support, the Premier SMB Partners benefit from executive, technical, sales, marketing, account and partner management aid from the search engine.

In other words, the signed up vendors get huge benefits as compared to other Google reseller partners.

The Criteria Of Becoming A Partner:

So, if this has got you interested, then these are the minimum criteria that you need to fulfill to be able to sign up for the program:

• Large existing customer base of small / medium sized businesses
• Tele / field sales force with the ability to sell Google’s advertising products
• Commitment to provide phone and/or email customer support to their advertiser base
• Existing operational infrastructure (billing, reporting, etc) to service thousands of customers

Google says that to become Premier Partner, the companies will have to undergo scrutiny (that includes training and testing) by Google. Also Google will instruct and supervise their product and sales positioning. The commitment to the best user experience has led Google to add these further conditions- the company needs to undertake customer satisfaction surveys. And in case the SMB customers are unhappy, Google will receive and investigate the complaints associated with the program and these partners.

In return Google will support in promotion, marketing activities. As Google says, “Because of the close nature of the way we work with our premier partners, we typically only work with companies that are committed to build their businesses around Google AdWords products and have the ability to build a base of several hundred, and in many cases, several thousand advertisers.”

The Google Objective:

Google is looking for a long term success in the small businesses market. The search engine giant understands that its networks of channel partners is essential in achieving their objective. The simplified version of AdWords – AdWords Express is to ensure a better AdWords experience for the small businesses and the bring down the sales cost for the Premier partners. The number of resellers in this category will be limited by Google. Limited to what number is not clear yet.

What do you think of this program? Do share your views.

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If you are a small business owner, then you have the following constraints when you think of getting your business on Facebook-

• “I don’t have the time to promote my business on Facebook”
• or “I don’t have the budget to sign up for Ads and stuff”
• or “I don’t think 750 million users world wide are interested in my lawyers’ practice or my dentistry”
• or “I don’t know how to go about marketing on Facebook”

Well, if you think or identify with any of the opinions above, then you are wrong. Facebook marketing is easy, it is cheap (in most cases free!) and of the 750 million users, 10 million maybe your target audience.

While you are mulling over this, go through these facts – According to a MerchantCircle survey in the USA, about 8000 small businesses were queried about the adoption of various marketing products. And 70% of the respondents use Facebook to promote their business. This means that Facebook is an effective and preferred Marketing Tool for small businesses.

In A Nutshell

Whether you are a florist, or a dentist or a lawyer or own any other small business, using Facebook to promote your business online is the best way to build your presence and grow your customer base. Facebook gives you the perfect platform where you can meet target audience, interact with them, showcase your products, services and offers to them. There is much more to marketing on Facebook than just creating a profile. Read on to know how you can use Facebook to promote your business online. Here is a video to help you understand better-

Tip One- Why Are You On Facebook?

This means that you have to plan and monitor your Facebook campaign. It is not simply posting your links on your Facebook profile. That is why you need to set your goals clearly. What do you want Facebook to do for you?

1. Build your community
2. Establish a good reputation
3. Drive traffic to your website
4. Get leads

Once you have an answer, you must make strategical moves. It all begins with setting up a Facebook page- which you can do in these simple steps-

From Your personal account–>Add your company page to the account–>You need to get 25 “Likes” on the company page–> Go to the Edit Page option and claim a company Username for the company page (be careful while doing this, any errors can’t be reversed.

Once your company page is ready, you need to promote it extensively as well as use it to interact regularly with your fans and expand your fan base.

Tip Two – Promoting your Facebook Page

You need to promote your Facebook page-let people know you are there.

• Ask people in your friend lists to endorse your page.
• Interact with similar or industry related pages. For example if you are a florist go to a page like- I Love Flowers on Facebook- Like the page and comment on the posts there. Get people to notice you and encourage them to come to your profile.
• Add your Facebook Page URL to your email signature everywhere else like newsletters, postcards and anything else that you hand out.
• Get your page indexed by search engines by posting keyword rich status updates. Keyword occurrences and placement must also be done in the the Info and About tabs. Always have your brand name and your site link in your “About” section
• Learn and study your fan page. Facebook has tonnes of apps and other functions to make your page more interesting. Integrate your site’s blog with Facebook, so it is posted automatically.

This video is really informative in telling you how to generate leads.

Tip Three- Building A Fan Base

You have a page now, and you need to make it popular and get more and more fans. For this you have to be really social. Interact with people and encourage them to LIKE your page.

• Hold Contests and Competitions for users and make it mandatory for them to LIKE the page to enter these contests.
• Share interesting status updates and posts. Be conversational. You must humanize your brand to make people identify with you and trust you. Build a relationship with your target audience.
• Build A Community- As a small business owner you must understand that for you the best approach is people to people approach. Social media is about community and you need to indulge your community.
• You need to interact with them so that they have a reason to take time away from socializing with their friends to socialize with your business. People are on Facebook to connect socially and this is what your have to do.
• Do not be promotional all the time, otherwise the users will be put off by you.
• Be active- respond to what people are saying on your wall. Be there for them. Talk about their interests, leave the business aside for a while and interact as a social being.
• Once you have a bond with them, they themselves will bring their friends over to your page. Giving useful tips about your business is a helpful idea to gain people’s trust.
• Give your fans a reason to follow your brand via discounts, VIP treatment or other offers.
• Your page is not a mirror image of your site. It is more. It is a community with real people and not just commercial.

Don’t make the mistake of expecting immediate results, building a community and gaining its trust takes time. Be patient. This slide presentation has some interesting

insights:

Facebook Marketing for Small Business

Tip Four-Engage The Users Attention

You have a certain number of LIKES, but mostly people soon forget about the page. What can you do to keep them coming back. How can you engage their attention? Lets explore.

• Post Cool Status Updates- they could be about your offers; or something interesting. It has to be attention grabbing, so that they come on your page from their NewsFeed.
• Post pictures, videos and related articles that you come across on the web. Facebook page is not your billboard, so do not start promotional activities before engaging your users. Keep the posts fun and engaging while also communicating what your business is all about.
• Be open and available for them. Tell them you will answer questions related to the brand or usage or any other thing related to your niche. This will make people come back to you to know more.
• Ask them questions about their life in relation to your niche. For example as a lawyer, you can ask them things like “Do You Know Where The Supreme Court Is Located”. Keep it simple so that people can answer them easily. As a florist you can ask “Which was the flower your husband gave you on your first date”. These are personal questions, yet engaging and people will interact with you.
• Ask people to share their pictures on your wall and comment on them. Make a bond.
• Do not spam the user’s news feed with your updates. Give some breathing time between your updates.

The bottom line in content sharing is-

It should be – interesting, interactive, personal, engaging, captivating and unique.

It should not be - promotional, pushy, with sales pressure, advertisement like.

Tip Five- Facebook Ads And Your Budget

Facebook Ads are beneficial in getting targeted traffic. As you can choose to place ads based on demographics, location, age, gender etc. But in the beginning, you can just choose a low budget Facebook Ad campaign.

Make sure that if you are spending money, then have your goal well defined. Otherwise you’ll end up spending a lot of money aimlessly. When you get an idea what ads are working for you, then spend more money on those ads, not before this. The Facebook advertising campaign has a limited budget, and you can start with the lowest one.

Tip Six- Pitch To Your Users

If you have built a strong user base, and your fans are asking questions, posting comments, liking your status updates and generally interacting with you, it is time to put your pitch forward. Ask them to help you grow your page. Tell them to share your page with their friends and your fan base will start to grow. More fans=more traffic=more sales.

Here is a list of the top small business pages on Facebook, that have done really well for themselves.

Parting Words

Facebook Places is another tool to get your local business a good lift. As a small business owner, you have to invest a little time, and you can get great results from Facebook marketing. Get targeted traffic and also a chance to interact with your users and build a mutual trust bond. This only helps in inculcating brand loyalty among your users. It is not about having a million followers, it is about having targeted users as your fans.

The One Line Takeaway – Be Social On Facebook, build a community and then sell your stuff.

The third part of our Facebook Marketing series will explore Marketing For Non Profit. Come back to this page for more!

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• The company will enable them (local businesses) to get more customers in their areas, immediately.
• Google will do the marketing – developing and delivering the advertisers’ offers to subscribers.
• Local businesses can get new and genuine customers who pays honestly.

Currently Google Offers is available in beta version for local businesses in Portland, New York and San Francisco. Business owners interested in Google Offers can contact the company for more information. Although, as of now, Google has no plans of launching this product outside of the U.S., the company invites any interested party to contact and let them know.

On the other hand, users will get great deals in their cities on stuffs to do, see, eat, buy and so on, delivered right in their inboxes. If you are on Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader or Google Buzz, the product, powered by Google Checkout, has sharing options including e-mail too.

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The blog post said that “With the new format, we expect potential customers to be able to find local businesses more easily. Rather than seeing multiple addresses and maps on the page, your customers can see all relevant, nearby locations in one place with quick links to get directions on Google Maps. Your promoted business will appear in this new integrated format whenever we infer that a potential customer is looking for local information and your ad qualifies to appear above the search results.”

This said ‘blue location marker’ has been launched outside the United States as well, which is pretty delightful. Now users will find it easier to spot their location extension-enabled ads listing directly on the map.

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This program is entirely run by Google, and is free for anyone to participate, all you need to do is to sign up. It involves training programs, that will be provided through webinars, that will educate the trainees on how to help their clients with online advertisements. Google will also give away Google AdWords coupons, marketing materials, certification help and many other useful knowledge. Using the Google AdWords coupons, businesses that are not familiar with AdWords can try them for free and without a commitments.

Engage is available only in the UK and the US at present. However, it has already, successfully helped thousands of individuals and businesses. So, the earlier you sign up for it – the better, because Google reserves the right to deny access of parties on a case-by-case basis as the program has a limited capacity. Here is a promotional video clip of the Engage program.

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One webmaster at the Google webmaster forum states that:

The search result from Google shows our office as closed (the exact phrase shown is “place closed”)
Can someone please point me how I can get this corrected? Our office is not closed.

Here are some other responses from different threads:

How do I remove the “placed closed” annotation on my map? – jaydigital

I have the same issue with my business listing. I tried the normal update lisitng but it does not allow you to remove the “place closed” in there. Please help. – nfdc

In a recent announcement by Google, here is how you can remove this label:

“For listings that have been claimed and verified through the Google Local Business Center, please sign in to your account and select the Edit link. The editing wizard will appear. Click the Submit button.

For listings that aren’t claimed through the Local Business Center, they’re open to community edits. Please select the Edit link below the address and select Restore Place.” – Maps Guide Adam

Further Joel H, A google employee has given the following steps to remove it. Here is what he has to say:

“I just want to reiterate: there are two types of listings with the Place Closed label, and, for each type, there’s a way to remove that label.

For claimed listings through the Local Business Center (LBC): Please sign in to the LBC and select Edit to the right of the listing. On the following page, select Submit. Within a day or two the listing will appear without this label of Place Closed on Maps.

For unclaimed listings, which are open to community edits: Please select Edit below the address and choose Restore Place.”

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Moderator:

• Rand Fishkin, CEO, SEOmoz

Speakers:

• Michael Gray, President of Atlas Web Service
• Alexander Barbara, CEO of ReidBrown Enterprises, Inc.
• Vanessa Fox, Founder of Nine By Blue

The session was initiated by Michael, who hit the nail right on the head by pointing out how tough it is to monetize social media, since very few people are perceive social media as a place to buy.

He pointed out that the first and foremost thing is to play by the rules of the community. One should attempt to create a knowledgeable resource by coming up with valuable and helpful content that solves a problem. You could then offer a free solution for problems through direct or through links. Internet Marketeers could use social media to promote reviews in the form of comparison of similar products. However, it is essentially important to keep the review honest and avoid superficial language. It is equally important to provide an in-depth review, but it should be of readable length. Michael further stated that social media could be optimum to build memberships by using blogs, Twitter and e-mail to create a group of followers.

Next up was Alexander Barbara. Her basic message was to find tangential concepts that fit in your subject’s overall strategy as well as provide you with a broader appeal. The objective is to have a dynamic site that can handle traffic. One has to understand the audience and be prepared for the traffic.

Vanessa Fox was the third and the last speaker of the session. She pointed out that it was extremely important to define your action goals for social media outlets and ensure that your every action is prominent and visible to the visitors. She backed her theory with case studies and showcased the importance of forming criteria on which the success of your plans could be measured. It is of extreme importance to have measurement criteria in order to measure the possible failure points and make requisite adjustments. On microsites, Fox stated that they there’s no point in using redirection in them, links are more advisable.

The essence of the session was that engagement and traffic is simply not enough for monetizing social media. Page views are no longer good enough indicators for the success of the plan, bounce rate is more applicable now. It is imperative to measure each stage of your social media plan to zero down on failures.

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