Social Marketing

Add an Email Sign Up to Facebook

Posted by sheadbeck
Email, Social Marketing / No Comments

integrate-email-with-facebookAll of you have heard the mumble jumble about integrating email with social media. Well here is a quick way to get started > add an email sign-up page to your Facebook or MySpace (does that still exist?). While I was searching for a couple examples I only found that brands were linking to an off-facebook page to collect emails. This doesn’t make any sense to me considering how easy it was to do.

Because we use an ESP, it was even easier … ExactTarget offers a service called “web collect” where they enable you to place pre-written code anywhere on a site and begin collecting address. All you have to do is change you list id, error page and thank you page variables and you’re set.

The below guide is assuming you have basic HTML skills and knowledge of image hosting (as with your ESP)
To show how easy this is, here is a step-by-step how to:

  1. Log in to your ESP and create a unique list > I named mine Facebook > write the list ID down for future reference
  2. Open Dreamweaver and create a layout that is suitable to your brand and make sure it isn’t wider than 200px so you can move it to the left rail in a future step
  3. Use the ExactTarget web collect code to for the form
    • <form action=”http://cl.exct.net/subscribe.aspx?lid=ENTER LIST ID” name=”subscribeForm” method=”post”>
    • <input type=”hidden” name=”thx” value=”http://www.facebook.com/pages/SkyMall/67443103870″ />
    • <input type=”hidden” name=”err” value=”http://www.facebook.com/pages/SkyMall/67443103870″ />
    • <input type=”hidden” name=”MID” value=”ExactTarget Account #” />
  4. Since we don’t want the customer to leave the Facebook page as they were there for a reason > we set the confirmation page and the error page both to go back to our main page on Facebook
    • I’m sure there will be debate about that choice, but it’s the one I made
  5. After you have the code the way you want it > remove all the <head>, <title>, <meta> code just so you have your form and table code
  6. Now copy your code out of Dreamweaver
  7. Log in to your Facebook account > click on edit page > click on More Applications > then Browse More
    facebook-applications-fbml1
  8. Search for FBML > click on add to page
    add-fbml-to-facebook
  9. Go back to your “edit page” screen > and click on the pencil icon and click edit
  10. Now name the box and paste your code from Step  6 > Click Save
  11. You are almost done, now all you have to do is tell the sign-up page where to live.  Click on the Pencil again in you newly named “Name > FBML” box
    facbook-application-settings
  12. Because I recommend placing it in your left rail so people see it all the time. You need to click “add” next to “Box” and leave “Tab” off
  13. From here go back to the main page of your Facebook Brand Page and click on the Boxes tab > your newly created FBML sign up page will be there
  14. Click on the Pencil once again and click on “move to wall” > All Done!
    move-to-wall-facebook
  15. Take a look at our finished product.
    finished-facebook-sign-up

I know a few other ESP’s have the same type of “web collect” service so this can be used by anybody. Now do it to it.

Oh yeah, and don’t forget to be our friend on Facebook > we are just starting out and slowly developing our strategy. So no judging only friending.

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Display All Wordpress Tags

Posted by sheadbeck
Social Marketing / No Comments

Here is a quick post to help people that may have the same problem I did when trying to make a page or widget to display all of my Wordpress tags as a list the same way you can display your Wordpress categories. I was working on a different site and couldn’t figure this out, the only support Wordpress provides for listing tags is to display the tag cloud. That’s fine and dandy but just not what I wanted.

Here it is, all you need to do is customize the arguments in the Wordpress tag cloud PHP code.

Take a look at the default which will give you the Web 2.0 tag cloud:

<?php wp_tag_cloud(); ?>

Now take a look at my customization to display the tags as a list:

<?php wp_tag_cloud(’smallest=12&largest=12&format=list&unit=px’); ?>

You can customize the list layout in your CSS or inline.

That’s all…peace out.

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Why Twitter? Ego or Brand?

Posted by sheadbeck
Social Marketing / 2 Comments

I have been sitting on this post for a couple weeks and then I got some help from good ole’ Ford – (see below). I am going to touch on a point that kind of annoys me, individuals using a big name brand to push themselves into the lime light.

There are quite a few internet geeks claiming to be experts in social media and pushing their ideas on all of us in particular mostly on Twitter – their first piece of advice is to always make it personal, use an actual person or even multiple people. I say, wrong! I feel this is a pure ego play and your interests are in front of the interests of your company. I get that the underlying foundation of Twitter is to feed your ego, I do it…I send out a link to an article or blog and hope to get a response or more hits to my site, but not at the expense of my company.

To hit a little bit more on this, and not to pick on Ford, go to Scott Monty’s Twitter profile. He has a link back to his own site while using Ford in his description so he is found in searches for Ford and obtains more followers, on top of that the official Ford Twitter account has a mention of his personal Twitter account.

Here are a few reasons I disagree with using the Ego play:

  1. I’m following Scott Monty for updates on Ford, I’m not following Scott Monty because I know this guy.
    • He likely knows this, why not only use your “Ford” handle?
  2. If a normal Twitter user (non-geek) searches for Ford, they won’t know who Scott Monty is and may not follow him where as they would Follow Ford.
    • Right now, Scott Monty and Ford are really fighting for clicks. Would you ever run two PPC accounts and bid on the same terms?
  3. Most companies today do not have the resource/capital to have a dedicated social media point. Using multiple players would lead to the same down fall as the bullet above.
  4. What happens once you quit or get fired?
    • Do you give back what belongs to your company or do you hijack their contacts?
  5. Oh yeah, and because the Twitter community thinks you should use the Company image over a person…

use_logo_avatar_in_twitter#5 has been proven by a very scientific research provided by Mr. Monty himself. He recently sent out a PollDaddy question to Ford followers asking what icon do you want him to use? The community responded with over 4x more votes for the Brand Logo vs a person. Now this doesn’t specifically tell anyone to use your brand vs using a random person in your organization but it does start the debate against all of the “Social Media Experts” who want you to use a person to represent your brand.

I know this sounds like a bash on social media consultants but it’s not, well kind of…what it’s really meant for is to get you to realize the world wants Brand not Ego.

And of course I will need you to feed my Ego – share this below and then follow me – if I like your stuff, I will even follow you back.

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