A few tweaks to our Facebook "Share your Success Story" contest and we saw a 775% increase in Facebook likes in just 2 weeks! Plus, post views were up 500% and feedback 1000%.

I launched a Facebook page for my longtime client CosMed Clinic last year.  For most of the year, the page was an after-thought as we mainly focused on SEO efforts and other social media activities (such as participating on various weight loss and plastic surgery related message boards where our potential clients often researched doctors.) The Facebook page stayed at an even 200 likes for several months, with few comments. Most Facebook posts consisted of the same information that we just posted on our blog.

However with the explosion of social media last year, paying more attention to the Facebook page and engaging with potential customers became a critical need, especially for something as controversial as plastic surgery in Mexico.  As you can imagine, safety and trust are big issues when considering going to a foreign country for any type of medical care, so social media and real patient testimonials are crucial to helping new patients feel at ease and taking the next step to booking their appointments.

No matter how informative the articles we posted to the Facebook page were, they were not creating the engagement needed. It was definitely a cold, one-way conversation.  Then, we decided to launch a contest to increase awareness and engagement, plus gain a few great success stories from past clients. I used Wildfire App to launch a video contest, where past patients could win $1500 towards their next procedure for sharing a video testimonial. The results were pretty dismal. In the end, the problem came from taking people away from where they wanted to be (Facebook) and making them try to figure out how to upload a video to YouTube through the wildfire app contest platform. I underestimated the technical level of the audience and I became tech support rather than a marketer.

A few months later I decided to try again – this time, I tried to make it as easy as possible for patients to share their photos and story – and to keep the interactions ON the platform they were already comfortable using. I sent an email blast to existing patients announcing the contest (same way I did previously, with same prize) only this time, because it was so easy, we immediately got success stories generating hundreds of likes and comments! The number of Facebook fans, which was at a stand-still for months, went up 775% in 2 weeks. Post views were up 500% and feedback 1000%.

In addition to the new contest, I convinced the surgeons to start interacting with potential patients on Facebook. Now, potential patients could actually ask questions about surgeries and get responses from board certified plastic surgeons and a dermatologist. It added tremendous value to the Facebook page – and gave it a deeper, warmer level than an outside marketer alone could.

In addition to the contest and “Ask the Doctor” feature, patient to patient interaction was encouraged.  The results of these transparent conversations have been invaluable. As a result, patients are expressing how much more comfortable they are booking appointments after talking with doctors and patients on the Facebook page.

Here’s an example of  just one of the Facebook comments exemplifying this:

“Awesome! I am excited for mine now. I was very scared before, but after talking with others who had it, I feel so much better.”

The "Ask a Doctor" feature added tremendous value to the Facebook page – and gave it a deeper, warmer level than an outside marketer alone could.

Interaction with real patients and seeing genuine success stories really made a difference in putting potential customers are ease. Now we get posts like this one, asking for support.

“I have a consult coming up in January & am very nervous. Hopefully once I visit the clinic I will feel assured. I’m hoping to have my procedure by March. Can existing patients please put me at ease? Thanks! Nervous Nelly in Cali. “

Top 3 Take aways to help you increase your Facebook likes and improve Facebook Contests:

1.    Identify customer needs and give them what they want

In the case of CosMed Clinic, potential customers wanted two main things: the ability to interact with other patients and to be able to ask questions and get answers from board certified doctors in a medium they were most comfortable with.

2.    Hold a contest that is easy-to-enter and share

Take into consideration the technical level of your audience before you launch a contest in the social media space. Are they the type that would be able to easily create a video and upload it? Or would a simple text-based contest prove better results? Also, don’t take participants away from the medium (for example Facebook) that they feel most comfortable using.

3.    Check in often and always answer questions as quickly as possible

The more exposure your page gets, the more you need to check it – multiple times per day, especially if you allow others to post on your wall. You are not only checking for questions and concerns from potential clients, but also monitoring any spam that may appear.  My last blog post “A look at social media contests in 2011: Lessons Learned (Part 1)” included a great interview further emphasizing the importance of this last point.

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Holly Berkley is the author of Marketing in the New Media and Low Budget Online Marketing for Small Business. Her newest book, Social Media in Action… will be available in early 2012. Holly  has developed a 3-month corporate social media training program to help companies craft a social media presence that ties directly into existing initiatives or goals. Contact Holly Berkley to learn more about how she can help enhance your company’s social media outreach program.

Even a simple "Healthy Halloween Recipe" contest can bring out the online "trolls". Constant monitoring of your Facebook page is essential to protect your core, loyal fans.

As a social media consultant for a wide range of industries,  I’ve been the “behind the scenes” consultant to the corporate marketing department, as well as the actual blogger, Facebook page owner and Twitter manager for my clients.  Playing a wide range of roles in the social media space has allowed me to pull together some great success stories as well as some lessons learned in 2011.  (you can read about these in my upcoming Social Media Book).

Today, I’d like to share this video interview with my client First Choice Emergency Rooms. Back in October, we launched a “Healthy Halloween Recipe Contest” as a way to get their target audience, Texas moms, more engaged with the Facebook page and attract some new “likes” as well.  Listen in as fellow consultant Matt Murphy explains why it is so important to actively and constantly monitor your Facebook page – especially during a contest, when newer “fans” can start trying to engage with your current, core, loyal audience.

This interview reminds me of a recent poll by SmartPulse Poll,  that asked marketers “How is your company coping with your social media point person taking time off for the holidays?” An alarming 36% said that their social media efforts “go dark” when their primary contact is away.
As you will see in this interview, this can put your company at a huge risk. Social media does not sleep. Which means having multiple “back ups” and page owners can be key to an effective social media campaign.

Many social media marketers have discovered the same issue in 2011, and realize that once engaged with social media, there are significant risks that come with not keeping an eye on the conversations. In a span of just 24 hours, one customer rant can go viral.  Fortunately, for First Choice, Mr. Murphy kept a keen eye on the contest, actively monitoring each post and responding swiftly and strategically. Watch the video to learn more about how he handled the contest.

How will you be dealing with your social media campaigns over the holidays? Will your primary social media contact take time off? Have you planned for back up? Or will everything go dark?

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Holly Berkley is the author of Marketing in the New Media and Low Budget Online Marketing for Small Business. Her newest book, Social Media in Action… will be available in early 2012. Holly  has developed a 3-month corporate social media training program to help companies craft a social media presence that ties directly into existing initiatives or goals. Contact Holly Berkley to learn more about how she can help enhance your company’s social media outreach program.

Social media measurement goes well beyond the first or even final click. It encompasses how groups of people are engaging with you online and if those interactions are helping you reach your ultimate goal. (Pictured above: Example of Facebook Insights)

You have deadlines to meet, projects to launch and new clients to pitch. You don’t have time to devote endless hours to a social media plan that won’t work. And you didn’t dive into social media to win a popularity contest or to drive millions of viewers to your web site. You are building a social media campaign around your company’s specific business and marketing goals.  It is the cost and time required to attain these goals that will measure the success of your social media efforts.

Unlike tracking traditional online marketing activities such as sending email newsletters, analyzing ad buys and monitoring web site traffic, social media campaign measurement can be a bit more elusive, because it’s about more than views, clicks and conversions.

Most digital metrics center around the beginning and end of the online relationships process. In other words, the first moment someone visits your web site (view, click), and then the final act of becoming a lead (frequency of conversion). Social Media falls somewhere in the center of this process and can be measured by engagement and interaction. When nurtured and implemented correctly, the strength of that engagement and quality of interaction will help a potential client form the ultimate decision about you or your company.  It is these ongoing social interactions that help your connections ultimately decide whether they want to do business with you one time, multiple times, or, in a best-case scenario, become a repeat customer and an online advocate for you and your company.

Social media measurement, therefore, goes well beyond the first or even final click. It encompasses how groups of people are engaging with you, your company and/or your employee thought leaders within social networks, and if those interactions are helping you reach your ultimate goal.

Therefore a primary goal for social media is to create meaningful, lasting relationships with people who may eventually become your clients, business partners or valued media connections. It is not about how many unknown Twitter followers you can collect. It’s about the quality of engagement received as a result of your participation in the social networks. It’s about building real relationships that will lead to real opportunities.

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Holly Berkley is the author of Marketing in the New Media and Low Budget Online Marketing for Small Business. Her newest book, Social Media in Action… will be available in Fall 2011. Holly  has developed a 3-month corporate social media training program to help companies craft a social media presence that ties directly into existing initiatives or goals. Contact Holly Berkley to learn more about how she can help enhance your company’s social media outreach program.

Create an online community where members feel comfortable sharing information about themselves with you. Understanding the needs of your customers will help you become a better and more profitable company.

I remember a time not too long ago when the cost to develop your own social networking site was upwards of half a million dollars in programming fees alone. Today, you can get a social networking site launched for as little as $19/month and you don’t have to know a thing about programming. Web sites like Ning.com allow you to set up a full social networking site with all the core community features such as forums, blogs, and various widgets.  You can even choose the colors and layout of your social network to match your company’s existing web site or marketing materials.

In fact, its so easy to use, that I set one up for my friend’s business, JudoMath.com last week. He opted to keep his community by invitation only. This way, it could be a private online community for middle school teachers discussing innovative teaching methods, using his new program, Judo Math.

Ning.com also provides an easy “single sign-on” option, which allows people to use their FaceBook, Google or other social networking site login to join your community. Allowing members to use existing social profiles to login makes the barrier to entry even easier.

Forums or message boards are perhaps the oldest form of social networking and remain a core function of most online communities. Internet users participated in forums long before FaceBook, MySpace or even blogs existed. And there is a reason they have survived. They are easy to use and they work.  Forums give members an easy way to ask questions and share ideas. They also provide lots of great keyword-friendly text and links that search engines love. The more activity your forums have around a particular topic or industry question, the more likely you’ll be to show up on the top of the search engines.

While there are several do-it-yourself forum options available, bigger firms hoping to grow a larger community may want to consider hiring a company such as Lithium Technologies. Lithium is a California based company that can help you customize a community forum that will also tie into popular social networks such as Twitter and FaceBook. An added benefit to hiring a full service company like Lithium (over a do-it-yourself service like Ning.com) is access to services like 24/7 moderation. Such a service can be an important time-saver if you don’t have extra staff on-hand to regularly check into a fast growing community.  I found that using a full service company like Lithium was critical while setting up Verizon’s online customer support community in 2009. Thousands of members and hundreds of posts were made within the online community on a daily basis. Outside moderators helped Verizon’s internal staff identify both potential problems as well as influential members who could keep the community running.

The Importance of Designating a Community Manager
In a perfect world, your community members would keep conversations buzzing and topics tasteful. However, in the real world, online communities don’t run themselves. And if you want to keep your online community on track with your company’s overall marketing and business business goals, you need to designate a community manager. That community manager can be your marketing director or an internet marketing consultant who specializes in community management. Whoever you designate, it must be someone who understands the reason you set up this community in the first place and will adhere to your company’s social media guidelines. (If you aren’t sure what social media guidelines are or would like more information, drop me an email, or check back for my next blog post on this topic)

Your designated community manger must also care about the growth of your community and its members. This person should help to facilitate dialogue and maintain a positive atmosphere in the community that encourages members to participate. Having a designated community manager responsible for monitoring the community at all times is an important piece of controlling the direction of your community’s voice.

The tools you use to build your community and how you choose to manage it are important considerations. However, even more vital to your community’s success will be the influence of its core members and if you’ve attracted the right targeted audience to help you reach your business goals.

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Holly Berkley is a San Diego Internet Marketing Consultant and author of Marketing in the New Media and Low Budget Online Marketing for Small Business.  Her new book Social Media in Action… will be available in Fall 2011.  Learn more about Holly Berkley’s corporate social media consulting on her web site, www.new-media-consultant.com

Mix up a recipe for social media success by allowing your most creative, passionate and knowledgeable employees to engage with customers at the right time.

What do you get when you mix your company’s top PR, Marketing, Product Development and Sales minds with passionate, creative and knowledgeable employees? A social media action plan that can cover more areas and produce  more powerful results than any single marketing person on their own.

It still amazes me how many corporations actually block the use of any social media use during work hours. According to a 2011 openDNS study, 14% of companies blacklist or block FaceBook from company computers – compared to only 1% blacklisting pornography sites. However keeping employees from engaging on social networks can prevent a company from leveraging its most powerful assets – knowledgeable, creative and passionate employees.

When you allow employees outside the marketing department to get involved in online conversations, your brand has the ability to provide real insight and valuable conversations on projects and expertise related to your business goals. These conversations naturally go beyond pushing a PR crafted mission statement. These conversations help humanize your brand and build real relationships with customers, vendors and partners in a way that direct mail or other one-way conversation channels just can’t.

So unless your employees and partners are engaged in top secret projects, let them talk about it!   Allowing your employees and other stakeholders  to share openly about projects and experiences they are most passionate about, lends itself naturally to exciting, genuine and viral content on the social web.  And everyone from project managers, customer service reps,  to human resources can get involved in the social space.

Companies like Zappos boast more than 500 employees using personal Twitter accounts to help promote the company’s ideals and products. And Best Buy bravely empowers more than 150,000 of their employees to join customer conversations throughout the social web.

Put it on paper: make a social media action plan before anyone in your company engages on the brand's behalf

But before allowing employees to tweet, post or comment on your company’s behalf, take time to develop a social media strategy and set of guidelines to best fit your company’s values, goals and mission.

Even if marketing and PR individuals are no longer the primary users of social media in your company’s new strategic plan, that is not to say that they are not a vital piece of it. In fact, no one in your company should be unleashed on the social web without a plan, crafted in sync with the goals of your marketing, sales, product development and PR people. Just as corporations have brand guidelines establishing logos, colors and tone of voice, they should also take time to craft social media guidelines that any employee who engages on the social web should adhere to.

Nokia, the mobile phone manufacture, requires employees to complete a six-part social media certification before they can become active on the social web.  While Best Buy is able to successfully manage thousands of customer service and tech reps using social media through ongoing training and conferences.

Smart companies that allow driven, passionate, creative and knowledgeable employees to partake in social media on the company’s behalf, have taken time to train staff on social media best practices as well as develop guidelines for when employees should engage in social media, and when they should simply listen.  These primary ingredients are a smart company’s recipe for  social media success.

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Holly Berkley is a San Diego Internet Marketing Consultant and author of Marketing in the New Media and Low Budget Online Marketing for Small Business.  Her new book Social Media in Action… will be available in Fall 2011.  Learn more about the best way you can involve your employees in the social media process at  www.corporate-social-media-training.com

64% of shoppers prefer to get coupons via email while only 8% prefer social media channels such as FaceBook and Twitter.

I have a hotmail account packed with thousands of email messages. 99% of them come from companies like Amazon.com, PartyCity.com, VictoriasSecret.com, Clinique.com, Gap.com, Target.com, and every other company that I’ve made purchases from in the past few years. This account of course is separate from my primary email account that I use for business and personal communications.

Every few weeks or so, I login to my hotmail account, and scroll the subject lines, looking for any good deals that I should take advantage of. Sometimes, if I know I am going to shop at one of these stores, I login before I head out, to see if there are any printable coupons. My hotmail account has become my virtual ‘coupon clipping’ storage space.

And it turns out, I’m not alone. In fact according to a December 2010 eMarketers survey,  64% of shoppers prefer to get coupons via email while only 8% prefer social media channels such as FaceBook and Twitter. I’ve noticed that even FaceBook’s new coupons (available in only 5 cities as of April 2011) get delivered directly to my inbox, rather than waiting for me to login and see the coupon on my FaceBook newsfeed.

However, just because social media channels may not be the number one place consumers look for coupons, they still plays a powerful role in the buying process. Consumers consider feedback from their trusted online circles about products from peer reviews. Consumers are actively reviewing how may FaceBook “likes” a product or company has …and Google just announced its +1 application, which allows even the pay-per-click search listings to show shoppers how many people in their social groups also support a company, before they even click on the ad.

How consumers view your company on the social web is becoming a critical piece of the conversion process—especially when it comes to encouraging new customers to do business with you.

While email continues to be a cost-effective tool in customer retention, social tools are dominating when it comes to reaching out to new audiences through your existing,  loyal customers.

So if you aren’t pushing coupons through social media, what are you doing with it? Since most social media users use sites like FaceBook and Twitter for the primary purposes of communication and entertainment, get in the mix. Offer entertaining, valuable and informative content that benefits your target audience by enhancing their lives, making it more enjoyable, easier or richer in some way.

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Holly Berkley is a San Diego based Online Marketing Consultant and author of Marketing in the New Media and Low Budget Online Marketing for Small Business. She has launched a 90 day corporate social media training program to teach businesses how to implement a social media marketing strategy that works best for their business goals and audiences.  Learn more at www.corporate-social-media-training.com.

Rather than trying to tackle every social network at once, focus on the handful of social spaces where your target audience is most active.

By the time you finish reading this sentence, there will be 700 new posts on FaceBook. Before the end of the day, there will be 1 million new tweets.  With more than 1.9 billion Internet users world wide (RoyalPingdom.com, June 2010),  watching millions of videos, creating millions of blogs and updating posts, status updates, and comments on a daily basis, finding your target audience in the sea of social media can feel overwhelming.

Stop. Take a deep breath. And realize that in order to be successful on the social web, you do not have to be everything to everyone. Or everywhere for that matter.  In fact, no one can conquer every social space. There is simply too much information flowing every second. So rather than trying to tackle every social network at once, focus on the handful of social spaces where your target audience is most active.

As you start using social media to find and communicate with different audiences, you will quickly discover that some social networks provide more immediate benefit to your overall goals than others. You may also learn that it can take a combination of many social networks to promote your message most efficiently. And because online communications are extremely measurable and trackable, the more you listen and engage on the different social networks, the more you will be able to refine your efforts to maximize efficiency and attain your desired goals.

On any social network site such as Twitter and LinkedIn, you can easily search by keywords to find people in your target audience. Search by topic, or job function, or company name and you’ll be presented with a list of tweets, profiles, pages, groups and so on. Once you identify where your target audience is, take some time to listen.

Think of joining a new social networking group as stepping into a cocktail party where you don’t know anyone. You wouldn’t start loudly announcing your business and latest projects the second you stepped foot in the door.  That would not only be rude, but a complete “turn off” to all the other guests. Instead, take smaller steps. Listen. Ask questions. Find out who the key influencers are in that group and get in their good graces. Also pay attention to how the group talks, lingo they use, how they interact with each other.  You want to fit in.

Never hard sell your business. Instead, contribute meaningful information that your target audience is seeking. Encourage dialogue that helps position you as a knowledgeable person in your industry and as someone who cares about others thoughts, problems, concerns and opinions. Through this type of engagement and understanding of the audiences, you will be more likely to capture the right kind of attention, along with trust and loyalty. And if you are lucky, your target audience will find you!

For more insight into Finding and Engaging Your Target Audience on the Social Web, look for Holly Berkley’s upcoming book “Social Media in Action…” with ZweigWhite Publishing and Amanda Walter due out this Fall 2011.

Take time to set up the right type of FaceBook page for your business...the benefits of a highly active FaceBook page include helping your Google Ranking.

It’s understandable why people don’t want to make the switch from a profile to a fan page.  After all, it takes time to build up all those FaceBook friends.
However, according to FaceBook’s terms of service, “Profiles represent individuals and must be held under an individual name, while Pages allow for an organization, business, celebrity, or band to maintain a professional presence on Facebook.”

In fact, if you have your business functioning under a profile rather than a fan page, Facebook can shut it down, and all of your “friends” will literally disappear. (Trust me! This happened to one of my clients who insisted on using a Facebook Profile page rather than Fan page)

But, there are some advantages to having a FaceBook Page, instead of a profile. One is access to Facebook’s analytic tool, FaceBook Insights. With a FaceBook page, you will also have access to the latest promotional tools, such as “Like” buttons. You’ll also have the ability for unlimited growth (unlike a FaceBook profile that is limited to 5,000 friends.)

Another important advantage: Google likes FaceBook.  While Facebook profiles are hidden behind passwords, fan pages can be set up to be viewable by everyone – including search engines like Google. This means, every post you make to your fan page can be indexed by search engines and boost your overall ranking.

Need more incentive to make the switch? In March 2011, Google changed its algorithm to give even more weight to social authority and online reputation. Now the number of “likes” a company has directly impacts its overall Google ranking.

Unfortunately, there is not easy way to convert your existing profile into a fan page. This means you will have to do it manually: ask each one of your FaceBook friends to “like” your new page.  You can do this by using the automatic tool that FaceBook provides you while you are setting up your FaceBook Page, or, better yet, you can draft a personal message explaining the benefits of joining your new page. Its also a good idea to post a message at the top of your profile with a link to your new Fan page, encouraging users to “like” it and explaining all the great information and discussions they will be able to participate in for joining

Another way to get fans to “like” your new page is by setting up a FaceBook ad. You can target the Facebook Ad that promotes your new fan page to anyone on FaceBook by geographic location, occupation, interested, ages and other key attributes. But keep in mind the more general you make your ad, the more expensive it will be. OR, you can simply create an ad that will only appear to your existing FaceBook profile friends. As your friends begin to “like” your new page, other friends will see that in their news feed which brings more credibility to your ad.

Some companies like 1-800-Flowers actually bribes customers to “like” their FaceBook Page by offering immediate discount codes. When coupon codes and sweepstakes don’t make sense for your business, try offering information. B2B companies can encourage “likes” by giving away a white paper or access to some research or article written by one of your company thought-leaders. Offer value to your users.

Have you recently started a FaceBook Fan Page?
Share your experiences, tips and comments here.

Or join  the new AEC Fan Page, set up for the Design and Construction professionals to discuss Interactive Marketing Strategies.

Look for more tips on in my upcoming book “Social Media in Action” due out in Fall 2011.

Are you in the Architecture, Planning, Design, Engineering or Construction Industry? I'd Like to Hear from you!

Holly Berkley is excited to announce that she has teamed up with ZweigWhite Publishing, a leader in publishing and research for architecture, engineering and environmental consulting firms, and Amanda Walter, a PR professional who has worked inside some of the world’s largest AEC firms and directly with some of the top executives and individuals who’s ideas are shaping today’s industry landscape.

Together they are creating a book to be released in late 2011 discussing current and future trends of social media and how they specifically are (and will be) impacting the AEC industry.

**I’m conducting interviews with AEC professionals and collecting case studies during the month of February 2011. Please contact me via email (no phone calls please) or leave a comment on this blog,  if you have a story to tell or would like to be interviewed for the upcoming book.**
Click here to learn more about the upcoming social media book for the AEC industry.

1.    Never directly try to sell your product.

If you do, people will “unfriend” and “unfollow” you quickly. Instead, use social media to post interesting and useful content around your product. For example provide valuable updates and share links to information that your targeted audience would be interested in and that shows you have your finger on the pulse of what’s happening in your industry.

2.    Get Personal.

Using social media to market your business is also about building trust. And trust comes from people knowing who you really are. So, in addition to the great tips and advice you may provide, share a little about yourself. After all, your customers are not only buying your products and services, they are buying you.

3.    Don’t be Boring.

Never, ever post what you had for breakfast. Instead post fun, interesting things that people are more likely to not only read and react to, but also re-tweet or share with their networks. Try posting different types of content to see what gets the best reaction with your target audience.

4.    Listen.

Remember that social media is a conversation. Login often and comment on other people’s posts and share other people’s ideas. It not only shows that you are listening, but also makes them more likely to react and share your information as well.

5.    Consider time of day.

Social media happens in real time. And as you use the different social networks, you’ll notice that the time of day you make your post can have a dramatic response on the comments you get back. Consider the target audience you are trying to reach and post accordingly. For example, working mothers are most often on social networks after 9pm, when the children are asleep. So posting Twitter updates during this time, is more likely to catch their attention.

What are you doing to build your influence in the social media space? I’d like to hear about it.  Share your ideas and thoughts here.