How To Add Fans To Your Facebook Business Fan Page

Here is a quick video on how to add fans to your facebook business fan page.  You can always send the link, tell people about your page or suggest to your friends. 

Checkered Flag Auto Group is running a promotion for every fan they receive in the month of Janurary 2010 they will donate money to the United Way of Hampton Roads.

Making Time for Social Media

It seems like there is never enough time in the day. Fact is that we live in a fast paced world and if you’re not busy, and you’re not where you want to be or on your way there, there might be something wrong with your business model.

That being said, the way busy professionals communicate is changing rapidly and social media is becoming a primary vehicle for that communication. Though many people see this rising trend, I often hear people say “my schedule is busy enough as it is!” or they ask “how do you find the time?”

Well here are some potential answers to those problems and questions.

Trim the fat: Though we are always busy, we can always scan our days and find time that could be better spent. It could be taking that phone call that we know always takes longer than it should or even sleeping in that extra 15 minutes. Try pinpoint similar patterns and cut back on them.

Rethink, Reevaluate, Replace: If your like me, your constantly doing something to try to grow your business. If you see the importance of social media and want to make it part of your routine, think about the methods you are using and evaluate their effectiveness. If adding social media to your arsenal is a priority, consider reducing or eliminating your time with less effective growth strategies.

First thing, last thing: Some people start strong, some finish strong. If you start strong, make social media part of your morning routine. Go to any Starbucks and you’ll see many people on laptops and Blackberries doing just that. If you finish strong, use the thoughts you’ve gathered through the day and share them with the world.

Set it in Stone: If you’re busy, you probably have a planner. Put it in your schedule and stick to it as though it were a meeting with your dream client because who knows, you may end up meeting that person through social media!

Using the Power of Friend Suggestions

I am notorious for giving friend suggestions. Because of that, I often get feedback from my friends asking who these people are that I suggest to them. I love the suggest a friend to option because it allows me to do two things:

1. Connect people that know each other but are not already connected online.

2. Introduce people who I think may have something in common or who could be a good strategic connection. This is also known as a referral in face to face networking.

For those of us who use social media to build relationships and expand our sphere of relationships, referrals are key. Suggesting new friends allows networkers to do just that.

Facebook has the ‘Suggest Friends for ‘ feature that can be found on the far left, below all the application boxes (see picture). This is a cool feature that allows you to suggest up to 2o friends to someone. This tool is excellent for your friends who are new to Facebook. Suggesting friends to help people grow their network is something that most people appreciate, and often, they return the favor by suggesting people they know that they think may be good connections for you.

Twitter has a fun weekly tradition called #FollowFriday.

Tweeters use Follow Friday to share the people they follow most with their Followers. It’s a way of saying, “this person has good content, follow them”!

These tools are great ways to make and share connections and virtually every social media outlet has a similar feature. Use them to your advantage, and take friend suggestions as a real opportunity to start a new relationship.

The Best Way to Warm the Cold Call

Before we had phones, people wrote letters to potential prospects and followed up with a phone call. The letter served as a friendly introduction that once received, allowed the reader to get acquainted with the salesperson. Eventually, the phone replaced the letter completely and cold calling was born.

The power of using social media outlets to grow your business has created a euphoric feeling among those who have longed for an escape from a life of cold calling. Inbound marketing has provided a perfect method for businesses to improve their level of exposure, but it hasn’t completely eliminated the need for a phone.

Social networking profiles, blogs and other forms of social media are the new way for customers and businesses to passively get acquainted. Once the connection is made, the cold call is instantly warm, even its a person you’ve never met face to face!

Social Media: The Letter Reborn.

How to make CSS and HTML Work Together Part 1

For the last week or so I have been struggling to figure out how to place an image into the header of my Wordpress blog that covered the entire area of the header. Though I had a reasonable amount of knowledge about HTML, CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) was completely foreign to me.  I’ve been doing a lot of research online trying to figure out the mystery of CSS, and after a lot of dead ends and partial explanations I was finally able to come to some real conclusions about CSS, and how it relates to HTML.

None of the sources I found describe what I believe to be the key to understanding how CSS and HTML interact.  If you think of your website as a room, HTML is the furniture, and CSS is where you put the furniture.

When you look at your CSS, you will likely see something like this on the sheet:

#header {
width: 960px;
height: 180px;
color: #FFFFFF;
font-size: 16px;
font-weight: normal;
margin: 0px auto 0px;
padding: 0px;
overflow: hidden;
}

Pixels (px) is the spacial representation of your header. To be honest I started out just playing with the numbers and previewing each change to see what took place. This also makes it easier to correct mistakes quickly.

CSS does not change the size of HTML objects. If your CSS framework is smaller than your HTML image, the image will not show completely. For instance if your header is 760px and your HTML image is 960px, you will only see 760px of that image.

In the next section, I will explain how HTML and CSS interact.

Blogging For Business

One of the best things you can do to increase traffic to your website is by blogging. I have been blogging for business since 2003 to bring account for my mortgage business. Blogging has been my #1 source of referrals in 2005 and 2006.

What is a blog? A blog is another tool to market, communicate and brand yourself or your business through regular updates – otherwise known as an online journal.

I have a website to capture my leads but I use the blog to bring them there and let them know who they are doing business with.

If you don’t currently have a blog – contact us for a one on one consultation to get started!

Where are the places you can blog?

1. Wordpress.com or Wordpress.org are the #1 sources for blogs.
2. Blogger
3. Moveable Type
4. Active Rain – Real Estate Blog

I know there are many to choose from that I didn’t list but all you need is 1 good blogging platform and Iwould recommend any of these to get started!