I get a lot of questions from clients about Facebook Fan Page vs. Facebook Groups. It can be overwhelming to know which one to choose, but here’s a breakdown for you:

Facebook Groups are best used for non-profits, fundraiser groups, and friend gatherings such as a bowling group. The group is very oriented around events and doesn’t possess the same amount of features that the Fan page has. Facebook considers groups to be an extension of your personal actions. When you post something as a group administrator, it looks like it’s coming from you and is attached to your personal profile.

Facebook Fan Pages allow for businesses, organization, and brands to have a place to talk to their customers and clients. Unlike groups, fan pages are visible to people who aren’t logged into Facebook and are thus indexed by search engines. Pages communicate by “updates” which show on the news feed of a fan. Pages can have applications as well. A Fan Page can create content that doesn’t linked to you personally.

You do need a personal profile in order to use either one of these features, but one advantage of a Fan Page is ability to assign other people as admins of the Fan Page, this is especially nice if you are delegating the updates to an employee or an assistant.

Overall, Groups and Fan Pages are powerful and if used properly, can help promote a great cause or a business.

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Brian C.  Johnson is the man behind the local Portland magazine: Mix. Mix is a great mixup of food and drink, interviewing restaurants aimed at foodies, sharing recipes, and covering “what’s new” to consume. How does a magazine use social media to help broadcast its news?

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What’s your business?

MIX Magazine, Portland’s #1 Food + Drink magazine

When did you start using social media and why?

Began in the summer of 09′ primarily to reach out to those interested in the food + drink category, have dialogue with them and encourage them to read our
publication.

Has social media changed your business?

It has helped us as publishers to have a better understanding of our audience, so I would say it has changed it yes.

How to you envision social media changing in the future?

It will need to continue to be relevant to the consumer. This is the greatest
challenge for any media of our day.

Have a social media story you’d like to share?

We recently did a story on a particular cocktail featuring a local
distiller and a bartender who served this drink at a particular
restaurant in town. We posted the story on Facebook and the restaurant
told us they had so many new customers come in to order the cocktail
that they ran out!

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Bridget Benton is a super busy lady. She’s a mixed-media artist, art teacher/facilitator and creativity trainer – supporting people in the care and feeding of their own creative spark. If you need inspiration or instructions for numerous art projects, check out her website: Eyes Aflame. Bridget and I crossed paths when I attended a mentoring session offered by a local business education program. Thanks to Bridget’s mentorship and encouragement, I took charge of my passion for social communication for businesses and educated myself about social media by attending classes, etc.

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What’s your business?

I’m an artist and an art teacher – I work in a wide range of media, so my
teaching isn’t very media-centric; it’s much more about process.  I really
believe that everyone is creative, and I love to help people find that spark
in themselves during my workshops.  I work with adults – there are a lot of
great folks out there working with kids.  I feel like my job is to help
those grown-ups who did have a bad art experience as kids rediscover their
joy in making stuff!

When do you start using social media and why?

I first joined Facebook with some reluctance because I had classmates in
grad school who were using it to stay in touch; and I signed up on Twitter
because a lot of the people whose blogs I followed where also tweeting, so
it seemed like a good way to stay in touch and find out what was going on!
What I discovered was that Facebook connected me to a lot of my friends and
family, and that Twitter kept me in touch with a lot of resources and events
in the arts, crafts, and creative community.

Has social media changed your business?

The way that I market my classes and my artwork is constantly shifting; I
used to rely a lot more on flyers and list serves. At the heart of it,
though, I believe that marketing is about building relationships.

Social media, especially Facebook and Twitter are a new way for me to build
relationships – and it makes keeping my friends and family up to date on the
classes I’m offering and the shows I’m in a lot easier.  My friends and
family are on my e-mail newsletter list, but a lot of them don’t really read
it.  This gives us an easy and low-key way to talk about our mutual creative
endeavors.

When I tweet and post on Facebook, I try to consider whether the information
I’m sharing has some interest or entertainment factor – I ask myself, “Will
this be of interest to or entertain my potential clients, my friends and
family?” My clients are like friends who are looking to get something very
specific out of our relationship – creative inspiration for their personal
and professional lives.  One of the things I discovered by engaging more
fully in social media is that my friends and family often look to me for the
same thing – they get curious about my new artwork, or the new classes I’m
offering. They’re just as interested in the resources I pass on about the
entrepreneurial climate or a great craft project I found on-line. Now I
don’t feel so embarrassed about “marketing” to my friends and family,
because it’s just one one more component of my life that I share, and it’s
one more component of our relationship.  And frankly, that makes it a lot
easier to “market” to my clients, too, when I consider that much of why
they’ll choose to take a class from me is because they feel comfortable with
me or identify with me in some way.

What are you looking forward to social media changing in the future?

I almost have to laugh at this one – I’m not much of an early adopter when
it comes to new technologies, and have no idea how things might shift in the
future.  I do know that blogging and engaging in social media is keeping me
in touch with people all over the country – so one of the big questions for
me now is how to offer courses, services, and creative inspiration to those
people outside of my immediate geographic area.  There are lots of ways to
do it – e-books, on-line classes, etc.  I just have to figure out the way to
do it that fits best with my personality, style, and mission.

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Toys “R” Us has become one of the fastest growing brands on Facebook. They gathered 100s of new fans over Thanksgiving holiday and the last few weeks…

How did they do it

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• Yesterday I went to the Toys R Us Facebook Fan page and the offer is if I become a fan of Toys R Us, they will donate a $1 worth of toys to a non-profit that’s sponsored by Shaquille O’Neal.

• Made it easier for customers to vote on product deals for their wish list. It’s called “You Vote – You Save” Promotion, it allows you vote on the deal you most wanted activated with the focus on Cyber Monday.

• As a Facebook fan, you are able to get status updates with weekly and daily deals, special promotions, coupon offers, and find out about exclusive and unadvertised deals.

• Toys R Us gave its customers a preview of their “Biggest Big Book” – a print catalogue that is mailed out full of deals on the latest toys, on their Facebook page, a day before the “Book” was launched on the site. They gave their customers a sneak peak at their “Black Friday” deals.

It will exciting to see other companies and businesses leverage Facebook and help them communicate and improve their customer’s shopping experience with creative ideas.

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If you are active on BizNik in the Portland area, you’ve probably seen some good articles and activity from Kaya Singer. Kaya has a very unique background, she’s owned a pottery business, been a family therapist and is now a small business coach. She has recently launched her book, The Entrepreneur’s Handbook to Money & Freedom.

It’s impressive how active Kaya is in communicating with businesses through Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Read below and learn how powerful online communication can be for a business coach.

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What’s your business?

Awakening Business Solutions – I offer tools, process and coaching programs to solo business owners to help them overcome obstacles and develop a business mind-set.

When did you start using social media? What made you decide to try it?

I began social media as soon as it was available. I was on e-mail before most people. Communication is my focus and I loved the immediacy and the ability to create community with people world-wide.

How has social media affected your business?

It has allowed me to market to people world-wide and develop strong communities and relationships with people I would never have met. It has allowed me to put articles all over the world and make a huge difference in people’s lives.

What is one tool that you use the most?

Not just one. My LinkedIn group – Awakening Women in Business, my blog, Facebook, Twitter, BizNik, EZine articles and I am getting ready to move forward developing a membership site.

Have a social media story you’d like to share?

I was part of an e-mail group called “Powerful Women Entrepreneurs“. There were hundreds of women and it ran as a Yahoo group. The woman who facilitated it decided to suddenly quit so there was no place for all these women to go.  On a whim- one morning when I was on LinkedIn, I began “Awake Women in Business” and I invited all the women from the other group. Many of them came and then I also invited  other women I knew and posted it on Facebook and Twitter. It was active and involved almost immediately!  I love it as I am a natural facilitator, and it is a way to build community with women in business. It is also giving me some training for my new membership site that is coming soon.  I love working with women too so this also fulfills that need.

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