Facebook.com continues to roll forward gaining more influence, users and targeted users than any other social media site on the Internet. The double threat Facebook.com offers is not only a mass of users but the ability to target users in incredibly accurate ways.

The end result? Wether you’re a Fortune 100 or a single person startup company you’ve got the ability to engage with your consumers and potential customers previously unavailable to business.

Our friends at http://allfacebook.com recently published a fantastic set of 8 tips for PR specialists on Facebook.com:

• Thursday is the best day of the week to get the most visibility for a Facebook post.
• Release major stories in the early morning.  If you post between 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. EST, you risk your content getting pushed down by news feeds and other traffic.
• When sharing stories, include the full link on Facebook — that’s 300 percent more likely to get clicked on than any shortened address.
• Use both the like and send Facebook buttons on your site.
• Want the secret behind making it into your friends’ “top news” feed? It’s based on an algorithm known asEdge Rank. Use words like “today,” and “limited-time only,” to increase its Edge Rank.
• According to a recent study from Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, Facebook is among the leading drivers of traffic to 21 news web sites. So when sharing a good media story, don’t forget to leverage the leading social network.
• Want to know which words are most “shareable” on Facebook? Try words like “best,” “most,” and those that explain, such as “why,” and “how.”
• Facebook may be a better platform for making a video go viral than other social media platforms, probably because the site makes it easy to embed multimedia content into a post.

All of which go beyond the public relations specialist, these tactics have the ability to increase your following and consumer engagement drastically. The end result will be happier and much more engaged clients, regardless of your size, location or product.

You might also be interested in Dan Nedelko’s screen cast tips for organic fan page growth:

Leveraging your personal network to increase distribution

Using photos and tags to increase your distribution.

Do you have any more tips you’d like to share? We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments sections below!

On May 11, Facebook revised its promotions policy. This evolving set of legal guidelines govern all promotions run on Facebook, and outline what Page owners can and can not do when running promotions on Facebook to remain compliant with Facebook policy.

The primary change to the Facebook promotions policy is the removal of some specific prohibitions on certain types of promotions, as well as guidelines around minor participation in promotions. Major items that have not changed include that all promotions must be run within 3rd party apps on Facebook.

What does the policy mean for your Facebook promotions plans? Here is a breakdown of the details:

Facebook Promotions Policy Overview:

• The primary change in this update is that Facebook has removed some specific prohibitions on certain types of promotions, such as promotions involving alcohol, dairy, firearms, gambling, and gasoline. While this does mean that promotions can now offer alcohol or dairy as a prize, for example, the new guidelines also strongly maintain that all promotions must comply with all laws and regulations of the jurisdictions where the promotion is open. This means that the burden of responsibility for checking that a promotion can legally offer a specific prize remains in the hands of the promotion administrator and page owner, and that by running such a promotion on Facebook, he or she is affirming that the promotion complies with all applicable laws and regulations.
• There is no longer any explicit prohibition of minor (13-17 years of age) entry to Facebook promotions. Similar to the changes above, the removal of age related guidelines still implies that the promotion administrator is running the promotion in compliance with all of the applicable age related laws and regulations wherever his promotion is running.
• Facebook has included a very clear definition of what constitutes a promotion: “a contest, competition, sweepstakes or other similar offering,” where “by ‘contest’ or ‘competition’ [Facebook means] a promotion that includes a prize of monetary value and a winner determined on the basis of skill (i.e., through judging based on specific criteria)” and “by ‘sweepstakes’ [Facebook means] a promotion that includes a prize of monetary value and a winner selected on the basis of chance.”

What has not changed for Facebook Promotions

• All promotions still need to be run within 3rd party Apps on Facebook.com, and can be run either on a Canvas page or as an app on a Page Tab.
• You may not use Facebook features or functionality as a way of entering or registering for a promotion. In other words, you cannot have users simply “Like” your page to enter into a contest— the entry process must be contained within the 3rd party app environment, and include a registration (like a form) separate of the act of “Liking” a page.
• You may not use Facebook features or functionality such as the Like button as a method of voting for a promotion. Again, because promotions must be run within 3rd party apps on Facebook, this regulation maintains that promotion elements like voting be contained in apps, and not within Facebook simply by using the “Like” button.
• You cannot use Facebook to notify winners, such as by sending them a message, chat, or wall post alerting them to their win.

Reaching out to your customers and their personal social networks is an extremely effective way for local businesses to add real value to their bottom line and can result in real sales. Clearly you should be considering Facebook promotions and contests that engage your fans without turning them off.

Good Luck!

Dan Nedelko

Well now that Yahoo and Adcenter are joining up, a new battle for the PPC budget might be on the way. Companies want to get the best for their money, of course, but sometimes cutting edges will backfire on the whole strategy behind PPC (Pay Per Click).

We had a client telling us once that we should not bid for the top organic searches they were targeting.

Now here is a trick question:

What would you prefer, to have one organic link on the first page or a paid link and an organic link on the same first page?

Think on it for a while.

If you do not know the answer, we can help. At Honeypot Marketing, we strive to provide our clients not only with the results they want but also with the knowledge they require to understand what is better. Sounds different? We are.

SEO same as old fashion marketing is applicable to all areas, industries, business types, so no matter what your company does, we can help.

So getting back to the PPC campaigns, setting an additional budget, or splitting the current budget to target into the Yahoo/Adcenter venture can provide additional revenue satisfaction.

Why? Yahoo’s experience on highly targeted paid search added to the Microsoft platform can only produce positive results for advertisers.

We are not undermining Google’s Adwords power it’s just that there is a new kid in town, re-vamped, and they are a good alternative.

Bidding with the Yahoo/Adcenter platform from the beginning is going to be less expensive since less people will be trying to outbid your keywords.

We can help implementing multiple PPC campaigns at a time.

Think about it, it’s like grabbing the .com revolution at the start, a one-time shot. Contact Honeypot Marketing, we can help.

• Google Soft 404 reporting tool released http://bit.ly/bYSTar we actually noticed this yesterday while working in Webmaster Tools. #
• How about this for a killer landing page: http://twitpic.com/1v31u0 #

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• 10 free and simple Facebook marketing strategies for brands http://dannedelko.com/fb via @dannomatic #
• @iPadinCanada yeah it's stupid, different departments, rude CSRs and the irony is they dont have connected systems. They're the telecom! in reply to iPadinCanada #

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Press Releases are an excellent way to increase your brand awareness in mainstream media, build links through optimizing your distribution and also to get yourself listed in News Services such as Google News.

Generally what we see is a lack of strategy around integrating small business Press Releases and Optimization of the Public Relations and Media Relations functions.

Here is a nice simple outline for optimizing your press releases and media releases for your day to day Internet Marketing:

1. We will leverage press release distribution for the purpose of creating brand awareness, building inbound links and increasing our search engine saturation.
2. Distributing Press Releases will also increase our authority in all search engines and specifically in news search engines which will react favorably to a focused PR program.

Press Releases will be delivered in 2 tiers. We prefer this methodology since it breaks out our functions and creates a consistency of releases. Consistent Press Release distribution is extremely important. If the schedule below is too aggressive for your budget then slim it down to 1 major release per month and 2 SEO releases per month.

1. Major Press Releases submitted to prweb.com at a premium level. We will reserve these for major site upgrades and major press worthy events. These should occur at a frequency of 2 per month.
2. SEO Press Releases will be submitted to lower cost distribution sites and mainly be used to increase our online brand spread. These will be distributed with a higher frequency – 4 per month.

Press releases will be submitted to the distribution sites, however before this is done all press releases will be put in a media section on your website. The media center you create for your site must have the following:

1. A complete media kit including logos, images and other media collateral.
2. A listing of all media releases in an archive.
3. A sign up for media which will subscribe them to a PR segment in your Email System.
4. Additional video and content which may be of interest and be applicable.

The Press Release Process

When a Press Release is distributed the following best practices should be followed:

1. Press Release initial draft.
2. Send copy to Marketing for edits and editorial approval.
3. Press Release is posted in the media section on the relevant website.
4. Press Release is optimized by an SEO or someone on your marketing staff. This includes optimized key phrases and links into your website using those terms.
5. The Release is distributed to the media list via email with links back to the onsite release. Now this assumes you have an email contact list which you maintain on your website. We strongly suggest that you create an additional list for your media and website contacts as well.
6. The Release is then submitted to the distribution channel and linked back to the main domain, articles referenced and the complete release. When distributing a release utilize multimedia such as embedded video and images.
7. The Release is then shared via all social media channels including Facebook and all current channels. Copy can be modified for the audience so it is not out of place and written directly for the audience being targeted.

This outlines the process required both for optimization and link building – as you can see you don’t need a multi-million dollar budget in order to build links and increase your brand saturation. In fact a program like this can be executed for as little as $200 per month.

The benefits definitely outweigh the cost and time you need to put into your website and your SEO optimized PR Strategy. If you’re still confused or have any additional questions/comments, feel free to contact one of our Internet Marketing Experts or comment below!

• Is the iPad Going to Kill the PC Laptop?: http://digg.com/d31R91r?t #

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• Thoughts on Google's new UI rollout? Anyone, anyone? Beuller Beuller? We have a few thoughts over here. #
• @modsuperstar it kind of reminds us a little bit of the Yahoo Layout. It's an interesting evolution that's for sure. in reply to modsuperstar #

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• Dirty secret of the day: when I'm at home and no one can see I search using Yahoo *shhh* #

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• I just become a member of this AWESOME site that gets you TONS of followers: http://tinyurl.com/y8gx7sb #
• Site speed an SEO ranking factor. Thank god, finally. This makes for a stronger case for some online biz to invest more in infrastructure. #
• A beautiful day for some Top Content date comparisons and fixing our problem sections. Just another day in the SEO trenches. #
• Google News Optimizations have gone very well. Turn around time about 1 mo. from optimization starting to see ranking and traffic increases #
• Google News Optimization tip: use all XML tags within Google News XML Sitemap format – even the optional elements. Makes a difference. #
• If you're a site owner then you want to add Quantcast and Compete.com tags. That's where advertisers find you and you want accurate numbers #

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