Do you have a Facebook Page yet?

If you own a business or have a blog, you need to be promoting it on Facebook!

Here are a couple of bits of good news. They are no longer called Fan Pages, so you don’t have to feel weird about creating a page, and I’m going to show you how to set up your very own Page in the video below.

Don’t worry if you make a mistake the first time, you can delete your page and create a new one. The best thing to do is just get started, get your feet wet and make changes and corrections from there.

One note, you need to have at least 25 “likes” to get a “vanity URL” for your page. I’ll cover that in the next tutorial.

Feel free to ask any questions you have in the comments section below, and remember, Sharing is Sexy!

I asked the question “What is your biggest challenge when it comes to using Social Media for marketing your business?”

The answer to that question? “TIME!!! Too many spots to hit. Can I consolidate them and hit them all at once?”

The answer to the questions asked in the answer to the question is YES! (Huh?)

There are a plethora of ways to create content once and post it on multiple social media sites. In fact, there are so many ways that I can’t possibly list them all here in a single blog post. But what I will share with you is my favorite tool for simplifying the management of those sites, it’s called TweetDeck.

The application is available for your desktop/laptop computer (either Apple or PC), iPhone, iPad or android phone. And the price is right, it’s free.

Like all new bits of software, it takes some time to learn and set up, but once it’s done it’s a huge time saver.

Click on the photo to view full size.

As you can see in the image above, I have multiple accounts set up, including my Facebook profile, various Facebook pages, several Twitter accounts, plus LinkedIn and Foursquare. I can write an update and post to what ever sites/pages I choose.

TweetDeck also allows you to schedule updates to post later, so you can pre-schedule all your posts once a day to go out throughout the day to any account you wish. Talk about a time saver!

Click on the photo to view full size.

I have my TweetDeck set up to show my main Twitter account (all friends), Twitter Direct Messages and Mentions and also my Facebook feed. I can monitor my social media stream from one place, reply, retweet and DM to Twitter; I can also Like and  comment on any Facebook post. Cool, eh?

There are tons of other features to this free app, but I suggest you download your copy and check it out. If you don’t love it, you can ask me for some other suggestions.

Get cracking!

While doing some work for a client today, I noticed this new Facebook feature while logged in to her account.

I wanted to check it out for myself, so I logged in to my own account, and it wasn’t there!

So, being the type of guy who needs answers to the questions, I went about searching for them. Here’s what I found out.

Why can’t I see Facebook Questions?

Facebook Questions is still in beta and only available to a small percentage of users. However, we will be rolling it out to all users in the coming weeks. You can fill out an application to become a beta tester here.

I know my client isn’t a beta tester, so I guess she is one of the lucky ones.

If it’s on your page, check it out and let us know what you think.

Has it ever seemed that some of your friends or Fan Pages aren’t showing up on your Facebook feed?

They haven’t just disappeared from cyberspace, you might just be too popular.

There’s a simple setting that may correct that, and allow you to show all your friends and page (or not show one’s you don’t want to see).

Here’s what to do:

1. On your Home Page (News Feed page), click Most Recent.

2. Scroll down to the very bottom of the page and click Edit Options.

3. Increase the number of friends shown in Live Feed (at the bottom of the box). I chose 500, but you may want more or less to show.

Or, you can elect to Show More posts from some of your friends, or Hide the annoying ones.

This is a good tip to pass along to your friends and fans, to make sure your posts get seen.

If you don’t see the News Feed Settings box when you click on Edit Options, you’re probably in your Top News feed.

And remember, Sharing is Sexy!

You don’t have to spend hours going to every social media site on the web to find out if your name or your brand’s name is available, there’s one stop shopping at namechk.

Click on the image to see full size.

Just go to www.namechk.com, enter your desired username or vanity url, click the chk button and your results are displayed in just a few seconds.

I chose "demo-name" for my search.

The default results are sorted by the name of the social media site, but you can also sort by the rank of the site. You can see that the search for “demo-name” has been taken on 6 of the sites listed. If you have a common name, you can try different versions of your name until you find a unique username that you can reserve for all the relevant sites you want to brand yourself on.

Social Media site search listed by rank

Don’t freak out, you don’t have to register your desired username at every site listed, but the more you have, the better control you have over your brand.

The service is free, so head on over to namechk and get branded!

If you were in doubt about including Social Media as part of your marketing plan, here is a video you might want to check out. It’s called,

“What the HELL is social media – in 2 minutes”

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What the HELL is social media explains in 2 minutes using 10 key facts why brands need to take notice of social media. Do me a favor and watch the video and then consider rethinking your marketing strategy for the long run.

There’s little doubt that social media has established itself as a cornerstone in the marketing mix of real estate agents and business owners alike.

Most agree that it complements their other marketing efforts, and will become a standard part of their marketing tactics.

I happen to think that it will gradually replace email as the main way we communicate with clients and friends.

Why? Because as spammers continue to clog up our inboxes and make it more difficult to be sure our communications are being received, it makes sense that we move to a more reliable and protected way of touching our sphere of influence.

Keep in mind that this chart is based on information from December 2008, and I’ll bet the numbers have shifted more to the blue.

What do you think? Are you using social media for marketing and communicating with your audience?

Please share your experience with us by commenting below.

There are some (perhaps many) Real Estate Agents and small business owners who are still on the fence about using social media as a part of their marketing efforts. I suggest you watch this video and get a taste of reality.

Social Media (aka Web 2.0) is here to stay, and it’s a powerful opportunity to grow your business.

Now that you’ve been enlightened, make the decision to learn more about how to leverage the web to grow your business and gain greater market share.

Go for it!