The shortlist for this category is here: Best Blog of a SME Shortlist, and as you can see I really am up against some of the best business bloggers in the country. When I saw I was listed in the shortlist, I had to look twice – I really wasn’t expecting to make the cut!

The next stage is the final. The list of finalists will be announced on 29th September and the winners will be announced at the Blog Awards on 12th October.

The aim of my blog is not to show off what I know, nor is it a “simple SEO exercise”  but instead it is hoped that each blog gives all business owners simple, easy to follow tips and advice about all things Digital Marketing and Social Media. Thanks for reading my blog and sharing my tips!

The post Shortlisted for the Blog Awards Ireland appeared first on Aoife Rigney Digital Marketing.

According to the announcement posted here by Facebook: “We’ve updated our Pages Terms in order to make it easier for businesses of all sizes to create and administer promotions on Facebook.
Now, promotions may be administered on Page Timelines and in apps on Facebook. For example, businesses can now:

• Collect entries by having users post on the Page or comment/like a Page post
• Collect entries by having users message the Page
• Utilize likes as a voting mechanism

While I personally love using apps for competitions, for so many reasons… I think this is good for SMEs who just don’t have the budget to run competitions using apps. I also believe it will encourage people to use 3rd party apps more – there is more functionality and ROI with an app than there is by running a competition on your page!

What do you think of these latest changes?! Are you a business who will now run more competitions?

Stay tuned here for another update with lots of competition ideas for your business page!

The post Third-Party Apps No Longer Required To Run Facebook Promotions appeared first on Aoife Rigney Digital Marketing.

The full list of nominees in the category is here, and as you can see I am up against lots of really brilliant bloggers. So fingers crossed I will make the short list on September 8th!

Until then, thanks for reading my blogs!

The post Blog Award Nomination! appeared first on Aoife Rigney Digital Marketing.

Social Media is a great tool for promoting business, communicating with your target market, providing outstanding customer service and capturing your customers’ needs. However, it’s most important to build up a relationship with each customer/connection on social media. Once this relationship is established, these connections become your brand advocates. They spread the word about how fantastic you and your business is!

Having a Facebook page or twitter account is not like a magic wand – for it to be effective, your social media needs to be used strategically.

If you have a business and are on Facebook and Twitter, this is the course for you. Social media has the power to engage and connect with so many people and by learning the tricks of the trade you can have a massive impact on your business.

I will give you the information so you can manage online marketing campaigns, as well as strategies to build a community of fans and followers. We all know that word of mouth marketing is the best advertising a small business can get; social media is just that, except it’s online! It is recommended that you have a Facebook page set up and are comfortable posting to your page. Also, bring a laptop with you, as there will be plenty of practical sessions!

There are a limited number of places available, so that there is more opportunity for interaction, questions and learning.

Your place is only confirmed once payment has been received.
A 50% cancellation fee applies if you cancel 48 hours or less before the workshop.

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The post Facebook and Twitter Training for Business Thursday 25th July 2013 appeared first on Aoife Rigney Digital Marketing.

Here are a few ways to market your business online without spending a cent:

1. Create Objectives: In order for any plan to be successful, it needs goals. What do you want from this marketing campaign? Why are you partaking it promotion? Do you want to develop brand awareness? Do you want increased online and offline traffic?

2. Do a Stocktake: Make a list of all the tools you already possess which can be used to market your business without spending any money. Do you have a good network of contacts? Are customer testimonials positive? Do you have the enthusiasm and passion to grow your business. Do you have the time to invest? These are some of the best tools needed for marketing.

3. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) : SEO is the technique of structuring your web presence for search engines to rank them at the top of their lists for certain search terms.Begin by ensuring you know what people are searching for and how they are searching for you. These are the basics and can be ascertained through Google Analytics and Google Ad Words, both of which are free tools with lots of online resources explaining how to use them. Once you have informed yourself in these ways, start providing content related to what they are searching for and including these keywords. Update your site often because search engines are looking for the newest information.

 4. Good website design and content: Like most small businesses, you probably have customers and prospects that have visited your website once and haven’t been back since. And why would they? Once they find the info they need, there is no reason to come back, unless you can add interesting, relevant content to your website to drive traffic to your website and increase sales.

 5. Blog! Blog! Blog!: Search engines like fresh content. It is advisable to keep your company’s keywords in mind and try to incorporate them in your blog content as often as is practical. Furthermore, a blog allows you to express your unique voice, personality and thought leadership. It improves your SEO, drives traffic to your site and builds a base of content for your email marketing campaigns. Dedicate some time every week to writing content, get into the habit of writing and soon blogging will become second nature.

6. Be Social: Join the main social media networks that suit your business such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest. Use social media to build relationships and connect. All too often businesses think that having thousands of followers makes them a success. But what good are those ten thousand followers if none of them end up as a customer? Isn’t that the whole point of being on social media? Get to know people, talk and then once they trust your brand they will want your product.

7. Measure, Monitor and Manage: As you build your online marketing plan you need to be sure that each element produces the results you aiming for. Use Google Analytics to measure and monitor your website. Try out applications like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck for Social Media Management.

The post Free Digital Marketing for your Business in 7 Simple Steps appeared first on Aoife Rigney Digital Marketing.

As I’m sure you’ve already heard.. Facebook made a big announcement on Tuesday (15th January 2013). This was the unveiling of the so called “Third Pillar” of Facebook: Graph Search, a new way to search for things you’re looking for on the social network.

Graph Search can be used to search for something simple like “Restaurants in Cork,” or something more specific like “Restaurants in Cork that my friends like.”  The service is in beta now, which means they are testing it. Facebook gave a few hundred people gaining access to Graph Search on Tuesday. They will be using results from those first users to help finalise the service, before it opens it up to everyone on Facebook. To join the waiting list click here and add your details at the bottom of the page.

According to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook now has three pillars, namely Newsfeed, Timeline and now Graph Search. Graph Search, when it does go live, will be available on desktop first.  It has been reported that a mobile version of Graph Search will still take some time. To learn even more about Facebook Graph Search have a look here.

What does it look like?

It is a larger search box at the top of the page. Facebook is allowing users edit the title of the page as well and so let’s them create their own custom view of the content that you search and share.

So, is it just like any other web search?

No! It’s nothing like a web search and Zuckerberg made that very clear from the outset! These searches made using Graph Search are based on who you are connected to, what pages you like and so on. Initially, graph search will focus on Photos, People, Places and Interests. If 2 people did the same search they would get different results, based on their personal preferences!

Does it impact my privacy?

Zuckerberg reinforced the importance of privacy and reassured that only stuff you choose to share will be shared. If you’re privacy settings are set to “Only Me” then these results will not show up in Graph Search. If you have you content set to be friends, friends of friends or public then it will be shown. Remember however, that if you have a group photo with several friends tagged in it, their friends will be able to search for the picture via Graph Search. Facebook will be giving users the option to review the Activity log before they make Graph Search live across the site.

Quick tip: If you have photos on Facebook you would rather not share with everyone, change your settings on that photo/album to “only me”.

Zuckerberg said at the conference, “We are indexing our map of the graph, which is really big and constantly changing. Almost a million new people every day. 240 billion photos. 1 billion people. 1 trillion connections.” That’s a lot of data!!

Here is the official video from Facebook about privacy:

What do you think of the idea of Graph Search? Are you on the waiting list? Let me know what you think!

The post Facebook Graph Search – Zuckerberg’s Third Pillar appeared first on Aoife Rigney Digital Marketing.

The new like page button is a strange addition as it seems to be sitting on top of the sponsored post. It’s quite like the button you would see on a mobile device. Is it a temporary “test” or is it a new look for our newsfeed?

Have you seen this like page button in sponsored stories on your desktop version of Facebook yet?

The post Another Facebook Change… January 2013 appeared first on Aoife Rigney Digital Marketing.

Facebook Privacy Update December 2012

Facebook is planning to roll out a series of updates to its privacy settings by the end of the year. These new updates are a new set of simplified privacy tools to help its users understand where their photos and updates will appear – and who will see them.

It’s time to review your privacy settings and ensure you are happy with who is seeing your content. Of course there’s no one real way to hide everything you’ve ever added to Facebook, however the changes made this week make it easier to keep control of your privacy.

Some of the changes are fairly straightforward. There are fewer options hidden behind menus, making it easier for you to change your privacy settings without leaving the News Feed. Additionally, the company has introduced a faster way to untag multiple photos and a two-step app authorization process.

Here are just a few of the changes – to see the full explanation check out Facebook’s own update about it: Read here!

Blocking:

The first thing you’ll notice when you get the new privacy update is a pop-up box explaining the new way to block users. It’s simple – just add their name or email in the box and press enter, or click “view all blocked users” to see a list of the people you’ve already blocked.

Privacy Shortcuts:

The biggest change is the new privacy ‘shortcut’ menu at the top which gives you the option to check “who can see my stuff?” and “who can contact me?”

If you click the first of those options, the menu item will drop down a list to show you where you’re photos and other information are shared. Click this and make sure it looks as you would expect. If it is not as you thought, click through to “see more settings” and change your privacy options to suit your requirements.

Similarly, do this for “who can contact me” too – again, check it is ok and if not, make changes.

Basically, Privacy Shortcuts is a new feature that allows you to change privacy settings. In short, this means that there’s a one click method for most of the different ways you can block someone or block everybody – if that’s what you want to do.

How do I look?:

Ever wondered what people see when they look at your profile? Well, this new update puts the “View Profile As…” tool right into privacy drop-down menu, meaning it’s easier to see how you look to the world. Do this – you might be surprised by what you see!

Erase Past Posts:

Facebook launched the activity log about a year ago to help users track their history on the site and make changes. The “new look” activity log now makes it easy to filter content based on when it was posted, and who can see it – and then get it removed if you wish. You can get to this activity log by entering this URL in the address bar: http://www.facebook.com/YOURUSERNAME/allactivity or by going to your profile and finding the “Activity Log” button to the right, under your header image.

For example, until now hiding a photo of yourself on your timeline didn’t necessarily mean that you were also untagged. The result was that the picture was still out there for people to see. Facebook now gives you an option to fix that.

Go to your activity log, you can now set up a filter to show “invisible” photos, in which you’re tagged but that aren’t showing up in your feed. You don’t even need to untag them individually – you can also “untag” multiple photos in one go based on the filters you choose.

In the past, the social network has struggled with offering its members user-friendly privacy controls. Facebook is hoping a more educational approach will help ease concerns. Facebook has said that all of these updates and new tools will begin rolling out at the end of 2012.

Has your profile been updated yet?

The post Latest Facebook Privacy Settings Changes Explained (December 2012) appeared first on Aoife Rigney Digital Marketing.

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Is your business operating a Facebook profile? My advice… set up a Page instead. Why? (Link to 7 reasons…)

Well, first of all, it’s against Facebook’s terms and conditions to have your business account set up as a personal profile. Facebook have the right to delete your entire account at any time if they happen to come across this configuration.

Also, it just doesn’t look very professional. Some people have set up their businesses using part of the business name as the personal “first name” and part as the personal “last name.” To most Facebook users, when they see this, it really sends out the message that the business doesn’t have a clue what they’re doing.

Actual business Pages from Facebook offer a much better and more solid set of features for business marketing and fan engagement purposes. Personal Facebook accounts are designed to help the individual interact with family and friends. Business pages offer many more features that help you promote your business and your brand—plus, by default, they’re open to the public just like your business is.

Now, if you have a profile set up for your business but you understand that it is essential that you use a Page – then you’ve made a good decision. However, if you think you are at an advantage by using a profile – then bigger fool you!

Can you use an app to run a competition on a profile? No.

Can you have more than 5,000 fans/friends on a profile? No.

Can you monitor your analytics and insights on a profile? No.

Can you do all this and more with a Page? Yes.

So, lots of businesses ask me can they just convert the profile to a page. Technically, yes you can. Honestly? Please don’t do it. I’ve tried a number of times with a few different pages and have had a few issues! Instead, I much prefer to just create a new Page. Start from scratch – let your “friends” know, perhaps my private messaging them all, that they will need to “like” the page and you will be closing down the profile on 10/01/2013 (for example!).  Once you have a Page set up, you can continue to encourage your “friends” to like your new page while building your page, growing your brand and gaining new brand advocates!

Now, if you do decide to migrate your pages… Here is how to:

Step 1 Log into the Facebook account that you wish to migrate to a business page. Please double check this as the results are permanent and irreversible.

Step 2 – Backup your existing profile if it contains any info you want to keep. Unfortunately, converting a personal profile to a business page deletes all of the wall/timeline info other than your friends list and subscribers. So make a backup if you’ll ever want to see this info again by going to the account menu at the top right of your Facebook page. Once there, choose the Account Settings option, and then choose the “Download a copy of your Facebook data” option.

Step 3 – Visit the Business Page Migration link from Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php?migrate

Step 4 – Select the category of business page you would like to use for your business. You can choose from:

• Local Business or Place
• Company, Organization or Institution
• Brand or Product
• Artist, Band or Public Figure
• Entertainment
• Cause or Community

Step 5 – Complete the process. Facebook’s migration tool will guide you through the steps of finalising the conversion process.

Step 6 – Once you’re done moving your personal Facebook profile to a Business page, be sure to add all of the important details for your business to the profile. Most personal profiles didn’t include the place to put these details, so you’ll need to do it for the first time once you’ve migrated in order to have a complete, helpful business profile.

For additional information, please be sure to check out Facebook’s help section that contains information just about this popular topic. They provide some answers and tips related to frequently asked questions on this process. You can get to it here: http://www.facebook.com/help?page=213602951994043

It’s not glamorous, but it’s something you need to do…whether you decide to set up a page from scratch as I advise or if you try the migration – I strongly advise you use Pages for your business and not profile.

Have you tried to migrate a Facebook profile to a page? How did you get on?

The post Should I Convert a Personal Facebook Profile to a Business Page? appeared first on Aoife Rigney Digital Marketing.