Groupon watch out: Facebook has a Mobile Deal for you

Facebook has launched a new way to coupon. It is called Facebook Deals. This is how it works… when people check IN to your business on their Mobile phones they can receive “Deals.”  Note: They are only available for claimed “Places” on Facebook @ this time. The end of this article will tell you how to claim your “Place”.

What is Facebook Places? On your mobile phone, you can check IN (tell the world where you are at). This is cool and a bit spooky at the same time. Instead about worrying that Big Brother watching everything you are doing, you are telling him. There is great info here for advertisers and potentially bad people. So I can enthusiastically encourage businesses to use places, but more cautiously consider it for your personal use. As a page owner you can offer 1 (and only 1) of 4 deals at a given time. Here is an overview for each Facebook Deal:
1) Individual Deal
Reward individual customers when they check in at your business. Best for simple discounts or gifts with purchase. This is a simple coupon with nothing to print. People simply show their phone to get the deal. It (the coupon) is displayed on the phone after you check-in with your phone.
2) Friend Deal
Reward groups of customers when they check in together. Help spread the word about your business more rapidly. Similar to a individual deal, but you only get the “coupon” if you and multiple friends check-in. The page owner determines how many check-ins required to get the deal.
3) Loyalty Deal
Reward customers for visiting your business a certain number of times, similar to a traditional punch card.
4) Charity Deal
Pledge to donate to a charity of your choice when customers check in at your business. A win-win for everyone! We are currently running a Charity Deal @ our studio to support Project Joplin.
Watch the Video
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10100211990206733
So how much does it cost to offer a Facebook Deal?
It is currently free, I’m not sure if this is just until they are out of beta or if this is free forever.
Claim your Place:
As I said above you need to claim your place on Facebook to be able to offer a deal.
To claim your Place, search for your business name on Facebook via the normal Search bar. If your business’s Place already exists on Facebook, click on it to visit its page. At the bottom left side of your Place you may see a link that says “Is this your business?” Click on the link and you will be directed to a claiming flow.
Facebook will ask you to verify that you are the owner through a phone verification process, or you may be asked for document verification. If your claim is confirmed, you will be able to admin your Place on Facebook. This took about 3 days for FB gave me admin access to our “Place”.  I then requested that they combined my Page and my Place. This took 7-10 business days to combine.
If you do not see the “Is this your business?” link on a Place, then it is not available to claim at this time.
The Deals features are going to be HUGE. I recommend you take claim to them ASAP. If you’d like to learn more about how to use Facebook, please check out our website or give the office a call to learn about upcoming FB Classes and Facebook Consulting, available Monday through Friday 9am – 5pm.
We take care of your marketing – online and off – so YOU can take care of business!
omOriginals Marketing is owned and operated by Oscar Myre IV and Michelle Myre of Longview, WA. To see how he can put the “Master” influence into your marketing, call (360)575-9839 or online omOriginals.com

In the Studio with Yoda…

Here are a couple of our radio ads for our June 9th Facebook Classes.

We hope you enjoy. ~:-)

May the Facebook be with you!
We hope to see you in class. We are looking to share some valuable info and have some fun to boot.

Facebook Classes.

Mobile users

FB1

FB2

Squirrel Fest 2011

If you didn’t think Longview’s Nutty Narrows was crazy enough our community has raised the bar(bridge).  Thanks to local organizations such as the Kelso Longview Chamer, the Sandbaggers & even omOriginals Marketing! we are proud to announce Squirrel Fest 2011, this August 11st.

Longview Squirrel Fest 2011

Websites vs. Facebook

The battle is on!
A few years ago it seemed like every business now had a web site. Fast forward to day.: More and more businesses are now getting Facebook Pages. So the question is this, “which is better – a great website or a great Facebook Page?” Let’s dare to compare!
WEBSITES
I built my first web site in 1997, and so much has changed since then. Today’s web sites should be built with two audiences in mind. People and Search engines.
1) People: Your business web site allows you to put your best foot forward in front of the world. Business and organizations of any size can (and should) have professional sites. I recently read that over 70% of consumers pre-qualify a new business online by visiting their web site before even visiting the business!
With almost 3/4 of people getting their first impression of an organization online, it is mission critical to have a website that educates about your company and the value that you offer. With a web site you are in control of your brand.
2) Search Engines: Today’s phonebooks aren’t books at all, they are sites likeGoogle, MSN & Yahoo! New technology, but old-school marketing prevails. In the olden days, if your business couldn’t be found in the book, it didn’t exist (in the all important consumers eyes).
Today that is true as well. If someone “Googles” your business name or for your products and services and they don’t find you, they will go to your competitor. If you don’t exist online, eventually you won’t exist at all.
FACEBOOK
I built my first Facebook Fan Page back in 2009, and so much has changed since then. Facebook has made the internet approachable, and even fun.
There are literally millions of people using Facebook each day that don’t consider themselves geeks or even computer people. This flood of new people is a tremendous opportunity.
These users are checking you out on Facebook AND on your web site. The power of Facebook is that way users create and/or share info about your organization. They shape your brand! It is your job to help share what you want them to share.
And the winner is?
As you might guess, the the winner is the businesses who use BOTH a professional web site and Facebook page. The trick is how to do them both together, without wasting a lot of precious time. I’ve seen many business start to put a ton of content together and placing it only on their Facebook page.
The result is an anemic web site and an annoying business Facebook page. You need to find balance and integrate the two. Your local web developer should be able to advise or consult for best strategies.
I invite you to meet with your favorite marketing geek and draft up a online marketing plan that uses complementary web, social and eMail marketing to drive your bottom line up and up. To learn more about online marketing visit omOriginals.com and check out some upcoming class schedules. Call (360)575-9839 or online @ omoriginals.com
Oscar Myre IV is the web guru and head geek at his web development and marketing company, omOriginals Marketing! in Longview, WA. omOriginals serves over 300 businesses, both locally and internationally based. When he is not being geeky for businesses, he enjoys playing in his backyard with his kiddos and running the lake.

GeekSpeak- What’s new with Business Facebook Pages?

I recently had the opportunity to teach a group of professionals about how to use Facebook for their business. I told them that the knowledge that I was instilling in them was dynamic and that it could change overnight. I said “Facebook changes a lot”.

Less than a week later, Facebook unveiled their new and improved Pages (for businesses, mind you). To upgrade or not upgrade? That isn’t a question, Facebook made the update to our Pages for us automatically.

Here are some highlights of the new Pages from FB with my insights.

Photos at the top: The most recent photos that you post to the Wall of a Page you admin, or photos you tag your Page in, will appear here. If you want to remove you can click on it and then on a little X to remove it. They aren’t removed from Facebook just from the top of your page.

Use Facebook as your Page: You are now able to receive notifications for your Page, view a News Feed for your Page, and like and post on other Pages as your Page.

Want to give it a try? (you can always switch back)

One way to switch between profile mode and Page mode. From your Page, you can click the link on the right that says “Use Facebook as [Your Page Name],” and then switch back by clicking “Use Facebook as [Your Name].”

What can you do with your Page?

Essentially, anything you do while using Facebook as your Page will appear on Facebook as coming from your Page (usually a business or organization).

Notifications: You can view notifications of Page activity and new fans on your page through the top navigation bar.

Wall filters: Pages now have two publicly visible Wall filters-”Posts by Page” and “Everyone.” When viewing a Page Wall with the “Everyone” filter, the most engaging posts will appear at the top (i.e., posts will not appear in chronological order). Page admins will be able to view additional filters-”Most Recent” and “Hidden Posts.”

eMail notifications: You can opt to receive notifications when people post or comment on your Page. This was a popular request. In the olden days you had to logon to FB to check your page, now you can receive notifications via eMail. Now that is progress! I’m not kidding, my wife (Publisher of this fantastic paper) has complained about the lack of this basic feature from the start.

Featured Pages and admins: You can feature other Pages your Page likes, or admins of your Page, in the new “Likes” and “Page Owners” sections on your Page.

Mutual connections: When people visit your Page, they will be able to view friends who also like your Page, as well as other Pages that both they and your Page like.

Navigation: Page can now be found in the column underneath your Page profile picture. The text in the box that used to appear in the box underneath your Page profile picture will now appear in the Info tab.

Profile picture size: The profile picture size for Pages has been adjusted down to 180×540. You should update your old profile picture.

The one constant for Facebook is change. Some call it progress, I call it job security. ~:-)

If you’d like to learn more about Facebook you can contact my company, omOriginals Marketing! for some consultation or to ask about upcoming classes.

www.omOriginals.com

(360)575-9839

Oscar Myre IV is the creative Director at omOriginals Marketing and co-publisher of The Valley Bugler, as well as acting Graphics coordinator for all advertising. He enjoys running the lake when he isn’t tickling or playing with his kiddos at their new house.

Unveiling the NEW CowlitzToday.com

Let’s jump into this months GeekSpeak. If you’ve been tuning in for long you likely have a professional web site, a blog, a facebook page and you are probably doing a little twitter. Wow you are such a geek. ~:-)

But, are your events listed at CowlitzToday.com?

Is your business listed in the Cowlitz County directory?

We originally created this site to help people connect locally.

CowlitzToday.com is a free, one-stop community calendar and web directory of businesses.

We’ve partnered with many organizations that have events in our area. Every day, more and more events are being listed. If you know of events and don’t see them on the calendar, we invite you to tell the event holder how they can add their events for free! (Or you can add them yourself!)

CowlitzToday also has a helpful directory of local business and organizations. You can find virtually anything from Accountants to Food & Dining to Movies to Real Estate!

With this article we are announcing the launch of the NEW and improved business directory!

We created the new directory to help make more connections:

1. SEO Findability: Our first goal is improving local organizations search engine rankings in the search engines. Having a great web site or business is only great if you can be found. We’ve built the new directory with some new and old school SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tricks, which have skyrocketed viewership.
2. Social Browsing: Our second mission is to help harness the social networks. More specifically – Facebook. You see, Facebook is great at helping you share and even find what you are looking for, but it doesn’t work well like good old fashioned browsing.

We’ve improved the directory to make it easy to browse the directory. Similar to those phonebooks of yesteryear. Our new directory is a great way to learn and link. Listings include helpful info and now links to their websites, facebook & twitter. Facebook “like” buttons are built into every listing. ~:-)

It’s where all the cool kids hang-out.

Want another reason to add your stuff?

CowlitzToday.com is being visited by 20,000 people per month!

By the time you read this we will have nearly 1,000 local listings. You can share a listing on facebook with a click. I invite you to get your organization listed for free today. Cowlitztoday.com. Wherever you work, play or worship can be listed as it’s own entity.

And don’t forget the Cowlitz County Online Event Calendar. We’ve streamlined the adding of events. If you’ve haven’t added an event in awhile (forever is still awhile)

Click on the new “Submit Event” button to learn how to add your event (also for free!!). If your organization has multiple events per/year please consider partnering with Cowlitztoday. If you are eligible we will give you a free calendar that you can post on your site AND then all of your events will appear in the community calendar!!!!!

Our community has posted over 6300 events to date! You simply can’t say there is nothing to do around here!

So what’s next?

I double dog dare you to search CowlitzToday.com for your favorite local business. If you find their listing, I’m sure they love for you to “give Kudos” for them. If they aren’t listed please call, eMail or facebook them the link. They’d appreciate the help and we’d appreciate your helping in spreading the word to help even more people connect.

Smart Phone users there is a new way to visit web sites on your phone. Simply install a free scanner app and start scanning. Think of it as Bar Codes 2.0 Ready? Grab your phone and visit http://m.omoriginals.com We will hook you up to get you started. If you already have a scanner – Scan now. “Tag” is above at top of page, looks like a square ink blot!

Oscar wrote this article on his iPhone. ~:-) Oscar is the owner and operator of omOriginals Marketing in Longview, WA and holds the title of award winning developer for the CowlitzToday.com web site. Questions about geeky stuff, call them @ 360-575-9839

Businesses “Like” Facebook.

Love or Hate Facebook, it is great way for businesses to connect with people.

I’m asked a lot of questions about Facebook. Here is one I asked myself, “How can we put a Facebook Like button on our web sites?” Read more >>

Facebook Unveiled

This month I’d like to give you a peek into Facebook’s user data.. Facebook is doing an amazing job of collecting tons of personal data about it’s users. With over 400 million users the amount of data is mind boggling. First off how are they getting this info?
Read more >>

You missed the Social Media Workshop!

Social Media Workshop
Tuesday, June 15th
Java Joy @ The Treasure House
1252 Commerce Ave, Longview

You missed the Workshop!

But, all is not lost.  Click here to learn about our next Facebook + LinkedIn classes.

Have omOriginals setup your Facebook and/or LinkedIn.
Can’t afford to spend the time doing it yourself? omOriginals offers these services at a very reasonable fee. Complete FaceBook or LinkedIn setup and submission to over 1,000+ locals is only $250. Available for all your online questions and concerns. Call 360.575.9839

Testimonial from Recent Class

If you are looking for someone to help you that mirrors all of the other “run of the mill” providers out there, you will be disappointed. This man screams creativity and thinking outside of the box yet has a strong focus and knowledge on his topic.

I was part of a group of business people at a workshop Oscar was facilitating. We all had laptops and shared a wireless internet connection. He had two topics to cover that night. Prior to attending I was pessimistic as to how anyone could effectively cover the topics in the time frame allotted.

Keep in mind, 15-20 people on their personal laptops! We left that night very knowledgeable on the topics he presented and feeling well served. This man is a pro! He will be my source for future training! Thanks Oscar!

Randy
WESREP

more testimonials

Figuring out ‘LinkedIn’

Thanks for tuning in for this Months GeekSpeak. Let’s dive in to LinkedIn. Maybe you’ve receive an eMail from a contact that says “Join my network on Linked In”.

Let’s start with the basics.

What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn claims to be the the world’s largest professional network. They have over 65 million users. Not as large as Facebook’s 400 million, but 65 million members is very impressive. We are barely into the article and we are already talking about Facebook!

I thought this article was on LinkedIn…

Facebook has done a tremendous job to humanize technology. They have welcomed millions of people that wouldn’t consider themselves computer people or geeks to connect with others through their site. This is has transformed the way people look at their computers. ~:-)

Both FB and LI are social networking sites. The main difference is the intended audience where FB is aiming to be everything for everyone, LI’s focus is on business professionals. LinkedIn says it, “connects you to your trusted contacts and helps you exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals.” It is all networking without the anxiety of social networking.

Joining LinkedIn is easy but making it work for you requires some work and savvy. Here are 4 steps to success that I’ve got for you.

1) Establish your Profile

Take control of your online identity. LinkedIn’s profile is a glorified and modern resume, that includes a summary, specialties, experience and links to blogs and groups. The profile is public to the work and it invites people to add you to their network. Note: since this profile is public the major search engines with allow show this profile on the first page of results when people search for you.

2) Build and Maintain your Network.

As you keep your Profile updated, and people in your network do too, they claim your address book will never be out of date. This is a great tool to keep you current with their latest jobs, projects and contact info.
Build core network with people you know and trust. Note: I have had a number of my connections that I didn’t really know, send me spam. I had to disconnect with them to quit receiving the excessive advertisements. That being said, you can click on Add Connections to start sending out invitations your contacts.

3) Find Experts and Share Knowledge.

LinkedIn has a question and answer section similar to answers at yahoo.com. People post questions, people answer and you can determine who the expert is. This is an interesting place to learn and to share the knowledge that you have with the community. To paraphrase Ivan Misner, founder of Business Network International, ”Gives Gain, if you truly help others you to will reap the benefits.”

4) Recommend Others.

A powerful part of Linked In is the Recommendations. Seek out professionals that are worthy of your praises and write a thoughtful recommendation. Encourage others to do the same for you. Testimonials are invaluable.

How much does it cost? The basic account is free. They have paid upgrades that can allow you to send messages directly to people you don’t yet know, expanded searches & notes. Sound interesting?!

Check out my Profile:
www.linkedin.com/in/oscarmyre4 and get connected!!

~ Oscar & his hot wife Michelle are the Owners of omOriginals Marketing, located in Longview WA! On May 11th they are presenting a workshop teaching about Online Marketing. Don’t miss it. Learn more @ omOriginals.com or call (360)575-9839