Jeremy | Lunabean Media

Facebook Contest Rules – Don’t Get Banned

January 12, 2012 By Jeremy Leave a Comment

Facebook Contest Rules – Don’t Get Banned

Did you know running a “Like this Page to be Entered to Win” Facebook Contest is against Facebook’s policies, and can get your business page BANNED from Facebook?

We put together a quick video for Web Marketing Hero showing off Facebook’s contest rules. Give it a watch, or face the wrath of Facebook.

And, yes, here at Lunabean Media we do make Facebook Contests that are great looking, affordable, low-cost, and WON’T GET YOU BANNED. Interested? Contact Us, or check out our other video, featuring a contest we made for a client here: Why Facebook Contests Rock (and it’s not just about the “Likes”).

Filed Under: Blog, Facebook, Web Marketing Hero

Product: Facebook Landing Page

September 17, 2011 By Jeremy

Facebook Landing Page – $199

$199

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Think of Facebook Landing Pages as the front page of your website. They can be used to promote a specific product or event, or to simply show off your brand. Because they offer new visitors the first glimpse of your business on Facebook, they need to look good. That’s where we come in.

For only $199 we will create and install for you a professionally designed Facebook Landing Page that your business deserves. Use the page promote a product, offer a coupon, show off a photo gallery, or tell as story. Perhaps you just want your Landing Page to look like the front page of your website. We can do that.

Our goal is to make your Facebook Page make you look good. Buy now, and we’ll do just that.

$199

Please note: Once payment is received, we will contact you via phone or e-mail to discuss details and acquire all of the necessary assets (usually a photo and/or company logo).

IMPORTANT: We use PayPal to process orders as it is the most secure payment option online. You DO NOT need a PayPal account to pay. PayPal accepts all major credit cards (another reason we love them).

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Filed Under: Products

Product: Facebook Check-In Deal Creation

September 17, 2011 By Jeremy

Facebook Check-In Deal Creation – $99

$99

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Get your customers to check-in to your business by offering a Facebook Check-In Deal! What is a Check-In Deal? It’s a deal created on your Facebook Page that people can claim by checking into your business via their mobile phones. Deals tend to be small: A discount, a free appetizer, a treat, a free wine tasting, etc.

Why should you offer such a Check-In Deal?

A Facebook Check-In Deal gives people more of a reason to check-in to your business.

Businesses offering Check-In Deals are highlighted on Facebook Mobile.

When people check into your business, their Facebook Friends are notified.

When Facebook Friends are notified, they either become aware of your business, or are reminded of your business.

If Friends want to see more, they can click to the link created by their Friend’s Check-In to your Facebook Page.

Once on your Facebook Page, they will, most likely, “Like” you.

If your Facebook Page is in prime form, these people will look around, see testimonials, take part in contests (thus spreading the word to their friends), grab coupons, go to your online store, or, simply, learn more about your product.

How we can help you with your Check-In Deal:

We will consult with you on a good Check-In Deal promotion.

We will set up your Check-In Deal on Facebook, thus creating a Facebook Mobile notification for those near your business.

We will provide you with a PDF highlighting your deal. Print it out and put on your store window or by your cash register to increase check-ins.

$99

Please note: Once payment is received, we will contact you via phone or e-mail to discuss details.

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Filed Under: Products

Product: “How to Make Your Facebook Contest a Success” PDF Pack

September 17, 2011 By Jeremy

“How to Make Your Facebook Contest a Success” PDF Pack – $49

$49

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Facebook contests are extremely popular, as they are the most affordable way to increase your Facebook Fan Base. If you’re interested in running a Facebook contest, please check out our side project, Contest Runner.

(Note, this PDF Pack comes FREE with any contest run by Contest Runner).

The “How to Make your Facebook Contest A Success” PDF Pack is broken into 3 parts:

1. The Best Facebook Prizes

It’s a contest, so you have to give something away. What should that something be? You want your prizes to desirable, but not too costly. Lots of people are giving away iPads. Would doing so be a good idea for you?

Our “Prizes” PDF will help you decide on the best contest giveaway for your business. Once you’ve figured it out, you’re ready to get your contest running.

2. 15 Ways to Promote your Facebook Contest

You have a Facebook Contest. Now what? Contest Runner provides you with “15 Ways to Promote your Contest”.

You don’t need to use all 15 techniques, but, if you use a few, your contest will be successful. And, of course, a successful contest means more Facebook Fans and Leads. More Fans and Leads mean more potential clients.

So, promote, promote, promote. It will pay off in the end (particularly because many of our suggestions are FREE!).

3. 10 Uses of your Leads

Your Contest was a smashing success! Congrats. Now, what do you do with all of your new leads? Why not e-mail everyone who entered your contest a “Thank You” Coupon Code to use in your store. Even if they don’t buy, they’ll appreciate the gesture, and they’re more likely to come to you when they do need your product.

We have 9 more suggestions waiting for you.

$49

Please note: Once payment is received, we will e-mail you the PDF document.

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Filed Under: Products

Product: Facebook Profile Pic

September 16, 2011 By Jeremy

Facebook Profile Pic – $99

$99

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Your Profile Pic takes up the most important real estate on your Facebook Page. This means it needs to be used wisely, AND it needs to look good. We can make both of these things happen.

Below are some examples of Profile Pics we’ve created for a number of our wine industry clients.

$99

Please note: Once payment is received, we will contact you via phone or e-mail to discuss details and acquire all of the necessary assets (usually a photo and/or company logo).

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Filed Under: Products

Product: Facebook Friend Page to Fan Page Transition

September 15, 2011 By Jeremy

Facebook Friend Page to Fan (Business) Page Conversion – $149

$149

Are you a business or organization that created a Facebook Friend Page instead of a Facebook Fan Page? Are you wanting to convert your Friend Page to a Fan Page, but aren’t sure how? Let us take care of it for you!

Here’s what you get with our Facebook Friend Page to Fan Page Transition:

A new Business Fan Page. Finally, you’ll be able to take advantage Facebook Deals, Recommendations and Ads. Also, your Fans will be able to Check In to your Business.

All of your “Friends” converted to “Likes” on your new page.

All business information categorized and filled out to optimize search results.

If you have a Twitter account, we will connect it to your Facebook account. This means any time you post on Facebook, it will also go out on Twitter.

FREE Vanity URL conversion. This means your Facebook URL will read www.facebook.com/yourbusinessname instead of www.facebook.com/22302342355. Vanity URLs make it easier for customers to find you AND they make it easy to distribute via print materials. Note, purchased alone, this is a $49 value!

When your business has a Facebook Fan Page you:

Don’t run the risk of having your Facebook Page removed, which can happen if your business is using a Friend Page.
Are allowed more than 5000 Friends, or Likes.
Can take advantage of Facebook’s business tools, including:

Facebook Check-In Deals
Facebook Ads
Facebook Recommendations

Look professional. Businesses with Friend Pages look like they don’t know what they’re doing.

$149

Please note: Once payment is received, we will contact you via phone or e-mail to discuss details and acquire all of the necessary assets (usually a photo and/or company logo).

Filed Under: Products

How To: Get More Facebook Fans (Likes) Using Contests

July 13, 2011 By Jeremy Leave a Comment

The quickest way to get quality Facebook fans (likes) is to a) buy ads on Facebook or b) run an awesome contest. Let’s discuss contests.

The good ol’ days of saying “Like my page and be entered to win” are over. You need to run your contest through a third party app, like the popular Wildfire, or have a web services company (like us ) create one for you. If you don’t, you put your page at risk of being shut down. Yes, there are still many pages doing things the wrong way, but it’s our opinion that you should always follow the rules.

Don’t let this deter you. In fact, there is a huge benefit to this: In addition to getting new likes, you are gathering EXTREMELY VALUABLE INFORMATION like name, email address, home address, phone number, how they found out about you, etc. This info is gold and can be used later for email and direct mail marketing efforts.

GOOD PRIZES

The key to a successful contest is to “wow” your fans (and potential fans). If you give away a t-shirt, nobody is going to care. If you give away something expensive, unique, and/or exclusive you’ll get a much better response. And, if you think creatively, you may not have to spend any money on prizes. Because many of our clients are in the wine industry…

Ten Things a Winery Could Give Away

A gift certificate to be used in an online store or on site.

A reservation to the next winemaker’s dinner.

A private winery/vineyard tour and tasting.

A private dinner with the vintner/winemaker, be it on site, at a local restaurant, or via Skype.

A “Be a winemaker for a day” prize.

A chance to work crush and have dinner with the crew (free labor, too ).

An iPod Nano (or two) with the winery’s name engraved on it.

An iPad with the winery’s name engraved on it.

A stay at a local inn or B&B (opportunity here for cross promotion) / a gift card to a local restaurant that serves your wine.

Tickets to the IPNC Passport to Pinot, DHWX, or Pinot in the City.

As you can see, a little bit of creativity combined with a moderate budget could lead to an amazing contest response. For an example, check out the current Archery Summit contest.

TYPES OF CONTESTS

The two most popular types of contests are sweepstakes and photo submission.

Sweepstakes: The user fills out the form and is entered to win.

Photo Submission: The user snaps a photo (of whatever you determine) and sends it in via a contest app on Facebook. It can then be judged by you or voted on by others on Facebook.

You can get as creative as you want in this process but know that the more complicated you make a contest, the lower the response rate will be.

PUBLICIZING THE CONTEST

If you want your contest to be successful you need to publicize it. Here are some ways to do that.

Send out an email newsletter at the beginning, middle, and end of the contest.

Put it on your website and/or blog about it.

Post about it on Facebook every few days.

“Send an Update” to your fans on Facebook.

Post on any other social media that you’re using (Twitter, etc.).

Make sure your staff knows about it and is telling customers.

Have a computer set up in your tasting room with your FB page up so visitors can easily enter.

Take pictures of people entering the contest so you can post about it in a creative way.

Use your, and your staff’s, personal friend network to promote it.

Be sure to take photos, live Tweet/FB when the winner redeems his/her prize (eg, at a private tasting).

ROI

Let’s assume you are giving away an iPod Nano, a $100 gift certificate to your store, and a private tasting with the winemaker. We charge between $250 and $750 for the custom contest app. Let’s go with a super awesome fancy one at $750. The Nano is $150, and the gift cert. is $100. Time with the winemaker is free. You run the contest for a month and get 1,000 entries. That comes out to $1.00/lead. You also earned hundreds of new Facebook fans and received a lot of attention on social media. Not a bad deal at all!

In addition, each time you run a similar contest (say twice a year) you are sending it out to a larger base making each successive contest more successful and therefore cheaper.

SUMMARY

With a little creativity and a bunch of promotion a Facebook contest can not only up your fan (like) count but can provide you with valuable insight into your customer base and give you something to post about on a regular basis. What’s more, your contest doesn’t have to cost you a lot if you offer up your or your staff’s time to create an exclusive experience for the user. Just remember to think it all through before you go and launch it.

If you have any questions or comments, please post below! I welcome your feedback.

Filed Under: Blog, Facebook, Social Media, Twitter, Wine

How To: Make Your Email Newsletters Better

May 11, 2011 By Jeremy Leave a Comment

Many of our clients are interested in ways to make their email newsletters better. And, why not? In our opinion, email newsletters are the most powerful and effective way to reach out to your customers. Below, you’ll find a distilled version of things that we’ve learned over the years. FYI, as many of our clients are wineries or wine-related, I’ve used that industry for examples.

Who to Use

There are many good email management solutions out there so you’ll want to spend some time looking over their features and pricing structures. Here are the ones that we like the best.

List Building Tips

Make sure that your website has a signup form in an obvious and prominent location.
Make sure that your Facebook page has a signup form (you can encourage signups in a variety of ways…offer a coupon, discount, etc.).
If you are a business with a retail area, make sure you have a signup list at the Point of Sale and/or make sure your employees are asking for email addresses.
Export your online store’s email list to your email management program.

List Management

Use different opt-in forms at each of your collection points. That is, make separate forms for your website, facebook page, etc. That way, you can see what collection point is working the best (you could even have two different signup forms on your website…one on the front page and one on a newsletter page and then judge which one is working better).
Segment your lists! You can target specific newsletters, for example, to people who have physically visited you, or to people who have purchased wine from your online store, or to your wine club members.

From and Subject Lines

The “From” line and the “Subject” line are the two most important parts of any email. If the user doesn’t know from whom the email is coming, they won’t open it.
The subject line will take a bit of testing. Although it may sound counter-intuitive, in most cases, boring is better. People are so used to spam that they have an automatic negative reaction to a sales-pitch. Also, keeping your subject line a bit more generic keeps an air of mystery about what’s inside. Of course, every list is different and that’s why you’ll want to do some testing…see the next point.
For the more advanced users, most email providers allow you to do A/B subject line testing (MailChimp even has a subject line tester built in). When you’re ready to send out a newsletter, take 10% of your list and slice it, sending half of them one subject line and half another. Wait 24 hours to see what one is working better, then send out that subject line to the remaining 90% of your list.

Write at a 5th – 8th Grade Level

Not that you want to dumb down your copy, but when you write at a 5th grade level, your reader is thinking about what you’re saying, not how you’re saying it. Keep sentences simple, never use a big word when a small one will do, and make sure that your calls to action are at the end of paragraphs and/or prominently featured (like a link on its own separate line).

Curious about this blog post? Well, it’s written at a 7th grade level. Want to find out how you’re doing? Check out this free tool:

http://www.perrymarshall.com/grade/

Thanks to Perry Marshall for the above advice. He is a good resource to follow if you are interested.

Biggest Mistakes

Too much content jammed into your newsletter. Do I still have your attention? Granted, this is not a newsletter, but the same principles can be applied to a successful blog post. I’d be willing to bet that a good number of you have stopped reading by now. My advice? Keep it short, keep it simple, keep it to one or two topics. If you find that you are regularly sending a monthly email with 4 items, it’d be better to send a bi-weekly newsletter with 2 items.
Content that is too long. Even if you have only one item in your newsletter, try to keep it to one or two paragraphs. If you want people to “read more,” then link to it. For example, if you have an event, quickly tease it and then say, “click here for details,” linking to an event page on your website. In this way, you can quickly give readers the gist of the event and then entice them to make the jump to your website for more info (they are now at your website where, hopefully, you can get them to look around a bit and purchase).
A muddled or unprofessional template design. Even if your content is great, if you have an overwhelming, confusing, or just plain ugly template, people will associate that with your brand. You may even want to try a plain-text newsletter. They often get a better response than a graphic-laden one.

Some Practical Advice

You probably get a bunch of email newsletters every day, be they from Groupon, Amazon, political parties and action groups, non-profits, and any other place you’ve ever shopped. Start looking at these newsletters with a critical eye. What is drawing you in? What would make you want to buy something? What makes you not want to open one? When you see something that makes you happy or makes you cringe, make note of it and learn from it for you next newsletter.

Please post your questions and comments below!

Filed Under: Blog, Facebook, Social Media, Wine Tagged With: How to, Newsletter

How To: Facebook Places – Create, Claim, and Promote

April 11, 2011 By Jeremy Leave a Comment

Last August, Facebook unveiled its own “check-in” system called Facebook Places to compete with startups such as FourSquare. What is it?

Places is a Facebook mobile application that allows you to see where your friends are and share your physical location. You can check in to nearby Places to tell your friends where you are, tag your friends in the Places you visit, and view comments your friends have made about the Places you visit. – From Facebook Help

If your business has a big upcoming event, this is the perfect time to set up your Places page and tell all of that foot traffic about it!

Please note, Places pages are different than Business (fan) pages. If you create a Places page it will be in addition to your regular Business page and you will have two pages to administer. There is a way to “merge” the two pages, but there are a number of caveats to consider.

If you would like your customers to be able to check-in to your business, follow the directions below to first create and then claim the page.

To Create a Places Page

1. Download the Facebook App for your smartphone.
2. Go to your business, I mean physically go there in person (make sure you have your smartphone with you).
3. Load up the Facebook App and hit the “Check In” button
4. If the “place” has not yet been created (anybody can create a place, so it may already be there), click “add place” and enter the pertinent info.
5. That’s it, your place is now created and anybody can check-in.

Why claim your Places Page?

As the Places page administrator you can create Facebook Deals, add photo albums, customize the profile picture, post on the wall as the business, view stats, and generally administer the page just as you would your normal Business (fan) page.

To claim your Places Page

1. Go to Facebook on your computer and use the normal search bar to type in your business name.
2. Because you already created it (or it was already there), click on your places page in the results.
3. Once on the page, look in the lower left of the page for a link titled, “Is this your business?” Click it.
4. Follow the verification instructions (the email method can take up to a week, so be patient).
5. Facebook will notify you via email when your Place is verified.

Once your Places Page is all set up, you’ll want to encourage visitors to your business to check-in, so make sure your staff knows to talk it up and you may want to offer a discount or “Places Deal” for those who check-in.

You can also set a username for it (Vanity URL) and promote it in much the same way as you would your normal Business page.

Filed Under: Blog, Facebook, Social Media, Wine