Facebook has been trying to crack down on text within images for some time. They made a big deal out of it when they first rolled out Timeline but it was still possible to get by without getting noticed. Today, it's a lot harder.

While I've never been able to fully make sense of the rule, it's their site so we have to play their game. The way the rule works is that text in an image cannot cover more than 20% of the total space or you won't be able to run ads on it. You might be able to run it for a little while but they eventually catch it.

They continue to push the letter of the law further. If you have too much text in your cover photo, all of your ads get rejected automatically. They've now started including thumbnail images from links in the rule. The post above was rejected for this reason. The sad part is that there were other images on the page that I would have preferred to use, but Facebook didn't register them as a thumbnail option.

Be aware of the rule if you're running sponsored posts on Facebook. This isn't the type of rule that you'd ever want to try to break. Even with a direct line to a high level Facebook employee, it still took a couple of days to get a client unblocked who had been breaking the rule before we took over the account. I couldn't image how it is for those who have to try to plea with them if they didn't have a connection.

It might not make much sense, but again I'll stress - their site, their rules.

In one sentence, the advice that business owners and marketers need to hear is this: “Everything on your Facebook page should be centered around the real world.”

No, I don’t mean the reality TV show that launched it all in 1992. When The Real World launched on MTV 27 seasons ago (yes, it’s still going strong in case you weren’t aware), it set in motion a genre of television that many people claim to hate but that still gets millions of viewers every day. Today, the day to day version of “the real world of marketing on Facebook” should take one concept from the original show intro: “…start getting real.”

There’s a reason why you won’t hear this from people in the social media industries. The gurus and specialists who rely on Facebook management services to make a living don’t want businesses to know that the most successful local business pages are run from the stores themselves. The ability to stay real, organic, and authentic through social media is arguably the most important component in a successful business presence. To gurus, it means that their services cannot be as good as the real thing happening at the physical locations. To businesses, it means that all of the tools are either at your fingertips or scattered across the physical world around you.

As someone whose company offers social media products, one might wonder why I would give this advice. It’s simple – what can be done and what does get done are two different things. I wouldn’t be honest if I said that services offer the best possible results when the reality is that a well-guided and properly-deployed strategy by employees at a local business can be more effective than anything remote. However, the combination of a lack of updated knowledge in this constantly-changing arena mixed with the lack of time of the employees at a local business mean that sometimes it’s best to settle for second best.

Thankfully, when done right, second best isn’t far off from being the best. There are more failures happening from homegrown campaigns and strategies than from agency-run strategies because of both of these points. It takes time. It takes research. These are things that are easier left to those who do it on a regular basis for most businesses. However, if a business has the time to stay on top of the campaigns as well as the changes happening in the platforms, trends, and attitudes in the real world, they can have the greatest level of success.

This is part 1 in a series about building brand ambassadors at the dealership. I'll be adding more parts later, but here is the series so far:

• Turn Social Media into a Brand Ambassador Factory
• The Importance of Brand Ambassadors
• How to Identify Potential Brand Ambassadors
• How to Approach a Potential Brand Ambassador About Social Media
• The Actions Needed to Build True Brand Ambassadors

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It isn’t what you’re saying on social media that has the biggest effect on your business. It’s what others are saying about you that makes the true impact.

I’ve used those words in various forms since 2008. It’s become a cliche in my own mind because I have to say it so often; many businesses we talk to haven’t gained that understanding by the time we have our consultation even today in 2013. It’s not their fault. The social media marketing industry is challenged with laziness in many ways. Building brand ambassadors is hard work so many “gurus” prefer to stick with what they can do easily, namely posting random things and pushing for likes, retweets, +1s, repins, and other components of social media promotions that are useful but that aren’t as important as they lead their clients to believe.

There are three truths that need to be understood about social media marketing:

• It’s a communication tool more than it’s a broadcasting tool.
• Getting others to talk about your business in a positive manner is the most powerful thing that can happen to influence your business through social media.
• It isn’t as hard as most think but it takes more effort than most are willing to allocate.

The easy road is to post interesting or entertaining images, text, video, or links. The more fulfilling road is to play outside of your own profiles, to make your social profiles a conduit rather than a hub, and to do the things that encourage the customers or clients who love your products, services, or ways of doing business to advocate for you online.

It’s about building ambassadors, and as inhumane as this may sound, you should be building a brand ambassador factory. Sounds creepy. Almost makes it seem like an allusion to Soylent Green. Thankfully, we don’t have to turn our customers into feed in order to make this work. We simply have to make them happy and give them the opportunities and prompting to tell the world that they love you.

The processes to do this differ from business to business. There are too many moving parts from one industry to another and from one store to another within the same industry to be able to post a roadmap or guide that would do justice to the topic, but over the next week I will be posting articles that give some general concepts to help you develop your own plan. The best way to stay on top of this (there will be much more written on this specific topic) and other social media marketing concepts is to subscribe to Soshable by Email.

More to come on this important topic very soon…

This is part 2 in a series about building brand ambassadors at the dealership. I'll be adding more parts later, but here is the series so far:

• Turn Social Media into a Brand Ambassador Factory
• The Importance of Brand Ambassadors
• How to Identify Potential Brand Ambassadors
• How to Approach a Potential Brand Ambassador About Social Media
• The Actions Needed to Build True Brand Ambassadors

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We’ve all heard the cliches.

• “Build raving fans!”
• “Word of mouth is the best form of advertising!”
• “Delight your customers!”

These sayings would start to get really annoying if they weren’t 100% correct.

As I said in part 1 of this series, it isn’t what you’re saying about your brand on social media as much as it’s about what other people say. Unfortunately, many people only talk about a brand if they have something bad to say. To counter this from both a reputation perspective as well as an exposure perspective, brand ambassadors are the most important people in your public relations world as it pertains to social media.

Everyone already knows that you love your brand, that you believe in your product, and that you have the best of everything to offer your customers in your opinion. If you didn’t believe that, you wouldn’t be in business, so most claims by a company are not believed. Not every brand can be the best, but every brand claims to be the best. As a result, people go to two forms of outside sources to confirm or deny claims. They go to experts in many opinions – Roger Ebert has made and broken many movies with his words over the decades. The other place they go thanks to the power of social media and review sites is to their peers. What are other people who have already tried your brand, product, or services saying about you?

The presence of brand ambassadors is not just a matter of encouraging happy customers to write reviews. Reviews are great and extremely important, but there’s no real “skin in the game” when they post to these sites. They’re one within a group. If a company has 100 Google Local reviews, what’s one more added to the mix, at least from a customer’s perspective. It’s not a personal thing when someone posts to review sites.

Social media, on the other hand, is a personal thing. Those who take their social media seriously are much less likely to say something good about a brand. When they do, it actually means something. Their friends and family who already have an opinion about the person will take their recommendations on social media more seriously. This isn’t even taking into account Facebook Graph Search which has the potential to amplify this even more (we’ll see). This is simply looking at the state of social media today. If someone’s willing to say that they love your brand, product, or service on social media in general and Facebook in particular, it’s the most powerful review anyone can give you.

It’s the “skin in the game” that isn’t present on review sites.

If your company is actively building brand ambassadors, you’re  already seeing the amazing results. You’re hearing from your customers either through social media itself (“You were right, Bob. ABC Motors took great care of me, too!) or at the store itself. If you aren’t hearing about people coming to your store because they heard about your from a friend, you’re not building brand ambassadors. I’m not trying to use circular reasoning here. Just stating a fact. If you build brand ambassadors regularly on social media, you will hear about it at the store. It’s that simple.

In the next story, we will go into detail about how to identify potential brand ambassadors. In the meantime, be sure to subscribe to Soshable by Email to get the full scoop on how to make the most out of your social media marketing efforts.

This is part 3 in a series about building brand ambassadors at the dealership. I'll be adding more parts later, but here is the series so far:

• Turn Social Media into a Brand Ambassador Factory
• The Importance of Brand Ambassadors
• How to Identify Potential Brand Ambassadors
• How to Approach a Potential Brand Ambassador About Social Media
• The Actions Needed to Build True Brand Ambassadors

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Let’s assume, for a moment, that you have step one on the path to building your Brand Ambassador Factory covered. For those who don’t know, step one would be to make sure that your business is operating in a way that creates extremely happy customers and clients. There’s nothing I can say on this social media blog to help you there – run a good business and make people more than satisfied with the results you deliver. If you aren’t doing that, social media can’t fix it.

With the assumption that you’re running a good business out of the way, let’s move on to step two. You have to identify potential brand ambassadors. The initial requirement is easy – they have to like you. Unfortunately, it goes much deeper than that. Liking your business isn’t enough to make a brand ambassador. You have to look for other qualities to go along with it.

This is where stereotypes have to be thrown out. A hip 20-something isn’t necessarily addicted to their smartphone and Facebook. A 65-year-old grandmother isn’t necessarily still handwriting postcards to her grandchildren. You can’t identify a potential social media user without asking them. Once you start asking, you’re going to be surprised at the results.

Before you ask, you’ll want to make sure that your employees are prepared for the initiative. It is an initiative. To downplay it as something that you’re “playing with” or to isolate social media activity to a single person is a mistake. It takes every customer-facing employee at a company to really get the most benefit out of this. Have a meeting and even have everyone read this blog post first. It’s important that they get it before trying to sell them on the concept.

Here are some characteristics you’ll want to look for when determining whether or not to approach someone about being a brand ambassador for your business:

Social Media Brand Ambassadors are Social

This isn’t as much of a no-brainer as one might think. There are tons of shy people on social media. In fact, social media offers a venue for shy people to interact with their world from a safe distance which is part of its popularity. These shy people aren’t going to be brand ambassadors.

You want that person who can’t stop socializing. They are often talkative in person, sharing information without being asked. They will likely check their smartphone throughout a long transaction. If they grab it and take a peek every time it pings them with a new text message or Facebook update, they’re connected in all the right ways.

Social Media Brand Ambassadors are Friendly

We’ve all known that ever-connected person who is a total snob. Their profile is probably loaded with cynical comments, which are only slightly less cynical than what they say about people in real life.

Friendly people are much more likely to be brand ambassadors. They are the ones who carry an extra smile with them in case yours runs out of juice. They like you the moment they meet you and many people like them as a result.

This is an extremely important trait of a brand ambassador because these are the type of people who are willing to help you out when you ask. At the end of the day, very few people become a brand ambassador without prompting, which means that you want to identify those people who are willing to put their name behind a good experience they’ve had with a company. Remember, brand ambassadors are giving personal endorsements. It’s not like asking someone to post a positive review on Yelp. Getting them to post on their social media is a true endorsement. Since it’s a reflection of themselves that reaches their friends and family, it actually means something. It’s “skin in the game” which is why it’s so much more powerful than a simple positive review.

Social Media Brand Ambassadors are Extremely Satisfied

This is the moment of truth. Are they happy, and I mean really happy with your product or service? If they meet the first couple of criteria and they express extreme satisfaction with their transaction, you’ve found an ideal candidate to approach about being a brand ambassador.

You’ve done right by them and you could really use them to do right by you on social media. This is it. You’re about to get a real endorsement from a real person who is likely trusted by their friends and family.

* * *

In the next part of this series, we’ll discuss the ways to approach a potential brand ambassador and put them to work for you.

This is part 4 in a series about building brand ambassadors at the dealership. I'll be adding more parts later, but here is the series so far:

• Turn Social Media into a Brand Ambassador Factory
• The Importance of Brand Ambassadors
• How to Identify Potential Brand Ambassadors
• How to Approach a Potential Brand Ambassador About Social Media
• The Actions Needed to Build True Brand Ambassadors

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You’ve made a customer extremely happy with their purchase and exceeded their expectations. They’re smiling, shaking your hand, and thankful that you earned their business. They show all of the signs of being a potential brand ambassador. Now, how do you actually convert them from happy customer to brand ambassador?

We’ve already established that it’s important. Now go for the post. Your goal is to turn this happy customer into someone willing to advocate for you online. It’s not about getting a review. Those are easy. Reputation management on review sites is an important activity, but save those conversations for those who aren’t going to post about your on their social profiles. Getting an endorsement on Facebook is much more useful than getting a review on Yelp (unless your Yelp score is poor, in which case you probably want to get that bumped up first).

To get someone to post about you on social media, there are two effective methods to try.

Give Them an Incentive

This is the easiest way. It’s also slightly less fruitful because they must divulge in their post that they received compensation. That’s okay. If done right, even divulging the “payment” can be turned into a positive thing.

First and foremost, don’t go straight for the close. Just like with any sales process, you have to sell them on the idea. This requires a little setup first. Try to catch them when they’re really happy. After they’ve just given your store a compliment is ideal. Then, ask them about their social media presence.

Here’s an example of a conversation:

• Customer - “This has been the easiest car-buying experience I’ve ever had.”
• Salesperson – “Thank you for saying so. We do business differently here because we want our customers to come back to us and recommend us to all their friends and family.”
• Customer – “Yep, I’d definitely recommend you to my friends.”
• Salesperson – “Are you on Facebook?”
• Customer – “Of course.”
• Salesperson – “Because we value our customers’ recommendations, we give them their first oil change for free when they post about their experience on Facebook.”
• Customer – “That sounds good. I’ll post when I get home.”
• Salesperson – “If you want to do it from your phone right now I can walk you through it. To give you the oil change, it has to be worded a certain way.”
• Customer - “Okay. Let’s do it.”

The wording should be something like this: “I just had a great experience buying my new car at ABC Motors. They even gave me my first oil change for free just for posting this.”

That’s it. Of course, it’s not always that smooth of a conversation, but remember that even a handful of people per month can make an impact on future sales.

Give Them a Valid Reason

Similar to the incentive, the valid reason approach can be almost as effective. Done well, it can be even more effective because you’re asking for real endorsement without anything attached.

Use the talk track above but replace the oil change dialogue with something like this:

• Salesperson – “One of the ways I’m judged on whether I’m delivering a great customer experience is by getting mention on Facebook. If you wouldn’t mind, I’d appreciate if you’d write something about us on Facebook through your smartphone while we wait for your car to get cleaned up.”

From there, it doesn’t matter how they post it. They aren’t required to divulge anything and we’ve seen that when customers are given complete freedom to advocate for you how they want, they’ll do a better job at it.

But that’s not all…

Getting a Facebook post is amazing. Unlike review sites, it exposes your brand and the experience you deliver to people through a trusted peer. It’s human nature to trust the advice of people we know more than strangers on review sites. These types of public endorsements show “skin in the game” as we’ve mentioned in previous articles. Review sites are made fine, but they aren’t broadcasting the message to the right people the way a Facebook endorsement works.

This is all great, but a true ambassador won’t stop there. This is where we get into the real ways that happy customers become the brand ambassadors that we need. We’ll discuss all of that in the next post in this series.

This is part 5 in a series about building brand ambassadors at the dealership. I'll be adding more parts later, but here is the series so far:

• Turn Social Media into a Brand Ambassador Factory
• The Importance of Brand Ambassadors
• How to Identify Potential Brand Ambassadors
• How to Approach a Potential Brand Ambassador About Social Media
• The Actions Needed to Build True Brand Ambassadors

_______

You've gone through all the steps. You knew that we were going to be talking about brand ambassadors. You learned why they're important. We showed you how to identify them, then we discussed how to approach them. Now, it's time to wrap it up with the hardest part of them all. We're going to talk about how to sustain them as true brand ambassadors.

There's a difference between a person who leaves a nice comment on Facebook and someone who actually tells people they know about you. It's important to get that person to tell about their experience at your store on Facebook. It's amazing to make sure that that person is proactive in the future. If they were happy buying a car at your dealership today, we want them mentioning you when they see their friend three months from now saying on Facebook that they need a new car. That's the type of brand ambassadors that we want talking about us on social media.

It isn't easy. It requires a subtle approach, a light touch, but a persistent one. Here are three things you can do to take that happy customer who posted about you on Facebook to the next level.

Show Your Appreciation

No, I don't mean going on their Facebook post about you and saying "thanks!" You have to show true appreciation for their effort. You have to stand out above and beyond anything any other company has ever done for them.

There's a fine line between being appreciative and being an annoying stalker. This is why it's important to interact with a purpose. It should never be random. Show your appreciation at times when they least expect it, when you're not at the top of their mind, and in ways that require real effort and/or money.

One way to show appreciation is with a quick gift card sent on a handwritten envelope with a handwritten note inside.

"Hi Bob. I just wanted to check in on you to make sure you're enjoying your car and that you're still getting compliments from your friends. We appreciate that you posted on Facebook last month when you purchased it and we wanted to send you this $10 Starbucks gift card as a small token of our appreciation."

This can get them to post again about the gesture, but more importantly it reminds them of the over-the-top experience they received at the store. When their friends and family are looking, you want them to mention your store by name.

Let Them Know it Worked

Here's the thing, and it's arguably the hardest truth to convince businesses of until they see it for themselves. If an average Facebook user promotes your product, their message was seen and heeded by their friends and family. There is a good chance every single time you're mentioned on Facebook as giving someone an exceptional experience that someone amongst their friends and family will see this and act upon it.

When someone comes in and say, "I heard my cousin Bob that you guys took great care of him," you have to let Bob know. If you have a referral program, this is a no-brainer. If you don't have a referral program, refer back up to showing appreciation and reword the note that you send with the gift card.

Don't forget, it's not just about your business. People like helping their friends and family. Bob didn't just help you to make another sale. He helped his cousin Sally have the same great experience he had. Sally may or may not let him know, but either way you definitely want to let him know. Validate that he's an influencer and that he's important to his friends, family, and your business.

Highlight Them

This is optional and requires some work, but it's very useful when done right. On your website or through social media, take your brand ambassadors who have posted about you on Facebook and highlight their posts. This is best done in a group setting - individual highlights can be a bit creepy.

At whatever frequency is appropriate, post screenshots of all of your positive mentions. Make certain that there is text with the person's name if their name and posts are public on Facebook. If they aren't public, you don't want to mention their name.

Again, this is optional. In a way, it's a bit risky, but it's also a way to let people know on your website and Facebook page that you have a strong commitment to customer service.

* * *

It's not what you say about yourself on social media that matters. It's what others are saying about you. This is where the value is. This is how to move the needle.

The idea of the NoFollow attribute on links was to help prevent spam from appearing on user generated content sites, particularly Wikipedia. It was intended as a way to tell Google (and eventually all major search engines) that a link was not supposed to transfer any “link juice” to the recipient of the link. In essence, it was designed to stop SEO spammers from trying to insert their links where they didn’t belong for the sake of improved rankings.

It has become an abused attribute. This needs to stop.

Modern use of nofollow by many websites is to prevent link juice “leakage” from a website onto other websites. Many put the attribute on any link that isn’t internal. Some go so far as to put it on every link, internal or external. This is ludicrous.

There may be some merits to the idea that leaking PageRank juice to others is a detriment to the optimization of a website, but if there is, it’s minimal. I’ve seen websites that have a completely closed nofollow policy that doesn’t “leak” any juice at all that have major troubles ranking and I’ve seen sites (such as all of my sites) that rank exceptionally well while giving link value to everyone.

There are exceptions. UGC, as mentioned before, should have nofollow attributes attached to links that are not vetted. If it’s a UGC site that passes through the eyes and scrutiny of an editor, the nofollow attribute isn’t necessary. If it goes live immediate, it’s necessary.

Comments or other areas where links can be added by anyone should also be nofollow. Some use plugins like CommentLuv to encourage comments by making links followed. This is up to site owner and as long as the comments and links are vetted I have no problem with it at all. If the links in comments aren’t vetted, I don’t suggest it.

Otherwise, there should never be nofollow links on websites. If a link is good enough to post, it’s good enough to get juice. Trying to sculpt or channel your link juice is futile, ineffective, and an argument can be made that it’s actually more damaging than good.

The image above shows the last four Facebook activities by a major car dealership in a metro area. Over three months ago, they abandoned their page. This could easily be a very long post where I go into details about how this is wrong on so many levels, but I'll keep it short because if you're reading this, chances are very strong that you're a savvy dealership that would never let this happen.

For the sake of education, I'll at least put a partial list together in case you're not absolutely sure why you shouldn't do this:

• This page appears in the searches for the dealership by name on Google.
• This is the page presented to people when they search on Facebook, Bing, and other search engines as well.
• Abandoned pages can be easily spammed. If a spammer were to find this page, they could start posting links to their teeth whitening or adult-content gateway websites and have it appear at the top of the dealers' activity public activity feed. This is becoming a more common technique by spammers because they know that the business is not paying attention so the chances of them being reported to Facebook are slim.
• A feed could be setup if absolutely necessary (I'll cover this more below).
• Customers are posting on the page. Huge opportunities are being missed.

Let's cover the bottom two in a little more detail.

Last Resort: Feeds

If your dealership has no bandwidth to cover your social media and no budget to hire an automotive social media service, the absolute worst case scenario is to set up a feed to the page. This is something that I don't recommend to anyone who wants to be successful, but it's still better than abandonment.

You can use RSS Graffiti, Hootsuite, or any number of other services to pull in a feed and post on a regular basis to Facebook. This is a very poor strategy, but it's better than nothing.

Customers Can Post

This is the most disheartening part about the page above. Happy customers are talking. I've recently written five blog posts about the importance of developing brand ambassadors. This dealership has ambassadors waiting to be contacted. It's such a waste.

Here are those posts:

• Turn Social Media into a Brand Ambassador Factory
• The Importance of Brand Ambassadors
• How to Identify Potential Brand Ambassadors
• How to Approach a Potential Brand Ambassador About Social Media
• The Actions Needed to Build True Brand Ambassadors

Happy customers that take the time to promote your dealership through their own Facebook profile should not be ignored. There's no excuse for this.

Don't Delete Them

There's a good chance that you'll have a Facebook presence whether you want to or not. Just because you delete your page doesn't mean that someone else can't toss one up for you. "Fan pages" are very common and if you don't have a page of your own that is outranking the fan pages, you risk letting others control what people see when they check you out on Facebook. Bad move.

Social media is about communication, so the ideas of using RSS feeds is not a good option. Every dealership needs to be watching, even if it's in the form of having the Internet Manager, GM, or owner receive an email when someone posts on the page. For most, this isn't a problem. The industry is realizing the importance of social. If you're not one of those, at least do the bare minimum to not completely fail. It takes no time. To turn your presence into an orphan is a big mistake.

There are still many in the search engine optimization industry that are fighting the concept that Google (and Bing) is taking social signals into account at a high level when determining search rankings.

These people fall into three categories:

1. Those who haven’t had the ability or desire to test it. If you test it thoroughly, it becomes extremely clear that it’s real.
2. Those who do not have the ability to generate and promote high quality, shareable content as part of their SEO strategy. If you can’t do it, you might as well pretend like it doesn’t exist.
3. Those who have read the blog posts of either of the previous two and took the opinions as truth.

The reality is that, based upon extensive testing that we’ve been running (not to mention some of the things that Google has said over the last couple of years), social signals have a significant impact on the overall SEO of websites.

There’s another thing to consider, though, as pointed out by Search Engine Watch last month. Google is paying attention to social signals through Google Analytics. Some might say that it’s a natural addition to the service since people consider social media to be an important part of their overall marketing, but that’s simply not how Google works. If they add something to Analytics, it’s because they consider it to be important. There’s no need for them to track it if they aren’t considering it in some algorithm, and the most likely algorithm that social signals could effect is their search ranking algorithm.

When Google says something with their actions, it behooves those in SEO to listen. Are you listening?

In business, there is no such thing as writer’s block. It doesn’t exist. Erase the phrase from your mind. You see, in any business, there are so many potential stories to be told that one should never run out of them even if they’re blogging daily. More importantly, this isn’t like writing a novel. It’s not professional journalism. You’re not writing a column. On a business blog, you have the freedom to pull from the ultimate content resource – the internet.

What most perceive as writer’s block in the world of business blogging is actually the brain’s way of saying that you don’t want to write at this moment. Get over it.

With that all out of the way, it’s time to look at some different types of blog posts that can be categorized into a proper plan. This plan can be an editorial calendar, a series of reminders in Outlook, or a notepad on your desk where you jot down your ideas. We’ll get into planning in a moment, but first let’s look at some of the ideas themselves.

Blog Post Ideas

This is a difficult topic to write about because no matter how much time and effort is put into it, the end result cannot be complete. The idea potentials are infinite. These are just some blog post types that can help you to get into the proper frame of mind when deciding about which topics to blog.

We’ll use my favorite topic, automotive, to flesh out the concepts:

• Industry News – As a business, you have the inside track to write about things that others want to know. You’re the expert. A car dealer can write about what’s happening to their brand, new vehicles that are coming out, recalls, races, or anything that is topical today. Here’s an example of an industry news post.
• Image Posts – These are often the easiest to put together because of two sources of content: what’s happening at the store right now and the internet. A Dodge dealer should have plenty of Dodge Chargers on the lot that can be positioned in various ways. They also have hundreds of worthy images of Dodge Chargers, old and new, on the internet. Keep in mind, if you’re taking images from other sites, make sure they’re receiving attribution. Here’s an example of an image post.
• Video Posts – As with image posts, most of the heavy lifting is done for you with video posts. You don’t have to a ton of investigating or write a 1500 word article to frame the video into a perspective. You want to write something, even if it’s only a paragraph or two describing the video and what it means to your industry, but it doesn’t have to be much. Let the video do the talking. Here’s an example of a video post.
• Activity in the Community Posts – Your business is likely involved in the community somehow. It can be a sponsorship of the local little league team. It could be something more significant. Talk about it. There’s nothing wrong with “bragging” if the intention is to highlight the source itself. Here’s an example of a community activity post.
• Infographic Posts – The internet is a visual experience. There are so many amazing infographics available to us that there’s really no reason not to use them. Make sure the data is accurate, of course, as you’re posting it on your website or blog, and definitely make sure to give attribution (it’s the reason that businesses make infographics in the first place) but don’t be shy about it, either. Here’s an example of an infographic post.
• Upcoming Product Posts – You know about new things coming down the road before your customers. Expose things to them through your site or blog. This is actually a no-brainer but so few take advantage of it. Here’s an example of an upcoming product post.

Again, this barely scratches the surface.

Planning

There really isn’t enough to say about planning to make it deserve its own section in this blog post, but it’s so important that we’re separating it out anyway. Make a plan. There are some great editorial calendar addons to WordPress and other blogging platforms that work nicely. Unless you’re blogging all the time, multiple times per week, these may not be necessary. It could be as easy as posting your ideas as tasks or calendar events in Outlook or whatever calendar software you use.

Me? I have a notepad. If it weren’t for that, I’d probably lose my ability to write with my hands because it’s the only time I ever use pen and paper other than to sign things. It’s archaic, messy, and less organized than the digital counterparts, but for me, it works. Whatever works best for you to keep you adding content to your blog or website on a regular basis is the right way for you to make your plan.

What are you waiting for? Start coming up with ideas, organize them into a plan, and get words onto your blog.

I’ve started hearing the second worst advice coming from social media “experts” that I’ve ever heard. It’s just a notch above “buy thousands of fans and followers” on the social media advice scale.

If someone tells you to “be sure to post something X-times a day on social media even if you have to throw something up.”

I know it’s bad advice. I used to give it. Thankfully, I learned my lesson before spreading the advice too far. It blows my mind that it’s still being given to unsuspecting clients today, though, because it has become pretty well-known that on many social media sites, Facebook in particular, a poor and wasteful post can actually do more harm than if you skip a post or two.

Quality is everything. EdgeRank (we’ll use the term for lack of a better word even though Facebook says it’s not reflective of the current algorithm yet they don’t give us a name for the new one – /rant) is extremely fickle, particularly for pages. You get limited opportunities to impress your fans and friends of fans. Any time you blow one of those opportunities through a wasted post, you’re actually harming the chance of future posts to perform.

In other words, every single thing that you post on Facebook should serve a very distinct purpose. Every single thing you post on Facebook should be of the highest possible quality. Every single thing that you post to Facebook must be something that does one of three things:

• It conveys a relevant message that is well crafted, important enough to post to Facebook, and positioned in a way in which fans will not block you or report your post as spam.
• It is entertaining, educational, or acts as a resource. It brings true value to the table for your fans, whether that value is life-saving information or just a quick, hearty chuckle.
• It is a business-imperative message or link such as an event, a special (and I mean a true special such as the yearly Toyotathon, not a discount on your services that goes out every couple of weeks), or new product offering such as the opening of a body shop or the first 2014 Corvettes rolling off the truck.

There should be no filler posts. There should be no RSS feeds. There should be no integration of Tweets that land on your Facebook page (or visa versa). The difference between a page that carefully selects and crafts every single post versus one that tries most of the time but gets lazy sometimes is like night and day. Every single wasted post hurts the exposure of future posts. Conversely, every single outstanding post helps future posts see more daylight.

Our strategy is pretty simple in concept though a little complex in how it is applied. Here is a quick breakdown of each of the three types:

Relevant Message Posts

There’s a mentality that goes into relevant message posts. It doesn’t have to be relevant to you. It definitely has to be relevant to your fans. In the example above, the message was extremely relevant for this Dallas car dealer. It was a couple of days before the make or break game for the Dallas Cowboys. One simple image faded in the background. One simple message. It was a message that was important to the fans, the vast majority of whom resided in the Dallas area.

Unfortunately for the fans of both the team and the dealership, the Cowboys lost, but it was still great of the company to show their support for the local team. Relevance is about your fans, your customers. It’s easiest to find relevant things to post about by staying in the local area or state. These messages should never be generic. They cannot be something that everyone else is posting. Put the effort in. In this case, the effort wasn’t a lot – find an image (make sure to credit the original source!) and put the relevant message on top of it. Simple, but effective.

Value Posts

In the instance above, there are two things at play. The image is of a hot rod smoking the tires, but the message is talking about tire maintenance. There’s an opportunity to get two different kinds of likes as a result because it combines a great image with a useful message. The tip itself isn’t extraordinary, but it’s enough to get it a handful of likes even prior to promoting it on Facebook.

Entertain, educate, or both. That’s the mentality with these types of posts, and for many pages the strategy will dictate that these will be the most prevalent. Stick to your expertise and/or industry with these posts. There is a distinct temptation and even a common practice by many to try to revert to whatever is potentially popular. They’ll post funny images of cats. Avoid this practice. As hard as we may try to blend our pages into the whole Facebook mix by posting content that can be shared, when you go off topic you create a potential of missing the expectations of your fans. They may even feel a bit betrayed; if they’re going to follow a car dealer’s Facebook page, they expect to see cars. There are plenty of cats on Facebook already. No need to contribute unless you’re a veterinarian.

Business Message

While it doesn’t always have to be a link, most business-imperative messages should either lead people to a destination or convey a message about the business that can be of interest. These are the posts that carry the most risk as people normally do not want to see marketing messages in their streams. It’s not uncommon for businesses to completely avoid these types of messages. That strategy can be valid, but with a little effort you can avoid the spam reports and unlikes by making sure the message is worthwhile to your fans.

In the case above that we just posted, we combine four different components (a lot in such a small post, I know, but that’s why it’s called “effort”). The car, of course, is stunning. It’s an actual dealership inventory piece rather than a generic image like the ones above. It carries a message or relevance as it was posted early Saturday morning right before most of the local fans wake up. The wording of the text portion of the post doesn’t say a ton but it does contain a link without being considered a link post by Facebook. You can accomplish this by adding the image first, then adding the link within the body of the text. The click-thru rates are always going to be low, but the message is pointed enough so that those who do click the link are there for a clear reason.

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Put in the effort. You don’t want to let your Facebook page go stagnant for more than a day or two (unless you’re using an extremely specialized and advanced strategy that I don’t have time to go into here), but you definitely don’t want to put content into your fans’ feeds that is sub-par. Make every post great. Don’t waste them. Playing the Facebook game is definitely not hard, but it does require a willingness to work within the algorithm and understand the expectations of your fans. Don’t just meet those expectations. Exceed them.

There was a promise silently made by social media a few years back. It was so prevalent at the 2009 round of conferences from NADA to Digital Dealer that many might have thought that social media would eventually encompass the entire internet marketing required by a dealership to be successful. The promise was this: “Everyone’s going to be on social media in the next couple of years and you’ll be able to reach them.”

The first part of the promise came true, perhaps even more so than most had anticipated. Everyone is on social media in one way or another. Even if they are not active, from a car buying perspective, it can be assumed that members of any family out there trying to buy a car today are touched in some way by social media. It could be as distant as some of the friends of the buyer or it could be as close as the spouse and children, but everyone in America is affected by social media whether they know it or not.

The second part of the promise hasn’t quite panned out for many. There are certainly many dealers who “get it” and are able to drive traffic, generate leads, and make sales as a direct result of their social media actions. Unfortunately, these cases are few and far between. In fact, I was recently approached by “gurus” to help them find examples of dealers who were showing these sorts of successes. Even they weren’t aware of many examples of the mythical “Facebook Sale”.

They exist. We’ve seen them. They’re not quite as few and far between as Bigfoot sightings, but they aren’t easy to find.

That’s not the point.

While many will talk about the “intrinsic value” of social media, one does not have to be a Bigfoot hunter to find tangible value. It lies in understanding the effects and realizing that just as television advertising is effective without being easy to track directly, so too does social media make it challenging to find the value. The key is to look at the results as a whole by doing two things: find the numbers that can be tied in by absence and to put real indicators into place to measure the ROI properly. I refuse to try to convince dealers that there’s a value without being able to demonstrate it and dealers should refuse to accept that there is a value without proof. Here’s how…

Tie in Numbers through Absence

A dealer once told me that the only way he was able to track the effectiveness of his television advertising was to turn them off. When sales dropped, he knew that the TV ads had been working. When he turned them back on, sales went back up again.

The same premise can be applied to social media, particularly if you’re investing enough time and/or money. The sad truth that few gurus will tell you about social media is that there’s a secret plateau. They won’t tell you this because they either don’t know about it or they know that it’s not beneficial to them. The plateau is the place between getting started with social media and hitting the tipping point. Unlike other forms of marketing, social media has a tendency to remain flat up until the point that you really start to hit it hard. The difference in results between a mediocre presence and a pretty good presence is almost unnoticeable. Those who have a pretty good presence aren’t seeing much more in the way of results than those who have one that’s a notch above poor. This is the plateau.

That’s the bad news, particularly since the vast majority of dealerships today fall in between being a notch above poor and pretty good. It’s also the good news. Those dealers who break through the realm of “pretty good” can see a sharp improvement very quickly once they get to good, great, fantastic, outstanding, and beyond. I’m using these esoteric terms because it would take multiple blog posts to try to define the difference between pretty good and outstanding. It’s not about numbers. It’s not even about engagement. It’s about results.

This is where the absence comes into play. If you have a doubt about the effectiveness of your social media, turn it off for a month. Tell your vendor to stop posting and promoting. Tell your internet manager to put up a status update on the various social media sites that you’re “taking a break from social media for the month as we work on putting together something great for all of our fans”. Then, do it. Get off of social media. Don’t post. Don’t reply. You’ll still want to monitor just in case, of course. If your social media is tied into a reputation management service, don’t stop that aspect.

Everything else, shut it down for a month. Look at the numbers. Do you see a dip in traffic, leads, and sales? Make sure to take other factors into account such as fluctuations in search marketing spend, offline advertising, etc. Take those into account and check your results. If your numbers move noticeably, you’re probably getting more benefit out of social than you knew about, so you’ll want to turn it back on. If you don’t see much of a difference, it may be time to explore other options.

Put Real Indicators Into Place

For fixed ops, this is easy. All you have to do is run events on Facebook while posting “social media only” specials simultaneously on the other social networks. If you create an event on Facebook for “$14.99 Social Media Oil Change Special” and then post it on your other networks, you’ll be able to see whether you’re reaching people with the message or not. You can create a coupon on your website that is not in navigation if you want, or simply tell them to mention that they liked your store on Facebook when they’re getting their oil changed. Make sure the service department is extremely well-aware that this test is important. You don’t want them telling their “buddy” customers about it while they’re at the store.

With sales, it’s a little harder but there’s a key performance indicator that can help you make a determination about the success of your social media effort. If you go strong on social media, advertising on Facebook and doing all of the things that we ask dealers to do, you will see one number rise on your analytics – searches for your dealership by name. Getting people to click off of Facebook to go check out your inventory is ineffective. Getting the branding out there, being at the top of mind, and making sure that when people in your area are in the market to buy a car that they’re checking you out on search and on your website – that’s a true test of your social media effectiveness. Not surprisingly, the same can be done for television and radio advertising as well.

Of course, there are more tangible ways to detect it, namely traffic to the dealership itself. This is an area that I can’t talk about quite yet because we’re still testing, but the results so far have been nothing short of fabulous.

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Social media doesn’t have to be a mystery. It either works at your dealership right now or it doesn’t. It’s important to do the things necessary to check the effectiveness an understand whether or not you’re truly reaching your audience. Otherwise, you’ll never know if you can dramatically improve it by making the right changes.

I've shared this story before but it's worth mentioned again. I was speaking to a client about their social media presence. Well, it was actually their lack of a social media presence. They didn't have a Facebook page, they didn't realize that they had a Twitter account that had been set to Tweet AutoBlog via RSS, and they through that Google+ was a premium service that Google was selling. Don't laugh. This was one of the darkest days of my marketing career.

When I asked why they didn't have a Facebook page at the very least, he said that "they don’t want people to have the ability to talk badly about them on Facebook." After some explaining about how Facebook and social media in general worked, I got down to what was the real root of the problem. He said that he totally understood that they could post on their own Facebook profile without his permission or even knowledge, but if he had a Facebook page and he posted there then he would have to respond.

Exactly. You have to respond. You want to respond. Every customer challenge is an opportunity to shine.

Control the Feedback

Disney. Apple. Amazon. Johnson & Johnson. These are brands that regularly topped the "most loved" companies lists. They do what they can to try to make everyone happy. Despite being at the top of the list, they have haters. Many haters. Thousands, perhaps millions of people have a negative opinion of these loved brands.

Let's look at it locally. There's a Peruvian restaurant close to the office that we go to whenever we want to have a casual lunch. The food is amazing - the Lomo Saltado is the best way to fill up on $10. I took a friend there who loved Peruvian food and he hated it. He even said so on Yelp (granted, the service was uncannily awful that day, but the food didn't impress him either). You simply can't appeal to everyone.

Those who are going to complain about your business will find a way to complain no matter how hard you try to avoid it. The reality in today's uber-connected world is that you can't avoid it and you shouldn't even try. In fact, you should embrace it by allowing as many venues such as Facebook to be the place where you want to hear their complaints.

When people post negative reviews to many of the review sites or tell the story of their experiences on their social media profiles, you often have no recourse. Many of the review sites allow you to reply and you definitely should, but it still goes onto a permanent record. The complaint is logged and you can't take it down. In cases like those, it's extremely important to reply whenever possible with empathy, professionalism, a sincere desire to improve through their feedback, and (whenever applicable) a willingness to make things right for them. It's a best practice to reply to every review, good or bad, but that's another blog post.

Now, imagine if you used your social media, Facebook in particular, as a venue through which people could voice their opinions about your business. Some would say that it would get more exposure that way, particularly if they have a lot of friends, but there's a couple of reasons you'd want it here rather than on review sites. First, you definitely can and should reply to those comments. Using Facebook as a two-way communication tool allows you to shine through the dark moments and highlight the brighter ones.

The second reason is control. When they post a complaint to your Facebook page, you have the ability to control this portion of the conversation. If your reply is thoughtful and satisfactory to the user, awesome! If it starts to turn into an argument or the user becomes offensive, you have the ability to hide it. I do not recommend hiding complaints as a general practice. Take what you can from the feedback and improve your business. Stand behind your product and company and accept criticism with the professionalism and a desire to improve as I mentioned above. Hiding posts is a last resort and should only be used when the complaint turns offensive.

Thankfully, this post does not apply to many. Over the last couple of years there has been a wonderful shift towards the desire to be more open to feedback. It's a necessity with today's quick and easy methods of communication that are available to consumers. If you're still missing the point and choose to do what the image for this blog post implies, I'm not sure what else to say that can help.

Do you remember the person who consulted with you about social media and told you that brands are having tremendous success on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest? That's the type of person that you're reaching the most according to a report by NBCUniversal Integrated Media.

The report is designed to show how consumers who are part of GenX and GenY are digesting their influences. It took a split approach to the study which consisted of 2,500 people - 2,000 were average respondents age 18-49 and the other 500 were "digital trendsetters" in the same age group which represent 5% of the national population who are "first adopters" of technology and are highly active on social media.

Could it be that the real people you're actually reaching with social media are the same ones who are telling you that social media can reach people? It sounds like a double-talk question but it's important to understand based upon your business. If you're selling a trendy footwear product or pushing a music discover service, there's little doubt that the trendsetters are the ones you want to be able to hit. What if you're selling cookware? Is social media a valid venue?

The answer is yes and no. On one hand, you have 39% of regular people saying they interact with companies on social media while 67% of the trendsetters are engaging. This means that the people who live on social media are the ones that are accepting the messages being put out by brands and according to the study, that's only 5% of the population. On the other hand, 39% isn't a small amount. It's not ideal, but it seems to be growing.

On average, people are following 27 brands on social media. This might seem like a low number and a challenging group to try to get into if you're selling cookware, but considering that in 2011 the number was 9, we're heading in the right direction.

In the end, it really comes down to what your brand is doing and how successful you can be on social media. It's worth a valid attempt and a bit of effort to see if it's going to work for your brand, but I wouldn't be sinking big chunks of my marketing dollars into social media if my target customer is 55+. While the older generations are starting to get into social media and it's the fastest growing demographic, it's also the one that is least likely to be using social media for anything other than seeing pictures of little Timmy sliding into third base.

Here's a graphic from NBCUniversal that breaks down a good chunk of the findings.

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"Trendsetter" image courtesy of Shutterstock.

There is plenty of vanilla out there. As someone who explores various social media campaigns, techniques, and strategies on a daily basis, it gets pretty boring seeing the same old things being spun in slightly different ways. When something truly fresh comes along, I normally applaud.

When I saw Fiat's attempt at being bold on YouTube, I had to watch it again. And again. Each subsequent viewing I went deeper into analyzing what they were trying accomplish with the clever rap. They wanted to go viral, that was certain, and it worked. They're approaching 3 million views. They also wanted to relate to a demographic, and they probably did to some extent by mentioning many of the trials that mothers face when they transition into motherhood.

The only thing I couldn't figure out was whether or not the risk was worth the reward. They didn't hold very many punches, mentioning controversial topics such as fake orgasms and itchy thongs, and the funny play on words talking about dogs and gardening equipment as "bitches and hoes" brought the full spoof factor into play right from the beginning, but can it really do anything other than garner a few laughs and knowing nods of agreement? The challenges faced by mothers were never shown to be addressed by the stylish Fiat 500 other than the fact that this particular mother liked to drive one.

The risk, of course, is that some people will be offended. It's as clean as a spoof like this can get but there will be those who get a negative vibe about the brand as a result. This is fine and any time you take a risk with social media you're going to make people upset but there needs to be a greater reward potential to counteract the negatives.

Unfortunately, the video does not do enough to get positive sentiment for the brand. Mothers may associate with the video, even feel the pain, so to speak, but the positioning of the brand within the lyrics and visuals is not enough to bring the association full circle.

When Toyota came out with their Swagger Wagon video nearly three years ago, they did much more to accomplish the same goals. They created a video through which parents could relate, but also centered it around the vehicle itself. It was effective on both ends - controversial and funny enough to be watched (over 11 million views) without running the risk of offending many people. The Sienna was front and center through most of the video and not just a subtle background statement for the sake of lifestyle association.

Even the name itself was much better. There are those today who likely still call their vehicle their "Swagger Wagon", whereas Fiat naming their video "The Motherhood" does little to keep the video or the branding going once it falls off of people's buzz radar.

Creating a viral video for the sake of going viral is no longer an effective technique. It helps somewhat with branding, but even in that regard Fiat is too subtle without being powerful about it. There's nothing wrong with subtle branding when done properly. Pantene had a viral video that didn't mention the brand or highlight its effects until the end of the 4-minute video. It was effective because the storytelling throughout was powerful and the final minute where the star's hair is highlighted ended at the peak of emotion when the brand is finally revealed.

Fiat was close to having a successful video. Had they worked in the brand into the song itself, toned down some of the potential negatives, and showed that the vehicle represented some level of freedom and expression that their target audience craved, the effects would have been much better.

Watch the videos and you be the judge. Did they work?

Make the Owner or General Manager Aware of Risks

Pay Attention to Bad Experiences at Other Dealerships

Give Exceptional Service

Remember that today's consumers are connected, they do research, and they are very aware of their power over businesses. The company culture shines through each employee whether it's a positive one or a negative one. If you are constantly getting bad reviews (and thankfully there aren't a ton of dealers who fall into this category in 2013) than you should take a look at the things that people are saying online. We all know there are reviews that are bad because of misunderstandings or outright ignorance from the consumers, but there are more bad reviews that echo the truth than most are willing to acknowledge. If it's a growing problem, find out what the people are saying and do what you can to improve it.

It’s currently the middle of winter and you know what that means. Time to go to the beach!

Okay, so that’s not a normal conclusion that one might come to in most places across the country. Even in sunny California, the beaches are pretty barren in the middle of winter. That’s all real word stuff. We’re talking about social media, a world of dreams and desires, wishes and aspirations. We may not be able to go to the beach right this very moment, but we can certainly wish we were there with a nice breeze coming off the water making it a comfortable 85 degrees in our swimsuits. That’s not reality today, but it’s definitely something that can work on social media.

For businesses, it’s often about standing out properly on social. Nobody likes the loud social media posting business, the one that posts crap all the time that has no substance, but they don’t mind the occasional creative post. Playing with seasons and circumstances (and more importantly, their opposites) is a way to get attention in a positive way.

A Nissan dealer who posts the image above could attach it to the caption, “It may be too cold to go to the beach right now, but when the time comes, we’ll be there to get you on the sand and under the sun.”

This would have a few different subtle but important effects. It’s appealing to many – there are those who are snowed in or stuck with the flu right now. A great looking truck with the ocean, sand, and sun can become a pleasant thought for those seeing it. It’s relevant – in most places right now, the weather is an issue. It’s downright freezing across the country. Lastly, the image is different but pertinent to a Nissan dealer – much better than trying to stand out by posting cat pictures.

Your messaging on social media can be timely without being bound by the constraints of the current time. Football season has ended for most teams across the country. If your local team is out of the playoffs, it’s not too early to start posting baseball pictures. For example, you could have a picture of your team’s star and a caption like this:

“It’s time to put football behind us for now and focus on winning the pennant. Chase Headley, show us the way!”

All of your competitors are likely posting things that everyone else is already posting on social media. There’s nothing wrong with doing the same, but mix it up from time to time by going “off season”, whether it’s about sports, the weather, or anything else that makes for an interesting topic in your area. Stand out. Be different. Be creative. Get noticed.

There’s always a risk when it comes to aggressive advertising and marketing that many are unwilling to take. On television, radio, search, and display ads, there will be those who do not appreciate what you’re putting in front of them. On social, this is greatly amplified because people have the ability to respond.

It is nearly impossible to post effective content and make it visible to your target audience on Facebook without running into the occasional hater. In fact, if you’re not getting any negative comments at all, chances are either your message is not business-effective (are you promoting cat pictures?) or you aren’t reaching enough people. Even with fan-only, highly-targeted Facebook posts, there’s a chance that something someone finds on their Facebook wall will rub them the wrong way and make them leave you a negative comment.

There are a few unavoidable reasons for this:

• People don’t understand how Facebook advertising works – Let’s say you’re targeting a specific city. You select “automotive” as an interest and you post automotive content. Suddenly, you get a comment that says something to the effect of “How did you weasel your way onto my news feed” or “why is this spam showing up – reported!” There are many users who, regardless of what you post, will not appreciate that you’re appearing ahead of pictures of little Timmy sliding into third base and will react negatively as a result.
• Just because they liked your page doesn’t mean they like your content – People like pages for various reasons. Perhaps you ran a contest a few months ago. Maybe they clicked “like this page” on a post that one of their friends liked thinking that it was their content. There are many reasons that people might have liked your page in the past. If they haven’t seen you in their news feed before, they might react negatively having forgotten or never realizing that they liked your page in the past.
• The feed and privacy controls on Facebook are still awful – Despite repeated attempts to make the waters less murky, Facebook has never really made it easy for people to control their news feeds. Most go with the default views and privacy settings which allow for targeted Facebook ads. By appearing in their feed, they think that you’ve done something to get there without realizing that they opted in by not opting out. The biggest lie told by every person on the internet happens when they accept the various terms of services that say, “I have read and agree to these terms of service.” Ya, sure.
• Friend of fans – One of the easiest ways to expand reach on Facebook is to promote some posts with the “friends of fans” option on promoted stories. This gets more views, but it also exposes your content to people who do not want to see it. As a result, the hate comments are bound to come sometimes.

Regardless of the reasoning for the hate, there are two options to address it. You can reply back to the hate comments in a professional manner. Don’t try to explain it to them – they often won’t buy it and trying to get people to understand the way that Facebook handles marketing is about as easy as getting them to understand the tax code without an accountant handy. The other option, useful only in the most extreme circumstances, is to delete the comments. They will still appear to the person who made the comment as well as their friends, but the majority of people will not see the comments. This is a last resort – transparency rules on social media – but if the comments get out of hand or offensive, there’s nothing wrong with getting rid of them for the bulk of your fans. Do not take it to the next level by blocking or reporting them. This can open up a can of worms.

There are those who argue that there should be nothing at all promotional on one’s Facebook page. It’s a valid strategy and one that can help to avoid any of the negatives that come with using Facebook to promote your business or products, but it’s often a slower path that requires more time and effort. Even then, there’s a good chance that you’ll still be met with some hate even if your content is absolutely awesome and universally relevant simply because many people don’t like seeing brands in their feed at all regardless of the content. Don’t fret either way. You can’t make everyone happy. You can, however, minimize the hate by posting valuable content and keeping quality at the top of your guiding principles.

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“Hate” image courtesy of Shutterstock.