New Facebook profile picture size!

Facebook has once again changed the game! Facebook has now changed the size of it's pages profile picture.


Brands like Coca Cola, Ben and Jerry's, Hunters Dry have been designing custom cover images, integrating profile pictures with cover images. But now facebook has changed the size of it's profile pictures for pages. Brand will have to look at redesigning cover photo's to adjust to facebook's new layout.


Here are the old and new specs for custom Facebook cover images and profile pictures.


Old specs
Profile picture: 125x125
Cover image:  851 pixels wide, 315 pixels tall

New Specs: (as of 11/04/2012)
Profile picture: 160x160
Cover image:  851 pixels wide, 315 pixels tall

RSS Feeds: Beginners Guide. Getting Started.

I have recently come to understand what RSS feeds are and why they are a valuable tool to any Social Media Marketer.

RSS feeds help the user stay on top of important information without having to keep going back to their favourite sites. Instead of looking over the website for latest press releases/articles, the information comes to you.

With the help of a RSS feed program such as Feed Reader you can have all your information streams neatly stored in one place. This saves you time,effort and keeps you on top of all the latest news from your favourite websites as they get updated.

Step 1: Download and Install

Download and install Feed Reader

Step 2: Add an RSS feed

Once Feed Reader has been installed it will ask you to choose from a few recommended feeds to get yourself started and get a better understanding of how the program works. 

So go ahead and add a feed or two eg: Gizmodo, Yahoo news, Forbes.com

Step 3: Look for more feeds

Start looking for the RSS feed icon whenever you are on a site that you feel has important/ relevant content on your specific interest. 

Step 4: Add new RSS feeds

Click the RSS feed icon if you wish to add it to your RSS Feed Reader. When you click the RSS button it will provide you with a link that you can copy/paste into your Feed Reader. 

Click: File -> New -> Feed, and then paste the link in the field they provide

Step 5: Watch the information roll in
Now that you have installed Feed Reader and added a few of your favourite website's feeds, you will get all of their latest updates, articles and all the information you need to stay on top of your game.


Did this article clarify RSS feeds for you at all?

Get more real and interactive Twitter followers.

http://manageflitter.com/

I was searching the web for a way to manage my Twitter pages and get more real followers without giving my money to some dodgy website and in return receiving 1000 of the most random unresponsive followers.

I came across a management platform called "Manage Flitter". Manage Flitter is an online program that you can sign into and "Mass Follow" and  "Mass Unfollow" targeted groups of people depending on their area or what they have been tweeting about.

For example. If  I run a twitter page for a Johannesburg company. Using Manage Flitter I would search for people in Johannesburg who have Tweeted about anything relating to the brand.
eg: if you are a sporting goods company you can target people who have recently tweeted about rugby or football. If you are a restaurant then you can target people who have tweeted about food or who are in a specific town.

Manage flitter will then give me a list of people that I can highlight and "Mass Follow". Once you follow those tweeters, some of them will follow in return(as it goes on twitter).

You can install and use "Tweet Deck" to monitor all the new likes and mentions.


The great thing with Manage Flitter is that you can also "Mass Unfollow" tweeters. So after a short while you can log back into Manage Flitter and unfollow anyone who has not followed you back.

After doing that for a few weeks you will start to see a steady rise in your Twitter followers without having to be following a million people.

To mass unfollow people, you will need to pay the fee and upgrade to the pro package. But for the few dollars that it costs you, you can really increase your twitter followers substantially and have them interacting, mentioning and retweeting your epic tweets and messages :P

 More info here: http://manageflitter.com/

Thanks for reading! Did this help you at all?

Facebook Ads: 5 steps to get you started. Real fans in seconds!

Ok so, Facebook ads.

A tool anyone can use to benefit their own or their client's Facebook page/timeline. Facebook ads give you the ability to target fans locally and or internationally. This tool can work for any business or brand in any country anywhere... pretty much. After reading this post you will be able to start your own campaign at: http://www.facebook.com/ads

Basically, you can target fans in your or any geographical location whether it be South Africa, America, the UK etc. and get those people to "like" your Facebook fan page/timeline.

Step 1 : Go to http://www.facbook.com/ads

Go to: http://www.facebook.com/ads and click the little green button in the top right hand corner of the screen

Step 2 : Design Your Advert

After you click the create ad button you get taken to this page. Designing you advert doesn't need to take hours. Get a few images and a few lines of copy to test.

Image:

Your company logo or an image of a pretty girl would work just fine. Create a few different variations to see which images perform better (some won't get clicks at all). Pictures of girls have been known to get lots of clicks and perform rather well.

Copy:
A call to action for the user to like the page is crucial. Try something along the lines of:

"Like" this page if you like <something similar or related to your company/brand>

"Like" this page if you like baking

"Like" this page if you like sports
"Like" this page if you like burgers
"Like" this page if you like heavy metal

these are all very basic, feel free to get wild and do more tests

You don't always need to host a promotion to get people to like the page. Asking an honest question also works very well, not promising anything, and still getting the like.

Step 3 : Targeting

After designing your Facebook ad you must now input the details of your target market.

Age:

Choose the age group that suits your company/brand best.

Interests:
This is a very cool tool that lets you target your target markets other interests. Music, Brands, Actors, TV Shows, DJ's. Play around with that and see which groups respond better.

Connections on Facebook:
Select people who are not yet connected with your page. As time goes on you don't want your ads to be shown to people who have already liked the page.

Total number of targeted fans:
Test anywhere from 25 000 people to 300,000. 

Step 4 : Set your Budget

Campaign budget:

Your budget for ads can be set per day or over a month etc. So take a look at how much you are willing to put aside for your Facebook ads. $2 a day? $100 a day? or $20 a day. It's completely up to you. From my experiences $25 a day can get you a couple of thousand fans over a few weeks

Bid:
Facebook gives you a suggested bid per click, at the bottom of the page.Ask yourself the question... How much am I willing to pay per click? If the ad does well your cost per click can get as low as $0.10. If your ad does not so well then your cost per click could go up to $2.00.

Step 4: Place order

Click the place order button and wait for your ads to be approved. When starting your first campaign, be sure to test a bunch of different images and copy and see what the fans on Facebook respond to the best. Stop the ads that don't work. Duplicate and refine the ones that do work.

Why don't my ad's work?

If your ad gets shown to a bunch of people abut they don't get clicked on, the number of impressions will go up. When impressions go up and no clicks are made, your click through ratio (CTR) starts to decline. When your CTR drops below 0.100% your ads don't get shown as much, or at all. A ratio of 0.200% or 0.250% is awesome

From my experience

There are people industry who sell "likes" for roughly $1.70 a "like" and other people and companies pay that price because they just don't know how it all works.

If you run your own ads you can get very decent prices and a great cost per click and RIO.

The price of my Cost Per Click ads are on average around $0.19 to $0.25 and sometimes $0.30 if you don't keep an eye on it, or if the ad just isn't working properly.

But when you get an ad that really works you can get prices like $0.10 a click. Which is super cheap for authentic real Facebook likes.

In the campaign above I targeted roughly 300,000 people who lived in South Africa and I chose to target a bunch of related interests. The ad did so well that I only had to pay $0.10 a click. Which ended up in very cheap "likes" for my facebook page/timeline

So go to: http://www.facebook.com/ads now and start building up your fanpage/timeline today!

Note: You will need a credit/debit card to pay Facebook for the ads once the campaign has been completed. 

Did this post clarify the idea of Facebook ads for you?

Custom Facebook Landing Tabs for Timelines/Pages: 5 easy steps to get you started

After looking around the web for custom facebook tabs/apps. I put together this 5 step guide to creating Facebook page timeline tabs/apps. This works perfectly with the new Facebook page timeline and can be used to showcase promotions, encourage the users to like the page, and just give your page that professional edge.

Step 1:  Finding tab app

Search "Static HTML: iframe tabs" in facebook. Click it and this page should come up. Click the "add static HTML to a page" button.

Step 2 : Adding tab to page

Select your page from the list that appears. Once you have chosen you page, click "Add static HTML: iframe tabs" 

 Step 3: Finding your custom tab

On you fanpage timeline you will now see the new tab you just installed on your page. Click on the STAR to edit your tab.

 Step 4: Editing your tab

Image embed code:

<img src="YOURIMAGEURL" />

iframe embed code 

<iframe frameborder="0" height="1000" src="YOURWEBSITEURL"; align="center" width="510" scrolling="Auto"></iframe>

Depending on your level of skill you can either embed a mini website or an image as your Facebook timeline landing tab. Click save changes and then hit preview. If it's not looking proper, click "back" and make sure your code is right.

 Step 5 : Bask in the glory

Now you can embed anything you like into your Facebook page timeline. Be creative and make that page look like the next best thing. Go wild

Did this clarify things for you at all?