Facebook Pages – How To Add A Facebook Fan Box To Your WordPress Blog

July 10, 2009 by ian david chapman 627 Comments

Get More Fans For Your Facebook Fan Page

Yesterday Facebook released a new application that allows you to place a Facebook Connect widget on your website that links directly to your Facebook fan page

This article will show you how easy it is to add a Facebook Fan box to your blog or website. What this means is that you will be able to attract more Fans to your Facebook page and your prospective fans will instantly see your stream and your other Fans and get some idea about what type of content you will be sharing

Set Up A Facebook Page

You need to have a Facebook Fan page in order to use this application, just scroll to the bottom of your facebook profile and click on “advertising” and then select the “pages” tab and then select “Create A Page”, for more information on how to create a Facebook Page check out this blog post on AllFacebook – “how to create a Facebook fan page to attract millions of fans” check out Mari Smiths blog post “how to create and promote a Facebook fan page”

Once you have your fan page set up you can create your fan widget by going to your admin panel, from your page you just click the link Edit Page link that is below your Fan Page Image/Logo

Select “Add Fan Box” Box from your Admin Panel

Now select your Fan page from the drop down menu and facebook will show you a preview of what your Fan Box will look like. If you want to make it smaller just uncheck the boxes that say “include stream” and “include fans” (this might be necessary if you want to improve the load time of your blog or website or if you are limited for space)

Copy The Java Script Code

Now select all the code by highlighting it (CTRL A, CTRL C (pc) CMD A, CMD C (mac)) and copy it to your clip board. If you are a techie and want to find out a bit more about customizing your widget click on “advanced options” and you will be taken to Facebook developers where they have detailed instructions on how to add a fan box

Go to your blog and log into the admin section, for this example I am using wordpress but the technique should be similar on any other platform

Add A New Text Widget

From your dashboard , select appearance and then select “Widgets”

Now create a new text widget.

Depending on which version of WordPress you are using this will be slightly different, if wordpress 2.8 just drag and drop a text widget to one of your sidebars and place it where you want it to appear. If your blog theme is enabled with footer widgets you might want to place it there as Javascript and Facebook connect are notorious for slowing down your blog load times

Paste The Code Into Your Widget

Now paste the code from Facebook into your text widget and remeber to click Save

Now Go And See What It Looks Like!

That’s it all done, wasn’t too painful was it? All you have to do now is go to your site and see what it looks like

Advantage Of having A Facebook Fan Box

The main advantage of having a Facebook fan box is that your visitors can become Fans immediatly as long as they are already signed into Facebook. Before this it was a two step process where you had to take people to your Fan page and then convice them to click on the “become a fan” button

What I like even more is that I can see immediatly what content is being shared on a Fan page and who the other members are. All the links are clickable so some marketers might say this is leak away from having visitors staying on your blog. I personally disagree. I think people are more likely to come back to your blog, engage with your content and be able to quickly scan your fanpage stream without having to visit Facebook. If they do decide to leave you have some control over the links that they will visit.

Getting Your Community Connected

The advantages of having your community connected with each other are immense. The more networked your Fans are the more effect any fan interactions will have on facebooks newsfeed. More people will see if their friends are commenting or liking the content that you publish in your stream. Your aim is to create and own an integrated network of Fans where information and news spreads rapidly and your fan page is the centre and hub that this revolves around.

If your blog is hosted on WordPress.com

A number of readers have discovered that it’s not possible to add this widget to free wordpress.com blogs. This is mainly due to a restriction on allowing Javascript code to be placed on their servers. If this is the case the only solution I can suggest if you want to have your own Facebook Fan Box is to move your blog over to WordPress.org and purchase your own domain name and hosting. You can buy a domain name for $10 from Godaddy and get cheap hosting from Hostgator

Share This Post

If you have enjoyed this post, please do me a favor and share it on Facebook with all your friends, they will definitely thank you for it. Please leave any comments or questions below, I would love to hear your feedback.

My Fan Page : http://www.facebook.com/idchapman

My Facebook Profile : http://www.facebook.com/iandavidchapman

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Filed Under: blogging, facebook, Facebook For Business, facebook tips, social media marketing, Uncategorized, Viral Marketing, web 3.0, wordpress Tagged With: facebook, facebook fan box, facebook fan page, facebook page, how to add a fan box

Facebook Fundamentals : What’s The Difference Between A Personal Profile, A Group And A Business Page

June 23, 2009 by ian david chapman 43 Comments

Confused

One of the main problems I face when teaching clients about Facebook is explaining the differences between A Personal Profile, a Facebook Group and a Facebook Page. I’m also often asked which is better, a Group or a Page. In this article I hope to address this and end any potential confusion

Friend, Fan or Member?

To begin with lets just define the terms before we proceed, a Personal Profile has Friends, a Group has Members and a Business Page has Fans. As long as you stick to this terminology you should not go wrong. The confusion starts if you begin referring to your personal profile as your Facebook page or your Fans as the members of your Group

Size Restrictions and Messaging Ability

A Personal Profile is currently restricted to a maximum of 5000 friends, you can only direct message your friends in groups of 20 people. A Facebook Group can have an unlimited amount of members and you can send direct messages to your Group until it reaches 5000 members. A Facebook Business Page can have an unlimited number of Fans but has no direct messaging ability. You can only send messages to your Fans as notifications. Unfortunately most Facebook users never check their notifications

News Feed Access

Your Facebook Profile has direct access to the newsfeed, though status updates, sharing links, posting photos and videos and importing notes. A Facebook group now has restricted access to the newsfeed. Activities will only show up under the highlights on the right hand side of your home page and not in the main stream. A Facebook Business Page has direct access to the newsfeed in much the same way a Personal Profile does. One of the reasons Facebook Pages are becoming so popular right now is because of the viral effects that this produces

Commercial Activity

Facebooks terms of service directly stipulate that you are prohibited from engaging in commercial activity for your Personal Profile

You will not send or otherwise post unauthorized commercial communications to users

This restriction also applies to groups and they seem to be continually increasing their vigilance with regards to unwitting users who break these rules.

Facebook want all commercial activity to take place from Business Pages and they want you to pay them for the rights to advertise to their users. This doesn’t mean you can’t engage in indirect marketing from your profile or group, it just means you need to be much more careful and adopt conversational marketing tactics rather than direct sales pitches.

Which Is Better: A Facebook Page or a Facebook Group?

There is no easy answer to this question, Groups and Pages have different functions and it totally depends on what you want to achieve. For a good overview check out John Haydens recent article – Facebook Groups and Pages – Features, Benefits And Killer Tips

In my personal opinion the recent updates and changes in Facebooks site design has made Business Pages by far the best option for any business or brand wanting to increase their exposure

a study by the search engine journal came to this conclusion

Pages are generally better for a long-term relationships with your fans, readers or customers;
Groups are generally better for hosting a (quick) active discussion and attracting quick attention.

The fact that Facebook has restricted a Groups ability to access the newsfeed means they have much less viral potential now. The main benefit of a group is your ability to direct message your members and the ability to create closed and secret groups. Mari Smith wrote a comprehensive article on this subject last November – Facebook Groups vs Facebook Pages – which is best? – that still has some excellent information although since the recent changes in Facebook her conclusions need some revision. Jessica Lee from Inside Facebook also gave 4 reasons why marketers should choose Facebook pages over Facebook groups. Also worth reading is Howard Greensteins article on Mashable – Facebook Pages vs Group

I hope this article has cleared up some of the confusion concerning Facebook profiles, Facebook Groups and Facebook Pages, if you enjoyed this post please retweet on Twitter or Share on Facebook by pressing one of the buttons below

Filed Under: facebook, social media marketing, Viral Marketing

If You Could Message 1 Million People What Would You Say?

April 19, 2009 by ian david chapman 13 Comments

One Million Followers On Twitter

This week on Twitter Ashton Kutcher reached 1 million followers in a dramatic race to beat CNN to this milestone. Oprah Winfrey also started tweeting and in her first day amassed over 200,000 followers.

In this article I want to explore the power of influence and ask a question that on the surface seems quite simple but when you look closer it reflects something deeper and more intriguing. Your answers can show you your deeper motivations and reflect what you are likely to give and receive from the world

Imagine if you had the chance to send a message to 1 million people what would you say.Would you be self serving or would you use your message to benefit others

Inspired To Greatness

If I had the ability to message 1 million people I would probably send them a link to something inspirational or to something that would shift their perspective for a few moments, I would make sure that whatever blog post or video I sent them to had a way for them to send that same message out to all their friends and I would show people how they could send their own similar message to the world that had the potential to go viral

The benefit of sharing something valuable and inspiring rather than asking for something for yourself is that the good feelings that people generate will be associated with your name for a long time into the future. If you ask for a handout or go begging for clicks like so many people seem to do on Twitter you are just acting in a self serving way. The reason Oprah Winfrey got so huge is because she is authentic and genuine and committed to helping people and serving her community, people all over the world love her for these very reasons

Judging A Book By Its cover

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY[/youtube]

This is one of those inspirational videos that came to me in the past week, I watched it several times because it reminded me that anyone, no matter who they are or what they look like has the potential to touch the hearts of millions of people around the globe. Susan Boyle has now become the most viral video on the internet with over 40 million views.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf All The Time

On Twitter if you shout into cyberspace with a self serving attitude some people will certainly hear you and respond. If you continue to shout all the time demanding attention, your response rate will decline and your message will be ignored just like the boy who cried wolf. You can fool people once but you can’t fool people on a long term basis.

Attention Is An Earned Privilege

Only by building a Twitter following and adding value to your network will you earn the privilege of your followers attention. If everyone else is shouting how can you cut through the noise. Even if you have the right tools, you still need loyal followers who will share your message even further

Getting Your Message Out To The World

If you had 1 million Twitter followers and you could send a message to the world what would you say ? How would you use that power of communication?

Would it be self serving or would it be a message of hope, inspiration and joy? I would love to hear your comments, send me an @ message on twitter @iandavidchapman or leave a comment on this blog post or on my Facebook note

Please Share Some of Your Inspiration

Feel free to share some links to your favorite inspirational YouTube videos and blog posts lets make this blog post a cool resource

If you enjoyed this article and want to tweet it to your friends click on the image below

Filed Under: Changing The World, Twitter, Viral Marketing Tagged With: ashton kutcher, oprah, susan boyle, tweet later, Twitter

How To Add Facebook Connect To Your Blog

March 19, 2009 by ian david chapman 106 Comments

The Easy Way To Integrate The Viral Power Of Facebook Into Your Blog

This blog post will show you how you can integrate the viral power of Facebook Connect with your wordpress blog without touching a single bit of code. Its done by using a neat plugin created by Spanish blogger Javier Reyes

Most people get put off by mentions of API keys and messing with the code on their webpages. Luckily I stumbled upon this cool plugin that does all the work for you. If you follow each step carefully you will be up and running in no time

Even if you don’t have a wordpress blog, make sure you scroll to the bottom of this post where I will be explaining exactly how I will be using Facebook connect to initiate social activity and get immense viral exposure.

Click here to download the Facebook Connect WordPress plugin

http://www.sociable.es/facebook-connect/

Take a few minutes to watch the tutorial video that explains the features of this plugin

The next video gives an explanation of how to install this plugin and set up your API code

After you have downloaded the plugin to your computer you need to go to your blog and upload the file into your wp-content/plugins/ folder, you can do this by FTP or by going into the backend of your website if you have CPanel hosting.

Now login to the admin panel of your wordpress blog, I am using Wordpess 2.7 in this example, your screen might look slightly different if you are using earlier versions. Go to your plugins and activate the Facebook connector plugin

Now in your settings menu open Facebook connector you should have this screen visible

Get Your Facebook API Code

This plugin is an easy way for you to create your own Facebook application unique to your blog. In order for it to function you will need a Facebook developers account and obtain your Facebbook API key and Facebook API secret. These are just codes so Facebook can give you access to the user data that will be transferred to your blog. In a new browser window login to your Facebook account and scroll down to the very bottom of your profile page.

Now enter the name of your new application, agree to the terms of service and click save.

Now you have been given your API Key and API Secret, you need to copy and paste these numbers into your wordpress plugin settings

Now open the Connect tab and enter the URL of your blog.

Scroll to the bottom of the page and click save

In another browser window, copy and paste your API key and API secret into your Facebook Connector Options; check the boxes to allow full functionality on your blog

Scroll down to create the message template; if you want to customize the messages you can edit the text in the boxes

After you have clicked create template the plugin should have two yellow boxes at the top indicating that everything is now functioning

You can now place a widget on your sidebar so your blog visitors can login and interact with your blog. Any comments they make will be posted directly to their Facebook profile

drag and drop the widget to your required position and adjust its settings

Your Facebook connect plugin should now be fully functioning. Go to your blogs homepage and check everything is working

The sidebar widget should look something like this

Click on the Connect with Facebook button and start interacting

Now you can invite all your friends to come and visit your blog and more importantly all your visitors can invite all their friends too

Social Interaction Goes Viral

What does all this social activity mean, and how is it going to help you? As an example I am going to see how much activity I can generate from this blog post using a variety of means. Immediately after I publish this post I am going to go to go and invite 16 of my friends to come and visit my blog post using the friend connect widget.

I am going to ask those 16 people to invite 16 of their friends to come and see this post too. I hope to start a viral chain reaction that will impact into Facebooks newsfeed.

Syndication

My blog is syndicated to my Twitter account and to my Facebook profile so as soon as it gets published a tweet will get sent and the full RSS feed will be imported as a Facebook note. The next day I am going to go to my Facebook note and tag a further 30 people in this note. I am going to ask people to give it a thumbs up or to press the share button

It’s a fine balance when doing this kind of thing, Only people who have wordpress blogs will be really interested in this post, but I hope other people will want to see the real viral power of Friend Connect in action

Using Groups

Once I have some impact in Facebooks newsfeed I am going to send a message to my Facebooks groups, inviting them to learn about Facebook Connect. I hope that some of my other friends who have big groups will do same.

Become An Early Adopter

There is a huge advantage to becoming an early adopter of the community building tools like Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect. You have the potential to take your friends with you wherever you go on the web. So if you see a great blog post you can leave a comment and it will go straight into your newsfeed for your friends to see. Bloggers can expect more traffic to be circulating back and forth from social sites like Facebook opening up a huge potential of viral social interaction.

How Viral Is Facebook?

With your help we can find out; only by testing new strategies can we discover what their limitations are and how much exposure they bring. I will be tracking the results and monitoring the newsfeed and comments on this blog. Of course I am taking a big risk because I might end up annoying some people, I am willing to do this because I see there is a huge potential available and I love sharing with my online community

What You Can Do Now

1. If you are on my blog http://www.iandavidchapman.com you can sign in to Facebook Connect and leave a comment
2. If you are on Facebook reading this you can leave a comment either in the newsfeed or at the bottom of this note. If you like the post click the share button at the top. or give it a thumbs up. You can visit my blog to see the plugin in action by
clicking on this link http://www.iandavidchapman.com

3. If you have a wordpress blog you can follow this tutorial and get started right away. For those who are technically challenged and don’t know how to add new plugins get your webmaster to do all this for you. Implementation is the key. Come back and leave a comment in this thread so other people reading this post can visit your blog and share it with their friends.

4. If you have any friends who have a wordpress blog or might be interested in Facebook Connect you can invite them to come and see this post, by clicking on the Invite Your Friends button on the Connect Widget

5. If you are Google Friend Connect user why not join my site at the same time. Feel free to leave a comment in the social bar at the bottom of the page.

Thanks for taking the time to read this article, I hope you got some benefit from it and choose to help me in my experiment to prove that Facebook Connect is worth taking seriously. If you experience any problems with this plugin please contact the developers and read all the comment threads carefully, making sure you have completed all the requires steps.

Ian David Chapman

Filed Under: facebook, Popular Posts, social media marketing, Viral Marketing, web 3.0 Tagged With: blog, blogging, facebook, facebook connect, plugin, Viral Marketing, viral visibility, wordpress, wordpress plugin

Facebook Groups – 10 Steps To Make Your Facebook Group Go Viral

October 21, 2008 by ian david chapman 1,000 Comments

Are You A Lion Or A Sheep?
A Facebook group needs strong leadership and clear direction if you want it to succeed. If you act like a sheep, the herd might follow you for a moment and then lose interest or move in a different direction.

Launching a successful Facebook group is a definite art. If you are thinking of starting a new group or already have an existing group, here are a few essential pointers to get you going viral and effortlessly attract new members.

1) Choose a Killer Title For Your Group Name
Without a memorable name that is both colorful and sticky your group will fail right from the beginning. It has to be compelling and dynamic and press peoples emotional hot buttons. For Ideas look at the groups that have grown to over 1000 members and compare the names to those that that are still stuck at around 150 members. If your name is boring most people automatically assume your group will be too.

2) Pick A Graphic That Captures The Essence Of Your Group
A picture speaks a thousand words, does the image you choose convey the essence of your group. Get a striking image and then use photo shop to add some text on top of the picture. Make sure it can still be read when it is reduced in size. Many groups make their Logo much longer than its wide it then becomes a full banner advertisement and takes up more space when its listed on the group page giving it more prominence.

3) Leverage Your Friends
You can’t grow a group huge without the help of other people. Groups go viral because people invite their friends to join. If your initial network hasn’t reach 500 people you will have a hard time getting enough momentum for your group to take off. In that case find another friend and launch together. Make them a group admin too. Its much more fun launching a group with several people than having to do all the work on your own.

4) Target Your Initial Members
Having powerful and influential friends as core members of the group is vital. Hand select the people who you want to be there and send them personal invitations. Make them feel special. You need to choose people who are dynamic on Facebook or Twitter, people who are famous, people who have huge followings, people who have large networks and people who are already experts and leaders within your niche. Having these people as initial members instantly gives your group credibility. Honor those who first join by making them officers and ask them what title they would like under their name.

5) Create A Whisper Campaign
Tell your friends about the group in an indirect way long before you are going to launch, hint about it in blog posts, in teleseminars and in wall posts and in all your communications with your potential core members. Get them excited and they will start to talk about your new group even before you open the doors. Get your favorite bloggers to write an article about your group. Start a discussion using Facebook Notes and make your group the logical solution to a problem that people might face. Create the content for your group before you launch and tell people what you are doing.

6) Turn Your Group Launch Into An Event
By turning your group launch into an event you automatically stand out and get noticed. Plan it the same way you would a big party, You want all your guests to arrive at the same time so that the dance floor is packed. People won’t join if they turn up to your group page and find a cold empty room with no music and no refreshments.

Use Facebook Events and hold a teleseminar to publicize it and/or write Facebook notes and tag all your initial members, get them interacting with each other and keep sending them back to the group page to post on the wall and participate in the discussions.

Groups are not just confined to a single location, they spill out all over the place. Like a crowded house party that ends up with lots of people milling about on the front lawn. Anyone who drives down the street will always know which house to go to.

7) Include An Irresistible Offer
Offer an incentive for people to join, give away a free ebook, mp3 recording or video straight away.

Promise to supply more exclusive content in the future for those who join the group early and become active participants. Identify those special members by signing them up to your optin list or joining your Fan page.

Focus on adding value and encourage your group members to share their own talents. Your group will become a valuable resource instead of a derelict notice board for spammers

8)Aim For Viral Visibility
The more activity you generate the bigger your viral foot print will be in Facebook’s newsfeed.

You want to get your group to 500 members as quickly as possible so that it maintains its growth velocity. After this point it will hit critical mass and continue to grow on its own.

Stimulate activity on the group wall and discussion board, ask questions and continue to supply fresh content on a regular basis. You want you members to keep returning and posting within the group.

9)Advertise Your Group
If you are holding a party you need to put up some posters and give out flyers. Use your status updates wisely; be creative, use humor, and learn about link baiting. Attract members from a whole range of social media platforms, like Twitter, YouTube, Ustream, Friend Feed, Ning. Advertise in other similar groups and online forums. Get your group members to help you and reward those who put in the most effort by helping them to promote themselves using your group as a platform. Self promotion before contributing value should be discouraged.

10) Launch Strategically And In Several Stages
Have a clearly defined and mapped out strategy. Create a revolving door Pre launch, launch, post launch, relaunch. Sequence. After initial activity your group may need restimulating. By holding regular events you keep your group in the public eye and your members will continue to feel connected. Get your active members to participate in your relaunch process, and make it a win win situation for all involved

If you have enjoyed this post, you might want to consider subscribing to my full RSS feed

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http://www.twitter.com/iandavidchapman

Filed Under: facebook, membership sites, Popular Posts, social media marketing, Viral Marketing Tagged With: conversational marketing, Facebook Groups, Facebook Strategies Guide, Group Launch, ian david chapman, social media marketing, Viral Marketing, viral strategies

Conversational Marketing – How To Stand Out From The Crowd

October 11, 2008 by ian david chapman 4 Comments

Stand Out From The Crowd

Every now and the I meet someone who really stands out from the crowd, someone who is thinking outside of the box and is interested in pushing the boundaries of what is possible.

I get really creative when I meet people like this, their enthusiasm is infectious and makes me realise what potentials I am capable of achieving.

Understanding Facebook Strategy

While I was completing the Facebook Groups section of my Facebook Strategies Guide I got a message from a new friend asking me to join his group. I get these kind of messages every day and usually I just ignore them. The reason I paid attention to this person was because he had adopted the exact strategy I had just been writing about and had followed it to the letter.

A Select Group Of People

I was interested because I pay attention to synchronicity like this, and when I checked out his group I could see he had done his preparations very well. There were only a few members but already it had a lot of good content and some interesting discussions. He wasn’t just inviting anyone he was inviting a select group of people who would appreciate what he was trying to teach

Promoting An Event Launch

His group was set up to promote his new book that teaches event launch strategies, I clicked through to his website and that was where I got the biggest shock. It was right on the cutting edge with a very informative video, stunning flash graphics and a cool contact/follow widget. I decided I had to find out a bit more about who was behind all this so I opted in to his list and then sent him a few personal message and we started building a relationship

Pay Close Attention

I would advise all of my friends to pay attention to what this guy is going to do in the next month. He’s already started to make some waves and get himself noticed with some great Facebook Notes on a wide range of topics. I am now one of the privileged few who gets to see this launch from the inside and I will be paying very close attention and assessing the results. I could probably write 3 killer blog posts just from the half hour conversation I had with him on Skype yesterday.

Invitation Only

If you want to find out more and get an invitation to the group please message me on Facebook and I’ll send you a link. Or you can go to my profile and you’ll probably find it hidden on my wall somewhere.

This group is really only for those who are serious about learning how to use Social Media to build viral synergistic networks. Synergistic networks are built from personal connections and solid relationships.

Unwritten Rules

This type of network responds when you ask it to do something and its one of the most valuable assets you can ever become a part of. Its not something you can ever own. If you abuse it’s power and break any of the unwritten rules you will find yourself excluded and left out in the cold. On the periphery and away from the place where the main action is taking place.

Laser Targeted

This isn’t going to be a typical launch where you send out generalised impersonal messages and spam all your contacts using a shotgun splatter approach. That sort of thing can be left to the lazy affiliate marketers and amateur MLM newbies. Being laser targeted and selective means that you expend less energy and get much better results.

Come Along For The Ride

Regardless of your particular niche there is definitely going to be something that you can learn.You can watch from the sidelines or you can join the party, it’s your choice

Understanding the principles and adopting a strategic approach is whats most important in any launch, as well as learning the right ways to engage people in conversations.

Follow Me

If you want to know what I am up to and ensure you get to observe things as they happen be sure to follow me on Twitter if you haven’t done so already

http://www.twitter.com/iandavidchapman

Follow me and I’ll follow you.

Filed Under: email persuasion, social media marketing, Viral Marketing Tagged With: conversational marketing, event marketing, facebook strategy, launch strategy, Viral Marketing

Rich Schefren – A Viral Master Who Can Predict The Future?

September 24, 2008 by ian david chapman 1 Comment

A Launch Like No Other

Last week Rich Schefren spent 26 hours live on upstream TV to promote his latest free report, The Uncertainty Syndrome and his new G.P.S, (Guided Profit System) coaching program. In this article I will analyse some of his marketing tactics that he has adopted for this launch, and briefly summarise the main points in the report.

I would urge anyone to check out Rich Schefrens material. He is known as the Guru’s Guru and is a student of world renowned business advisor and marketing wizard Jay Abraham.

A Viral Master Who Can Predict The Future

Rich is a master of Viral Marketing and his previous reports like The Internet Business Manifesto and Attention Age Doctrine have become landmarks in the online marketing world as he carefully analysed and pinpointed the trends and shifts in the rapidly changing online world, and the steps businesses need to take in order to respond and adapt or find themselves left behind.

Timing Is Everything

Rich has left enough time for the recent Stompernet launch to quiet down giving him the platform to grab everyone’s attention. With so many people jaded by the constant stream of product launches his 26 hour Marathon was something a bit different that made him stand head and shoulders above the crowd.

Build The Excitement

His report went live at 12.00noon EST, He used a countdown timer on his Blog to build anticipation and anyone who follows him on Twitter will have seen his tweets that were intended to tease and titilate us and get us in the right mindset to consume his next offering. His friends at Stompernet also mailed to their list so you can be sure that anyone who has expressed an interest were well primed about this report.

Over Deliver On Bonuses And Create An Irresistible Offer

Rich has been using Mike Filsaimes strategy for virally spreading his report. By offering free bonuses for each friend you invite. He is making an irresistible offer to get people to tell their friends.

Build Credibility

On Opening the report you are faced with a 3 page introduction from marketing heavyweight Jay Abraham. Rich has always been an advocate of piggy backing and here he uses it again by getting his mentor to introduce him and build his own credibility. Not that he really needs any more building up. Rich’s client list is like a who’s who of the internet marketing world.

Amplify The Pain

The next 8 pages are “amplifying your pain”. Here he is trying to connect with an entrepreneurs frustrations. By showing he understands their problems and that he has the solution. Remember Rich is ultimately trying to sell a coaching program he needs to connect deeply with those who need his help.

Leisure Phobia – Are You A Sufferer?

Rich nails some of the main problems that those who run their own business face and their inability to disconnect with their work and give attention to other areas of their life

Create Your Own Terminology

Leisure Phobia is the new term that he has coined. Rich is famous for inventing new terminology and words that will always link back to him as their originator. Rich is again establishing himself as A Maven To Pay Attention To.

Identify The Real Issues

Page 12 Introduces the main concept of his report, that the actual success of your business is determined by the constraints you place around it.

“The ONLY way to turn your potential for success into actual success is to blow away the constraints in your business that are actually blocking your path”

Rich also points to an interesting truth that “The pain that a constraint causes is rarely felt at the point of that constraint but somewhere else in the process”

Rich breaks these constraints down into 3 main category’s

Errors in thinking, Errors in Procedures and Self imposed constraints.

Offer The Solution To The Problem

The solutions that he offers are termed 7 silver bullets and form the remainder of his report.

Do it wrong fast – Action Creates Clarity

Fast and Frequent Intelligence – Avoid Flying Blind

Learn to view your business as one large system – Avoid Linear Thinking

Use Timesavers to instantly double your profits – Avoid Inefficient work styles

Create a worldwide network of A list players – don’t be alone and lost in a networked world.

Embrace the awesome power of social psychology marketing – avoid outdated one way marketing

Rip The Lid Off Your Buyers Bottlenecks

Sell On The Back End

Rich has built his multimillion dollar business without any front end product. He uses his free reports and other marketing techniques to convince people to join his coaching program. Rich freely share for 26 Hours everything he has to offer and then follows up with emails and more exciting offers that

Showing The Human Side

Everything Rich does is carefully planned to reveal the human side of his business. He gives you a behind the scenes view of his office, and you even get to meet his wife and two daughters emphasising that fact that he is a family man. He’s also not doing this for the money, he already has plenty, he is motivated because he is passionate about what he does and loves to help others succeed.

Office Arguments

He even tells you about arguments that took place in his office when his staff were deciding what should be included in the final version of the manuscript. Everything is carefully orchestrated to build rapport to the point where you really feel like you know, like and trust this guy

Viral Visibility is Key

Rich makes his reports so good and reveals such quality information that they go viral straight away. Anyone who has read any of his work will know what I am talking about, it’s the sort of thing you want to be the first to tell your friends so they will thank you for putting them onto it.

Rich Makes Himself Available

Rich did an amazing thing at the beginning of this launch, he went live on ustream TV for 26 hours and gave a constant stream of quality advice and business coaching to all who had tuned in. Not only was he showing just what he had to offer by revealing the depth and breadth of his experience he was also building powerful relationships with all his potential future clients; Over 27,000 people participated in this monumental event and they averaged 1000 viewers at any one time.

Are You Competitive?

Rich also ran a competition on his blog, giving away a free scholarship to his coaching program. Not only does this force people to actually read his report and start applying its principles, it further increases the viral buzz and allows him to perform one of the essential tasks that Jeff Walker Identifies in his Product Launch Formula and that is to survey you customers and ask them what their main problems are. You then use this feedback to tailor your product and sales letter to directly address the issues that seem most prevalent he has already received over 400 entries to his competition at the time of writing.

Feedback Formula

Rich insists on feedback from his clients to constantly improve his services, he has applied this principle throughout the whole launch process and really builds those personal relationships even to the point of emailing all those who make comments on his blog.

Teleseminar With The Wizard

With Less than 48 hours to the opening of his coaching program, his final offering is a teleseminar with Marketing Wizard Jay Abraham, one of Rich’s teachers and personal mentors. Make sure you book your place as it is likely to fill up fast, Grab Your Spot Here

If you have enjoyed this article you can find a lot of other similar great resources on my Blog, http://www.iandavidchapman.com/blog

You can also follow me on twitter – http://www.twitter.com/iandavidchapman for my latest updates, facebook tips and marketing strategies

Filed Under: sales tactics, social media marketing, Viral Marketing Tagged With: guided profit system, jay abraham, product launch, rich schefren, strategic profits, the entrepreneurial emergency, uncertainty sysndrome

Who Is The Man Behind “The Secret”?

September 16, 2008 by ian david chapman 2 Comments

The Real Law Of Attraction

For all those who are interested in the Law Of Attraction, have you ever wondered how it became so popular and how it managed to infiltrate the hearts and minds of people all over the world? How did the movie “The Secret” manage to spread its message so far and wide?

A Marketing Genius

A month ago when I first discovered Teet Deck for managing my Twitter profile I began using it to find new and interesting people to follow. One of the those I stumbled upon is a guy called Dan Hollings. I suspect that many of you will not have heard of him before, but I am sure you have been influenced by his work

Dan Hollings is …

“the internet strategist behind the smash hit movie “The Secret,” considered by many as the most successful internet launch of its kind. “

“An internet marketing, micro-blogging and mobile marketing strategist. Dan has consulted for celebrities, talk show hosts, NY Times best selling authors, world renowned entrepreneurs, and companies both large and small “

He is also the brains behind Twitter Split, an innovative way to recycle your twitter traffic.

The Best Twitter Secrets Ever

For the first 10 days in September he has launched ” 100 Twittin Secrets“, and spread them all over the Internet. I have been using Twitter for 4 months but I have never really understood or utilised its full potential until I began reading some of Dan’s Twitter secrets. If only I had these when I first got started

Why Is He Giving This Away For Free?

I was also interested in observing why he was giving away such great quality information for free, there is no sign up and no optin required. These are not your usual Twitter tips consisting of a list of popular twitter applications and tools, these are fully fledged strategies and detailed explanations showing you how to use Twitter in ways you have never imagined. They take you from beginner to black belt and even the most experienced twitter will find something of value if you take the time to read them all.

Winner Of The Underdog Blogger Competition

As part of his promotion Dan ran a competition for bloggers entitled “Underdog Blogger” I decided to enter my blog and was chosen as a winner after convincing him that my Blog deserved to get exposure to a wider audience and also benefit from the extra traffic. My prize will be to host one of his Twitter tips on my Blog.

Going Viral On A Massive Scale

I believe Dan’s underlying strategy is to go viral on a massive scale with these Twitter tips. He could easily have turned them into a book and made it into a bestseller but by giving them away for free he is teaching more people how to use Twitter, educating them about just what a powerful marketing tool it can become if used in the right way.

Back End Products

He has several of his own Twitter services that he will be cashing in on so you can be sure he will be rewarded quite nicely on the back end. He is also getting people like me to recommend him, spreading his information, while building up his own Twitter following. I have also learned a lot of tricks and tips just by watching what sites and services he uses so while you are reading the tips and applying them for yourselves, be sure to take your own notes and bookmark some of the places you will end up visiting.

Sharing With My Friends

I always believe in sharing good information with my friends so to all of you who are reading this I urge you to go and check out Dan’s Twitter secrets, I promise you that you won’t be disappointed. Go and read at least one every day for the next month and I can guarantee that if you just apply 1/10th of what he suggests you will get a lot more followers on Twitter and you will have a very powerful tool at your disposal should you wish to go deeper. I am going to be diving in an exploring a lot of these techniques so you can also watch my own progress.

A Small Favour

For those of you who are reading this on Facebook I would like to ask you a favour.

If you think these Twitter tips are any good please come back to this note and leave a comment. If you think your other Facebook friends might benefit from seeing them too, scroll to the top of the page and press the share button and this note will be posted to your profile.

You can follow me on Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/iandavidchapman

You can follow Dan on Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/dhollings

You can check out 100 Twittin’ Secrets by clicking this link

Filed Under: social media marketing, Twitter, Viral Marketing Tagged With: microblogging, Twitter, twitter secrets, twitter tips

Gary Vaynerchuck Pulls No Punches – P.H.C.C.

September 9, 2008 by ian david chapman Leave a Comment

A Social Media Maven

If you haven’t heard of Gary Vaynerchuck then you can’t have spent much time on the internet. Gary is a social media maven who has risen to fame and fortune with his winelibraryTV video blog and is one of the hardest working people you can imagine. Gary has built his brand and his loyal following on his devotion to his fans. He advocates giving and giving and then more giving. He answers every email personally which can sometimes take him up to 12 hours a day. (Glen Crosier wrote a great note about this subject a couple of weeks ago – How Much Time Should You Invest in One on One Relationships ?)

Gary Pulls No Punches

I have become a regular viewer of his video blog at http://garyvaynerchuk.com he is a guy to watch because he is a true expert on social media and knows how to effectively leverage his position and branding power after putting in years of effort and hard work. He’s down to earth, unpretentious and brutally honest; renowned for his straight talking at breakneck speed. Gary pulls no punches and tells it like it is.

Gary and Noah

My Facebook friend Noah ‘StJohn did an interview with him a few days ago and if you are quick you might still get a chance to hear it. Check out http://www.garyandnoah.com/. Gary had Noah in stitches with his razor sharp humour.

Gary Likes Acronyms – P.H.C.C.

Gary’s has summarised his philosophy in 4 letters P.H.C.C

Patience, Hustle, Content and Community

“Patience, success don’t come over night, it takes time to build a business and establish a brand

Hustle for the monetising, email advertisers and ask them to promote you

Content , if there is substance behind it people will respect it – do what you know best and are passionate about If you don’t have the goods then you are going to be exposed eventually

Community – give, give and give some more, answer every email, follow every lead, shake every hand”

My Own Personal Lessons

I am learning these lessons and appreciate Gary’s advice. I realise I need to do a bit more hustling. A lot more hard work is needed. Getting the right systems in place will be my focus over the coming months. I am very excited about my prospects for the coming year and look forward to working wih all the wonderful people I have met online.

On The Cutting Edge

Facebook and other social media sites have given me a platform where I can communicate my Ideas to a much wider audience than I ever thought possible. A vision to change the world can be brought closer to fruition when you discover that you are not the only one who thinks in this way. Our Facebook community is right on the cutting edge and we have the tools at our fingertips to get our message out there.

New Opportunities

Every day I am given more and more opportunities, I have people coming to me and sharing their ideas, asking to work with me and I am learning to leverage other peoples talents which frees up more of my own time.

How Do You Measure Up?

How do you measure up when you apply Gary’s P.H.C.C formula to your business and online activities are you ticking all the boxes or are there areas where you could improve. Let me know by leaving a comment below.

And don’t forget to go and listen to Gary and Noah’s Interview its time well spent – http://www.garyandnoah.com

If you want to stay up to date with what is happening make sure you subscribe to my full RSS feed on my blog – http://www.iandavidchapman.com.

I always tag a few of my friends when I write these notes because they enjoy taking part in the discussions. If I have missed you out please don’t be offended, leave a comment and I will tag you.

You can also follow me on twitter – http://www.twitter.com/iandavidchapman for the latest updates. Follow me and I’ll follow you in return.

Filed Under: social media marketing, Viral Marketing

Facebook Notes – 10 Steps To Writing A Winning Post

August 19, 2008 by ian david chapman 42 Comments

Facebook Notes – A New Strategy To Get Viral Visibility

Many of you have probably observed the increase in the number of Facebook Notes that are floating around these days. This has happened since the introduction of the new look Facebook. More people are becoming aware of the potential to gain massive viral exposure by writing notes and participating in discussions . They have also been responsible for bringing many people much closer together and creating a real sense of community

Build Solid Relationships

These are much more than just social events, or blog posts to get traffic or publicity, most people who are taking part are actively using Facebook for business and by exposing themselves with such honesty and transparency they are building real connections and solid relationships with all the other participants.

What is most interesting is the depth that some of the discussions are reaching and when posed with a stimulating question or issue to address the original post acts as a springboard to dive into and explore each topic.

Increase The Value Of Each Note

The value of the Note increases as more people add their own personal insights.The way Facebook have structured the system it forces the most popular notes to the top of your newsfeed so there is a huge potential to get massive exposure for yourself or your business if you understand some of the basic principles behind writing a good note and spotting the ones that are going to become popular.

1 – Choose A Controversial Topic And Get Personal

Sometimes this is the hardest thing to get right, follow other notes and see if there is a theme emerging that you can write about. If you are stuck for ideas pick something that is happening in the world and reflect on its impact or the lessons that can be learned or find a quote or article from your favourite author and add your own personal understanding. Getting personal is the key to successful Facebook notes. All the best ones I have read have revealed something interesting about the author, this creates a real bonding and sense of intimacy.

2 – Write A Short Punchy Article That Ends With A Question

This will stimulate people to respond. If your note becomes too long and convoluted you will lose your readers. Consider breaking a long note into a series of shorter ones. Most people don’t have the time to read a 3000 word essay. The Blog Squad talk about the 4 E’s – Engage, Entertain, Educate and Enrich. Make sure your note ticks these 4 boxes.

3 – Keep To The Point, Make It Short And Sweet

Don’t ramble and discuss 2 or 3 different subjects in one note, this will confuse people. Keep it short and sweet. Respect your readers time, edit your note down and only include what is absolutely essential to get your point across. You can always add more later in the comments section

4 – Make Your Note Attractive

this means have good formatting, use subheads and break your note into manageable chunks. Pictures make the note more visually appealing and can give your note a stickiness factor.

5 – Tag People Who Want To Participate

Its no use tagging all your friends who are too shy to write something or are too busy to even read the note. Tag the people who you know like to participate and are regular commentators. Some people also like to tag those people who have big networks or who are centres of influence. This works well as long as what you write is appropriate and as long as you feel you have permission to do this . Not everyone wants you to use their wall and their newsfeed to spread your message so be respectful and consider asking permission first.

6 – Release Your Note At The Optimum Time

I have noticed that for my network, Facebook activity drops over the weekend, and is highest during the weekdays. Its up to you to know your own network and when the peaks of activity are as it may vary considerably. Get the timing wrong and your note will get pushed down the newsfeed and no one will notice it.

7 – Comment On Your Own Note and Participate

Always get into the habit of commenting on your own notes and refer back to what other people have written. Become a regular participant in other peoples notes. Build a reputation as someone who adds value and always has something interesting to say, if you do this then other people will start to tag you in their notes. Which will increase your viral visibility.

8 – Press The Share Button

Sharing is a way to vote up the best quality discussions and expose them to the widest possible audience. The note will be posted to your profile page and will also be pushed out into all your friends newsfeeds. Pressing the share button because you feel obliged to reciprocate isn’t a good strategy. You will not build a reputation as someone to follow and pay attention to if you spread poor quality articles and information. Press it because it has added some value and you think your friends will appreciate it.

9 – Use Feedback and Build on Success

You know when you have written a good note by how many comments you receive and how many people press the share button. This is important feedback and it’s a valuable exercise to look at your notes and work out what elements made one note more popular than another. This way you can build on your success and continually strive to improve. My article “If Your Headline Sucks No One Will Listen“ was a good example of this process. If you write a note and no one comments go over this checklist and see what areas you could improve upon.

10 – End With A Call To Action

Invite your readers to your Blog or Website, To follow you on Twitter or to check out your latest book. Ask them in a casual conversational manner in the same style as the rest of your note. Suddenly switching to a hard sell might create a disconnect and you might come across as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. This is also the case if you have too many outbound links to your own products and services. By all means include them but keep them to a minimum and be subtle about how you present them. If you comment on a note and just promote yourself without really taking part in the discussion you will might get viral visibility but it will be for the wrong reasons.

I go into much more depth about Facebook notes in my book, The Facebook Strategies Guide available from http://www.thefacebookguide.com

If you have enjoyed this article you might want to consider subscribing to my full RSS feed. and join my Facebook Fan Page – http://www.budurl.com/idcfbp

You can also find me on Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/iandavidchapman

Filed Under: copywriting, email persuasion, facebook, Popular Posts, Viral Marketing Tagged With: facebook, facebook notes, facebook strategy, social media marketing, social networking, viral visibility

Going Viral Part 4 – He Who Shall Not Be Named

July 1, 2008 by ian david chapman 2 Comments

Relaunch

I Have a friend who shall remain nameless, he is in the process of re-launching his own membership site. He is following the advice given by Dan to the letter. He is also using twitter to communicate a lot of the important details about his launch and to generate Buzz. Many of you will know who I am talking about. Many of you will have had the sense to follow him on twitter

Buzz and Excitement

He has already launched a great product and generated a lot of initial buzz and the benefits of his product were so good that lots of his clients and customers started to promote it . He is now moving into the second stage. As far as I can see it has started to go viral because it has reached the critical mass and enough people are talking about it. Generating a lot of extra buzz and excitement which draws in people who have only just heard about what is happening, like Iron filings drawn towards a magnet. The members who are on board first will be the ones who truly benefit when the results of this product and its services are released to the wider internet and a more global audience.

The benefits are obvious, anyone who has read about what is being offered and has seen the inherent value and opportunity can only make one logical choice.

Don’t Miss the Boat

It reminds me of another story about four brothers who had decided to sail on a ship to America , They had gotten up early and rushed down to the port. The first Brother had bought his ticket months ago, he knew exactly what he wanted to do and where he was headed in life. He had a cousin who had told him about the amazing opportunities that were available in America and he wanted to go and make his fortune there . When he arrived at the dock he ran quickly up the gangplank and immediately bumped into the captain who was welcoming the first passengers on board . He struck up a conversation and the captain liked him so much that he invited him to upgrade into first class and to have dinner with him and his fellow officers every evening.

The second brother also knew without a doubt that he wanted to sail to the new world, and had also bought a ticket beforehand. But as he was a bit more cautious than the first brother he had packed loads of heavy bags full of all the things that he thought he might need on the journey. Little did he know that most of the cabins came very well equipped and excellent food was provided on board. His heavy bags slowed him down but he made it on board without any trouble. Second class was crowded but comfortable and he was happy because he knew that he would get to his destination.

The ships engines started powering up and the third Brother was dawdling on the dockside watching everything that was going on. He was so distracted by all the hustle and bustle that he almost forgot to board the ship. They were just pulling up the gang plank when he ran and jumped across the gap and only just made it. He had to go in third class and didn’t have a cabin because he had bought his ticket at the last minute, 3rd class was very crowded and he had to stand up for most of the journey, he was hoping that a space would become available in second class but there were lots of other passengers on the waiting list ahead of him.

The fourth Brother was watching everything that was going on. He wanted to go but he was afraid. He was afraid that everything might be too expensive when he got to America and that his money would run out. He hadn’t even bought a ticket because he wasn’t sure he could afford it. As he watched all his brothers board the ship he convinced himself that he didn’t really want to go anyway and as it set sail he turned his back on the ship and walked slowly back to his house happy that he had made such a wise choice and still had the money that he would have spent on his ticket. To celebrate he went into a local pub and spent almost all of it in one evening of drunkenness.

This is the fourth post in a four part series, in order to fully appreciate it you should read the other posts as this sets the context and gives a lot of valuable background information.

Part 1 – Understanding The Difference Between Viral Marketing and MLM

Part 2 – A Personal Story

Part 3 – Making It Big On The Internet