Facebook went public today at a price of $38 per share. The social network giant offered 421,233,615 shares of its common stock which is now trading on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “FB.” Facebook is offering 180 million shares of Class A common stock and selling stockholders are offering 241,233,615 shares of Class A common stock.
The company is now worth approximately $104 billion. By the end of the day, the price of each share is likely to increase, however it could settle down or even decrease over time. What do you think, is a social media company worth over $100 billion?
With social media networks like Facebook and Twitter dominating the space, why should your company pay any attention to the new kid on the block, Google+? Here are 10 reasons why Google+ is great for businesses.
Google+ has only been around a few months but already has 170 million users. Clearly the network is growing rapidly and is on its way to being the new place to be for brands and individuals alike.
Google+ is indexed by Google, which means using Google+ can help customers find your business faster and easier.
Creating a business page on Google+ will help increase your online visibility.
It’s easy to share and rank other people’s posts and comment on Google+.
Google+ offers a variety of sharing options including posts, photos, videos, etc.
You can use Circles on Google+ to target your audience better so you’re always sharing the most relevant content to the people who will be interested in seeing it.
60% of Google+ users log in every day, compared to only 50% of Twitter users who log in every day.
Google Hangouts can be used to host Q&A sessions or other educational events with customers via video chat.
Sites on Google+ tend to be indexed very quickly and +1 links may rank higher in the search results.
It’s easy to create multimedia posts on Google+ because of its integration with YouTube and Picasa.
During a recent session at OMI Social, Mobile and Digital Marketing Boot Camp in Los Angeles, CA, instructor, Sundeep Kapur, shared Facebook marketing tips to help grow your fan base and engage your fans. Facebook is a great place to connect and build relationships with your customers. Here are 5 key takeaways from the Digital Marketing Boot Camp about Facebook marketing.
1. Specify the location in your Facebook posts. Have you ever posted something for your business like “We’re in Huntington Beach selling jewelry on the pier, stop by and check out our inventory,” and made it viewable to “Public?” This may seem like a great thing to do; however, if your brand is a national brand, it’s irrelevant to a lot of your fans that aren’t in that location. Next time you’re posting a status update that would only appeal to people in a particular area, specify the target location by selecting “Location” and typing in the location of the people you think would benefit from seeing the post. This keeps you from accidentally spamming your other fans who wouldn’t be interested in that piece of location-sensitive information.
2. Highlight your best posts. If you have a post that you think is particularly great content, click the star in the upper right corner of the post to “highlight” it. This makes the story double the width so it stands out among the other posts on your Timeline.
3. Ask your fans questions. Asking your fans for their opinion is a great way to encourage comments. The more comments on a post, the more likely it is to show up in your fans’ Newsfeeds. Try asking them to share a story about how their use your product, or to finish your sentence by filling in a blank (Ex: My favorite thing to eat at Sarah’s Pizza is ____”). You’ll find that you’ll get more responses to your posts when you encourage participation this way.
4. Use Facebook Sponsored Stories and Ads. According to the OMI session, it’s best to use Sponsored Stories in order to grow your fan base. Choose the “page like story” under sponsored stories. This is using friends’ endorsement which increases the story’s click-through rate (CTR). If you’re looking to grow your engagement, use Facebook Ads and choose “Ad from a page post.” This ad will display the post of your choice for friends and friends of friends to see.
5. Photos and videos get the most attention. The best posts on Facebook are those that include a photo or video. People love looking at this kind of content on Facebook and they are more likely to interact with a post if it includes an eye-catching photo or interesting video, so post this kind of content as often as possible.
3. Ask your fans questions. Asking your fans for their opinion is a great way to encourage comments. The more comments on a post, the more likely it is to show up in your fans’ Newsfeeds. Try asking them to share a story about how their use your product, or to finish your sentence by filling in a blank (Ex: My favorite thing to eat at Sarah’s Pizza is ____”). You’ll find that you’ll get more responses to your posts when you encourage participation this way.