Promote Your Brand Through Facebook's Timeline Promotions

Not long ago, Facebook forced companies to use third-party platforms for promotions. Now, businesses are allowed to use such marketing campaigns directly through their timeline on Facebook. There are a handful of guidelines and regulations you should know before hosting one of your own. Here’s how to run a successful timeline contest or promotion:

As with any new project, start by setting a goal. For some businesses, the goal might be sales oriented, or to collect email addresses and contact information, or to simply boost their number of likes. Whatever your business wants to accomplish, be sure to make an outline before you start. At the end of your campaign revisit these goals and determine if you met them or not. This will help you create an effective strategy in the future.

Choose prizes and incentives that endorses your brand in unique and creative ways. Consider all your options, you can even take suggestions from your fans and hear what they’d want the prizes to be. Just be prepared to incorporate their recommendations into your previously outlined goals.

Including the correct language and image content is another important facet to your promotion. Photos on Facebook generate 53 percent more response than posts without them. So, picking the right image can really help push the success of your campaign.

Crafting an appropriate timeline promotion will only be successful if it’s in compliance with Facebook’s regulations. This includes a statement that your campaign is in no way sponsored, endorsed or associated with Facebook. A complete description of the official rules must be included.

However, if you feel such disclaimers will dissuade people from participating, the best way to work around it would be to use an app. To ensure that your fans have easy access, while also maintaining an appealing appearance, establish and advertise the link to your promotion app. You can also use specialized applications to collect and review data from your promotion.

Gaining likes on Facebook can be difficult, and often beyond the help of a promotion. Centel Media, the leading online reputation management company, can help you gain more likes for little cost. With their new social media optimization service, Centel Media™ can boost the effectiveness of your Facebook page, so your brand can be recognized and your overall online presence improved.

In order to utilize Facebook’s new timeline promotions, and draw more attention to your business’s page, it’s important to understand how it all works and what Facebook requires of you.

Loose Lips Sinks Ships...and Your Online Reputation

What’s uploaded online might as well be written in stone. In fact, digital messages are, in many ways, more permanent than stone. Every detail, phone number, joke, opinion, post, tweet, comment (the list goes on) is saved online, archived, and accessible to anyone. Slips of the tongue, or in this case fingers on the keyboard, could result in an offensive remark that will isolate a portion of your audience or clientele, and inevitably injure your chances of success online.

If managed correctly, this spreading of information can provide ample opportunity for any online interest. Unfortunately, human error occurs all too often and the brand’s reputation is what pays the price. It’s essential to keep a close eye on what’s posted, no matter who posted it. You must remember that you’re not the only one representing your interests, but everyone, whose name ties back to you, becomes a part of your brand’s appearance, and can ruin it all the same.

Being considerate of what you post on social media is common business knowledge by this point, but even inter-office emails, newsletters, and text messages are open-season for PR missteps and each should be managed appropriately. Before publishing something, ask yourself, “how would I react if this post made the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper?” Is it something you want your entire professional network to read? If the answer is no, then don’t post it to the Web.

If you do make a mistake and publish something regrettable,  Centel Media™ offers negative suppression services. While these mistakes can never be completely removed, they can be forced further down the search result pages, essentially archiving them, and making them more difficult to find. Search engines and social media feeds only show the most current and relevant results, and with  Centel Media™, you can use this to your advantage.

Centel Media™s staff of creative writers and literary professionals will write content for result pages that reflects the true value of your brand name. Don’t abandon a piece of your audience by allowing detrimental material to stay floating on top of search results. Take action and protect your reputation. Just because you had loose lips in a comment or tweet, doesn’t mean it has to completely sink the ship of your online reputation.

In managing your online reputation, remember that all material is permanent and trackable. Maintain your reputation by censoring what you post.

Stay Alert Of Your Online Reputation

Worldwide public conversation has spread so deep across the Internet, it’s nearly impossible to know how far. Whether the discussion is about trending global news, or reviews of local businesses, millions of people express their opinions via websites over the Internet. This constant dialogue is critical to any online interest; however, monitoring this stream can become overwhelming.

The minute-by-minute information pouring in, the free-flowing conversations, it’s all incredibly taxing to handle alone. But, there are options and tools to help anyone gauge the success of their marketing campaign, or the response to a new product, by monitoring discussions of their brand that sprout up online. Email alerts can notify you when your name appears, or, if you so choose, track the success of your competitor. Either way, you get results on topics that are essential to your brand.

To begin setting up email alerts, input a specific search phrase. If your term is too generalized, you’ll end up buried in results. You can enter several keywords as an alert, so narrow your focus. But, at the same time, you should try to maintain a balance. A search too narrow or too specific could hinder your results as well.

You need to include terms that are widely used in the public. Alerts are derived from keywords found over the Internet, so if you think it’s a term people wouldn’t likely use, it probably won't yield any results. Keep it simple and directed to you or your business.

When creating your alerts, make sure to follow the procedure of the site you’re using. You may need to place your brand’s name within quotation marks, or include additional words to narrow your search. Some sites will suggest other tactics, like incorporating a minus sign to filter results. Once your alerts are established, any mention of your name will trigger an email to be sent directly to your account.

Specify how often you receive these alerts. It’s not enough to simply set alerts in place and then forget to check them for three months. Restrict the alerts to once a week, once a day, or select the “as-it-happens” option, whichever works best around your schedule.

If you or your brand’s name isn’t appearing as frequently as you’d like, then perhaps Centel Media™ search engine optimization services can help you gain a better footing online.

When managing your online reputation, the first step is knowing the extent of your online presence. Creating specific email alerts for your brand will streamline the process of monitoring the overwhelming abundance of information online.

Drive Home With A New Online Presence

Gone are the days of door-to-door salesmen. Now we’re in the era of virtual salesmanship, where first impressions are often established online. A car salesman may still practice the same techniques he did fifty years ago, giving away turkeys with each vehicle purchased during the holiday season, but nowadays, if such marketing campaigns aren’t broadcast on social networking sites, those turkeys may rot in the company freezer.

There are some practical methods your dealership can implement to ensure your online reputation matches the good (honest, patient, friendly) appearance that your staff promises to uphold in person. First, you should look up your brand on search engines. See what sites potential customers are visiting, and if you find something questionable or offensive related to your dealership, take action to remove it immediately. In some areas of the internet, removal is impossible. Centel Media™ negative suppression services can fix such problems by rearranging the search results so your dealership's name isn’t linked to slanderous material.  

As a business minded individual, it’s important to promote and encourage customer interaction. This includes testimonies, reviews and comments. Think along the lines of those old-school suggestion boxes, only replaced by the instant power of social networking tools such as Facebook comments and Tweets. Centel Media™ can help your dealership establish and build a following on your social networking site with Social Media Optimization.

Even though your social media pages belong to you or your dealership, don’t forget that anything you write will be viewed by the public. When you are working to build an online reputation, be careful about posting personal, political, or religious messages that are inappropriate for a professional business. Centel Media™ has a highly knowledgeable staff of writers to create blog postings for your website and press releases.

Take advantage of all that Centel Media, the top-rated online reputation management company, has to offer you and your dealership. Bring your business into the fast-paced and ever-growing reality of social media with Centel Media™ online reputation development tactics. These services will increase foot traffic to your lots and lead to a positive growth in what matters most -- car sales.

Maintaining a good online reputation could lead any car dealership to a highly profitable fall season.

Expand Awareness of Your Business With Wikipedia

All businesses should take advantage of the tools available to them online. Wikipedia can be an enormous asset, encouraging knowledge of your brand. However, creating a page can be difficult and tedious.  Centel Media™ can create content on Wikipedia that will improve public awareness of your business.

Wikipedia gains half its traffic from search engines, and appears on the first page of results in 95% of all Google searches. It’s a great opportunity to increase traffic to your site, but remember, not all businesses end up on Wikipedia’s pages. Take the time to assess the state of your business and the market you're after, because it makes all the difference to the success of your Wikipedia page.

First, it’s important to understand why people visit Wikipedia. Nearly all Wikipedia users go to the site with a desired topic already in mind. If they’re looking up your business, then they’re already familiar with your brand name and are simply looking to find more information about who you are and what you do. Wikipedia is a good way to raise awareness of your business, but it shouldn’t be used by companies with low visibility. Now, that doesn’t mean you have to be a celebrity or big-time corporation to use Wikipedia, it just means that your market needs to be accessible, something within the public eye, or else it won’t be noticed.

It may seem that Wikipedia favors large businesses, but in reality it just favors better-known companies. If your online presence is low, your best course of action is to build up a reputation over the Internet before committing to a Wikipedia page. Creating a ‘better known’ company or brand can be taxing, but with the help of a reputation management company, it’s possible to gain a wider audience. After constructing a stronger foundation online, a Wikipedia page can then be utilized to its full potential.

Centel Media™, the leading online reputation management company, works with individuals and businesses alike to create content for Wikipedia, along with other social media outlets. Centel Media™ writers create Wiki pages with legitimate sources and provide links in order to give your potential customers and clients more information about your company. You may be hesitant about creating a page in Wikipedia, and feel your other social media sites are enough, but keep in mind that if you wait, your competitors may beat you to it. With today’s tough economy, it would be wise to take any opportunity to get ahead. Centel Media™ team of trained professionals will help you create an official Wikipedia submission that can draw more attention to your brand.

Wikipedia is a great resource for business development. However, it may be daunting to start a Wiki page on your own. Maximize your online potential by using Centel Media’s Wikipedia Page Submission services.  

Blog Your Way To Success

There are many reasons to start a blog. Maybe you want share your experiences, write reviews or promote your brand. No matter the reason, writing original, creative content will help improve your blog and earn a greater presence online.

Creating a blog worth reading is the easy part, finding an audience that will actually read your blog is what’s hard, and it’s not going to happen over night. The first step in effective blog creation is finding a blogger who is knowledgeable and passionate about the subject. This may or may not be you, but in either case, it’s crucial to have a blogger with these prerequisites. Ones that do, find it much easier to write interesting posts.

When creating your blog, keep in mind that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel.  Use the tools available to you. Research other, successful blogs similar to your subject and take notes on the aspects that make them accessible and popular.

Just going through the motions of writing won’t make your blog successful. Your content needs to be interesting, something that will lure people into coming back. The easiest way to ensure a solid, long-lasting blog is to use a theme that has a wide pool of information to draw from, so that your material never grows stale.

Write your blogs with authority, be persuasive, but don’t act pompous or overconfident. Doing so will only alienate you from your reader. Address your audience with the respect they deserve and be appreciative that they are spending their time reading your blog instead of the other 100 blogs on the same subject.

The main goal of your writing should be to continue providing value to your readers as time goes on. Most blogs are momentary, they focus on fashion, breaking news, gossips or trending gadgets. That type of writing draws a big crowd, until the moment is over and their blog becomes obsolete. Don’t focus on that type of content style, redirect your focus on creating a blog with substance, something that contributes not only to your brand but your industry or interest as a whole.

If your blog is lacking and you need help, there are services available to do the work for you. Centel Media™ offers blog creation service at an affordable price.

Blogging is a great way to gain recognition from the public. If you know how to write blogs effectively, you can reach out to new people and expand your audience.

Keep Your Press Releases Fresh!

Would you host a birthday party and wait until it started to invite your friends? As a business, would you wait for your new product to be placed on the shelves before you advertised its arrival? If you want success in either of these situations, you send out invitations and directions to the party, you build a buzz of anticipation for your product.

Press releases are used to announce a wide range of news items, such as scheduled events, personal promotions, accomplishments, awards, new products and services, sales and other financial data. They are often used in generating a feature story or are sent for the purpose of creating a greater attendance to news conferences or upcoming events.

Press releases serve two purposes at Centel Media™. They are used for article suppression, but more importantly, they are used to give you or your company more publicity. Through these press releases, we promote your product and generate press to bring you clients and customers. After we create press releases, we post them on 14 press sites for distribution, where they begin to populate search engine results pages.

Press releases are all about sharing your message and engaging with your audiences. Because visibility is the first step toward success, a distribution network that is optimized for search engines is essential to the success of your brand's reputation.

Besides distribution for search engines, another important element in the success of press releases is the frequency of information. Sites with frequently updated content typically rank higher in search engines. Out of date news will be boring for your returning customers and unhelpful or frustrating for new customers.

Keep your site updated with recent news about your business, articles or tips related to your products or services. Publish new testimonials from your customers or positive reviews of your business found in other publications. Even if you have no new information to present to the public, you can update your site by sprucing things up.

This may seem obvious, but a site that looks professional and offers a good experience for visitors will get more traffic, more referrals, higher rankings in search engines, which means more popularity above your competitor.

The Webs of Social Media

Read an article from any section of a popular online news journal. At the bottom of the article there will be eight small, brightly colored, creatively shaped icons. These are the sharing options; these are just the quick links, the top, most popular eight social media platforms used for sharing this article.

Press “Facebook” as your sharing option of the article, and instantly a new window appears with even more sharing options; on your timeline, in a group, public, private, write your own commentary, include the thumbnail. This is just one example, one social networking option. The options are vast; the means of online connection are endless.   

The internet is truly a “net,” called a web for many reasons; everything is interconnected, tied together and built upon its relation to the neighboring link. In our technologically driven society, social media sites have a huge impact on our daily lives, both personal and professional. Social networking sites are the spiders that weave all our business “webs” together.  

For example, corporate social media sites that receive a large number of likes or followers are going to be partially responsible that corporations online reputation and popularity. Online platforms such as social networking sites, are the catalyst of business growth, they are the virtual equivalent to the traditional “word-of-mouth.”   

For instance, you and five of your business associates read the same article from the online news journal. You and one other shared the article via Facebook, but two of your business associates shared the article via Twitter, and the remaining associate shared the article via e-mail with his entire contact list.

That sounds like a middle school math problem, and there is no correct formula. The numbers are all dependent on those individuals and companies involved in social media.

It’s important that we capitalize upon what others are using, and that’s social media.

With Centel Media™ optimization service, we guarantee an influx of Facebook likes, as well as Twitter followers, depending on your needs. We will also create professional social media accounts for you, and if needed, we will add logos and headers. Logos and headers will add interest and give your pages a polished appearance. These small improvements can greatly affect the online popularity and essentially the overall growth of your brand.

Pictures Are Worth More Than 1000 Words

My Grandmother totes a small digital camera to graduations, birthdays, Christmas parties, and weddings. She attempts to capture every gift being opened, every smile on every face before the moment passes. Unfortunately, this endless family scrapbook has not yet been uploaded to a digital platform.

If these photos were uploaded to a social networking site such as Instagram or Facebook, the entire extended family could spend hours, even days, pouring over images, recollecting our past. Of course, this desire for pictures goes beyond my own family. Capturing our existence in photographs is of global interest.

The evidence is outstanding; photo uploads to the social networking site Facebook total 300 million per day. Those 300 million photos are uploaded and downloaded from around the world.  This is just the statistic of one social networking site. There are countless other online sources for photographs. These sites show the significance of visually engaging users, and what it can do for business ventures as well.

Numbers like these explain how important the use of images is to your business and your online reputation. With the help of images, you can quickly communicate with your viewers. In the blink of an eye, in a fast glance, a Facebook user can gather a wealth of knowledge about any particular subject.

A picture can summarize an entire article, it has the ability to add credibility or evidence to a claim, or it provides an opportunity to illustrate and highlight the capabilities of a brand or product.  In can also inspire a viewer, or intrigue them to investigate further into an article or the post attached to the image or thumbnail.

In the representation of brand reputation it must be taken into consideration that there are 300 million other photos, 300 million other first impressions being made each day, by competing brands. It is not just a matter of using images, not as simple as being a part of that trend, you must be competitive. Keep in mind that a viewer will only see your image for a few moments. It is necessary to evaluate the quality and effectiveness of your photo, and determine if it will stand out from the other 300 million, if it is a picture worth remembering, if it’s a picture worth more than 1000 words.

Reputation Rehab

“Reputation rehab” is an expression used in Hollywood to describe an attempt to control the public perception of a misbehaving celebrity by sending them to a rehabilitation center for the PR value alone. These attempts at rehabilitation are typically short lived, and provide little substance for the celebrity to make lasting and real changes in their life.

Like a car accident with rubberneckers slowing down to look, a celebrity’s downfall usually becomes a public event, with everyone feeling entitled to know what's going on. Today, social media deepens the impact of a ruined reputation, netting countless onlookers and attackers.

Instead of using rehab as a publicity stunt, you can legitimately put your brand reputation itself into rehab. There are measures you can take to prevent damage to your online reputation, but, if it’s too late for prevention, here are the twelve steps to rehabilitating your reputation.

1. Acknowledge. As with all programs, the first step is admitting you have a problem.

2. Move quickly to assess the situation and damage. You cannot properly respond to a reputation crisis if you do not understand the depth of the issue.

3. Act as if, eventually, all truth will be known. You may have gotten away with certain actions or poor behaviors in the past, but do not continue to assume you will get away with them again.

4. Control your emotions. When your personal emotions begin to swell, you must conquer them and think strategically.

5. Keep your focus directed toward social media. You may be tempted to withdraw from social networks, but keep yourself and your brand involved.

6. Determine the correct message and medium of response. If a Tweet was the cause of controversy or upset, use Twitter as your first avenue of response.

7. Never make a public denial. Accept responsibility and present an acknowledged apology.

8. Be original. Each crisis is different, never copy the responses of others.

9. Use the opportunity to reset the moral compass of your brand. This is a perfect opportunity to restructure old ways of thinking in how you communicate with the public.

10. Redirect focus. Present your accomplishments, past and present, to the public.  

11.  Establish lasting, game-changing solutions. Develop strategies, or hire brand management companies to assist in future crisis’ and implement procedures for daily interactions on social networking sites.

12. Move forward. Don’t dwell in the past, otherwise the public's attention and your reputation will remain in the past as well.

Why It Might Be a Good Time to Change That Bad Press

Celebrities, no matter if they're a film actor, reality television star, athlete or radio personality, are constantly in the public eye and subject to media conversation. Unfortunately, it seems the worse their behavior, the bigger the splash, and the longer the discussion continues. This has been true for decades, from the era of paper boys in flat caps to our present ability to instantly stream news on our mobile devices, more papers are sold when the news is negative.

 There is a saying that any publicity is good publicity. You may think this to be true if no one has ever heard of you or your brand, since your brand has no reputation to corrupt in the first place. The public cannot form an opinion of you, negative or positive, so fifteen minutes of fame may seem beneficial. However, it is never advisable to begin your public reputation on the wrong foot because a poor first impression can be long lasting. Eventually, after the turbulence settles, it's the reputation that ends up taking the hit, possibly tarnishing it forever.

If you're struggling with brand management and reputation, then you may want to listen to a few words of advice. First, you need to devise tactics that can battle against negative accusations or comments. A wrong way to handle these situations would be to become defensive and deny any wrongdoing because it comes off as unprofessional and immature. Instead, you should take on PR problems with a productive approach. Focus on what you or your brand has done right or positive goals you have for the future, because doing so will shift the story from any poor behavior to your accomplishments and aspirations.

So, even though it may seem that all press is good press, because getting your name in the papers may peak interest and traffic to websites or blogs, in the long run, it can affect your career, along with all those connected with you. The ripple effect will reach a large pool of individuals and corporations that have taken either a personal or professional interest in you. When met with difficult situations or events that can have a negative impact on your reputation, don't focus on the allegations or other negative accusations. Instead, redirect your focus to past or present accomplishments, positive qualities or future goals. Leave a fresh image of optimism in the mind of the public.

Avoiding Bias on Social Networking Sites

Bias can present itself in many ways. It can be blatant or subtle, offensive or agreeable.

We may be unaware of our personal bias, perhaps we are attempting simply to express our opinion, but this can greatly affect our business relationships and our online reputation.

When using social networking sites such as Facebook, it may seem appropriate to express our political, religious, or personal opinions; and while this is our right as Americans and as humans, it is important to remember that what we may be expressing is actually a personal bias and not an opinion based on fact. Whatever it is we post to Facebook will certainly not be an opinion shared by all who view our Facebook profiles, comments, status updates, and so forth.

It is impossible to appease every person who views you or your business online. In most cases, it is also impossible to remain neutral on every matter.   Bias may be applied to procedures, products, people, and many other circumstances. For instance, bias may entail the endorsement of a certain product with little concern or consideration of the product’s competition. The bias may be rooted in personal relationships or emotional reaction instead of factual evidence or logical aspects of the product.

As an example, a sales representative of cleaning supplies, while making a pitch, may disregard all comments or complaints that his product does not clean as quickly or effectively as the leading competitor. Instead of confronting the evidence, he simply disregards it and allows his personal bias, the bias of being employed by the company, to determine his actions and behavior.

In this scenario, and in almost every scenario of bias, the salesman is undermining his own credibility, and the credibility and reputation of his company. By not acknowledging the evidence against his product he becomes untrustworthy to those witnessing his blatant bias.

While all scenarios may not be this cut and dry, avoiding bias is an easy matter of developing an objective eye towards the content on your social networking sites.

When communicating on social networking sites, it is most important to simply take into consideration why you hold a certain viewpoint, before posting a seemingly controversial comment, or endorsing a particular product or service; double check, question if bias has any footing. Because, almost every case of bias will result negatively, it will negatively influence the reputation of you or your business, and should be avoided.

Remember to Keep Calm when Dealing with Negative Reviews

The most frustrating and irritating part of being a business owner is having to deal with negative reviews. It is understandable that you are going to be extremely upset at the negative reviews that you receive regarding your business, but keeping calm and taking a certain approach on how to deal with this issue will benefit you in the long run. The worst thing you could possibly do as a business owner is to respond to the negative reviews in anger without reflection. Responding in such a manner usually puts the business owner in a bigger hole that could have been avoided all together using the right approach. Recently, a Business 2 Community article addressed this issue and offered a five step approach on how to deal with this problem effectively.

1. Breathe.

No business owner takes a negative comment with appreciation and of course you should not either, but remember to take a step back and breathe before responding to the comment out of anger. Acting out of emotion will only make your situation worse because you are damaging your reputation. You want to approach this with taking some time to reflect on the comment made about your business, and construct a much more professional and effective response. Here at Centel Media™, we work towards pushing those negative reviews from the first few pages, and thus having more positive reviews regarding your business.

2. Take it Personally.

One might think that approaching a negative comment with a positive attitude is the best way to approach this issue, however Business 2 community says otherwise. The article states that a business owner should thoroughly evaluate those negative comments made about their business so that they could correct and improve their product and/or service that they are offering. If you intend to take this opportunity to improve your product/services you will make your company better and avoid having the same negative comments made about your business. Here at Centel Media™, we are about Management and Control. These negative comments that are not taken care of correctly could lead to customers going somewhere else because of the comments others have made about your business. Centel Media™ wants to give you the control over your own reputation and make the internet a much better and satisfying experience. 

3. Respond Politely. 

Being polite in all aspects and situations in life is extremely crucial, however it is even more so pertaining your business. The last thing you want to do it is provoke the person who made the negative comment about your business. Remember that this person has already shown that he/she is not afraid of expressing his/her opinion and responding to this comment in a negative and emotional way will only provoke him/her making the situation a lot worse.

4. Do Not Ignore.

Business 2 Community's article states that ignoring a negative comment is not a good idea by any means. Not responding to a nasty or borderline defamatory statement made about your business will only raise questions and attract unwanted attention. 

5. Do Not Use CAPS LOCK 

The last but not least approach that Business 2 Community emphasizes on is to not use caps lock when you are responding to a comment. Using caps lock is the equivalent of screaming in the internet world. As explained earlier, you want to appear calm and professional when you respond to a comment. Using caps lock is not way to impose these characteristics. Keeping your cool and not responding out of anger and emotion can not be emphasized enough. Responding politely is not at all easy when a negative comment is made about your business. The last thing you want to do is hurt your business by losing customers, remember to use this approach and avoid digging yourself in a bigger hole.