Business Page Photo Strip: An Overlooked Branding Opportunity
September 30, 2011 by Stacey Harmon · Leave a Comment
This Facebook marketing tip relates to the official & places pages marketing tools in Facebook. For clarification on where this tip fits into the greater Facebook marketing picture, please view our post Facebook Foundations: Facebook’s Marketing Tools Explained.
The photo strip that appears at the top of Facebook business pages represents one of the most overlooked branding opportunities by page administrators. When planned out, page administrators have a great opportunity to visually represent their business and reinforce what they are about with the five photos that appear at the top of the page wall. However, there are a few functional details page admins need to understand in order to craft and maintain an effective brand strategy with this part of the page. They are as follows:
1. Displays only photos from the page: The photo strip is comprised only of photos that have been posted by an administrator of the page (the most recent 5). If you allow fans to post photos to your wall (you can turn this on or off in the page manager), photos posted by fans will not appear in the photo stream.
This is different from profiles where any photo that you are tagged in – whether you uploaded it, or another Facebook user uploaded it – will appear in the photo stream of your profile.
2. Randomized: The photo stream is randomized. Upon every page refresh, the photos will appear in a different order. In other words, page administrators can not control the order of the 5 photos.
For example, here are screen shots from the Pixel Coaching fan page where I have uploaded 4 color blocks representing the logo colors along with an image of the Pixel Coaching logo. See how the images can be rendered in any order:
When purposefully picking the images that appear in your pages photo stream (which represents a brilliant branding opportunity), you will need to take into consideration this nuance which is in contrast to the linear/static orientation that the photo stream has on profile pages which allows for some very creative visual tricks.
Hiding Photos
A common question about the photo stream is how to have a photo not appear there. Simply hover over the image on your page in the photo stream and you will see a you will see a little “x” appear in the upper right hand corner of the image which, when selected, will hide the photo from appearing in the photo stream of your page. This is an important Facebook page management skill if you have deployed a branding concept along the top of your page that you want to not have disturbed by photos that you post to the wall as part of your content strategy. As described earlier, any photos that a page admin uploads to the wall will appear in the photo strip. To restore the photos that are part of your photo strip brand, you’ll need to hide the photos that were uploaded to the wall and are now appearing in the photo strip.
Understanding how the photo stream works on pages is the basis for creatively using this Facebook feature to brand your page and build your business. Have you seen any great examples of business page photo streams? Let us know in the comments.
Fan Page Strategies for Real Estate Success | July 8th Webinar
July 4, 2010 by Stacey Harmon · Leave a Comment
Back by request, and in conjunction with Tomato University, I’ll be presenting another Facebook Fan Page Strategies for Realtors webinar on July 8th, 2010.
There were some great feedback from the last session:
- “Excellent overview of Facebook Official Pages and how Realtors can implement them in a marketing strategy. Stacey had great samples of not only outstanding pages, but also samples of some not so outstanding pages.”
- “Stacey Harmon really knows her stuff, and communicates benefits and practical strategies for using Facebook for business. Kudos on bringing in a stellar presenter.”
- “Stacey provided by far the most knowledgeable and developed presentation on Facebook for Realtors that I have ever participated in. She knows her topic and packed the session with insightful and helpful advice. Excellent course!”
- “Stacey, Great Job! Thank you so much for explaining in great detail how to use Facebook to build a successful fan page. I highly recommend your webinar and look forward to the next one.”
So, if you are interested in using Facebook for real estate business development, and want to learn the do’s and don’t of how to use Facebook’s Official (Fan) Pages to build your business, register to attend.
IMPORTANT EXPECTATION SETTING INFORMATION: To get the most out of this webinar, you need to be familiar with the Facebook interface and how to navigate around it, or this webinar training will move too quickly for you. In addition, I do not cover the Facebook Profile in this course – the focus is on the Facebook Official (Fan) Page. If you are a Facebook newbie, you may prefer to attend one of my Getting Started with Facebook for Real Estate webinars or live training sessions. I also offer training on strategies for using your personal profile for business development. You can register for our training interest list to be notified of future webinars and training offered by Harmon Enterprises.
This course is for you if you are a Realtor and can identify with any of the following:
- You’d like to use Facebook to build your professional network and promote your real estate expertise
- You are uncomfortable with expanding your network of friends to include prospects and clients because of concerns about, privacy, photos and other personal details they may see.
- You want to promote your listings without violating Facebook’s Terms of Service
- You want to use Facebook to help you land on the first page of Google
What we will cover in this 90 minute webinar:
- Why Facebook is a business development opportunity not to be overlooked by Real Estate agents
- Explain why having a Facebook fan page is a great tool for a modern Realtor
- Orient you to the fan page terms of service and discuss how to not get demoted to a “community page”
- Cover the nuts and bolts of how to set up a fan page
- Introduce you to multiple strategies for using fan pages for real estate business development
- Provide multiple examples of Realtor fan pages for you to model your fan page after
Key Webinar Details:
- Where: Online webinar hosted by Tomato University – Login from anywhere you have an internet connection!
- When: Thursday, July 8th, 2010, starting at 11:00am PDT/2:00 pm EST.
- How Long: 90 minutes
- Cost: $30
- Register from the course page at Tomato University
Webinar Training | Facebook Fan Page Strategies for Realtors
May 2, 2010 by Stacey Harmon · Leave a Comment
Are you using Facebook for real estate business development? Do you have a Facebook Fan Page for your business? Is your Fan Page struggling to gain traction?
If you are a Realtor and can identify with any of the following:
- You’d like to use Facebook to build your professional network and promote your real estate expertise
- You are uncomfortable with expanding your network of friends to include prospects and clients because of concerns about, privacy, photos and other personal details they may see.
- You want to promote your listings without violating Facebook’s Terms of Service
- You want to use Facebook to help you land on the first page of Google
…then a Facebook Official Fan Page is for you. This Friday (May 7, 2010), I (Stacey Harmon) will be teaching a webinar on Facebook Fan Page Strategies for Realtors designed to give real estate professionals a successful foundation for using Facebook to promote and grow their real estate business.
This 90 minute webinar will:
- Cover why Facebook is a business development opportunity not to be overlooked by Real Estate agents
- Explain why having a Facebook fan page is a great tool for a modern Realtor
- Orient you to the fan page terms of service and discuss how to not get demoted to a “community page”
- Cover the nuts and bolts of how to set up a fan page
- Introduce you to multiple strategies for using fan pages for real estate business development
- Provide multiple examples of Realtor fan pages for you to model your fan page after
IMPORTANT EXPECTATION SETTING INFORMATION: To get the most out of this webinar, you need to be familiar with the Facebook interface and how to navigate around it, or this webinar training will move too quickly for you. If you are a Facebook newbie, you may prefer to attend one of my future “Facebook 101 for Real Estate” webinars. Stay in the loop by registering here to receive details about upcoming webinars and training.
Facebook Fan Page Strategy For Realtors Webinar Details:
- Where: Online webinar hosted by Tomato University – Login from anywhere you have an internet connection!
- When: Friday, May 19th, 2010, starting at 11:00am PST/2:00 pm EST.
- How Long: 90 minutes
- Cost: $20
- Register from the course page at Tomato University
About the Presenter:
Stacey Harmon trains on social media marketing, a lot. And, recently she trains on Facebook for Real Estate Business Development, a lot. Take a look at where she has been speaking over the past year (all over California and the a few other states as well). Also, people really tend to like her Facebook training. In fact, they are willing to let us post their raving feedback on this site. Check it out for yourself. If you still want to learn more about Stacey, check out her bio on Harmon Enterprises, or her Professor bio at Tomato University.
Facebook Tools & Tricks at Virtual Real Estate Bar Camp January 4th
December 22, 2009 by Stacey Harmon · 3 Comments
On January 4th, 2010 Virtual Real Estate Bar Camp will have a repeat performance with a new lineup of speakers, and Harmon Enterprises is participating. Our topic is Facebook Tools and Tricks – Separating Personal from Professional. Here is the session description from the event website:
Control who sees what! @StaceyHarmon will orient you to the Facebook tools that allow you separate your personal from your professional life and effectively use Facebook for business development as a Realtor. The session will cover applying Facebook’s newly updated privacy settings to your profile; grouping your friends, clients, and prospects into lists; and assigning permissions to status updates and photos. She’ll also show you the basics on how to create a Business Fan Page in order to further build your professional persona on Facebook.
It is free to attend Virtual Real Estate Bar Camp which is a full day of webinar presentations by some of the movers and shakers in the national real estate social media scene. There will be four separate webinars, or “rooms”, running concurrently and each presentation lasts 45 minutes. All you need to do is have internet access and pre-register in order to get the login information for each of the rooms. The full schedule can be found here and if you have an interest in hearing more about how social media can help build your business, you are encouraged to attend. What better way to kick off a productive business year?!
Virtual RE BarCamp Summary:
Website: www.VirtualREBarCamp.com
When: January 4, 2010 from 9:00 am – 4:00 pm PST
Cost: Free but you must register to receive webinar login information
Schedule: As speakers are confirmed, the event calendar is updated