In a recent Tribune, I suggested looking at Facebook Pages as a free marketing medium for your business. Love or hate Facebook, it will be around for a while yet, and it’s very likely that many of your target audience are already on there. So how do you best leverage Facebook for your business?

Facebook have a few tools available for you to use the platform as a marketing medium. Firstly, the more traditional advertising system, where you pay for impressions or actions on text-based and image-based ads. The level of reporting and targeting is advanced; you can build a campaign to target only those who list certain interests (such as small business), or meet specific demographics (females, aged 25-40 in Canada only).

Then, there’s the simple Facebook Share button which can be integrated into your own web site, popular for content-based services.

Then, if you’re up for a challenge, you could use the Facebook API to build your own innovative application that works within Facebook. This does require a certain level of development experience though.

The one I’m focusing on today, however, is Facebook Pages. The Facebook Terms of Use prohibit organizations to have their own profiles, unlike individuals. Your options as an organization are better served with Pages, which are open to anyone to use.

You can create a company page from within your individual profile by clicking on the Advertising link in the footer. By choosing a category, naming the page, and completing a number of fields, your page will be created. You can then share it with others, and they can choose to Become a fan.

As people become fans of your organization’s page, it appears within their News Feed, revealing to the rest of their Facebook colleagues that you have added the page. It then links the page name with your page, driving more people to click on the link and have a look.

This is where your page can win or lose. I suggest that you consider your Facebook page as a micro-site; you should start adding more content to the page, encourage conversation within the discussion board, and ask fans to promote it using the Share feature.

Here are a few examples of how SitePoint Tribune readers are using Facebook Pages as part of their marketing strategy.

OntarioColleges.ca uses its Facebook Page to share details of events (120 events listed at the time of writing), as well as link their find-a-college program using a large graphic in the center of the page. They have also linked YouTube videos and lively discussion on their Wall and Discussion Board. Janice Henshall from ontariocolleges.ca says “With our fan base steadily increasing, we’re hoping that our target demographic (potential college applicants, many who are between 18 and 24 years of age) find it a useful communication tool. Time will tell.”

Chinese nightlife web site, Zhuhai Nights uses their Facebook page as a promotional tool to drive people to their web site. They have many videos (including fan videos) and photos to build rich content within the page.

Mark Clulow from Coos Creations, creators of the site, states “We use the page to generate interest and tell people about events. The most popular feature though, is photo tagging. Tagging people in photos from events we’re involved with lets them know about the site, as well as their friends and family — all in a subtle but effective way. Actually watermarking the photos with Facebook has proven very successful at dragging people over to our site.”

Chicago web design business, Addicott Web has a Facebook page to market their services to a wider audience. Hirsch Fishman from Addicott has a few great ideas on how to better utilize Facebook Pages for web professionals.

“I set up a Facebook page because I wanted to directly market my web design business to everyone I know on Facebook. The vast majority of my clients come through word of mouth, but only a few of these know about my web site. Then there are people where it’s been years since I’ve spoken to them so they’re unaware of what I’m up to now. Posting on the Facebook page allows for these situations — and help fuel the word of mouth and referrals that might come my way.

Overall my goal has to been to create a well-rounded marketing piece for Addicott Web on the Facebook page. As much as my web site serves that purpose, if people don’t visit, then it’s pointless. With so many people on Facebook, it seemed the perfect approach.

What am I doing in particular on my page?

I import my RSS feed to it, so that all blog posts display on Facebook as soon as I post them on my blog.

I’ve been using the photo gallery as my portfolio and in the caption of each web site that I feature, post the complete project details, taken word-for-word from my actual web site.

I’ve asked some past clients to post positive reviews of my work.

I specifically invite new clients to Become a fan of my Facebook page so that they can see all of this information (if they’ve yet to look at my web site).

The most positive aspect of all is that it’s given me a potential service that I can now offer clients as well — creating and consulting on their Facebook presence as a complement to the web site that I’m creating for them. Being able to offer services like this helps me as a professional, as I can offer clients more than just a web site — and that’s the value proposition of my business.”

Thanks for your feedback and suggestions, Janice, Mark, and Hirsch. It’s great to see businesses using a variety of methods on their Facebook Pages to increase their fan base and interact with audiences.

I trust this article has you thinking about how better to market your organization using Facebook Pages — best of luck with it!

This post first appeared as part of Issue 434 of the SitePoint Tribune, a very popular email newsletter that I am co-editor of. Thanks to SitePoint for allowing me to reproduce the work here.

Whoa, it’s the annual event season for the Australian web industry, with plenty of exciting events coming up in a city near you! As in previous years, I’ve penned a summary of what’s on; please visit the links, and support these organisations by attending and showing your support (you never know; they may just hold more events in your neck of the woods!).

Here goes, there are a whopping 13 events between now and Christmas 2010, in date order…

Oz-IA/2010
8/9 October 2010
Sydney NSW
http://www.oz-ia.org/2010/

Australian Web Awards Sydney
11 October 2010
Sydney NSW
http://www.webawards.com.au/award-events/sydney/

Web Directions South 2010
12-16 October 2010
Sydney NSW
http://south10.webdirections.org/

AIMIA Digital Summit
13-14 October 2010
Sydney NSW
http://www.aimiadigitalsummit.com.au/

Amped 2010
16 October 2010
Sydney NSW
http://ampedweb.org/

Australian Web Awards Brisbane
26 October 2010
Brisbane QLD
http://www.webawards.com.au/award-events/brisbane/

Australian Web Awards Perth
6 November 2010
Perth WA
http://www.webawards.com.au/award-events/perth/

SMX Melbourne 2010
16/17 November 2010
Melbourne VIC
http://www.searchmarketingexpo.com.au/

The A Team: ARIA & HTML5
23 November 2010
Sydney NSW
http://wipa.org.au/html5/

The A Team: ARIA & HTML5
24 November 2010
Canberra ACT
http://wipa.org.au/html5/

The A Team: ARIA & HTML5
25 November 2010
Melbourne VIC
http://wipa.org.au/html5/

The A Team: ARIA & HTML5
29 November 2010
Perth WA
http://wipa.org.au/html5/

The A Team: ARIA & HTML5
1 December 2010
Brisbane QLD
http://wipa.org.au/html5/

I encourage you to get to as many of these as you can! Attending events is always educational, not to mention the great networking opportunities that come with hanging out with a building full of geeks! If you know of an event that I haven’t covered, please let me know in the comments below…

I recently had the opportunity to interview Mike Brown, co-organizer of the well-renowned Webstock, New Zealand’s largest web conference. With only a few weeks to go before Webstock 2009, Mike took a few moments out of his busy schedule to reply to my questions.

Rumor has it you were a web developer before becoming an event organizer. How did you end up running events instead of cutting code?

The programmers I used to work with would laugh at the idea of me “cutting code,” but yes, I worked for around eight years doing HTML/CSS. Then I moved into information architecture and user experience. All of which I enjoyed a lot.

I was on the Web Standards Group mailing list and made the mistake of posting a few times there. Someone emailed me and suggested I think about setting up a Web Standards Group in Wellington. This was in 2004 and the idea was to have city-based meetings discussing web standards topics of the day. So I emailed everyone in Wellington that I knew and for our first meeting in early 2005, had around 75 people attending.

It grew from there as it became clear we were satisfying a need for people in the industry to meet, learn, network, and share.

The main impetus for Webstock is that we’re all total fanboys and fangirls at heart, and the only way we’d be able to meet people we really admired in the industry was to invite them ourselves! I blogged about the journey to Webstock in more detail on the Webstock blog.

There are obviously challenges to face when changing careers in such a big way—from building web sites to running conferences. What’s been the highlight of this change for you, personally?

Well, in a sense my life has been a series of career changes, often to the chagrin of my wife! I guess the highlight of this particular change is being able to do what I’m truly passionate about. Previously I was doing this outside of my work, so the chance to make my passion my work really feels like a privilege I’ve been handed.

It’s also a chance to work closely with Tash Hall, my main Webstock partner-in-crime who is one of the most inspiring people I know.

Finally, and more personally, it’s given me the chance to be a lot more flexible with my hours and consequently spend more quality time with my wife and kids. The week I quit my previous job I walked my kids to school for the first time ever — there was no longer a need to be at my desk by a certain time!

Lucky guy! If you could give one piece of advice for a web designer or developer who is considering selling products instead of services, what would it be?

I’m sure there are others better equipped at giving advice here! It seems to me, though, that a lot of success in this area almost comes about by accident. People build a product to solve a problem that’s bugging them (to scratch their own itch, so to speak); it’s only as they’re building it, or after it’s finished, that they think about selling it.

So I guess the advice is: concentrate on building a dynamite product. Solve real problems that you come across. Build it for yourself first. Then worry about selling it.

My area of expertise does lie elsewhere though, so follow any advice at your own risk.

As for web developers trying to break into the speaking circuit, what do you look for in a conference speaker?

Well, there are a couple of points here. Webstock probably is more for experienced speakers, rather than those trying to break into the speaking circuit. So I’ll talk first about what we look for at Webstock. Then I’ll offer some thoughts on how to become a (good) speaker.

For Webstock, first and foremost, they need to be a good, entertaining speaker. This example is a bit extreme to make a point, but in general I think it’s true that an entertaining speaker with shallow content trumps a boring speaker with great content. People are paying money to attend a conference; the presentations they see are a performance that should engage them.

The speakers we look for also need to know their stuff. We want attendees at Webstock to be inspired and pushed and challenged. And we want them to learn from people who are among the best in their fields. So we need speakers that have the knowledge to do that.

Also, and this is much more intangible, we want speakers that we’ll personally like as people. One of the bonuses for us is working with the speakers and hanging out with them a little, and it’s much nicer when we can feel a connection with them.

For someone trying to break into the speaking circuit, I’d offer three pieces of advice.

• Speak as much as you can; present at work to small groups for short periods. You’ll suck at times, you’ll be nervous, but you’ll get better. Knowing how to present to audiences is a skill you can learn.
• Work at being better. Study other speakers at conferences you go to and by watching the TED talks, and learn from how they present. Read Garr Reynolds’ blog, Presentation Zen.
• Respect your audience. It’s a privilege to be able to speak to a group of peers. They’re giving up their time to watch you. Put in the research time needed. Spend time crafting your slides. Rehearse your presentation. It will take longer than you think it should to prepare, but it’s worth it and it’s the minimum you should do.

Great tips, thanks. So, what are you most looking forward to during Webstock ‘09?

As an organizer I most look forward to feeling that buzz a successful conference has; when you walk around and people are animated and smiling and blown away by what they’ve just heard. If we can create that atmosphere at Webstock, I’ll be very happy.

As an attendee it’s really hard for me to single out the speakers I’m most looking forward to seeing. I think Jasmina Tesanovic will be fascinating.

I’m really looking forward to Annalee Newitz and Matt Jones. Damian Conway is perhaps the most entertaining speaker I’ve seen. But if I had to pick one speaker I’m most looking forward to — Bruce Sterling. Speaking in Wellington. At Webstock. OMG!

Thanks for your time, Mike, and I look forward to attending Webstock and visiting New Zealand for the first time, later this month. I hope to catch up with any Tribune readers while I’m there too — trust I’ll see you there!

This post first appeared as part of Issue 432 of the SitePoint Tribune, a very popular email newsletter that I am co-editor of. Thanks to SitePoint for allowing me to reproduce the work here.

Should you offer services or products?

The old phrase, The grass is always greener … is often heard when discussing the merits of services versus web-based products. Listed below are some of the advantages and disadvantages of both models. Which ones apply to you?

Products — Advantages

• gives you unlimited income potential, because time constraints are minimal (unlike selling services)
• enables lower prices for the consumer, as costs can be amortized over more customers
• allows you to concentrate on building one main project, rather than several small ones
• presents a choice of different revenue models, which are simpler to modify over time
• affords a better opportunity for residual income, in continual license fees
• provides an easier option to sell as an ongoing concern than a small web service does.

Products — Disadvantages

• requires more upfront investment in time and possibly money, especially the marketing aspect
• presents the possibility of competitors creating similar products and competing directly with you.
• necessitates market research to avoid ending up with little or no customer base.
• runs the risk of fielding more support queries than anticipated
• may delay long-term growth because of the lack of immediate cash flow

Services — Advantages

• generates income faster, because it’s easier to sell your services than a brand new product to the marketplace
• provides scope for a variety of projects, maintaining your interest in each new project
• offers more versatility in meeting market demands, rather than having to rebuild a mature application

Services — Disadvantages

• reduces your capacity for income, because it’s based purely on how much you can charge and how many staff you need
• limits short-term growth; for example, hiring staff is more time-consuming than bringing a new server online
• makes you more vulnerable to market buoyancy than product licenses

Also remember, as Dave mentioned, that it’s very simple to have a hybrid model of both: sell your current services while developing and offering products as well. This is similar to how businesses may sell hosting, stock images, and CMS licenses.

This post first appeared as part of Issue 424 of the SitePoint Tribune, a very popular email newsletter that I am co-editor of. Thanks to SitePoint for allowing me to reproduce the work here.

Dave Greiner co-founded Freshview in 2004 with his long-time mate, Ben Richardson. Dave is the design half of the founding partnership, and is responsible for the UI of their products. When not obsessing about form layouts, he’s known to obsess about over-hit backhand slices in table tennis.

Hi Dave, the story of Ben and yourself creating an email campaign solution is inspiring. Can you give us the 30 second history lesson here?

Back in 2004, we were running our own small web design shop. Business was going well, and lots of our clients started approaching us to send email newsletters for them. The search began for the right email marketing software to handle this side of the business — but all the tools we tried were either missing key features or were bloated and impossible to use.

Quite quickly we realized there was a genuine opportunity here to build an email marketing tool just for the web design industry. By late 2004, the first version of Campaign Monitor was launched. Fast forward to today and we’ve got 15 staff and tens of thousands of designers in more than 100 countries using our software, running email campaigns for themselves and their clients. It’s been a wild ride.

So, given you previously charged for services (time), and now are making money based on product, you would have a great insight into both spheres. What are the pros and cons for going to product-based sales, versus the grind of hourly billing?

I think it ultimately comes down to the type of person you are and the things you enjoy. Some people love the idea of working on a new project every week for a different client. I’ve been working on the same project for four years and still love what I do.

Personal preference aside though, the most obvious and important difference between product and time-based work is scale. I’d much rather be surfing than working; so, when I’m working, I want it to be as productive as possible.

When you’re charging by the hour, it’s much harder to grow your bottom line without growing your head count. By selling a product, especially a self-service product over the Web, you can double your business without having to work harder or hire more people. That’s a fairly significant pro, in my opinion.

You managed to gain great traction in the early days, with little spent on advertising. What do you attribute that success to?

I think the biggest factor behind our early success was that we built for a specific niche instead of trying to please everybody. By creating a tool just for web designers, we could build unique features perfect for the industry that nobody else was offering.

Just before launching, we approached some well-known designers for their feedback on the software. A number of them were kind enough to write glowing reviews on their blog, and it all started from there.

Another area we focused on, and still focus on, is the idea of promotion through education. We gave away as much knowledge as we could through articles and other free resources; this helped establish us as experts in the email design field and gained us a lot of free attention in the industry we were targeting.

If there was a simple tip you could suggest for anyone considering starting a product rather than relying on service income, what would it be?

Don’t be afraid to do both for a while. We built Campaign Monitor on the side a couple of days a week while we spent the rest of our time working for clients. It might take a little longer, but it also means you’re mitigating most of the risk involved in a new venture.

If I can sneak a second tip in, it would be to make things easy on yourself by charging for your software. If it adds value, people will be willing to pay for it.

Who doesn’t want to work at Freshview? Ping pong, free lunches, surfboards — you have a great philosophy there. What lessons have you learned along the way? (Oh, and when can I start?)

Our work philosophy wasn’t really a big strategic decision for us. It actually came down to our own expectations. This is where we spend the majority of our days, it’s our time away from the things we really enjoy doing. It better be fun.

To keep the balance right, we have a work environment where you can choose how distracted you want to be. All our developers have big offices so they can really dig in and get things done when they need to. But we also have break-out areas where you can play some ping pong , grab a free snack, and generally hang out.

We also try to get out of the office for things totally unrelated to work, like surfing lessons, lawn bowls, and go-carting. We always find we get the best out of our team if they’re spending some office time away from a monitor.

This post first appeared as part of Issue 424 of the SitePoint Tribune, a very popular email newsletter that I am co-editor of. Thanks to SitePoint for allowing me to reproduce the work here.

Tonight I had the great opportunity to speak at the City of Stirling’s ‘Mind Your Arts’ workshop series.

It’s always great to impart some knowledge, and although I seriously dislike the term ’social media expert’, it was fun speaking about how artists can use social media to promote their work and network with other creative minds.

The slides are below. Although they aren’t as useful without the verbal cues, I hope that you find something useful in them. Thanks to the team at City of Stirling for inviting me, and for those who attended; thanks for making me feel welcome and for all the great questions!

The websites I mention in the talk were

Flickr
YouTube
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
Blogging (such as Wordpress)

If you attended the workshop, I hope to see you trying out social media soon!

Stephen Collins is recognised as one of Australia’s leading proponents of participatory culture, advising businesses and government on Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, and social networking. He has extensive consulting experience for a diverse client base across the public and private sectors.

Stephen took time out from his hectic schedule to speak to us about Web 2.0 and social media.

Hi Stephen. You recently co-presented a Web 2.0 university workshop in Australia. What is it about Web 2.0 that makes it special enough to gain the attention it’s been receiving?

Some people, especially those with old-school mindsets, think the whole revolution around Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 — and it is a revolution — is about all the great tools we can use. My view is that the tools themselves are the least important part of the package. What the 2.0 change is all about is people and culture, which is the message communicated by The Cluetrain Manifesto ten years ago.

If you had one piece of advice for someone outside the web industry looking to embrace the ideas of Web 2.0, what would it be?

Open up and go public. Empower people. Be human. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Be respectful.

So, as a web freelancer or web company, what can we do to start embracing Web 2.0 ideas within our own businesses?

Start off by reading or rereading The Cluetrain Manifesto and start practising what it preaches. Then, just embrace the 2.0 way of doing business. Do business this way. It can and does work. Maybe even sign and use something like the Company-Customer Pact.

There are a bunch of other great books worth reading that any business looking to “go 2.0″ (my goodness, that’s a dorky phrase) should be putting on every employees’ desk. In no particular order (just looking at my bookcase):

• Cubicle Commando by Lisa Messenger and Zern Liew
• Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony Wiliams
• Purple Cow by Seth Godin
• Fish! by Stephen Lundin, Harry Paul, and John Christensen
• The Long Tail by Chris Anderson
• The Starfish and the Spider by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom
• Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff

Much attention with Web 2.0 is given to social media. This is a dual-edged sword for companies though, isn’t it? One minute, a company could be the flavor of the “social sphere” and the next, they could be on the outer. What can they do to avoid being on the wrong end?

I think the notion of social media as a risk is false. It’s only a risk if you go in underdone. You wouldn’t make other business decisions without consideration, would you? Choose the right people to be the evangelists and mentors for your brand online. Empower them to engage in the conversation and make it a part of their everyday job — not an additional task. Progressively give everyone in the business that wants to take part the skills they need and then let them fly!

Brands that do this well have great success using social media. You’d be hard put to find a bad word from the community about Zappos, for example. And the mood around brands like Comcast and Dell is moving in a very positive direction since they’ve implemented good, well-planned social media approaches. Well-planned doesn’t need to mean slow or corporate; it’s about choosing the right channels and the right people, and letting them get on with it.

I help many clients with a social media strategy. It shouldn’t be done lightly and it does take some thinking. But you can’t take your time with this — your competitors have probably already spoken to me, or one of the other smart people who do work similar to mine.

The Web is certainly changing. Do you believe those of us building web sites need to adapt our services, or will there still be clients looking for standard web sites in another five or ten years?

The brochure web site will probably still be around in five years, but maybe not ten. At least, not in the developed world. Clients more and more are looking for full-service approaches: brand strategy, marketing, social media, communications, and the rest. The big agencies already do this, but I think that their product is not always as good as those delivered by smaller, boutique businesses.

I think those of us operating small businesses in the web industry — whether it’s design, development, or strategy — need to start teaming up in an informal way to compete with the big agencies. Better still if the agencies recognize that some of the boutique and specialist companies should be on their go-to list for expert advice.

There’s more than enough work for everyone, even in these odd economic times, but we should all be playing together more often and not trying to shut each other out. That’s very 2.0 of me, isn’t it?

Thanks for your time Stephen.

My pleasure Miles!

This post first appeared as part of Issue 420 of the SitePoint Tribune, a very popular email newsletter that I am co-editor of. Thanks to SitePoint for allowing me to reproduce the work here.

I was honoured to speak on day one of Edge of the Web 2009. My presentation, You Too Can be a Successful Freelancer, contained both personal stories of my freelancing years, as well as some of the material from my book, The Principles of Successful Freelancing.

I had a great time preparing it, and then delivering it to a enthusiastic audience (a huge thanks to you if you were there!), and have uploaded the slides to my SlideShare account. You can see them embedded below. The slides were featured on the SlideShare front page the day after I uploaded them – thanks SlideShare!

You can see a number of the presentations given at Edge of the Web 2009 on SlideShare here.

Image: Photo by Richard Giles. Original photo here.

There is less than two weeks until Perth’s second ever web conference; Edge of the Web 2009 gets underway, and the excitement is building!

One large element of the social aspects of web conferences is the ‘twitter back channel’, you know; the thoughts and musings of people who are attending the conference posted on Twitter.

With this in mind, I thought it worthwhile to go through the impressive speakers list, and link those who are on Twitter so you can also watch what the speakers are saying, before, during and after the crazy week we have planned.

Derek Powazek @fraying
Anil Dash @anildash
Alex Payne @al3x
Dmitry Baranovskiy @DmitryBaranovsk
Gary Barber @Tuna
Ruth Ellison @RuthEllison
Lachlan Hardy @lachlanhardy
Simon Pascal Klein @klepas
Kevin Yank @sentience
Miles Burke @milesb
Ash Donaldson @ashdonaldson
Matt Balara @MattBalara
Matt Didcoe @mattman
Scott Gledhill @gleddy
Nick Cowie @nickobec
Myles Eftos @madpilot
James McCutcheon @jamesmcc
Justin Mclean @JustinMclean
Darcy Laycock @Sutto

Remember, if you are attending Edge of the Web 2009, you should use #eotw09 as the hashtag. It’d probably be a good idea to also follow the @eotw Twitter account too!

The full exciting program for Edge of the Web 2009 has now been announced, and you can peruse the fine speakers and their topics over on the Program page.

Now, I could be biased (hey, I’m speaking at the event!) but I truly believe there’s a great line-up of talent, those locals, as well as those coming from both interstate and overseas, to our humble city to share their wisdom at Western Australia’s own web design and development conference.

People like Derek Powazek, who I saw speak in New Zealand earlier this year, Twitter API superstar, Alex Payne and well-known blogger, Anil Dash are visiting Australia for Edge of the Web.

In total, there are 22 kick ass speakers who will entertain, educate and invigorate you to push the web further. Add these to the great workshops and the black tie Australian Web Awards gala event, and you’ve got one great week!

The best part is, if you get in right now and register, early bird pricing is in place until September 15 (that’s right; only a week left!) which means you can save some of your money (hey, spend it on drinks at the number of social events which will also happen around the days before and after, and evenings of, the conference).

Don’t just take my word for it. Hit your favourite micro-blogging platform and ask your colleagues, or search for blog posts reviewing last years event. I’m positive you’ll love being at the Edge of the Web 2009!

Be quick organising those tickets though; the fun begins in only eight weeks time…