Facebook Introduces The Fan Box

Facebook Just launched widget for bands and celebrities to place directly on their own Websites which show their Facebook status updates, how many Facebook fans the have , and a ”Become a Fan” link which makes you a fan through Facebook Connect.

This is pretty big, as this will make your Facebook fan page more accessible and easier to integrate into your own website. Facebook continues to release new products that continue to add to their growth and to benefit its users. Watch out myspace, Facebook is coming for ya.

You can get more info on their new Fan Box widget here.

Facebook: The place for brand marketing

When we first started leveraging social networks for brand marketing, way back in 2004 (long time in internet years), there was really only Myspace and Friendster. Facebook was around at that time but still was focusing only on colleges and was relatively unknown. Myspace and Friendster were the two bigs that had achieved critical mass and only one, myspace, was friendly to marketers. So, that was where we had success using a social network to expand the reach, and visibility of our brands. As a matter of fact, myspace has always made it real easy for brands to access their huge number or members. Therefore, they have always been the no brainer destination for social network marketing.  Now, fast forward a few years, and facebook has achieved some crazy growth in the US and abroad. They’ve opened up their web site to not only colleges and high schools, but now any one can be a member of Facebook. Believe me when I say anyone, surprisingly they have a growing membership of the 35 + crowd. But, facebook always made it pretty difficult for companies to leverage the tools and benefits of facebook. They have always frowned upon companies using a personal profile to reach the facebook members, and have always capped the amount of friends that you can have at 5,000. Well, a little earlier this year, they re-launched their “pages” product and have combined the best of a personal account and the old “fan pages”. Essentially what they’ve done is make it easier and more attractive for brand marketeers to reach the 200+ million members of facebook. In the past, I would tell my clients that the first thing they should do is set up a account on myspace. Now, I tell them to create a facebook fan page. By using a fan page, your fans can totally contribute and participate in your facebook activities. Most importantly, you can message all of your fans ant once, and there is no cap on the amount of fans that you can have. One thing that the fan pages are missing, is a short, unique url for your page. I hope this will change in the near future.

I had a soon to be client contact us the other day saying that they have 4,999 friends on facebook and that they couldn’t accept anymore friends becasue facebook would not let them. I instructed them to set up a fan page and to start moving all of the content over to that page. They were afraid that they would have to start over at 1 friend. Turns out, you can contact facebook and they will help you transfer your friends to fans. They want move your content, but they will move over your friends (at least they use to). Even if they don’t move your friends for you, it’s pretty easy to get the word out to your existing friends to let them know that activities are moving to the fan page.

So, if you have a company that would lend itself (more onthat later) to the facebook auidinence then get yourself  facebook fan page. You should also set up a twitter account, but more on that later as well.

Contact SocialCircus to get the low down on using social media to get your brand noticed.

Hello World!

Welcome to socialcircus.com. We are a very small Social Media agency with offices in Austin, TX. And, by offices, I mean 1 house and 1 apartment. But, both are linked by massive amounts of Internets, email, skype and the occasional SMS message. SocialCircus is a culmination of 10 years of experience in Internet Marketing and Community Management as well as specialty e-commerce. We have founded innovative e-commerce, community and content companies as well as provided Internet Marketing and Social Media consulting. We have worked with companies in many different industries, from manufacturing to consumer facing niche Internet video sites. We have extensive experience in the Boardsports markets as well as fashion and online publishing.

Our doors are now open. If you have a company that is or would be interested in reaching a larger market, please contact us.