# How Facebook Screwed Me



## y.painting (Jul 19, 2009)

So I go to my business fan page this morning after running an ad too see if any new fans have joined. 

Turns out, my pages is now gone. 

After leaving FB a message (they do not take calls) to make sure the accound wasn't hacked etc, they emailed me back and were "sorry to inform me that [my] business fanpage has, due to unforeseen circumstances, been compromised." 

Basically, it's gone and no one can tell me why or how. As per their advice, I changed my passwords, etc. Moral of the story, info/photos/video on FB need to be backed up. 

I made up a new page and all. Please fan me (and I'll fan everyone back). 

Here is my new page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rochester-NY/Yaros-Painting/268891499379

Thanks for fanning me. 

When (if) I find out more from them, I'll keep yall posted.


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## MAK-Deco (Apr 17, 2007)

Sorry to hear Y.. I have been running there ads on and off for months with no issues..


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## RCP (Apr 18, 2007)

Wow, first I have never heard of that.


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## NEPS.US (Feb 6, 2008)

Would that be considered to be Anti-social media?


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## aaron61 (Apr 29, 2007)

NEPS.US said:


> Would that be considered to be Anti-social media?


Now that's FUNNY!!!!!:whistling2:


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## y.painting (Jul 19, 2009)

Yes it would, it my case, lol


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## michfan (Jul 6, 2008)

That really sucks Y. Definitely keep us posted. I'm curious about the reason.


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## BenPaintinTooLong (Apr 17, 2007)

Here is my new page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rochester-NY/Yaros-Painting/268891499379

Thanks for fanning me. 

When (if) I find out more from them, I'll keep yall posted.[/quote]


A page that looks like that is only if you pay for adds on fb??


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## y.painting (Jul 19, 2009)

No. You can make it yourself for free. Here are good instructions on how to do it.


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## premierpainter (Apr 17, 2007)

I fanned you, but what does that do for you? All of your friends are your fans, they know you paint, so they will call you anyway. We don't work for friends, so what benefit does it have for your business? 
Am I missing something? Please let me know. BTW you have spent a lot of time on the FB page, and it looks nice. Good interior pictures as well.
Let me know how it helps you...please


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## y.painting (Jul 19, 2009)

premierpainter said:


> I fanned you, but what does that do for you? All of your friends are your fans, they know you paint, so they will call you anyway. We don't work for friends, so what benefit does it have for your business?
> Am I missing something? Please let me know. BTW you have spent a lot of time on the FB page, and it looks nice. Good interior pictures as well.
> Let me know how it helps you...please


*For Fun*

As a new page starting from zero, you have to begin somewhere. The reason it's a good idea to have people from PT or other forums fan you when you have zero fans is so that you can quickly build up a base of people with whom you can have discussions/comments/etc on your page/photos/videos. I enjoy interacting with others in places other than PT. 

Having people you know from the forum become your fans has the same business benefit as uploading a photo of your work or some other link of interest directly to PT or another forum and having members talk/comment about it. It won't bring you business - you do it because you like interacting with like minded individuals or showing off your work.

The reason it is a good idea to have your actual friends become fans of your page when you have zero fans to begin with is for the same reason as above. Plus friends of your friends will see in their news streams that their friends are interested in your page and might themselves give your stream a look.

*For Business*

With a significant base of interactions and *local *connections, there is great potential for viral spreading of your message simply due to the way facebook cross feeds information between various contacts.

Now, you absolutely must work hard at this. It does not happen by virtue of having a high fan count. You have to initiate discussion with your fans, you have to ask questions, start contests, put up "exclusive" discounts/prizes, etc. Your message will spread if you feed something of value to your local fans.

Am I doing this right now? No, not really. I don't have a sufficient base of local contacts or the drive right now (or time) to initiate contests/prizes/etc.

This webinar recording from Duct Tape Marketing does a good job of explaining how you can make FB a viable part of your overall small business marketing strategy.

PS - I have not really spent that much time on making the page. I am pretty good with Photoshop, so it took about 10 minutes to make that landing page. After that, just add some links to the wall and put up a picture.
--> But that's exactly why this easy strategy doesn't work well. You can't just throw up a couple of links/pictures on your wall and expect some sort of results. You have to engage with local fans.


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## ProWallGuy (Apr 7, 2007)

premierpainter said:


> I fanned you, but what does that do for you?


While I didn't read what yaros said above me, the quick benefit of having some fans built up is that once you hit so many (not sure of the number) you can change your FB biz page from www. facebok.com/blahblah/premi-pai/6598bvjh45h5hg4un9g.html ( or something like that) to something easier to market like:
www. facebook.com/premierpainting.html


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## y.painting (Jul 19, 2009)

ProWallGuy said:


> ...not sure of the number


It's 25


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## KLaw (May 8, 2009)

y.painting said:


> *For Fun*
> 
> As a new page starting from zero, you have to begin somewhere. The reason it's a good idea to have people from PT or other forums fan you when you have zero fans is so that you can quickly build up a base of people with whom you can have discussions/comments/etc on your page/photos/videos. I enjoy interacting with others in places other than PT.
> 
> ...


I am not totally on board with this facebook, twitter, etc.. stuff. I see spending way more time keeping this social media "active" and in front of people vs. actual sales as a result from these activities. 

Somebody on this board: please tell me you have achieved direct sales from this and the ROI was worth it (remember to include the time you spent maintaining it). 

All of that being said, there is just too much buzz about this social media stuff. Hence, we are going to have to jump into it sooner or later.


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## y.painting (Jul 19, 2009)

I did three estimates from twitter since starting using it 3 months ago - one for cabinets (won), one for 4 rooms (lost) and one for wallpaper removal/repaint (lost).

RIO is ok - I spend ~30 minutes per week on twitter. Most feeds are automatic.

I did one estimate from my old facebook account - a friend of my friend saw a comment my friend had left on my page, clicked on it, and called me. I got the exterior job.

ROI is ok. I spend ~30per week on my business page (I dind't update it regularly and I didn't engage fans and I didn't advertise to get more local fans).

Where the real potential in FB is, in my opinion, is in PPC. Too many local people in my demographic of interest hang out for hours on there to ignore.


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## KLaw (May 8, 2009)

y.painting said:


> I did three estimates from twitter since starting using it 3 months ago - one for cabinets (won), one for 4 rooms (lost) and one for wallpaper removal/repaint (lost).
> 
> RIO is ok - I spend ~30 minutes per week on twitter. Most feeds are automatic.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the feedback. Overall - do you think it is worth it? 

Does it help much for SEO (side benefit or main benefit?)


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## y.painting (Jul 19, 2009)

Twitter links are nofollow, so nothing there.

Facebook can give you some linkjuice.

These media are not for SEO, in general.

The main idea (in principle, but it's difficult to execute) is to create a network that operates similar to WOM. The more networked your business’ page is (via customers, friends, vendors, etc.) the more others will see you populating their newsfeeds. For example, you put up a picture of a finished home of one of your customers after they became your fan after you invited them. They comment on the picture - "OMG, FC did such a great job painting my home. Thanks FC."

This comment goes to the newsfeeds of all of the friends of that customer. Chances are that most of those people are also local. They see their friends comment on your photo - this is basically WOM.

That's the idea, at least.


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## KLaw (May 8, 2009)

y.painting said:


> Twitter links are nofollow, so nothing there.
> 
> Facebook can give you some linkjuice.
> 
> ...


 
Cool. I hear you. It's just that I haven't heard of any real case examples of how this generated some leads. Like I said, it's all the buzz right now so we are going to jump into it - slowly. Thanks for feedback.


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## RCP (Apr 18, 2007)

fresh coat said:


> Cool. I hear you. It's just that I haven't heard of any real case examples of how this generated some leads. Like I said, it's all the buzz right now so we are going to jump into it - slowly. Thanks for feedback.


This is why,



fresh coat said:


> I agree - times are a changing. I think BBB is old school. Again though, it depends on your target market. Say you are targeting a retirement community - BBB might be a very good thing. I don't think the under 50 crowd bothers with BBB.<snip>


There are a lot of the over 50 on FB, but that is also where you find a huge majority of the under 50 crowd.


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## KLaw (May 8, 2009)

RCP said:


> This is why,
> 
> 
> 
> There are a lot of the over 50 on FB, but that is also where you find a huge majority of the under 50 crowd.


 
Bust out some stats of your facebook efforts -if you don't mind sharing---:whistling2::whistling2:


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## RCP (Apr 18, 2007)

fresh coat said:


> Bust out some stats of your facebook efforts -if you don't mind sharing---:whistling2::whistling2:



As a free way to reach people, it is hard to ignore.
Facebook stats

But Fresh, you already have one, so you really don't have to do anything, except post it on your web page.


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## y.painting (Jul 19, 2009)

That's the wrong page RC. Kev's is over here.


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## BenPaintinTooLong (Apr 17, 2007)

y.painting said:


> That's the wrong page RC. Kev's is over here.


 
Can you help me to get a pic up on the canvas? I have tried all examples I can find but none work, text is no problem.


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## BenPaintinTooLong (Apr 17, 2007)

BenPaintinTooLong said:


> Can you help me to get a pic up on the canvas? I have tried all examples I can find but none work, text is no problem.


Thanks Y I know you would be letting me know how to do it soon, but I figured it out. Got my profile pic to load much larger but it is blurry, I can save it in a larger pix size and get that to work as well.


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## MAK-Deco (Apr 17, 2007)

premierpainter said:


> I fanned you, but what does that do for you? All of your friends are your fans, they know you paint, so they will call you anyway. We don't work for friends, so what benefit does it have for your business?
> Am I missing something? Please let me know. BTW you have spent a lot of time on the FB page, and it looks nice. Good interior pictures as well.
> Let me know how it helps you...please


Most of the fans on my page are not people I have friended on my personal page. I have clients who I have and will work for and use it as a means to communicate to them and they can refer there friends to my FB page or directly to my website.


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## vermontpainter (Dec 24, 2007)

y.painting said:


> That's the wrong page RC. Kev's is over here.


Now that right there, that is funny, I dont care who you are. Now you got me to wonderin, any chance that Chuck is any relation to Kev, or is the last name just a coinkydoinky?

That rascally rabbit. Pumpin y'all cats for info, and he had a page the whole time. :whistling2:


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## y.painting (Jul 19, 2009)

BenPaintinTooLong said:


> Thanks Y I know you would be letting me know how to do it soon, but I figured it out. Got my profile pic to load much larger but it is blurry, I can save it in a larger pix size and get that to work as well.


Great, man! Do you have a link to your page?


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## y.painting (Jul 19, 2009)

vermontpainter said:


> Now that right there, that is funny, I dont care who you are. Now you got me to wonderin, any chance that Chuck is any relation to Kev, or is the last name just a coinkydoinky?
> 
> That rascally rabbit. Pumpin y'all cats for info, and he had a page the whole time. :whistling2:


Man, I love the power of google!


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## RCP (Apr 18, 2007)

NEPS.US said:


> Would that be considered to be Anti-social media?


LOL, thought of this NEPS' comment when I saw this!


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## KLaw (May 8, 2009)

vermontpainter said:


> Now that right there, that is funny, I dont care who you are. Now you got me to wonderin, any chance that Chuck is any relation to Kev, or is the last name just a coinkydoinky?
> 
> That rascally rabbit. Pumpin y'all cats for info, and he had a page the whole time. :whistling2:


Hold on now... I can't be held responsible for that! Hell yea, these guys / gals are relation. Both of them thought they were helping me out. Oh well... I still appreciate their corny efforts.


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## BenPaintinTooLong (Apr 17, 2007)

y.painting said:


> Great, man! Do you have a link to your page?


I don't want to put out any links yet, it is not a painting page but another business I am starting soon.

I do have another ? for ya! I want to put up different pics, but all I can find the fbml codes are to put up the avatar pic only bigger.


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## y.painting (Jul 19, 2009)

Yeah, I haven't actually used fbml tags at all. You can still use regular html in the coding space. For the pic I have up there, i just used the simple <img src="http://www.yourdomain.com/yourpic.jpg" />


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## KLaw (May 8, 2009)

I am becoming a believer. Started yappin on my personal fb page (not the corny one Y pointed out). Started "friending" some folks I haven't seen or talked to in a long time. Created a strategic alliance with one and am doing an interior quote for another old buddy. And that resulted from just "catching up" talk - I was not promoting my biz at all. So, now I am thinking: Hmmmm.... Got some potential.


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## buxton finishes (Feb 13, 2010)

Thanks y.painting, I've been trying to muddle my way through setting up a fmbl custom page but your idea was much simpler.

http://buxtonfinishes.com


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## premierpainter (Apr 17, 2007)

fresh coat said:


> I am becoming a believer. Started yappin on my personal fb page (not the corny one Y pointed out). Started "friending" some folks I haven't seen or talked to in a long time. Created a strategic alliance with one and am doing an interior quote for another old buddy. And that resulted from just "catching up" talk - I was not promoting my biz at all. So, now I am thinking: Hmmmm.... Got some potential.


Problem is~ we don't work for friends or Family...rule #1. Always turns out poorly...IMO


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## MAK-Deco (Apr 17, 2007)

premierpainter said:


> Problem is~ we don't work for friends or Family...rule #1. Always turns out poorly...IMO


80% of the of people on my FB Biz page not either. I actually sent out email to current clients who I figured where on FB and told them about the page they they fan'd it on there own.. Soccer moms love FB.


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## caseysbuilding (Mar 12, 2009)

So you just put a link on your website linking to your FB page?


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