Top 4 Tips for Successful Social Media Integration on your Website

January 27, 2012 by Jill J. Vasquez  |  Leave a Comment

Social Media. By now, you are probably sick of hearing those words. The fact remains that social media can make or break your business.

One of the most important things to do when launching your website, or even if you have an existing website, is to make sure you are integrating social media appropriately. Here are a few tips to help you integrate successfully!

1. Make Sure Social Media Buttons are Visible

This might seem like common sense, but the truth is that many businesses miss the mark when placing their social media buttons. Media buttons should be displayed on the top, bottom or along the side of your home page.

Links or buttons that remain in your navigation as the user moves from page to page are important. Always offer them the opportunity to check out your social media! Be sure they are set to open in a new window so the user doesn’t exit your website.

This website clearly displays their Facebook, Twitter, and RSS Feed for viewers.

2. Don’t Overdo It

Don’t get engaged in social media that you aren’t interested in. You will be more successful if you focus on a few outlets and make them spectacular rather than having twenty outlets and nineteen of them are ignored. By this, I mean if you prefer Facebook over Twitter then just stick with the Facebook.

Overwhelming your viewers with icons for too many social media outlets will turn them off.. instead just focus on the main players such as Facebook and Twitter to start. Before you add buttons to your site, ask yourself, “Is there information here that people would be interested in?”

This website only uses Facebook and keeps that as their main focus

3. Integrate your Social Media Feed

One of the easiest ways to get your fans engaged is to have your social media feed directly displayed on your site. If you use Facebook often then add the code right into your sidebar! Show your fans that you are engaged.

Twitter also helps you display your tweets fairly easy by providing their own slew of widgets you can add to your site. You can add them to your website, blog and even add integration to your Facebook page. Click here to view all the goodies.

This website integrates their Facebook feed right onto their sidebar.

4. Include Share Buttons

If you sell a product or run a full-fledged eCommerce site and you haven’t added share buttons to your product pages, you are missing out on a whole host of potential social impressions. Share buttons should enable website-goers to seamlessly share or recommend a product. Let your fans do the advertising for you!

If you have a WordPress based site or blog, make sure you visit your plugins section and do a search for social media buttons. There are many to choose from and we’re sure you’ll find something to your liking. Take a look at how this website adds share buttons to the side of their posts.

Follow these steps and watch how your website and social media will work seamlessly!

How To Get The Most Out Of Your WordPress Blog

January 24, 2012 by Freddy X. Vasquez  |  Leave a Comment

Many of our clients have asked us to redesign their websites using the WordPress platform. It makes it easier for them to log in and make the updates they need right away as opposed to waiting for the “web guy”. Keeping websites fresh with new content keeps your Google rankings moving in the right direction and allows you to achieve better organic rankings.

So being many of my clients have asked me the same batch of questions on how to get the most out of WordPress, I figured why not write a quick little post helping you get started on the right path towards success.

Permalinks
One of the first things you should do is setup your permalinks correctly. If you’ve already went ahead and started blogging or creating pages, you’ll see the links created by WordPress look something like this:

http://www.YourAwesomeUrl.com/?page_id=35

Looking at that you can tell right away that SEO is not the main focus. In order to fix that, all you need to do is got to your Dashboard > Settings > Permalinks. Select the post name option, which should look like the following:

/%postname%/

Doing this will set your URLs to show the titles of your pages or posts, benefitting your SEO and should look like this:

http://www.YourAwesomeUrl.com/your-awesome-title

Google Sitemap Generator
This is an awesome plug-in created by Google that generates XML Sitemap of your WordPress blog. Just install the plug-in, activate, and a sitemap is auto-generated and updated with each blog post. The file wil be placed in the root directory of your site and called “sitemap.xml”. You can then submit this sitemap using Google’s Webmaster Tools. [Read More]

Is your Facebook page being seen by your fans? Probably Not.

January 19, 2012 by Jill J. Vasquez  |  Leave a Comment

You have a page for your business and also have lots of fans! What does that mean? Absolutely nothing, according to new research of Facebook pages.

The grim reality is that only 17% of your fan base is actually seeing what you are posting. Sure, they are fans but that means absolutely nothing if your posts don’t come up in their Facebook Newsfeed.

Facebook has recently began to shun low active pages by deeming them useless in a Newfeed. This means that even if your page has over 5000 fans and you post often, if you don’t get a large amount of likes and comments on your page, your fans won’t see your posts. What makes even less sense is that one user who may comment/link your posts all the time STILL won’t see your posts in the Newsfeed until other people start commenting/liking as well.

Now before you start to get angry, we would like to offer you a solution.

The fact is that without constant attention, your Facebook page is going to suffer. Here are some solutions from AllFacebook.com to help get your page back onto the Newsfeeds of your fans:

4 Tips For Solving Facebook Post Visibility Problems

- You must try to get more likes and comments with every one of your posts. Every post that doesn’t get responses lowers the value of your page. Make sure everyone who posts to your page knows this and is capable of doing the next bullet item.

- To get more likes and comments, you need to tell people why they should like and comment on your posts.

- If you aren’t reaching enough fans, you might need to use Facebook advertising either to get more, or to show your page posts as ads. Then do a better job of engaging so you can keep reaching a higher percentage of these new fans.

- If you don’t want to do a good job of engaging fans on your Facebook page, the lower visibility may increase your cost per customer to the point that you may lose your profit potential. In this case, you should just use Facebook advertising to send people to your website instead — fewer steps, lower cost per customer.

Don’t have time to devote to your page? Of course, FXV Digital is here to help. Contact us today and let us run your Social Media for you so you can be sure you are being seen!

What Is SOPA & Why Should It Concern You

January 18, 2012 by Freddy X. Vasquez  |  1 Comment

The past couple of days you might have seen a bunch of sites talking about SOPA, PIPA, blackouts and asking you to sign petitions. But what is SOPA? Short for Stop Online Piracy Act, it is a proposed bill that aims to crack down on copyright infringement by restricting access to sites that host pirated content.

Simply put,the government is trying to crack down on sites that promote illegally downloading movies, music and media. This is definitely something that should be supported – but the way SOPA is setup, it promotes censorship and can lead to unwanted circumstances.

Here is an excerpt from a CNN Money article posted yesterday:

Let’s say a YouTube user uploads a copyrighted song. Under the current law, that song’s copyright holders could send a “takedown notice” to YouTube. YouTube is protected against liability as long as it removes the content within a reasonable timeframe.

When it gets a DMCA warning, YouTube has to notify the user who uploaded the content. That user has the right to file a counter-motion demonstrating that the content doesn’t infringe on any copyrights. If the two sides keep disagreeing, the issue can go to court.

The problem with DMCA, critics say, is that it’s useless against overseas sites.
SOPA tackles that by moving up the chain. If you can’t force overseas sites to take down copyrighted work, you can at least stop U.S. companies from providing their services to those sites. You can also make it harder for U.S. Internet users to find and access the sites.

But SOPA goes further than DMCA and potentially puts site operators on the hook for content their users upload. A site could be deemed a SOPA scofflaw if it takes “deliberate actions to avoid confirming a high probability” that its service will be used for copyright infringement. That kind of swampy language has tech companies spooked.

“YouTube would just go dark immediately,” Google public policy director Bob Boorstin said at a conference last month. “It couldn’t function.”

While there are good intentions with SOPA, the above excerpt shows you how one site many of us frequent will be affected. There needs to be another way – a better way – of putting an end to piracy without censoring the rest of the internet.

If you’re looking for more info on SOPA and its negative implications, here is a quick list of articles you can read:

SOPA Will Take Us Back to the Dark Ages – Mashable
Why Start-ups Are Scared of SOPA – Inc
SOPA Isn’t Dead, It’s Just Sleeping (Until February) – TechCrunch

If you would like your voice to be heard, please visit Google’s page to End Piracy, Not Liberty.

How To Add An Admin to Your Facebook Page

November 16, 2011 by Jill J. Vasquez  |  Leave a Comment

The constant changing of Facebook’s features and design is always making us look for the “new way” to do certain functions. We often get asked “How do I make someone an admin of my page?”.

Please don’t think you can’t contact us for any type of social media, we’re just looking for

There are two ways to do this, both of which we have written out below. Please keep in mind that an existing admin MUST be one to do so.

• Go to the page you would like to add an admin of
• Click “Edit Page” on the upper right corner
• Click “Manage Admins” on the left side of the page. It is 7 options down on the sidebar list.
• Start typing in the persons name, and once they show up, click on their name. You can also use their email address if they don’t already like the page.
• Hit “Save Changes”
• You are all set with a new Admin!

Here is another way. This way works best if there aren’t too many fans of the page.

• Go to the page you would like to add an admin of
• Click on “like this” under the number of people who are fans of the page on the left side
• Find the name of the person you would to make an admin
• Click “Make Admin” next to their name
• You are all set with a new Admin!

If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us!

How To Create Your New Google+ Page

November 8, 2011 by Jill J. Vasquez  |  Leave a Comment

Google FINALLY launched the ability for all businesses to create their own Google+ page and Mashable has a very detailed slideshow on how to set one up for yourself.

While you’re over there reading up on the process, be sure to add us to your circle by visiting us on there and clicking on +1: FXV Digital Design on Google+

Click Here to view the setup process.

Google+ Launches Pages for Businesses

November 7, 2011 by Jill J. Vasquez  |  Leave a Comment

Google has finally unveiled brand page for Google+, allowing businesses and brands to join Google’s social network.

“So far Google+ has focused on connecting people with other people,” Google SVP of Social Vic Gundotra said in a blog post. “But we want to make sure you can build relationships with all the things you care about—from local businesses to global brands—so today we’re rolling out Google+ Pages worldwide.”

The new Google+ brand pages look similar to Google+ Profiles, except for the little square icon that designates that it’s a Page rather than a Profile. Users can add brands such as Fox News, the Dallas Cowboys and Angry Birds to their circles, check out their information and browse their photos. When users add a brand to their circles, it increases that brand’s follower count.

Google’s launch partners include Angry Birds, CNN, Fox News, the Muppets, the Dallas Cowboys, Pepsi, Toyota, Macy’s, X Games, WWE, Train, Barcelona Football Club and Save the Children.

When the search giant first launched Google+, brands immediately jumped on the opportunity to gain additional exposure. Google soon asked brands to stop creating Google+ profiles. It quickly became a controversy that forced the company to accelerate its plans for business pages.

-Mashable.com