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April 14, 2013

7 ways to use Facebook to market your notary services

Filed under: Social Media — Tags: facebook, Media Shower, notary service, Notary Services — admin @ 7:35 am

“The Dalai Lama likes Edna’s Notary Services.”

That would be an endorsement any businessperson would ki–errr…work very, very hard for. Though it is unlikely that His Holiness would indicate a preference for any one notary service over another, almost anything is possible when you use Facebook wisely.

1. Envision the Future. What do you want to get out of your online presence, and your Facebook presence in particular? Do you want more customers? Do you want to raise your status in the notary community? Do you want to promote certain causes related to your business? Your plan determines the cost and amount of resources needed to use Facebook as a marketing tool.

2. Do not rely on Facebook alone. Just as you would not rely on an attack cat as the sole component of your home security system, you should not rely on the world’s largest social media platform as your only means of promotion. Every business needs a website, and every business website should have its own domain name, for example: ednasnotarypublic.com, as opposed to www.bighugenotarysite.org/ednasnotarypublic. Domains cost in the low-to-
mid two digits annually, and you can just build a free blog site on WordPress or Blogger and point your domain to that. Your website should contain easily accessible contact information, directions, a list of services, and regularly updated News and/or Blog sections.

3. Create a Facebook page. It’s free, it’s easy, and Facebook walks you through the process with pretty pictures. Start here.

4. Promote your site from your Facebook page. Unless your website features copious amounts of nudity, your Facebook page is likely to see the most traffic of your online endeavors. But as the primary means of Facebook communication are short status updates (which may include links) and image or video posts, your website is the place for blog posts, file downloads, and types of content that you are unable to offer via a Facebook page. Whenever you update your website, post a link to the new content on Facebook. Be sure to use images in your website content, as this creates a more compelling Facebook post.

5. Get “Like”d. There are few things as uplifting in this modern age as a Facebook “Like.” When someone Likes your page, it is posted on their wall (see paragraph one of this post) for all their friends to see, admire, and emulate. Begin your quest for Likes by Liking other pages–other notary services for sure, but mainly target people, businesses, and organizations that reflect the type of customers you desire and/or those that reflect or compliment the values and mission of your business. The more Likes you give, the more you are likely to receive, Grasshopper.

6. Update regularly. In the case of a small notary business, every two to three days is a good rule of thumb. Let’s be honest–most folks do not want five updates a day from their notary. Your updates can be links to your own site, links to sites of interest to your preferred customer base, an event your business is hosting, a quote from one of history’s great notaries, a photo of a particularly fetching seal, or anything that will catch someone’s eye. Remember to use images
whenever possible.

7. Use Facebook Ads. Up until now, you have not had to pay Facebook one thin dime. All that is about to change. Facebook Ads let you create ads that target customers according to your criteria.

Al Natanagara is a writer, journalist, and blogger whose career includes stints with ZDNet, CNet, CBS, LexisNexis, and Law Enforcement. http://www.findatitlecompany.com/

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Comments (1)

January 23, 2011

Notaries on Facebook groups — the blind leading the blind

Filed under: Social Media — Tags: facebook, Social media — admin @ 10:31 am

I hear this from multiple sources. There are a lot of Notaries on a lot of private Facebook groups who get together and bash people. I am one of the people who gets bashed the most because those Notaries were rude to me or failed my test, or both. If you are rude to me, I normally let it slide the first time, but if you just don’t stop, then I get forceful in return and then the Notaries who receive my reciprocal wrath run to Facebook (like babies) to slander me. This is a pattern that has been going on a lot in the last year, and somewhat less before that. You can’t just cause trouble, run away and stab someone in the back online. Those type of people get kicked off my site, get no work and drop out of the industry — it is their karma.

Asking Questions on Facebook
Since bad Notaries hate me, and wouldn’t turn to their Notary Handbook for knowledge if God himself told them to at gunpoint, they resort to Facebook. I do not monitor my personal Facebook group, so asking questions there will get responses from those who do use it. This is a nice network for discussions and opinions, but not for law and practices related questions. Here is why asking questions on Facebook is a bad idea.

1. You do not know the competency or level of experience of the person answering you. Even those with 20 years signing experience fail my test the majority of the time. So, the more experience you have, the worse you usually are. You get stuck in this industry since no other industry will have you. You don’t even know the identity of the person you are corresponding with on Facebook either.

2. People who use Facebook will give you wrong answers to Notary questions more than half the time and probably give you bad marketing advice too.

3. People on Facebook do, however know where their business is coming from (if they keep track) and what the gossip is about who is paying, and who is mean (I am generally on that list even though I am nice to those who treat me with respect which is a factor never considered by slanderers.)

4. People on Facebook can tell you what their experience is. They might not interpret their experience in a way that makes sense, but they know what they experienced, and whether they liked it or not.

5. I recommend against asking technical questions on Facebook. The NNA, your Notary Division, or perhaps 123notary (we do not know state specific laws though.) are not bad entities to ask notary questions. 123notary steers people in the right direction all day long in many aspects of the notary profession. But, those on the private groups on Facebook choose to ignore our help which is free of charge and bash us instead. It tells you what type of people you are dealing with on the private groups.

Basically, private groups on Facebook are for frustrated low-IQ people to commiserate, bash people and exchange a lot of erroneous technical notary knowledge. I recommend that your first recourse is to consult your state notary handbook. The NNA might still have their hotline which has state specific knowledge. There are notary law primers available for most states. Additionally, there are many articles online about various notary topics — but beware, those articles might also have wrong or outdated information. So, if the information is for a job that has legal liability, your state is the only official source for up to date and correct information — not Facebook.

Comments (3)

July 14, 2010

Social media – what we are doing!

Filed under: Social Media — Tags: facebook, forum, marketing, Social media, twitter — admin @ 6:51 am

Facebook and Twitter — what we are doing on these mediums.

Marketing introduction
The trends in internet marketing change so fast these days its hard to keep up without a good mentor. New avenues for marketing and socializing online keep popping up, and its difficult to know which ones will last, and which ones will work for us. Twelve years ago when I started as a mobile notary, yellow pages were the optimal way to advertise. Then, I learned how to advertise on the internet. That changed my whole life. To market 123notary.com, I then had to study how to effectively use pay-per-click advertising. The next step was to understand optimization. At that point, I spent close to a year investing and participating in reconfiguring our site to be optimized for better placement on google. As time went on, our webmaster recommeneded social media. We started a forum. The forum accumulated a lot of content, much of it very valuable as it included commentary about signing companies — who paid, and who cheated their notaries. This information is shared and is a means for survival for mobile notaries nationwide. Now, the popular forms of socializing online are Facebook and Twitter. Other popular sites are fading out, but these two seem to keep growing.

Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/123notary our experience
Facebook is a wonderful way to intereact with others. You can have discussions, contests, polls, and offer daily tips to your followers. I have learned that it is quite an endeavor to create good material for our Facebook profile on a daily basis. Tens of hours of painstaking work go into it. But, the rewards are that thousands can benefit from our daily tips and discussions, and we get a regular stream of new customers from this medium who are a lively bunch to work with. We know what are doing now with Facebook, but it is such a versatile medium, that in the future, we might innovate some new ways to use facebook. One idea I had is a competition for who can be a guest blogger. This competition could be in September. Whomever writes the best blog article could be selected to win a prize, and have their work published on our blog! That sounds really exciting.

Twitter – http://twitter.com/123notary – what we did, and what we plan on doing.
We used Twitter as a way to send out daily tips to notaries. We have many followers, and they really seem to like certain tips. Twitter is a great way to find out which types of tips notaries like the most, and which are not worth posting. We keep notes and files on which exact tweets and topics attract the most favorable attention. What we are doing in July 2010 is Tweeting only about topics that were found to be the most popular. We are hoping that will help us attract new followers. Additionally, we will be tweeting about our blogs, and hoping that helps drive enthusiasm.

What works and what doesn’t.
We found that social topics relating to the notary business are hits with our customers. They like folksy chatty types of topics the most. But, the notary career is filled with technicalities too? But, not all technical topics worked well. We learned that technical issues that are important on a daily basis were popular, and business issues relating to notaries not getting cheated were equally popular. However, more obscure technical issues that I feel notaries should know about, did not get the positive attention that I felt they should get. So, we will be shying away from oscure topics for the most part and focusing on what people like.

FORUM – http://www.123notary.com/forum
Visit our forum where we have many interesting sections. We have a tips section where there are over 100 practical notary tips. Read commentaries about over 400 signing companies. Also, you can ask the experts your notary questions and get professional answers. The forum is a great place to exchange ideas with other notaries.