Note: This post was inspired by a conversation that took place on my Facebook Wall recently.

It seems everyone these days is starting a fan page – which is great! Social media, and Facebook itself, is democratic marketing. Everyone has an opportunity.

Unfortunately, people don’t realize what kind of power you have with Facebook – that power can be used to engage fans, or turn them off. And having the same fan page suggested to you over and over again, despite your attempts to ignore it, is going to turn potential fans off.

How do you stand out amidst fan page suggestion mania?

Here’s the method we employ for growing fan pages.

We send a blanket page suggestion to all our friends at once (actually, I usually target using friend lists, but that’s a whole other ball of wax).

Then, about twice a week for a few weeks, I share it on my wall with a little something about why I think people should add the page.

We don’t resend the page suggestion unless a) a substantial amount of time has passed (months), b) we’ve added a substantial number of new friends (100), or c) there have been major new developments on the page.

If you’re looking to increase the number of fans you have, then it’s best to do that using the fans who have already added the page. Post a share request on the fan page wall that reads something like, “Hey, if you like what you see here, then do us a favor and help spread the word. Simply click on the page, then click on Suggest Page to Friends. We appreciate it!” Then it spreads organically and you get more reach than you would from just your own network.

We hope that helps! Remember, with great power comes great responsibility. Always be thinking about the golden rule: Facebook unto others as you would like them to Facebook unto you.

Neovia Solutions is a digital business solutions company, specializing in social media marketing strategy. For more information on our services, visit our site here.

If you’ve started using Twitter or Facebook recently, you may notice your email inbox filling up too.  There are a few things you can do to reduce that:

1. Limit the email notifications you receive.

Twitter and Facebook default to sending you an email every time any event occurs in their systems. Examples include new followers, direct messages, comments, posts on your wall, etc. If you’d like, you can turn most of these off. In Twitter, you can do this by going to Settings, Notices. You can uncheck the boxes to receive emails.  In Facebook, you can go to the Settings menu, then Notifications and pick from the various options available.  If you don’t want to turn these off completely, you can at least filter the emails so that they skip the Inbox and go straight to email folders that you can check later.

2. Use groups.

As your list of friends and followers continues to grow, it can be tough to keep up with these relationships. One way to do this is by grouping your contacts. In Facebook, you can start this under your Friends menu. You’ll see an option to Create a New List. (For example, you could create a list for high school friends and assign all of those type contacts to that list.) For Twitter, you’ll need to use another service to do this. I’ll profile your options in the paragraph below. Once you’ve set these up, you can review the postings from each group separately, taking advantage of having them sorted by relevance.

3.  Use software tools for Twitter.

There are literally hundreds of tools available to complement Twitter, and we’ve tested many of them.  For day-to-day interaction on Twitter, we use HootSuite when a web-based interface is preferred. It allows you to set up multiple accounts, shorten urls, and set up groups – all without installing any software on your computer. If you prefer to use installed software, Tweetdeck and Seesmic are the favorites. Both of these are also adding Facebook interaction as well, and are well worth a look if you use the same computer most of the time.  You can also use applications for your mobile phone. One favorite is Twittelator, and other enjoy Tweetie and Twitterberry. These allow you to see @replies and direct messages easily, search, and reply or retweet with fewer keystrokes.

Meaning “new way,” Neovia Solutions was launched by Holly Hoffman and Kendra Kinnison to help organizations find their way in our new, online world. Combining their diverse experiences and skills, Holly and Kendra can put cutting edge tools and techniques to work for your organization so that you achieve real results. They bring tangible marketing experience and a strong corporate background, ensuring that both the technological and practical aspects of your digital efforts are successful.

It’s not a secret that social media is a fun way to connect with friends, but you might not know that you can use those same tools to find employees (or a job), increase your sales, build your brand, connect with your customers, gain real-time feedback, and much more. Attend one of our workshops to find out how you can apply these same tools in your organization. Or let us customize a hands-on consulting package to jump start your efforts. Contact us to find out how to get started.