Facebook Offers is an excellent tool that you can use to promote your business through social media. Offers let your business deliver a great deal each day into your fans’ News Feeds. These types of deals are similar to a Groupon or LivingSocial offer without having to go through an outside website.

Facebook Offers can easily spread virally from one fan to another. Users can share the offer directly with their own friends and family when they click on the offer. If they choose to claim the offer, a post will automatically go into their timeline about the offer too.

Setting up a Facebook Offer is quick and simple. Let’s go through the process from start to finish:

1. Open your Facebook Page. On the top left side of your timeline, you will see “Status,” “Photo/Video,” and “Offer/Event+.” Click on “Offer/Event.”

2. Select “Offer.” Once you click on “Offer/Event,” a dialogue box opens up listing “Offer,” “Event,” “Milestone” and “Question.” Choose “Offer.”

3. Start your offer. After you choose “Offer,” a new dialogue box opens. This is where you prepare your offer to be posted.

Put Together Your Offer

You will upload an image to be used in your offer. This should be a simple picture of the product being offered. If you are offering a service, try to use an image that reflects that. For example, if you are providing a free week of lawn care you might choose to use a picture of a man mowing.

Next, come up with an attention-grabbing headline. You want this to be your call-to-action that gets users to click on and claim your offer. For example: “Free lawn mowing for the first 25 Burleson residents!”

You will then need to select the number of offers you will allow. You don’t want to leave this open and discover that you don’t have enough supply to meet demand. You can choose to make this number large or small. Having a smaller number will give users a sense of urgency in order to claim the offer before it runs out.

Set the Expiration Date for your offer. You can set it to expire at any date, whether it’s one day or one month.

Set your Terms & Conditions. Make this fit your business. It can be one offer per person, per visit, per group, etc.

Post Your Offer

Now that you have set all of the requirements for your Offer, you are ready to post. Simply review the Offer and click “Post.” This will add your offer to your timeline. Users will be able to see it in their News Feed.

Users Redeem Offer

If your fans want to redeem your offer, they just have to click “Get Offer.” A dialogue box will pop up stating that a message was sent to their email address (registered with Facebook). They can then print the offer or bring their smartphone into your location to show the message in order to redeem.

Promote Your Offer

Once you have your offer set up, start promoting it! Post about it on Facebook. Notify your newsletter subscribers. Share it with customers in your shop or restaurant.

Though Facebook Offers have been around since February, they have not been widely embraced by businesses just yet. This is an opportunity for any business to snag more customers easily and will soon catch fire.

Have you started using Facebook Offers for your business? What are some ideas for daily deals for your business? Share with us!

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Google+ is definitely starting to prove itself as a business-friendly social network. As it continues to grow and innovate, you gain more useful tools to help you market your business in this new arena.

One of the best tools that you can use for your business is Hangouts. You’ve probably used this feature a time or two to reach out to friends, family and work colleagues. But how can you use it to fit into your social media marketing strategy?

Here are seven tips for using Google Hangouts for your business:

Remote Meetings

Meetings can be expensive. There’s travel time, food, and materials. Almost always, they end up starting late or someone comes in during the middle and you have to go back and fill them in. This takes up way too much time. Instead, use the idea of a conference call with Hangouts. You can conduct a virtual face-to-face meeting with up to nine other people without the hassle and expense of an in-person meeting.

Conduct Market Research

Invite customers to join you in a Hangout where you ask questions and get information about what they like and don’t like about your products and services. Find out how they learned about your company. Ask them if they are following you on any other social networks. This is an excellent way to gain insight into your customers.

Feedback

Like market research, gaining feedback from customers about a recently released product or your ideas for something new can go a long way in how you do business. You might want to offer customers a discount code if they attend any of these Hangouts.

Customer Service

You no longer have to limit your interactions with customers to a wall post or email. Getting some face time with them gives you the opportunity to look them in the face and handle any issues or compliments head-on. Customers love knowing that there is a person on the other end of that screen and that you are ready to listen!

Brainstorming Sessions

These are informal meetings with your coworkers or even customers about ways to improve the business and products. Everyone gets a chance to voice their opinion and mention new ideas that benefit the company as well as the customer. (Customers will be especially excited to be included in these types of Hangout sessions!)

Make Big Announcements

Are you launching your new website? Opening a new brick-and-mortar location? Changing up your business hours? Start a Hangout session to get customers talking about it. You might also consider offering a sort of “door prize” as an incentive for more people to join the conversation.

Increase Engagement

From time to time, it is a good idea to just have a casual conversation with your customers and followers. Hold a wacky talent contest on the Hangout. Discuss kids, families, work, and local sports teams. Engage them in a friendly debate about the best TV show or new book that you’re reading. Spend some quality time getting to know your customers outside of the sales arena. These are the people that make your business a success, so show them that you care!

Another great thing that is coming with Google Hangouts is the On-Air feature that is in the works. This will allow you to reach a much broader audience by live streaming your Hangout through YouTube. It will save the hangout to your account for you to edit and share later on. That lets people who missed out on the live event go back and see what was discussed at another time.

Are you using Google Hangouts? What is your favorite feature? What is the best conversation you had on a Hangout? Share with us!

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