Why? Thanks to advanced targeting mechanisms, you can reach your exact target market. That means that every cent you spend goes to reaching the ideal audience. And that can lead to a great return on investment.

As long as the resulting profit is more than the cost of advertising, you keep going.

With more than 200 million active users (half of whom check it daily), Facebook is not just the land of college kids anymore. You really can reach almost anyone. For example, in the United States, there are 2.3 million Facebook users over 64 years old.  Even if not all of your customers are online, many of them are.

Consider this: your healthy gourmet restaurant in Irvine, Calif. has decided to sponsor a “young professionals speed-dating” night, and you really want to attract a crowd of local 25-35 year-old singles who care about their health. And you want them to be college graduates. Done. You now have instant access to more than 1,100 of them.

Another scenario: say your target audience is women over 30 who live in Texas and raise goats. They’re on Facebook! 1,140 of them, in fact. Now imagine that they find your ad for “Join the Texas Association of Women Who Raise Goats.” Do you think they’ll pay attention? Of course they will! You’re tapping into more than a thousand people who really care about what you’re doing.

How much is it worth for:

• AARP to contact seniors with a special membership offer on their 55th birthday (500 people/day)?
• A downtown Los Angeles dry cleaner to reach the 200 men who work at Ernst & Young across the street?
• A Porsche dealership in Dallas to contact 500 local Porsche fans? 1000 local BMW fans?
• A surf shop in Santa Monica, Calif. to reach 100,000 local beach/surfing fanatics–especially if the shop’s not on the beach?
• A job hunter to get a resume in front of a local hiring manager?
• “Save the Whales” to put a fundraising pitch in front of the 880 people who like “saving whales”?
• Your organization to reach the people who will buy, donate, get involved, spread the word, and/or become a fan?

No matter who you’re trying to reach, they’re on Facebook.

If you’re not already advertising your product, service, business or charity on Facebook, now’s the time to start! Here are two simple options to begin:

• Do it yourself. - My handy step-by-step guide to advertising on Facebook walks you through everything you need to know to get started.

OR:

• Get help. - Pick up your phone and call (949) 891-2001. I’ll give you a free initial consultation to help you plan. If you’d like further assistance, I can run the whole process for a small fee.

Don’t delay. I know I sound like part of the Facebook ad sales team, but I promise I’m not. I’m using Facebook ads as an aspect of my job search because I believe it’s worth the investment. And I’m sharing my thoughts here because I think the investment can be worth it for you, too.

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Like this post? Tweet it: Every small business should advertise on Facebook. Why? Ultra-targeted audiences. http://djgpr.com/target

Don’t you just hate when they do that? Me too. But here I am doing that. So let’s get to it.

In case you missed it, I’m giving away a brand-new 2009 AP Stylebook to someone who commented on my blog in June.

Selecting the winners:

In the month of June, there were a total of 35 qualifying comments by 13 different people (and roughly 12,984 comments by seven spammers*, but we don’t count those). Since those comments are weighted (your first comment counts for more entries than your fifth, but they all increase your chances), the winner was decided by a random number 1-120.

Picking the “best” comment, however, was far harder. I’m not kidding when I tell you I could have felt good about awarding that to any of you (or several of you). So–because I’m the “sole and final judge”–I chose to do a second, unweighted drawing among the people who didn’t win the first AP Stylebook. That’s right: I’m giving away two brand-new 2009 AP Stylebooks!

A couple last reminders:

1. I’m not stopping! Keeping coming back (or just subscribe), because I’ll have lots more new content.
2. I’m looking for work. If you know of anything, please leave a comment, contact me directly, or send along my resume. You can also become a fan of “Helping David get a job“ on Facebook.

And now, without any further ado, the winners are:

• Gail Nelson
• Betty Jenkins

Congratulations, Gail and Betty! You have my brother Jacob to thank, who originally won, but opted to pass his prize on to another winner. I’ll be reaching out to Gail and Betty for shipping addresses, and they’ll receive their prizes shipped directly from Amazon.com. If you didn’t win, sorry–better luck to you in my next contest.

Congratulations to our winners, and thank you all for participating! I hope you stay around and continue to leave amazing comments!

* I completely made those numbers up.

(AP Stylebook image used for illustration only)

Also: June 30th (today) at midnight PST marks the end of my contest giving away a 2009 Associated Press Stylebook. So hurry: add a comment before the deadline for your last chance to enter. I’ll announce the winners tomorrow.

Posting daily has certainly been a challenge, but it’s been very rewarding as well. Your support and enthusiasm as readers is certainly what kept me going–so thank you! I honestly wouldn’t and couldn’t have done it without you.

Here are this month’s posts:

1. My promise: a great new post every day in June
2. How Twitter killed my blog–then inspired me to resurrect it
3. Topsy vs Google: When to use Topsy instead
4. Interview: How to get a job at a NYC PR agency
5. Tools & Tech: Three easy steps to add audio to your website
6. Which websites do you visit the most?
7. Affirmation: twenty-eight choices
8. Win a 2009 AP Stylebook (and why you want one)
9. Let’s talk ethics! - The PRSA Code of Ethics (part I)
10. How to completely optimize your personal Facebook page
11. Interview: The Secrets of Diversity PR
12. Tools & Tech: Are you approaching video backward?
13. Five websites for writers
14. Thinking outside convention
15. Daily blogging: the good, the bad, and the ugly
16. Freelance communicator for hire
17. Let’s talk ethics! Truth and Secrets (part II)
18. Interview: Ethics in broadcast journalism
19. Tools & Tech: 45 must-have tools for promoting yourself online
20. Bonus comment love - 6 sites to check out
21. Happy Father’s Day!
22. How to win a 56-inch TV on Twitter
23. How to advertise on Facebook: the basics
24. Let’s talk ethics! Sherry Baker’s “Principled Advocate” (part III)
25. Interview: The life of a lobbyist
26. Tools & Tech: 21 Useful Twitter Searches
27. Happy 101st! - 11 articles from my archives
28. Top ten ways being a blogger is like being a preacher
29. Creating and promoting a Facebook fan page
30. We did it! 30 days of blogging: complete

As you can see, there have certainly been some themes, but also some variety.

Now I need some feedback from you: the reader. What do you like to read about? Which posts did you find most interesting? What did you feel was a waste of your time? What would you like to see more or less of in the future?

Now that June is over, I’ll continue to post frequently, but I may allow myself a day or two off here or there.

Thanks for sticking with me!

Love you all!

– David J. Garcia

*I may have fudged around the edges a little with posts before or after midnight, but I won’t hold it against me if you won’t. Deal?

(Creative Commons image by flickr user bfick)

• brand?
• company?
• organization?
• charity?
• cause?
• issue?
• product?
• service?
• anything that someone might like?

Then give people an opportunity to become your fan on Facebook.

With more than 200 million active users (half of whom check it daily), Facebook should be a key part of your communications strategy.

Since it’s such a great tool for reaching a targeted audience, I’m exploring Facebook as part of my job search strategy (forgive me for a little self-promotion now).

—————————————————————————-
Know anyone looking for a communications specialist?
Send them my resume! Thank you.
—————————————————————————-

Today, we’ll cover the basics of creating your first fan page. You can also check out my step-by-step guide to advertising on Facebook.

Creating a fan page costs nothing, and it allows you to connect with your audiences in meaningful ways. Facebook treats pages like personal profiles: your fans will receive updates from you on their homepage, just like they do from their friends. You can’t buy that. Obviously, you want fans.

Here’s the step-by-step guide to creating a Facebook fan page:

Step 1: Visit facebook.com/pages/manage/ and click on “+ Create Page”.

Step 2: Choose a category, name your page, and state your authority to speak on your client’s behalf.

Step 3: Now you need to add content. Add (1) a photo, (2) a blurb, and (3) some background with a link to your website. If you have other stuff to add–even better!

Step 4: Check your settings. Click “Edit Page” under your profile picture. Here you have options for gender, age restrictions, published/unpublished, and applications.

Step 5: Publish. Double-check everything first, then change “Published Status” under “Settings.”

Step 6: Get fans. Congratulations! You have a fan page. Celebrate! But don’t think that we’re going to stop there. Now you need some fans. You start. Click “Become a fan!” Then you’ll have the opportunity to suggest that your friends also become fans.

Step 7: Advertise your new page to your target audience. Follow my step-by-step guide to advertising on Facebook. If you select your fan page as an ad’s destination, Facebook will automatically include social actions: users can become your fan directly from the ad, as well as see any of their friends who are already fans.

Don’t forget to send people to your page from other places as well (like your website and Twitter).

Step 8: Update your page regularly (but don’t spam).

Continuing adding photos, wall posts, video, links, discussions, etc. Make your page valuable and worth people’s time, and your fan base will continue to grow.

You can even target updates to followers with specific demographics.

Step 9: Track metrics (Click “View Insights” under your picture). Here you can see who’s interacting with your page and how.

That’s it! You’re well on your way to Facebook success.

If you’ve developed a fan page, share your experience in the comments! How have you used fan pages? How has your brand benefited as a result? What challenges did (or do) you face?

If you’re just considering creating a fan page, what’s holding you back?

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Like it? Tweet it! A step-by-step guide to creating and promoting a Facebook fan page: http://djgpr.com/FBfan

You can also become a fan of “Helping David get a job” on Facebook!

Although I don’t think of either as my career, I have some experience with both. I’ve run a few blogs, including this one. I also spent two years as a full-time volunteer missionary and lay minister in Washington/Oregon (I didn’t run a congregation, but I had many other religious responsiblilities).

So here are the top ten ways that being a blogger is like being a preacher:

10 - You need new content every week–probably even more often.

9 - Your subject stays the same, but you still must come up with new ways to say it.

8 - Every great experience makes you wonder, “How I could incorporate this into a sermon/post?”

7 - Comments of appreciation mean the world to you.

6  - Your community is surprisingly willing to support you.

5 - Your best work motivates people.

4 - You occasionally get told off for saying what you believe.

3 - If you go on too long, people stop listening.

2 - Since not everyone can become one of the “big guys,” you really have to do it out of love. Ideally, you’d do it no matter how many followers you have.

1 - You still really want more followers.

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Like it? Tweet it! The top ten ways that being a blogger is like being a preacher: http://djgpr.com/preach

(Creative Commons photo by flickr user  bsabarnowl)

San Francisco’s Surprising Sidewalk

“Perhaps one of our favorite attractions in San Francisco was “the bushman”, a street performer who–quite literally–pretends he’s a bush.”

Home, Sweet Hotel: Three Ways to Make Business Travel More Enjoyable

“…working from the road can quickly become exhausting if you don’t adjust your mindset. Three things can help you accomplish that change: food, furnishings, and fun.”

Metrics: The Proof is in the Numbers

“The ability to quantify results is important yet challenging in public relations. I’ve been doing some calculating, and I’ve finally been able to come up with some solid numbers reflecting my work.”

“Come on down! You’re the next contestant on ‘The Price Is Right’”

“Want to know what it’s like to appear in the audience of “The Price is Right” and how to hopefully become a contestant? I’ll be happy to tell you:”

An open cover letter: “Decisions”

“We humans seem to have an innate fear of making decisions. Call it fear of commitment. Call it worry about making the wrong choice. Or maybe it’s just easier to not do anything. Whatever it is, the greatest problem we have in sales, politics, public relations, or marketing is—fundamentally—getting others to make favorable decisions.”

Five easy ways to get more out of Gmail!

“These five simple, relatively unknown tips could each individually make your email life better. Together, there’s no stopping them (or you).”

Effective microcontent tells your story

“Last week I attended PRSA’s teleseminar on writing effective web content. The best key idea I got out of the presentation was this: Effective microcontent can stand alone.”

A 25-second lesson in investing

“If you invested in a DJIA index in October 2007 (one year ago), you could have lost more than 40% by now–in just one year. On the other hand, if you invested in a DJIA index any time before February 1998 (just over ten and a half years ago), you’re still up.”

Twiddly-diddly-deet

“Tweet tweet. I’ve finally bitten, and I’m now on Twitter.”

How procrastination can make your life better

“Instead of putting off something more important, postpone the less important things. All those excuses we use to justify delay of productive things can also be used to delay non-productive things.”

You don’t have to outrun the bear

“PR, multimedia, technology and life are all like that: there’s so much to learn that sometimes it seems like we’ll never “outrun the bear.” But we don’t have to.”

(Creative Commons photo by flickr user jvc)

Useful Twitter searches on Twitter

• near:orangecounty free
• near:orangecounty job
• near:orangecounty lds
• near:orangecounty opening
• near:orangecounty need
• near:orangecounty pr -su.pr
• “to apply” opening
• message looking for near:california
• PR looking for near:california
• PR looking for near:texas
• #tworco
• #entrypr
• djgpr (I can use this to track links using my “Tweet it!” link)
• @DavidJGarcia -RT (Find out who’s talking to or about your friends)
• “up again” OR “is down” gmail
• traffic slow near:losangeles within:10mi

Useful Twitter searches on Google

• PR “orange county” intitle:”on twitter” site:twitter.com
• “bio * corporate communications” intitle:”on twitter” site:twitter.com

Useful Twitter searches on Topsy

• news [hour]
• times [hour]
• CNN [week]

Also, in case you don’t know: Twitter has an advanced search page: http://search.twitter.com/advanced.

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Like it? Tweet it: Tools & Tech: 21 Useful Twitter Searches - http://djgpr.com/21

As a legislative affairs/policy analyst with a major taxpayer advocacy organization, he tracks legislation, writes support/oppose letters to legislators, keeps various coalitions up-to-date and monitors local elections. He also works on research, voting records and a business-oriented steering committee on global warming.

The daily grind

Richard begins the day with email updates from a database of all legislation that the team tracks. He notes changes in each bill’s status and updates correspondence to reflect any changes. He also coordinates a calendar of all tracked legislation, to ensure that a letter or lobbyist arrives in time for hearings. A courier service takes his letters directly to the individual legislators. Just keeping everything current can require long hours.

Lobbying is seasonal work. During the beginning of the year, lobbyists work long days. Between meetings with freshman legislators, he wrote more than 100 letters on tax policy. Later in the year, there’s time for research projects and board meetings to keep membership in the loop.

The ups and downs

Richard loves the research projects. To track local elections, he calls each of California’s 58 counties to stay up-to-date. That level of involvement and tracking provides a direct benefit to the organization’s members.

On the other hand, an organization with a wide variety of members faces challenges in reaching consensus. Though they share things in common, it’s still hard sometimes to find enough cohesion to take a forceful stand. How do they resolve conflicts? Give and take. A member supports someone else’s need in return for support when they need it. And influential members tend to get more focus on their key issues.

What it takes

You must know how to write–and how to communicate in person. And, Richard says, you must be passionate about your issues. “If it’s not an issue you care about, the energy and excitement won’t be there to propel you.”

Misconceptions

Even though people think lobbying is all about making friends, that’s not enough. “You could get along well with the people, but if you have a thin argument, that doesn’t change anything.” You also need opportunities for growth through making mistakes.

Playing politics

While Democrats hold the majority in California, special interests hold the real power in Sacramento, Richard says. “Labor unions dominate discussions with threats to legistlators, especially Democrats, who might not vote their way.” For conservative interests like his, that means many compromises.

Indeed, political discussions are often bound by special interests, some of whom take a brazen ‘we got you voted in and we can get you voted out’ attitude toward elected officials. “Everyone’s at the table trying to grab what they can get,” Richard says. “It’s hard to enact change without give and take.”

Living with yourself

I asked Richard, “Since many people consider all lobbyists the same as the special interest groups who undermine progress, how do you reconcile your job with your ethics?”

Though he’s fighting on behalf of corporations, Richard keeps an eye on the effects legislation will have on the people those companies serve. “People like to beat up on big business,” he says, “but that money all goes to something, including paying for employees, research and development, future job growth and–lest we forget–government programs, through tax dollars.”

Lobbying is like sales, PR, outreach or any other job: you’ve got to believe that you’re making a difference in the best way you can. “Not just make-believe believe,” Ricard warns, “but really believe. If you’re saying things just to say them, people can see right through you.”

As a conservative in California, Richard’s work can be frustrating. But he says he’s fighting the good fight. “You just have to believe in the issues and that you’re making a difference,” he says. “If you do, it’s rewarding.”

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Like it? Tweet it: The life of a lobbyist in Sacramento. http://djgpr.com/lobby

Part I: Let’s talk ethics! The PRSA Code of Ethics (part I)

Part II: Let’s talk ethics! Truth and Secrets (part II)

The PRSA Code of Ethics and Sissela Bok’s two books provide useful guidance in specific situations where public relations professionals are likely to find their ethics challenged, perhaps on a regular basis. However, to be fully prepared for the most complex and trying ethical decisions, we need to have access to a more comprehensive ethical framework. Ideally, it should be adapted specifically to the challenges facing communicators. Sherry Baker’s paper “The Principled Advocate versus The Pathological Partisan: A Model of Opposing Archetypes of Public Relations and Advertising Practitioners” provides just such a model.

Baker, a professor in Brigham Young University’s Department of Communications, builds from the foundation of virtue ethics to give professional communicators a framework for addressing the most complex ethical dilemmas. She presents two opposing archetypes: the “Principled Advocate” and the “Pathological Partisan.” The first represents “the embodiment of virtues,” and the other represents a similar embodiment of all vices.

We can think of the “Principled Advocate” as someone perfectly ethical in his or her profession. Our understand of this person comes as we observe those we admire making good decisions and as we learn from such sources as the PRSA Code of Ethics and the writings of Sissela Bok. Our understanding of the “Pathological Partisan” stems from the examples of the least moral people in our field—and from the stereotypes mentioned earlier (”Spin doctors. Flacks. Even liars.”).

In order to make an ethical decision within this framework, we simply ask ourselves what a principled advocate would do and try to follow suit. We also ask what a pathological partisan would try, and then we avoid those actions.

The “Principled Advocate” model might not always give the most clear answer as to what to do in a given situation. However, a public relations professional with a commitment to ethics will find that a clearer and more complete picture of the ideally virtuous advocate develops as he or she practices and studies ethics and learns from the examples of others. Additionally, communicators who try to apply this model throughout their careers will find themselves gradually becoming a virtue-filled “Principled Advocate.” The principles they learned from others will become more and more part of their own characters and practices that the ethical choice will not only be clear but also natural.

The “Principled Advocate” model fills in the pieces that are missing from the PRSA Code of Ethics and writings of philosophers who focus on issues not occupations.

Baker, Sherry. “The Principled Advocate versus The Pathological Partisan: A Model of Opposing Archetypes of Public Relations and Advertising Practitioners”. Presented to the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Media Ethics Division. San Francisco, CA. 2 August 2006.

(photo from BYU Department of Communications)

Here’s the step-by-step guide:

1) Pick your product/service. Since I’m currently looking for work, I’m going to experiment with advertising myself on Facebook.

2) Choose or create your landing page. This can be any existing page on your website (or a new, target landing page, a Facebook fan page, etc) but it must be a webpage, not a file (you can’t link directly to a PDF).

3) Go to facebook.com/ads/. Click “Create an Ad.”

4) Write your ad; upload a picture. This is what the Facebook user will see beside their profile. Don’t be afraid to get creative. Facebook makes it easy to try and test lots of options against each other. We’ll get to that in a minute.

4) Pick your target. This is where the magic happens. As you can see, I’ve chosen to target men and women over 30, who have graduated from college, live in regions where I’d like to work, and have a job title that oversees communications specialists.

Facebook tells me that there are only 80 people whose profiles match those qualifications, but that’s okay, because those are the exact 80 people I want to reach.

5) Choose your budget. Here, I’ve decided that I’m willing to spend up to $2.00/day to get my ad in front of these 80 people. That daily budget is shared by all the ads in this campaign. Since I’m only running it through the month of June, the most I’ll end up spending is $16.00.  In reality, I’ll likely spend less, since I’m targeting such a small audience.

Choosing between “Pay for Impressions (CPM)” and “Pay for Clicks (CPC)” is a little harder.

CPC means you only pay when someone actually clicks your ad. This is a nice way to think about things: after all, aren’t you willing to pay 50 cents to get your resume seen by a hiring manager in your industry and target location? I know I am. Because this ad will only be shown to your ideal customer, each click is worth the money. Again, if no one clicks, you pay nothing.

The other option is CPM: how much you’re willing to pay for 1,000 impressions–not how many times it’s read, but how many times a page loads that has your ad on it. Since I’ve discovered that it takes significantly fewer than 2,000 impressions to get a click on my ad, I’ve chosen to bid on impressions instead of clicks.

6) Review and order. You’ll need to have a credit card handy.

7) Split test. Repeat the process to add some additional ads to your campaign. As long as they’re all part of the same campaign, it won’t cost you anything more. This lets you try a different headline, copy, target, photo or bid. Experiment! Then you can stay with the ads that give you the most bang for your buck. Try using your existing ad as a template: click “Create a Similar Ad.”

8) Track at facebook.com/ads/manage/. Find out what works and what doesn’t, and adjust accordingly.

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Like it? Tweet it: How to advertise on Facebook: a step-by-step guide. http://djgpr.com/FBadbasics