The good news:  Facebook Pages are free.

Even better news:  Now there are lots of free (and inexpensive) tools for customizing and making your Facebook page work better to drive you new leads.

Check out AppBistro for Facebook Page apps.

The best way to start is to add a Facebook “Like” button to each of your website pages.

You can see an example on a Facebook Like button right at the top of this article.  As visitors click “Like”, their name is added to the list of Facebook people who like your webpage!  Here is an example where 2 people have liked a webpage:

Now with one click (without having to login or anything on your website), a visitor (who is a Facebook member … there are only 500M of them now!) can indicate that they like your website.  This results in an item being posted on the user’s Facebook feed saying they like your business!  And with a link back to your business website!  Here’s an example of what is posted on a user’s Facebook page for liking a blog post and a website:

Great!  Now how do you get the link for your business page to be something friendly like:

http://facebook.com/joeslawncare

vs. the default of something like:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Joeslawncare/171239568405

which no one will ever remember!

It sure isn’t obvious how you get a friendly Facebook Fan page web link URL for your business!  It isn’t listed in Settings for your Facebook Fan page.

NOTE: The current Facebook requirement is that you have at least 25 “fans” (now called “likes”) of your page before you can setup a friendly page URL for your business page.

You have to go to http://www.facebook.com/username page

Then select the “Set a username for your Pages” link

You will then be able to select the Page you’d like to set a friendly name for.  That’s it!

NOTE:  You can NEVER change this name, so select carefully.

1. Setup separate professional and personal Twitter accounts if you want a e-”firewall” between your business “tweets” and your personal ones
2. If you want to start an ongoing topic or event-based Twitter conversation, include a hashtag (e.g. #myconversation1) in the tweet which is both descriptive and unique.  You can confirm hashtag is unique and promote it at hashtag.org
3. Twitter operates at a much faster pace than email, Facebook, blogs, etc., so you’ll want to subscribe to an alert service to see when other people re-tweet your content or send you a public tweet message.  Check out TweetBeep.com
4. Use Twitter Lists to promote other people to follow and get them to pay back by adding you to one of their Twitter Lists
5. Good article about finding your neighbors on Twitter

Please add comments for other tips on using Twitter!

Every customer review posted on HelpHive.com becomes a FREE ongoing advertisement of your business to a LARGE highly targeted audience.

SPECIAL PROMOTION: Your Customers Get $10 Starbucks Card When your customers post a review of your business on HelpHive.com, we will mail them a $10 Starbucks Card as a "Thank you!"

Screenshot from our Yelp Business account page:

Special offers are promoted on the following places and link directly to your business page:

• HelpHive’s home page
• HelpHive service category pages (e.g. if you offer handyman services, then it will be promoted on the handyman page)
• HelpHive city & neighborhood pages (e.g. if you are based in Tacoma, then it will be promoted on the Tacoma page)
• HelpHive city/neighborhood service category pages (e.g. if you are HVAC contractor based in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle)
• HelpHive homeowner monthly newsletters

Here is an example of how special offers are promoted on HelpHive’s home page:

Setting up your free business special offer on HelpHive

On your business page, when you are logged in to HelpHive, before you have a special offer setup, you will see this block:

Click on the “Setup Offer” button and you can immediately create your special offer:

Type in the details of your special offer along with an expiration date and then click “Save”.

It’s that simple!  You can change (or remove) your special offer at any time by clicking “[edit]“.  So, you can create seasonal offers or try out different offers to see which ones work better.  NOTE: when you have an active special offer, visitors to your business page see the special offer without the “[edit]” link!  The [edit] links on your business page are only visible to you as the business account holder.

How do customers redeem special offers?

We’ve made it really simple … HelpHive users need to mention “HelpHive” to receive your offer.  So, if you are putting up a special offer, you need to be ready to honor the offer when it is requested by HelpHive users.

Benefits of HelpHive’s new Business Recommendations Widget:

• Simple to Add. Simply copy’and’paste some web (html) code and paste into your web page
• Personalized. It is personalized for your business only showing reviews and recommendations for your business
• Direct Link. When users click to read more details on reviews/recommendations they are taken right to those reviews/recommendations details.
• Dynamic Updates. As new reviews/recommendations are posted by customers on HelpHive, these are automatically displayed on your website.
• Positive Only. Only positive reviews and recommendations are displayed/promoted on your website.

How to Add Your Reviews/Recommendations to your Business Website

Go to your business web page on HelpHive and click on the “Get Recommendations Widget” link

Then you will see the following page:

Click on the area which says “Copy and Paste…” and then select your browser’s Copy command to copy this text to your computer’s clipboard.

Then paste this web (html) text into the (HTML version of the) page on your business website where you’d like this widget to display.  That’s it!

You now have relevant, recent, independent reviews and recommendations of your business on your business website working to help generate more leads for your business.

Here is an example of a live recommendations widget for Box of Rain Landscape business:

Phone numbers are now displayed right on each business’ profile page

So customers can call you even more easily.  Previously phone numbers were accessed when users clicked on the “Contact” button.

We’ve also provided a form for customers to contact you by email upfront on each business profile page.  So customers can start typing you a message without having to click any buttons!

Example of how phone number and send message box are on the front of business profile page

Phone calls are now being connected directly to your business

When a HelpHive user dials your number, they will be directly connected to you.  If your phone is busy or rings more than 6 times, we direct the call to HelpHive’s voicemail system.  You will then be sent an email with a link to hear the voicemail at your convenience.  Depending on your settings, you may also receive a phone call from HelpHive later delivering the voicemail to you.

Why are you showing HelpHive’s phone number rather than my business phone number?

It’s simple … in order to know when we’ve sent you a phone call, we need to be able to track and report to your business how many leads we are providing.  So, we’ve attempted to make the process as streamlined as possible and as affordable as possible to your business!  Right now, in beta, all referrals are FREE … you can’t do better than that!

We’re always looking for feedback, so please leave comments on this post or contact us privately.

Your customers are talking about you — and the whole world is listening.  Local review sites are reshaping the world of small business by becoming the new Yellow Pages, one-stop platforms where customers can find a business — and also see independent critiques of its performance.

Here a few more highlights from the article:

• 84% of Americans say online reviews influence their purchasing decisions
• Online search for local services grew 58% last year becoming more than 10% of all online search traffic
• The more detailed you profile (on sites like HelpHive), the more readily your business will appear in search results
• A negative review demands attention … start with a private response to see if you can resolve
• Posting false reviews (of your business or your competitors) is a no-no (cause you will get caught)
• Buying premium (advertising) services gives you more ability to “work the crowd”

Tip:  Setup a Google alert to be notified everytime your business is mentioned online