Merchant Guide

Facebook and its community is growing every day. When we can trust the numbers of Facebook´s statistics, there are more than 400 million active users on Facebook.What a great place for companies to interact with customers and to promote corporate/product branding.

In this arctile we want to show, how easy it is to create a Fan Page for your company and brand. So, let´s get started!

Common Mistakes

Many companies want to use Facebook for branding, that´s great, if you do it right! A very common mistake is to create a group or a private profile for your company.

Facebook has designed Fan Pages exactly for companies, so why not use them? There are many advantages we can extract from Fan Pages, which you’ll find outlined below.

How to create a Facebook Page

If you´re currently logged in to Facebook, log out now. Go to facebook.com, at the bottom on the right you can see “Create a Page for a celebrity, band or business.“. Click on it or use the link given here. Now you can select the category of your page and also the name of your page. If you select “Do not make Page publicly visible at this time.” no one can see your page now, you can design it and publish it, when you think you´re ready.

Info, Picture, Tabs and more

Info

Logo

To show your fans who you are, create an amazing logo, you can also add your phone number and your website to the picture. Not to small, but: your images should not be larger than  600px (height) x 200px (width).

Tabs

Beyond the standard tabs, like Wall and Info, you can create your own Tabs and also create your own content for this Tabs. Use this feature to build a well-designed landing page! Here´s a how-to guide which will help you with this steps: Mashable: Build a Facebook Landing Page

Share your content

So everythings fine, but your Wall looks like the Sahara dessert. If you have running a Business Blog or a Twitter account, connect them your Facebook Page to fill your Wall with great blog posts and tweets. To share your blog content add the app NetworkedBlogs and click on “Register a new Blog” and fill out required fields. To add your Twitter account to your page, use this link and click “Link to Twitter”.

You need Fans

First rule: Ask all your friends! Why not? It´s  your business which you want to promote. Also add a Facebook-Badge to your Blog, so every blog reader can also become your Faceook Fan. Some Forums also have groups called  “Facebook Fan Exchange”. That´s another way to get friend on you Facebook Fan Page.

And if you share high quality content, your Fan group will grow constantly.

Another hint: When you have reached 25 Fans you can create your own Facebook Fan Page URL. Goto http://facebook.com/username and click on “Set a username for your Pages“, but be careful, once created you can never change this name.

Here you can see the Social Business Bank Fan Page, hop on the link and become a fan now.

Good Luck!

Consumer rights coalition hopeful that mark-up will fix critical oversight

INDIANAPOLIS, IN – Robert Johnson, President of Consumers for Competitive Choice (C4CC), released the following statement regarding the Senate Banking Committee’s mark-up of the Restoring Financial Stability Act of 2010, Chairman Dodd’s revised version of financial regulatory reform legislation, scheduled to begin today:

I am hopeful that the members of the Senate Banking Committee will make a critical fix to Chairman Dodd’s financial regulatory reform bill during the mark-up that begins today, and include a provision that addresses credit card swipe fees – specifically, that establishes debit-at-par. As the Chairman himself has noted, these increasing and excessive fees are outrageous and something needs to be done. The Chairman’s own financial reform bill provides the perfect vehicle to implement commonsense reform now.

“Small business owners across the country are preparing for additional increases to the already hefty debit card swipe fees next month, increases that are not justified in any way. It already costs merchants as much as 43 times as much to process debit cards as it does to process paper checks, even though they work the same way. As long as big banks and credit card companies have access to this unregulated revenue stream, increases like these will continue and more hard-earned American dollars will go to line the pockets of Wall Street executives.

“As the mark-up begins, I hope that the Senate Banking Committee sides with Main Street America. Commonsense reform that includes debit-at-par is a fix that will benefit small business owners and consumers alike.”

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About The Credit Card Con
The Credit Card Con is a project by the Consumers for Competitive Choice.
For more information, visit The Credit Card Con website at www.thecreditcardcon.com.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 18 , 2010

This was a guest post from The Credit Card Con.

If you want to know more about Social Business Bank visit http://www.socialbusinessbank.com or follow us on Twitter!

PRESS credit card fees, merchant account, Small Business

1. Your Website Goals

Define the goals of your website. Make sure you have a clear understanding of the website’s purpose. If you don’t have a clear picture what your website is about, how should your customers? Do you want to sell producs, provide information or use it for marketing purposes?

2. Your Domain Name

Choose an easy to remember domain name that’s easy to spell. People should associate your domain name with your company. That doesn’t mean creativity is a no-no. Here´s an example:

If your company’s name is Tony Miller Shirts and you sell T-Shirts online, tonymiller.com might not be the best of all domain names for you. Unless you have a strong brand associated with “Tony Miller”, nobody will care about tonymiller.com and domain names like millertshirts.com or tonysshirts.com could be a much stronger asset for your company.

3. Your Design

Desiging a website by oneself is possible, though unless you really know what you’re doing, give this job to someone who actually earns a living creating brilliantly designed websites. It’ll pay off in the long run. Make sure your designer understands what your business is about and communicate your ideas. Most importantly, let them do what they can do best: handle the designing part of your website. You will get a great design and will save time and troubles.

A great source for good and competitively-priced designers is Sortfolio.com.

4. Your Logo

In most instances you web designer will also be able to create an awesome looking logo for your company. Again, make sure to communicate your ideas and possibly send him self-made drafts until you have the feeling he truly understands what you’re looking for. Be careful, a logo is like your domain name. Your customers should identify your business with the logo every time they see it. Your logo should be uniform across all your marketing material, may it be your website or business cards, be sure it has exactly the same design and colours. Why? Take a look at CI.

5. Your Content

Tell your customers not what you want to sell. Tell them why they should buy your products and why you are better than your competitors. Be sure that all your content is easy to understand. Give you customers as many information as you can provide. Don’t forget to list your phone number, email address and also you business address for more credibility you may want to get a Better Business Bureau online seal as well.

6. Testing

Test your website. How long does it take to load? Are your pages W3C valid? You can test it here. Be vary about too many images. They may look great, but no visitor has the patience to wait until they’re all loaded. If you want to get fancy, be sure to think about visitors that do not have the latest version of Adobe Flash Player installed, and the folks that didn’t even download it in the first place.

7. Social Media

Integrate widgets in your website. Use Facebook, Twitter and co. to promote you website. If you have running a blog, connect it with Twitter and Facebook. Social Media is an ongoing project. Read the messages from your twitter friends and the wall posts of your Facebook page. Social Media means to communicate and to communicate regularly.

8. Feedback

Do you have a contact form on your website? Give your customers the chance to contact you without calling you. Why? Many people are interested in your products but are shy to ask their questions via phone.

9. Search Engines and SEO

Add your website to all popular search engines like Yahoo!, Bing and Google. Give every page of your website a specific title and add your keywords in headers and in your content. Use Bing Webmasters, Yahoo SiteExplore and Google Webmaster Tools. This tools will show you how “visible” (aka search engine friendly) your website is.

10. Analyse your website

Add an analysis software like Google Analytics or Piwik to your website. They’re both free. So you can control the visits on your site. These reports provide you with essential information like page views and visits per day, the countries of your visitors, the time and location of your visitors and much more.

If you want to know more about Social Business Bank visit http://www.socialbusinessbank.com.

Merchant Guide Entrepreneurs, hosting, Small Business, startup, webdesign, website

As complex issues like health care and financial reform continue to be the subject of debate in Washington and around the country the focus seems to be shifting towards jobs and the economy.

Those who have lost their jobs, and those worried about the security of their current job, want to hear what politicians of all stripes are proposing when it comes to economic recovery and job growth. What many may be unaware of is that small businesses and entrepreneurs drive growth in this country in important ways. And for that reason it is important to avoid placing unnecessary burdens on them.

But that is exactly what interchange fees mean for small business and entrepreneurs. These fees, sometimes know as swipe fees, take a percentage of every purchase made using credit cards. And the fees have been going up – they have nearly tripled since 2001. In fact, for many businesses these fees can be the third highest cost behind only rent and labor.

A small business owner who is just trying to get his company off the ground, or struggling to keep it afloat, not only has to worry about Visa and MasterCard taking a cut off the top of every sales transaction but they also have to worry about navigating the complex and burgeoning agreements that are now a part of the interchange system

In difficult times this can mean losing local businesses while for those small businesses who are succeeding in this tough economy it means less money for hiring new employees or offering benefits to current employees. Every penny swiped from the bottom line is taken out of the local economy and sent to large credit card companies and banks.

Policymakers looking for ways to ease the burden on small business and entrepreneurs should look to interchange fee reform. This is a sure way to offer relief to both businesses and consumers and help spark growth in local communities.

If we want small business owners and entrepreneurs to succeed, and to take the risks necessary to thrive and grow, then we need a level playing field not system stacked against consumers and businesses in favor of near monopoly credit card companies and large banks. There are a number of proposals that address this issue. It is past time we have a debate about how best to bring reform to the system.

The CARD act’s lack of interchange reform language was a missed opportunity. Moving forward any serious financial reform package must address this critical issue to be considered complete.

Thank´s to William Murphy from TheCreditCardCon.

For more information about this blog visit www.socialbusinessbank.com.

Merchant Guide credit card payments, interchange fees, Small Business

We all know that starting a business means a lot of hard work. A one-man show business isn’t much different. Acquiring new customers, bookkeeping, sales,  organizing a merchant account, design a  website, keeping the burn-rate low and balancing a tight budget while expanding the business.

That´s hard work and a lot of new stuff to most entrepreneurs. You can only be an expert in a few fields, a jack of all trades hardly ever is a true expert on any subject. What can we do, to make an entrepreneur´s life a bit easiser?

1. Be social!

Tell your friends your ideas ask them what they think and what they would change. That´s cost-free feedback.
If you’re one of those people who’s afraid that somone could steal your precious ideas, how much is your idea worth if you can’t monetize on it? Good feedback is essential for business success, embrace it. And by the way, never mind competitors – watch them closely and study them – and they will help you to become better at what you do, too.

Ask your friends and business partners when you have an issue at hand. Ask if they may know someone who can help out. Use social networks like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and so on. Post your questions to all of your friends, post your services and products as well. People want to know about your business and which services or products you have to offer. A sure-fire way to get help is to provide help. Connect with your circle of acquaintances and help them wherever you can. This creates trust and trust is one of the most important parameters in marketing.

You will meet heaps of new people, keep in touch with the long standing contacts and eventually the one or other business partnership will develop. There are many new customer in the social business cloud waiting for you!

2. Outsourcing is a must!

Another way to redurce your “every day overhead” that prevents you from aquiring new customers or whatever you have to do to keep your business running is to source out some parts of you business. Many start-up entrepreneurs think nothing can be done properly without them. Mistake. Big Mistake.

Why do practically all businesses outsource parts of their business? You have friends and partners they are also experts in some fields. Take the chance and unclutter your every day overhead so that you have time to focus on the really important things: to grow your business.

• If you are NOT an expert in webdesign and SEO, hire experts in those fields. They can do the task at hand faster, better and more often than not, cheaper than you. Meanwhile you have time to do more important things for your business.

• If you are NOT an expert in merchat accounts, do your research and ask as many providers as you can. Ask them all questions you’re interested in, write down the answers and re-read the answers; if necessary give them repeated calls until you find a provider you can trust.

Carefully choose the parts  of your business you consider strategic, source out the parts where you´re the layman. Be social every day, every minute and you will see, life will become easier by the day.

Kind Regards,

Social Business Bank

Entrepreneurs, Start Ups Entrepreneurs, Outsourcing, Partnerships, Small Business, startups