Top 5 Inbound Marketing Stories of the Week: Get More Facebook Fans

Who doesn't love fans, whether they be for your sports team, a capella group or, aah yes, your Facebook fan page?
Our top inbound marketing article this week tackles the topic of Facebook for business -- specifically, how can you attract more fans and ultimately expand your reach?

1. How to Promote Your Facebook Fan Page & Get Lots of Fans

Author: Ann Smarty of Search Engine Journal
Whether you're creating a brand new Facebook fan page or trying to enliven a stale one, Ann's article offers five rounds of advice with specific recommendations on how to create a Facebook page that will attract fans.
Ann offers a guide that elaborates on the following steps:

1. Create fresh content for people to want to join.
2. Invite your friends to join.
3. Try social ads.
4. Promote on Twitter.
5. Leverage your email contacts.
   

Lesson: Attract fans to your Facebook fan page by making it interactive and updated with new content.

2. Does Your Writing Suffer from Purple Overload?

Author: Sherice Jacob of Copyblogger
We often emphasize the power of business blogging, but still, the concept of good writing often gets brushed under the table. You may have great ideas, but they're really no good if you can't communicate them clearly and concisely.
Sherice's article focuses on writing in a way that avoids boring and confusing your readers with "purple prose," or needlessly flowery sections of writing. She strongly advises writers to crunch up their sentences and steer clear of rambling. In short, get to the point. Your readers will appreciate the instant gratification.
Lesson: Don't beat around the bush. Keep your writing tight and clear, and communicate in a way that your readers can understand.

3. A Six-Step Content Marketing Check-Up For B2B Marketers

Author: Galen DeYoung of Search Engine Land
When was the last time you took your content marketing strategy in for a check-up?  Before you move ahead with your future plans, Galen urges you to first take some time to evaluate your strategy to date in order to make performance improvements to your existing assets.
Galen discusses some content marketing must-haves that include mapping site content to the buying cycle, reducing friction on gated content, reviewing your content analytics, capturing the value of content, including sharing options with your content and optimizing your content for search.
Lesson: Before you jump into achieving your 2010 goals, evaluate your existing programs for improvements.

4. 5 Reasons Why RSS Readers Still Rock

Author: Richard MacManus of ReadWriteWeb 
My RSS reader is a part of my daily life, yet with the emergence of more real-time sources of information like Twitter, it makes sense that RSS usage has been in decline. But as I'm still a huge proponent of the tool, I was happy to come across this article by Richard MacManus, which explains some really great uses of RSS readers that can't be achieved through other services.
So why are people still sticking to their readers?  Richard highlights 5 main reasons:

1. Control over Information Flow
2. Evolving User Interfaces
   
3. Tracking Twitter
4. Mobile News
5. Categorized News
   

Lesson: Set yourself up an RSS reader already!  It's a great tool for organizing information in a cluttered Web world. Internet Marketing Blog

5. How to Reach Out to Bloggers

Author: Chris Brogan of chrisbrogan.com
Do you function as the PR professional for your business? Are you still trying to grapple with how to effectively communicate with bloggers to get your message out?
Lucky you, Chris Brogan has put together a handy little how-to guide that covers some of the basic concepts and PR resources you should be aware of when reaching out to bloggers. Specifically, he advises you to do your homework, be there before the sale, make it easy, ask the right questions, and most importantly, don't push.
Lesson: Blogger relations is a science, but do your homework before you pitch.