Facebook Friends' List Missing? How to get them?

You all must be aware of the way the Friends' list help in reasing the newsfeeds or status messages easily by categorizing them in different lists. These lists will reallyhelp you when you have a long list of friends and it is difficult to read all the messages, lest you categorize them and you will seldom miss the status messages. To know how to create the friends' list then you can read here.
Even I created a list of my friends like Work Friends, School Friends, Party Friends, Relatives... and was feeling it very easy to know what all are doing. But, from past one week, the list went missing. I can only see the Friends link on the left side of the Facebook page and when I click it it gives me nothing.

When I searched over the internet, I found I was not alone and there are quite a few other folks who are also facing the same problem. I even contacted Facebook and posted it on Twitter as well. But, no response from these guys. As it is my habit not to keep quiet... I investigated more to find the solution. And here is the very simple solution to get you list back, rather to see it.

1. On your 'News Feed' page you have the links - 'Top News' and 'Most Recent'. Click the downward arrow adjacent to 'Most Recent' link.
2. You can see your friends' list here. Select the list you want to view.
3. In case you have many lists then click 'Choose another'

Hope this helps. It helped me.

In case you are facing a different problem with Facebook, please do let me know and let us resolve it. And if it helped you, then let me know. It will make me happy :). Also, it would be wonderful if you tweet this using the Tweetme.

9 Tips to Know When You Should be Using Facebook / LinkedIn Direct Ads

After efficiently using Adwords, I just thought how could Facebook and LinkedIn direct ads be different or how could these be more effective. Like Adwords, I did not get any free ad money to experiment my campaigns. I usually get free credit for Adwords but, I have to prepare myself to spend on Facebook and LinkedIn.

1. As matter of fact, Facebook and LinkedIn use almost the same algorithm of relevance and CTR to show the ads. The daily budget mechanism or setting of time to show your ads or the frequency is same. One major advantage of these networking sites is that you can target the exact age group, industry type, job function, title…based on the demographic profile you want to target. Google uses the ‘search’ mechanism while Facebook and LinkedIn use the ‘profile’ of the user to show the ads.
2. Unlike Google or Adwords, Facebook and LinkedIn target the profiles that are on Facebook and LinkedIn respectively. If your target audience are not on Facebook or LinkedIn then it is of no use of using these channels for your campaigns.
3. In Facebook you have to upload only a banner of standard size 110 x 80 pixels. Where as LinkedIn has 50 x 50 pixel image with the title and text. These banner sizes are pretty small and they are pretty strict with the image approval process for the banners. I really do not find major advantage of having such small images associated with the ad as the advertiser can hardly convey anything through these images.
4. Unlike Adwords, here you have an option to pay either as per CPC or CPM. And they really have a reason to have the CPM model as well. These sites are particularly for sharing knowledge or connect with your friends. Hardly, folks come here to see the banners and click them or in search of something as people do in Google. So, to start with you better go with CPC model as you pay only for clicks and do shell out money for unnecessary impressions.
5. If you are really looking at building a brand in particular country or segment or age group then you can do it on Facebook and LinkedIn and use the CPC model as it will really cost you very less. If you are not getting the required impressions then you can switch to CPM. Facebook has crossed Google in terms of traffic and you can really build lot of impressions in a short time.
6. Though Facebook and LinkedIn target as per the profiles, these sites also provide very limited amount of keywords to use to target. In Facebook this is called as tag filtering. But, one cannot estimate the amount of traffic these keywords can generate and the cost it will incur. Adwords clearly provides you with the estimates and it really helps in setting the daily budget. Still you can try using the filtering tags in Facebook for your audience hobbies, interests and tastes.
7. I found out that these sites really give you a poor CTR. Thus, you can use it for directing traffic to your blog or fan page or other social networking account. It is always better to use CPC model as it will not burn your budget unnecessarily. If you ads are not generating the required CTR, then expand the demographic scope slowly and find the optimum level that is really converting for you. Start with very specific target audience and slowly increase the scope depending on the required CTR and conversions.
8. The reporting system of clicks and costs is not as great as Adwords. The direct ads system is still new and in nascent stage and we may see improvements in the reporting and tracking mechanisms.
    
9. We can use content targeting for Adwords where we can show our ads on other sites which are in Google’s content network. While in Facebook and LinkedIn it is limited to the sites.

Bottom-line is there is nothing like Adwords. Facebook and LinkedIn do provide specific audience to your landing page, but it is difficult to get those clicks and to convert them. Unlike Adwords, visitors are looking / searching for the required info and it is easy to convert them. Adwords identifies the users’ instant needs and has the mechanism to show the relevant ads to them.

I would like to suggest that you need to decide where your target audience is and act accordingly. You may have your target audience on Facebook and it may help you in tapping the missing traffic from these channels. For example if you have a dating or matrimonial website, then social networking sites may work well for you as you can target as per the gender, age, marital status and interest. To add more if you have gaming sites similar to Farmville or the Mafia then Facebook can be the better choice as compared to Adwords not only in targeting the right interest group but you may get economical CPC as well.

Do let me know your experiences as well and would like to read your comments.

Important Tips to Select a Shopping Cart for your Online Store

When we Google for shopping carts, we find a lot of open-source, paid ones, hosted solutions and premium ones. It always a tough question to answer which one is better and which shopping cart suits my online store.


Here are few tips which can help you to judge the right shopping cart be it hosted solution or an integrated product -

1. The shopping cart should gel well with the design and structure of your website. Customers should not feel that they are on to different page. These will avoid your customers getting surprises and they becoming too careful.
2. If you are using a hosted solution or a 3rd party shopping cart then, make sure they share the customer contact details with you as well. This will avoid your customers to enter their contact details twice.
3. Make sure the product pages generated by the shopping cart are search engine friendly means, the pages are easily indexed by search engines. More over, you are able to enter the product description with your main keywords and search engine robots are able to read it. If not, you may have to spend more on PPC or paid advertisements to promote. Search engines are the major source of targeted traffic to any website or online store.
4. Also, ensure the url of product pages generated by the shopping cart are search engine friendly with no special characters in them.
5. You can also see if it generates / updates the RSS file when new products are added. This will avoid your task to update the RSS as well, when ever you add new products.
6. Check the buying process or the checkout process. The number of steps involved or pages involved should be as less as possible. Try to avoid duplication of process. The steps should be clearly indicated as a flowchart to the customer to show it as an progress indicator.
7. Also check the shipping cost is provided very early in the process. This will reduce shopping cart abandons.
8. You need to have flexibility in providing ‘discounts’ and ‘free shipping’ options to certain products or categories. If you can specify the time period for these discounts then it is an added advantage. And, if there is also an option with such discounts to certain geographical area then, you have much more advantageous. You can select ‘free shipping’ as per the country or city.
9. Customers always want to compare products. Shopping cart should be able to provide info of similar products.
10. Check if the shopping cart has an option to help you in cross-sell and up-sell products. This can really help you in increasing the volumes.
11. If you have a subscription based products or your customers have to pay at regular intervals then, make sure the shopping cart has these options to set the interval and it should trigger an email as an reminder to the customer.
12. Support info and contact details should be clearly mentioned on all the pages.
13. Integrated email marketing program will be an added advantage. You do not have to rely on other email campaign programs and keep moving and updating the customer’s contact details. Plus, if the system triggers email to subscribers about new product addition, in-stock or discount alerts… then it is an added advantage.
14. The system should be able to provide the required reports regarding the sales, traffic..etc.
15. Last but not least, ability to scale up the system to be compatible with mobile phones and link them up with apps so that purchases can be done on phones as well. It should also have ability to send messages to the phones if possible.

If the shopping cart provides these few important features then it will surely reduce the shopping cart abandons. Happy Selling!!

Also read: Top 10 Automated Email Programs to Increase Online Sales