So as not to miss out, this year we've made a few of our own.

When it comes to digital or online marketing, and in fact business in general, predictions are often stated almost as fact - although few are backed up by any evidence, nor are they given any context for when, where or for whom they are most likely to apply. We prefer to make recommendations rather than predictions, and base them on what we actually see happening, statistics (nothing like hard evidence!) and our 15 years experience in the web business.

Given most of our customers are small-medium service and location based businesses here in Auckland, our predictions are skewed to be more relevant to these. So they won't apply to everyone, everywhere – but here they are.

1. We'll finally move on from 'mobile is taking over the world'

There is no denying that your audience is now using mobile devices to access the internet.

However, mobile doesn’t just mean smart phones. Don't sucked into getting a single solution for smart phones without thinking about about your whole audience and all the devices they're using. Look at what they are doing, when and where are they doing it.

Over the last year or so we've seen sites clearly designed for smartphones. On which they probably look very nice, but fail on other factors including use on those old school devices – desktop PCs, and of more concern – SEO. (Conversely we're also seeing the rise of video and large image page backgrounds which may not be so good for mobile).

From our Google analytics statistics, we can see that for those clients that target consumers then the use of smartphones is definitely a factor. But for B2B customers, the percentage of visitors averages around 10% (although this has increased over the last 12 months).

The highest use of mobile devices (tablet and smartphones) for any of our client's websites is 36%. And although this client has a responsive site, visitors are still more likely to make a purchase using a desktop device. And it means that 64% are using desktop devices.

Yes – go mobile. But don't take the headlines that mobile use is overtaking desktop use at face value – it's more complex than this.

One prediction said “business are playing catchup in mobile marketing”. I'd agree with this – but just adding 'mobile friendly' to your wish list is only the start. What we see emerging is the trend for multiple device use – in other words, people haven't necessarily replaced PC's with mobile's yet - they are adding mobile devices into the mix (although we suspect the younger the user, the more likely it is that it is their only device).

Once you have moved to a site that is responsive to the needs of different devices, you need to look at all devices and experiences in a more holistic manner. Are they doing something different when on a mobile device? Looking for something different? What experience do we need to create on a mobile vs desktop? What do we need to do differently? How do we utilise location information as part of this ?

And don't ignore desktop PCs and laptops.

The Takeaway: If you haven't got a mobile friendly site, plan to do it in 2015.  Go responsive rather than a seperate mobile site first, unless you have a good reason to do so.  Then use your site analytics to start customising content and experience for different audiences as required.

2. You still won't be able to get away from creating great content

Content is not king – it's the grand, all powerful high emperor.

People have become numb to infographics, funny cat photo's and spun articles at a time when content is even more important than ever – especially for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).

Create content relevant to your business that informs, guides and yes occasionally even entertains. Do it as often as you can in response to questions, new products and industry news.

Not sure what to say? You'd be surprised just how much information is right there at your fingertips in terms of the knowledge you and your staff have that your target audience would love access to.

Consideration of content length will also become more important. While short forms (tweets and vine length video) containing short messages are on the increase, longer blog posts and articles are more likely to be shared and are more valuable for SEO. So start thinking about 2000 word blog posts like this one ;)

To get better return on this effort, leverage and diversify to appeal to different tastes and different ways of getting content out there, particularly via the social networks. Convert text into slides, video and images. And content can also be in the form of small apps and software.

Of course, don't forget that good content on your website helps convert visitors to customers because it demonstrates expertise, helps solve problems (and therefore demonstrates willingness to serve) and builds trust.

Sadly the quality of content in all it's forms washing around the internet probably won't improve much as shallow, repetitive content continues to be churned out by the lazy, brigade. At least try and stand out a bit.

The Takeaway: Good content will be really, really, really, really important. Really.

3. Social gets harder for some

Social networking sites have become critical for getting content out and connecting with audiences – but what content, for who and where?

Attention challenged audiences are becoming increasingly picky about which social platforms they use and how they use them – and mobile now plays a very large part.

The main contenders – Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter are still here but increasing irritation with commercial drivers (ads, promoted posts etc.) along with concerns about privacy and use of personal data is driving uptake of alternatives. Pinterest, Instagram and Flickr for image sharing, Vine for short video. The 'anti-Facebook' site 'Ello'.

Google+ continues to battle, with some calling it 'walking dead' and others still maintaining it is critical for SEO. What is true is that not as many people use it, but include it if local SEO is important.

If buying Facebook likes and Twitter followers hasn't already died it will do so soon as businesses realise it's a waste of time because theses fake followers don't engage and certainly don't buy. Embedding social buttons on your website pages still won't work unless the content is good enough to share, so just adding them to your website design wish list is a waste of time.

Shameless self promotion might work for celebrities but business will need to be more saavy and share engaging, easily digestible content if they want to connect. But easily digestible doesn't mean short and shallow. Ironically, business will need to be more social, to be social.

There is a lot of commentary around video becoming the medium of choice, but this will be hard for a lot of small businesses with limited budgets so think this one will only apply to bigger brands. Micro-video (via the likes of Vine) maybe a solution.

Brands will also become more sophisticated in their use of social media to drive conversions and not just chatter, to justify their investment.

For those that aren't yet embracing social media in some form, entering the game will be harder than it was a few years ago when it was newer and there were fewer choices.

As always the advice is to pick the platform that suits your business and is most relevant for your audience. Think about what resources you have available to put into it so that if you are going to do it, you do it properly.

The Takeaway: If there ever was a time to incorporate social media into your marketing - it's now. But you'll need to do it properly.  Social is something you are, not something you do.

4. SEO won't get any easier either, but maybe that's a good thing

SEO is certainly not dead but it is becoming harder to make work as a stand-alone strategy.  Having said that, it is as important as ever that you are found by the right people looking for what you have to offer.

Google continues the fight against those that want to hijack search rankings or take the easy route and as a result SEO has become more integrated into and reliant on the overall marketing strategy.

Quality content creation targeting individual audience segment needs and social signals are part of this. There is still a lot of debate about social signals and search rankings – Google says it doesn't take it into account but we're not convinced. Site performance has been important for a while and mobile friendliness now counts as well.

Old fashioned link building is in (i.e. earned links) and we certainly hope to see more progress on Google's algorithm changes that does not reward sites with a high rank purely because of an exact match domain or link farming.

Google is the dominant search engine in New Zealand but we are also starting to see Yahoo and Bing feature in some websites visitor statistics. This could increase in 2015 – last year we noticed Google became full of off-shore (and therefore often meaningless) search results. This was likely due to the 'Pigeon' update which was supposed to improve local searching, but appeared to have the complete opposite effect (see point below).

Following from this, it also means 'local' SEO is more relevant for businesses that operate out of a single location (eg Auckland). Location information (physical address information) and optimising content for local area search terms play a key part.

Targeting single keyword phrases took a radical jump onto the cease-and-desist list last year. Longer keyword phrases in the form of questions and inclusions of context (particularly location) are more powerful and drive more visitors than single search words. This is one reason why content in the form of blog posts, FAQs and articles is so important.

We'd love to see low quality SEO tactics stop working and dodgy SEO offers disappear. Sadly that probably won't happen.

The Takeaway: SEO is no longer something you should buy off a random telemarketer that offers cheap SEO services if you want it to pay off in the long run - or work at all.

5. Analytics will matter more than ever

To get the kind of insight you need to make decisions from a complex mix of SEO, conversion rates social interactions and mobile - you need good information.

Many predictions for 2014-2015 talk about needing to make data driven decisions, although these tend to focus on using that data to personalise messages, segment audiences, monitor market penetration and get customer insights.

At a more basic level, we've always maintained that you need to understand what is happening on your website. Where are people coming from, how did they get there? What device are they using and what are mobile users doing differently than desktop users?

With more devices and channels than ever before, taking action based on verifiable data ensures the best use of resources and budget.  You'll also be able to measure specific campaigns and tactics to see which ones work.

The Takeaway: If you don't know how people find your website and what they do there, chances are the site is ineffective.

6. Hackers will be more determined than ever

While not a marketing consideration per se, your website and it's associated data is a critical marketing asset that needs to be protected.

As recent, high profile breaches of the likes of Sony Entertainment or Barnes and Noble show, no one is too big to be a target. At the same time, small business are just (if not more) likely to be attacked if security is ignored.

Security specialists Kaspersky reported an upsurge in malware incidents and predicts Mac's have come to the attention of cyber-criminals. Vulnerabilities in virtual payment systems will come to the fore, and cloud storage systems may increase due to their popularity.

A compromised website doesn't necessarily mean the hacker will leave a notice saying 'you are hacked' but may be secretly using your site to send out spam or have stolen personal customer information or business intelligence. Malware developers are becoming sneakier and harder to detect.

Last year we also saw a frustrating increase in DDOS (denial of service) attacks - which basically means overloading a web server and preventing anyone accessing a website.

Fortunately, a lot of the attacks on small business websites are trying to pick off the low hanging fruit – i.e. those that have no security practices in place. But don't let that lull you into a thinking you'll slip under cyber-criminals radar.

When it comes to website security – it's a case of when it happens not if.

So in addition to website security hardening and ongoing monitoring, you should have a business continuity plan in place. Education staff on best practise like password standards, locking smartphones and looking out for social phishing attempts should be part of it too.

The Takeway: The longer you assume your web designer and/or hosting provider is taking care of security, the more likely it is your site has already been compromised.  The cost of rebuilding a website will far outweigh the cost of good website security practises.

7. Web design trends will .....continue

Web design trends are often that – design trends. They often have nothing to do with how well a site functions.

This is a big topic so we won't actually be covering it in this post, but design trends we see include:

• More pressure on a mobile-first design
• Continuation of the single page – no more 'above the fold'
• Parallax scrolling (images sitting behind the content) goes away - we hope
• 'Flat' visuals continue to rule
• Large image backgrounds and headers become almost a default
• No header or background images are used to compete with the above
• Bigger, hidden navigation and super sized menus help users get around
• More of the big, more interesting typography – i.e. big, mixed font text, often over large images

We pretty much see the recent design trends continuing from 2014 into 2015, with businesses playing catch up with implementation of responsive and mobile friendly designs.

The Takeaway: Don't confuse a design trend with what is necessarily right or effective for your business.  And success in digital marketing takes a lot more than good design.

Is that all?

So – those are our thoughts about website and digital marketing in 2015.

We recommend business use these to help identify priorities for 2015. This means that this time next year we can look back and see if we were right!

This looks pretty ugly if you were to include it on any material like a business card or email signature!

But once you’ve got 25 people liking your page (aka fans) you can apply for your username (also called a Facebook vanity URL).

Claiming a friendly username makes your page easier to find and looks more professional.

Try and come up with one that is appropriate for your brand name but easy to remember and read.

Once you claim your username YOU CAN'T CHANGE IT – so choose carefully! *

How to set your Facebook user name

You have to be an administrator of a page before you can do this.

1. Go to www.facebook.com/username
2. Select your page from the drop down list
3. If you get the message “CatsRus is not eligible for a username at this time. In the future, CatsRUs will be able to set a username” it means you don't have enough fans yet!
4. Once you’ve selected your page, a box will appear on the right for you to enter your preferred username. Usernames can only contain A-Z, a-z, 0-9 and full stops - no breaks!
5. You may find your business name has already been claimed by someone, in which case you may have to get creative – try adding a location such as “CatsRusNZ”
6. Once you have one that is available, confirm your page name.

If you are using Facebook as your Business Page

If you are using Facebook as your business page, Facebook will want you to 'switch from using Facebook as your page to using Facebook as yourself'.

If you do this, (by clicking on continue), you can still set a username for your business page in the same way as above.  If you are the administrator for more than one page, you'll get a list of all the pages to select from.

You can also change your page name from your business page admin panel, via Edit Page -> Page Info.  There is an option to Edit the Page Address which takes you back to step 2 above.  Again you will have to switch back to the real you to do it.

*Update Sept 2013 - Looks like you can now change the name, but only once. Guess they got a lot of people wanting to 'correct' their page name!

Advertising on Facebook is pretty quick to set up and get going, but like other online advertising platforms don't forget that Facebook's goal is to get more money out of you.

Fortunately they do this by helping you create ads that get lots of clicks because you pay when someone clicks on your ad. The trick is making sure this translates into business for you.

Facebook provide step by step instructions on the nuts and bolts of setting up ads with some specific help on managing and editing ads and campaigns so you might as well get it from the horses mouth.

Beyond that, how do you avoid your fledgling Facebook advertising campaign ending up on the scrap-heap of failed initiatives?

1. Decide on your strategy and goals first - and if Facebook is the right choice.

There has been conflicting reports on how well Facebook advertising works. Like most other marketing and promotional efforts, it's going to be a case of testing it and seeing if it works for your particular target audience and type of business.

But experimentation can be costly, so consider:

• Is your target audience active on Facebook? Despite the impressive figures of millions of active users, advertising on a platform your audience doesn't use is like yelling in an empty room.
• You can use Ads to promote your Facebook page and grown the number of 'likes' rather than pushing to make a sale. If you get people on your database, or liking your page, you can build a relationship over time so they are ready and willing to purchase when the time is right.
• Choose specifically what you want to promote. Pick one service or product at a time, not a generic group of products or vague service – be specific
• Have a look at what your competition and others are doing 

2. Choose the destination

You can direct people who click on your ad to an external website (preferably your own!) or keep them within the Facebook ecosystem, which can mean lower cost-per-click.

If you are taking people to an external website, direct them to a purpose built landing page. If this page is being used by more than one campaign, add url parameters so you can identify in Analytics what traffic is being referred from Facebook.   You can use this real handy url builder  to make this easy.

3. Target your campaign tightly

With Facebook you can select who see's your ads using variables such as interests and location, age, gender and keywords. Social Fresh reports that there are big differences in performance based on gender, so optimise your ads by segmenting by gender (target one ad to the men, another one to women).

Of course to target the right people, you'll need to know what demographics your audience has and their interests, so if you don't know this you'd better stop until you do!

You could make the mistake of many new advertisers and 'go wide' for geographic location and stated interests, but this almost always ends up with lots of clicks but few sales and therefore a poor return on your investment.

Highly targeted ads are the smart way to go. Who exactly has the problem that you can solve?

4. Set appropriate daily budget, bids and scheduling

You didn't think advertising on Facebook was free did you?

Facebook ads are charged on a CPC (cost per click) or CMP (cost per 1000 impressions). CPC tend to have a slightly higher click through rate, and ads that keep people on Facebook have (reportedly) a higher click through rate and lower cost per click.

Start bidding at Facebooks suggested amount, you can always limit the duration or daily spend until you have some initial data about effectiveness.

Once you've created your ads, it takes up to 24 hours to approve – although it can be quicker, remember to build approval time into the timing of your campaign

5. Create effective ads

Create ads that:

• Has an image that is relevant to the offer
• Align with the brand in terms of tone, style and linkage
• Includes an incentive such as 'switch and save'
• Are transparent – don't try and 'trick' people into clicking on your ad - not only does it not work but it's against Facebook guidelines

You have to be concise as you only have 25 characters for the headline and 90 for the body text.

Create multiple versions of ads so you can see which gets the best response. Refresh your ads regularly to prevent them going stale as a result of people seeing them many times.

Consider sponsored stories instead of traditional ads.

6. Measure and monitor

It goes without saying (or does it?) that you should look at your statistics to figure out whether your campaign has been successful.

How you do this depends on the purpose of your campaign but might include:

• Click through rate's to your website
• Conversions on your website (set up goals in Google Analytics to help with this)
• Facebook engagement data – this will only show what happens on your ads, not what happens afterwards

There are tools starting to emerge to help you manage your Facebook campaign if your budget warrants stumping up an extra few hundred bucks to get things like fast ad creation, bulk editing, and ad rotation.

These include (this is not a recommendation of any of these tools):

• Qwaya
• Syncapse (who has aquired Clickable)
• Kensoo

If you are in business you can't afford to get it wrong - at best it will be a waste of time, effort and money.  It could cost you a LOT of money if you brand takes a mega hit.

Here are some tips to keep you on track:

Before you start, fix your website.

Social media activity needs a quality website full of fresh shareable content to share and start conversations about.  Social media and search engine optimisation has become entwined so what is good for one is going to be good for the other. Without good content and a compelling offer, your tactics could be a waste of time and money.

Claim your property

Even if you don't plan on using it straight away, claim your Twitter account, Facebook business page, YouTube channel.  Unlike domain names that are country specific, Facebook, Twitter etc are global and if someone else claims the name first you will have to resort to adding numbers or letters to your account name making it harder for people to find you.

Have an outcome in mind

If you know where you are going you are more likely to get there.  Before you devote time and effort, work out what you are trying to acheive by having a Facebook page.  Is it to gather leads? Respond to complaints? Encourage your user community to support each other? 

This will provide you some steer as to which networks to use and what support material and mechanisms you'll need to make it happen.

Dip your toes in

Even if just for your personal use. Have some experience using the tools even if you don't intend doing it yourself.  You will make better decisions about your strategy, use of tools and who you employ to do it if you understand the basics.

Take each platform one at a time

You will avoid spreading yourself too thin.  Each platform has it's own set of rules - both in the 'terms of use' sense and how it's user base behave.  For example, many LinkedIn users don't appreciate a connection request from someone they don't know at all whereas this is not only common on Twitter, but necessary!

See what your competition is doing

This will help you understand the competitive environment you are up against.  Follow them and see what they are tweeting about and which ones get re-tweeted.  See how they handle complaints and if they don't respond in a timely manner, you could contact the disgruntled party yourself and offer to help!

Get an expert to help

They can help develop your plan in detail, identify the best tools and platforms, develop policies and help guide you through the early days.  These tools change rapidly, so it can be hard to keep up with all the changes if you are not doing it for a job.

Assign resources

Work out how much time and resources you have to allocate and make sure they have the right tools to make the job as efficient as possible.  The write a plan of when you will be checking your pages, updating status etc. You may want to do this at a certain time each day.

Measure and monitor

Make sure you are monitoring your feeds, mentions etc.  Measuring activity and results such as retweets, likes etc and can link these results to visitors to your website, leads and ultimately sales

Make it worth their while

Give people a reason to be a fan/follower – why should they? You can offer valuable tips, funny stories, latest news etc. Would you follow someone just so they can peddle their latest wares? Unlikely, so put yourself in their shoes!

Be polite

Acknowledge people who contribute to the conversation – eg blog comments and shares. It's easy to say thank you

Remember that it's not all about you. Stay polite and professional when representing your brand, a social media mishap can go viral very very fast

Be responsive

Don't ignore customer complaints or comments, but don't respond to negative comments by being defensive and firing back at them. Use them as an opportunity to demonstrate how much you care about the quality of your products and level of customer service

If you want to learn from other's mistakes, read about these sometimes shocking often funny social media fails:

• Social Media Fails
• EConsultancy's Epic Social Media Fails

Not everyone. And the only people you should be worried about is the people who you want to talk to. Ask your current and potential customers what social networks they are on and how they use them and that will give you your answer – where they are there, you should be too.

Google also looks for social signals as part of calculating your search ranking, so that could tip the balance into you taking some action.  But being on every social network around isn't going to help, especially if you don't have the resources to do it properly.

My customers don't use social media

Don't make this assumption based on your own experience or prejudice. Often when business say this, they can't back up the statement with research. Find out if your customers are social media, what platform and how they use it.

Social media can replace your website.

Don't even think about it.

Firstly, not everyone is on or actively uses one network exclusively. But the main reason you should not put all your online marketing in one basket, let's call it Facebook is that you need to own your own digital property so you can control it. If you use Facebook exclusively, they own you.

A third party set's the rules and can change them overnight. And they can also fail - taking your customers with them.

It's a waste of time

Some business owners think social media is just for kids or for fun and a sink hole of time and energy from a marketing perspective.
It can be if poorly targeted or used for broadcasting marketing messages. Like anything it has to be done properly.

Outsourcing it to a hip young agency to do it all for you isn't the answer either. Why we won't 'do' your social media.

Social media marketing takes time. It could potentially months or even years before a fan or follower engages you and a business relationship is built.

Don't forget you can use social media for customer service support and complaint/reputation management, not just marketing

Having a presence on Facebook makes you social

Social is something you are, not something you do. Olivier Blanchard

Just having a Twitter feed that automatically spits out inspirational quotes of the day is not being social. Facebook, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon are just tools not ends in themselves.

Being truly social means integrating collaboration and connections with your business strategy. It means involving all the stakeholders (customers, suppliers, employees, industry bodies) in an environment where information is shared and ideas developed together.

A lot of businesses are still trying to integrate 'digital' into their strategy so it's probably going to be a while before we see the majority extend to becoming truly 'social'.

The more fans, followers the better!

This myth is closely associated with the one above. Numbers can be bought. It doesn't mean they'll buy from you. If you are a local flower shop in Hamilton what's the point in having fans in India or Hong Kong unless they have a connection to Hamilton?

And a Facebook page like or a Twitter follower is NOT the same as someone who has opted into your email list.  You can like a page and never interact or even see their content again.

Try and get an audience of interested, motivated people who you can build a rapport with. Having three percent of 500 fans turn into a lead is better than no percent of a five thousand fans.

It's Free (and easy)

There is no such thing as a free lunch. Signing up for a You Tube Channel might be free, but it takes time, effort and resources to build an effective presence.

This time has a value to your business in real dollar terms.

You can't afford not to do social media

Usually the people saying this are trying to sell you social media services or they are an evangelist with a lot of time and energy to devote to it.

While it's true it's not going away, there are many digital channels – your website, email and the mobile space. None of which should be completely ignored.

Micro businesses, one man bands and sole traders are still ticking along quite nicely thank you very much without any kind of social media presence at all.  I've tried to argue many times that there is sure to be opportunities for better customer communication (and therefore retention) but many of these business owners are happy sticking to what (for the present anyway) works for them.

Social media (ROI) return on investment can't be measured

Yes it can, but you will need to set up effective tracking methods to know where your leads and come from, then translate them through into your sales figures or customer satisfaction indicators.

There are metrics that can be assigned to a campaign or tactic such as growing your follower base, but these should link back to a specific outcome or goal, and will probably involve more than one metric.

Just having more Twitter followers or a high Klout score doesn't in itself translate back to qualified leads and on to more sales, and this is where much of the measurement of social media has fallen down – in the definition of ROI.

It is difficult to measure the monetary value of a fan, but establish a correlation between engagement and sales, or brand preference and the numbers will make more sense.

Social media doesn't work for B2B

It's different, but people who working in businesses are people too. Businesses use social media to help make business decisions. It's a matter of finding out which platform is the most suitable. LinkedIn is probably going to be more effective, because people are there for business networking and sharing.

You need to take the time to understand your audience, set some goals and objectives and develop a plan to achieve them.

Well there are always those impressive statistics, with over a billion users a month on Facebook.  There is also over 2 and a quarter million kiwi's on the biggest social networking platform on the planet.

You can use Facebook to:

• Connect and engage with people (current and potential customers, suppliers and partners)
• Create a community of customers that share and help each other
• Promote your content such as blog posts, white papers and video
• Increase the visibility of your businesses

 Our Top Tips

1. Set up a business page – not a personal profile. Business pages have different controls and rules
2. Add a suitable profile picture and cover image – note: cover images cannot include a call to action such as 'call us' or your contact details.
3. Start connecting with friends, collegues and other people you know, then try and grow your follower base through promoting the value of following you (or liking your page)
4. Post content – pictures and links to video and current news items are popular. People love pictures. If you are posting a link to a blog post on your website that has an image, consider posting the photo direct to Facebook, rather than letting Facebook choose a thumbnail for your
5. Add to your page using Facebook appliations such as discussion boards, video box
6. Promote through ads, competitions etc. Contest are a great way to bring some fun to your page, and can not only increase your likes, but build your email database
7. Use Facebook features such as highlighting and apps to keep your page interesting.
8. Don't just ask people to 'like' you or 'follow you' – why should they? Give them a reason.
9. Focus on your updates (ie your wall) – most people don't actually visit your page more than once, they read updates in their news feed, so adding all kinds of pages can be a waste of time, Focus on sharing content and interacting with comments.

What connecting and engaging people really means is having conversations – not promoting your latest product and asking people to share or comment on it.

It means:

• Commenting on current affairs in your industry and adding expert opinion and insight
• Asking for opinions and input to new products and services
• Sharing customer/fan success stories
• Add photo's of your products, services, customers, suppliers etc

What you CAN'T do

Did you know you can't put a call to action (even 'call us') on your cover photo.Before you use Facebook for marketing your business, especially if you are going to be running competitions - Read the full guidelines

Here are some of the important ones that can trip people up:

• Use sharing – ie 'likes', comments and posts as the basis for a competition. You have to use a custom app or send people to your website. They can like the page in order to participate, but that's about it. You can't notify winers through Facebook either.
• Have a facebook page name that has nothing to do with what the page is about.
• Ads and commercial content are subject to Facebook's Advertising Guidelines and third-party advertisements on pages are prohibited.And ads or sponsored strories can't contain images that have text of price information, contact details or any kind of call to action (this must be text).
• Cover images can't be deceptive or misleading.You can't include calls to action such as 'buy now' or '50% off' or any contact information – even your website address.

If your business involves selling any of the following you're out of luck, because you can't promote them on facebook: weapons or explosives, software that is spy or malware, prescription pharmaceuticals, dating sites with a 'sexual emphasis', tobacco or related paraphernalia. And nothing considered 'adult'.

To join a group, you need to have joined LinkedIn first.

See the guide to LinkedIn - Getting Started if you haven't already joined up.

To join a group:

1. Log in to your LinkedIn profile
2. From the top menu bar, find the 'Groups' menu and select 'Groups Directory' from the drop down menu.
3. From here you can search for a group you want to join.
4. Use either the Search Groups function on the left or top right to find groups by keyword or name – try and be specific if you are looking for a particular group.
5. Click on the name of the group you want to join
6. Click on the yellow Join Group button

If the group has restricted membership, your application to join will need to be accepted by the group owner and you will get a notification of when this happens.

1. Respond to Questions

Access 'Answers' from the 'More' menu. As the name suggests, you can post advice in response to people's questions. This can establish you as an expert in your field.

Consider who and where your audience is however – no point providing expertise if your audience isn't in the same place

2. Add applications such as SlideShare presentations

Another way of showcasing your expertise by providing information that is of value to your audience.

Consider presentations that include top tips, info-graphics or other insights.

3. Join lots of groups

Not just one or two but as many as you can find that are relevant.

You'll soon find the ones that work better for you in terms of engagement, and can leave the ones that aren't useful.

Start discussions to engage people to interact.

4. Search for companies you want to contact directly.

You can identify individuals and their roles so you can research them before you contact them

5. Set up a Company page for your business.

Another place to profile how you can help people.  I'm  not sure company pages are necessary for small businesses as it's just another 'thing' to maintain, but worthwhile for professional services businesses who's employees are active on linkedin, and that can gather a bit of a following.

6. Use Linkedin Ads

These can drive people to a landing page on your website that captures their contact details in return for download a white paper (for example).

7. LinkedIn mobile.

Download the app to your smart phone. When you are out networking, you can transfer contact details with another smartphone user with the app via bluetooth.

What Not to Do

Remember this is a business network so keep photo's and comments professional

1. Be cautious about accepting link requests from people you don't know. Your network is part of your professional reputation. Many people wont' connect with people they haven't met in person – we'd recommend a high level of caution. As a rule of thumb if you wouldn't do business with them, have a business lunch with or recommend them to a trusted client, don't connect with them.
2. Following from above, don't go on a linking binge trying to connect with lots of people, especially if you don't know them – you risk the recipients rejecting your invitation which can get you banned.
3. Don't bombard people with links to your products, events, invitations etc. There is a lot competing for people's attention these days and they don't want repeated entreaties from you insisting that you couldn't possibly pass up this amazing offer that you haven't even bothered to see if they need.
4. Leave it lying abandoned. We know people who's profile says they work for a company that they left several years ago! You might as well close the account!

Got any more tips to share?

If Facebook is like the local pub, LinkedIn is more like a conference or business networking event where the conversation focuses on business and industries.

How you use LinkedIn depends on your business and your goals but it can include:

• Staying connected with people in your network of professional contacts
• Contacting prospective customers
• Profiling your professional expertise and services
• Announcing new products or services
• Researching prospective customers before contacting them directly
• Building awareness of your brand
• Profiling your business and service offering

Getting started

1. Sign up and complete your profile.

You can sign up with LinkedIn for free, although there are paid versions.

Once you've started your profile, don't leave it incomplete in case you never get around to finishing it!

Include a summary of your experience, past employers, skills and specialities. Add keywords (ie what people might be looking for that relate to what you do) into the heading and/or summary of your profile.

You can link your Twitter account if you have one, but if you are going to be tweeting about non-business related subjects it might be best to leave it out.

Once you have finished your profile, claim your 'vanity url' so you can add http://linkedin.com/in/myname to your business cards and email signature.

Keep in mind who you want to read this profile and include information that will be relevant to that audience.

2. Build your network of 'connections'.

Start by searching for and connecting with people you know well, then extend to include customers, partners, previous colleagues etc.

When you send requests, try personalising the message rather than sending a generic 'so and so wants to add you to their network' . It's much friendlier! And when you get a request, try personalising the response back.

3. Extend your network

Then extend your network further by joining groups relative to your industry, interests or groups where your target audience is likely to be.

Then join in the conversations!

Tip: Put aside a specific time each week to grow your network of current or former business associates, post discussions and answer questions.

Search Engine Guide wrote a couple of articles outlining three ways to decide when you should do one or the other, which we've summarised below.

Different social media platforms appeal to different audiences, so choose accordingly. Facebook suits business selling to consumers, whereas LinkedIn suits professional services and consultants.

When to start with social media

1. When you are launching a new web site

New websites take a while to achieve search engine rankings. Not only does it take a while to develop a body of content and back links, but there is the much talked about Google 'sandbox' which reduces the ranking of new sites for the first few months.
Social media builds a conversation around a product, service or company. This leads to links and you can also see which topics are generating the most conversation and factor this into your SEO strategy.

Just make sure that you have the content to support your social media activity. Sometimes a new site means a new business and you'll need to have a plan in place of what you are going to talk to people about!

2. When your product or service is an impulse buy

If you sell one of those 'I want that' products that are cheap enough and/or or cool enough that people want them, and will want them even more if everyone else has one, then social media may serve you better because you can ride the buzz.

We've seen businesses that sucessfully generate business during low-activity periods by offering special, time-limited deals on Facebook.

3. When you sell something people don't even know they want

Consumers can't search for the product they don't know exists. If you're introducing a completely new product or service that's never been offered before, social media will allow you to build awareness, educate the market and gain exposure.

Locally, Paw Justice - a cause, not a business - has generated a large community from their Facebook page which they say was completely unexpected!

When to start with SEO

1. When you have an established web site, but need more traffic

Search engine optimization will help get your product in front of people who are looking but failing to find your product or service.

Of course a good SEO campaign has to start with keyword research so make sure you do that first!

2. When your product or service has a research based sales process

Some products are the ones people buy as soon as they see them (impulse buys) But others require a lengthy research process before a purchase is made. You need to connect with these people at each point during the buying cycle so when they buy – they buy from you.

3. When you sell something people already want

SEO is a good idea if you sell a product that's already well established and popular, but you aren't getting the type of traffic and sales you want. A site that is well optimised for keywords with high conversion rates means the sale won't go to your competition.

Consider PPC

Search engine marketing includes paid advertising – those sponsored links to the right of organic results. A paid Google Adwords campaign is a way to generate traffic quickly and will tell you which of your keywords are getting the most attention and have the highest conversion rate – without having to wait for your SEO campaign to build traffic naturally.