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by Justin Rondeau, Marketing Specialist, Template Zone
Facebook has become the ‘be all and end all’ of the internet. With millions upon millions of users, it isn’t a big surprise that businesses began to use this as a marketing tool. Thus social media marketing was born, which has been met with a surprising amount of resistance. For those who are still against social media marketing, let me assure you that Facebook is a very important tool. I feel that those who do not take social media marketing seriously are those that have not been able to change their traditional marketing approach.
For the rest of us who do believe Facebook is an important tool I have a very important question for you:
Why are we not using it properly?
While I was writing a white paper for my company about Facebook pages, it was my job to find the very best Facebook pages. I thought this task would be very simple, but soon realized that very few companies have a solid understanding of what makes a great Facebook page. I found the top pages: Coca Cola, Starbucks, Red Bull, and other large companies and was impressed with all of their sites. However, there were only a handful of large companies that were able to
create an amazing Facebook page. Even though each company had its own niche, e.g., videos, customer interaction, or amazing visuals, they ALL focused on two very key aspects for creating a successful Facebook page: keeping? Facebook social and casual.
Obviously it helps to have a Facebook page that looks good, so proper understanding of FBML or iFrame as well as how to integrate apps is very important. However, if your page is constantly trying to sell something and is not responding to its follower’s interactions your page will fail regardless of how good it looks. Facebook is a part of social media and is at root social, don’t forget this.
I think what drastically needs to change in the realm of social media is how we think about conversions. When people search on Google for ads they are brought to a landing page where it is hoped the customer will make some type of converting action, e.g., fill out a survey, download an eBook, or purchase a product. THIS IS NOT THE ROLE OF FACEBOOK. Even though social media will garner an increase in revenue, I find that Facebook is not the place to directly sell products.
We must drastically change our approach to social media, if we are the ones who dictate what? a converting action is we must have an understanding of a Social Media Conversion. With traditional landing pages we can define different converting actions and have developed lead generation landing pages and click through landing pages to increase specialized activity. Try to look at Facebook as a ‘social landing page’ where a converting action is first ‘Liking’ the page and the residual revenue comes in the form of wall posts, image uploads, image comments, and mentions.
So how can you create a desirable Facebook Page? It really takes three steps:
First, take advantage of Facebook apps and create a page that people would like to look at. Facebook supports FBML and iFrame and has a whole slew of different apps to choose from.
Second, entice and engage your customers. Give them a reason to ‘like’ your page, have some sort of exclusive deal or fun tool. Ben and Jerry’s used a ‘word flipper’ in conjunction with one of their ice cream flavors. This allowed users to input text into a field and the Ben and Jerry’s app would flip the text for people to post on their page. This was the only place on Facebook to do something like this, and it brought Ben and Jerry’s a lot of Facebook traffic. Also, if a
customer takes the time to write on your wall, comment on a photo/video or upload a photo/video, it is important that you respond to them.
The more people comment on your page the more your page shows up in their individual newsfeed that is seen by their friends. This turns into free advertising, and can link you to prospective visitors, fans, and customers.
Third, monitor your traffic. It is no secret that Facebook doesn’t like to share too much information, but use what they give you. You can monitor new daily likes, new activity, and look at your demographic. One very important aspect of? Facebook is in your settings where you can set what page non-fans land on. This, in my opinion, is the most important part of any setting on a Facebook Page. This allows you to create a page that would entice a new visitor
to ‘like’ your page and become a follower and thus prospective customer for your company.
In closing, rather than turning Facebook into a stringent marketplace we can turn our Facebook page into a casual forum where our customers can engage with our company and with other customers. Facebook has replaced the ‘water bubbler chats’ of old, like it or not Facebook is how word of mouth is generated. Stop trying to sell a product, build a personality!
About the Author
Justin Rondeau graduated Suma Cum Laude from the University of New Hampshire in 2009 with a BA in Philosophy.? Though Justin studied Philosophy he found his niche in marketing while doing the copywriting for TemplateZone and found great success in analyzing social media trends.? Currently, Justin maintains the TemplateZone Facebook Page, their Twitter account, and their Blog. He is also in charge of the email marketing campaigns where he designs each email, writes the copy for each email, and runs the analytics for each email campaign.? On top of these responsibilities Justin has been spending much of his time researching landing pages and Facebook pages.? Justin’s research on landing pages and Facebook page layouts has been extremely important to TemplateZone’s new product release in Q1 of 2011.
Justin will be part of a Social Media Conversions panel discussion at Conversion Conference West 2011
Hi Justin, I think this is a very helpful post, thanks
Hi Justin,
this is an excellent article which I agree with entirely but for those working in a company. for someone like me with a number of small clients i find really hard to find time to update Facebook pages, so how does one cope with multiple client pages when most small business doesnt even have budget to pay someone to manage their Social Media marketing.
Hi, can you provide more info on where I can set what page non-fans land on?
@luis Thank You so much congrats on being the first comment 🙂
@Andy Thank you for the kind comment. I also work at a small company, and am in charge of all social media interaction, e.g., Facebook, Twitter, and our Blog (which as of late has left something to be desired). Social media can be a fun thing to keep up with in your company, I often find myself checking my company’s Facebook page and Twitter when I am out and about. By no means am I saying take your work home, but I thrive on interaction and that is how I approach social media.
I would also suggest linking up your Facebook posts with your twitter feed so that all of your Facebook posts become tweets, in essence you are killing two birds (bad pun…worse pun if you didn’t get it) with one stone.
Here is a good tip though, when running promotions on your FB page don’t make them daily promotions set up a weekly promotion that people can look at. You wont have to do any maitenence on that page, and since the majority of comments take place on the wall (assuming you haven’t set up a page that has a comment feature embedded) you will be able to focus on user interaction in one place.
Hopefully that helped, if you have anymore questions I am more than willing to answer them!
@Michael It is no secret that FBML is no longer going to be supported by Facebook on March 11th (you are still allowed to use it but new pages will not be able to add the app). You need to set a conditional statement in your coding, I don’t have the code on me at home and would be more than willing to talk to you more about the tech stuff with you. As a shameless plug my company is BETA testing our Facebook product where you can create a page without any design or developer experience, I am really excited.
Hey Justin, thanks for the tips. I agree with everything you have to say and want to implement your ideas. I’m all for responding to comments, but the problem is getting people to comment! I love the idea of interaction, but how do you get people interacting? I’ve tried contests, interesting articles, videos, controversy. Nothing seems to get people talking or commenting. Any ideas on how to get folks chatting? Thanks!
Terrific Post! It is very important to keep innovative content on you facebook page, espicially with the time and money people put into them! I am really into social media right now (like everyone else out there!), especially Facebook fan pages, Facebook Marketing and FBML. It can be hard to keep up to date with such a fast changing innovative topic but I manage to do it through blog posts exactly like yours and bit.ly/hBxVuH. Tips and tricks rock. I am trying to learn as much as possible to put myself ahead of the curve. So thank you again!
Enjoy!
Aaron
Also, anyone out there thats looking for a FBML to iFrame, I found bit.ly/fAiICq which has a great converter.
Some excellent points here. Definitely a great 3 step guide to the necessities of a successful facebook fan page.
Great job Justin!
@Ilana Getting people to interact is really really tough. I wish our interaction rate was higher on our own page, but it gives me something to improve upon. One thing I found that helps is to follow a basic schedule and post original content. Don’t always talk about yourself when you are on FB, people are on your page they know who you are at this point. I try to mix my posts up with fun contests, interesting links for readers, and sometimes a product plug. Ask questions and give people ‘something to talk about’. Though posting is important do not under ANY circumstance over post, 1-2 posts a day should be sufficient. If you over post people may defriend you, or they may hide your status feed. Personally I feel when a status feed is hidden that is the worse case scenario because your page may look like it has a bunch of fans, but if no one is getting your messages that number means nothing.
@Aaron Thanks for the kind words, are you going to be at the conference? If yes, Definitely check out the social media micro discussion!
@Salvatore Thanks!
I think that Facebook should be assessed as a marketing tool based on its application to the right context. For B2C stuff, it’s a lot easier for companies to be more casual in their approach towards people casually using a social networking site. It makes them easy to personalise their content and make it fun for people to share links. On the other hand, B2B is a lot harder. Actually, I wouldn’t recommend that B2B companies use Facebook as a marketing tool at all – It may actually have an adverse effect on their brand because people will feel ‘pestered’ by them and may see their fickle attempt at a social media marketing campaign as a reflection of their ability to do business.
Anyway, cool post. It was definitely thought provoking. All the best with your Facebook endeavours!
@Mark I would disagree that B2B should avoid Facebook insofar as they approach Facebook wholeheartedly. Businesses as a whole don’t do business with other businesses (a little verbose, really need a thesaurus right now), it’s individuals from businesses that do business with OTHER individuals from businesses. This being the case it is important that a business can be approachable. Create your personality, having a Facebook page gives a personality and YOU are in control of that personality.
I think your worry about a company ‘pestering’ another company only comes from people who do not use Facebook properly, e.g., posting a new status update hourly. Anyone who does a modest amount of research on ‘best practices’ can find an easy way to avoid being the pesterer.
Thank you for the comment, and your kind words Mark. I always enjoy talking about Facebook/social media and had a lull on comments, so again, thanks!