Fan brands guide to Facebook commerce

The FanBrand’s Guideto FacebookCommerceISSUE 1JULY 2011 1

CONTRIBUTORS Tim Putnam Marcus Whitney Matt Sullivan Vice President of Client CTO and Co-Founder Client Services Manager Services at Moontoast of Moontoast at Moontoast twitter: @thetcp twitter: @marcuswhitney twitter: @matt_sullivan Brad Posey User Interface Designer at Moontoast twitter: @bradposey

TABLE OF CONTENTS F-Commerce Is the First Frontier of Distributed Social Commerce 4 The Economic Drivers of Facebook Commerce 5 Finding Success With the Facebook Conversion Funnel 6 The Facebook Fan Engagement Spectrum 9 The Anatomy of a Fan (infographic) 14 So What’s This EdgeRank Thing All About? 17 Content Drives Facebook Commerce 19 Social Media Listening on Facebook 20

F-COMMERCE IS THE FIRST FRONTIEROF DISTRIBUTED SOCIAL COMMERCES ocial Networks, Content Networks and Smartphones are empowering consumersto find, research and transact with your brand in But you can’t be successful without understanding the rules of engagement, and believe me… there are rules. Understandingways never before possible. And consumers are concepts like EdgeRank, The Fan Engagementchoosing to use their new found power. Spectrum, Facebook’s Economic Drivers, and what the conversion funnel looks like in FacebookDistributed Social Commerce is how you will are critical to your success in F-Commerce. So ismeet your consumers where they want to be met, having the right tools.and deliver the offers that they want from you,before your competitors can. There are many brands who have been using F-Commerce with great success in Music,Facebook has enabled people to build and Publishing and Retail. To be successful withmaintain relationships with other people and F-Commerce, it is imperative that the commercebrands in a way that no online platform before element is seamlessly integrated with a solidit has. Facebook learns about us through our social media strategy. Brands we have seen thatinteractions with other people and brands, and are owning F-Commerce have great engagementkeeps us engaged by never looking the same with their fans and are having real conversationswhen we visit it. We, the Facebook members, with their communities. Commerce is now beingare rewarded for contributing to the collective used as a rewards tool.intelligence of Facebook with likes, commentsand shares, with more relevant content in our This is a new era.news feed and better suggestions for friends weshould request and brands we should like. It’s an Consumers are very much in control and they areamazing system. dictating where they will engage with a brand. Many brands are now advertising their FacebookImagine now harnessing that collective intelligence, Fan Pages instead of their websites. Social Mediawith the goal of finding and serving your most Marketing was yesterday (if you can believe it),valuable customers. That’s what F-Commerce is and Distributed Social Commerce on Facebookall about. is Now. Seize the day!4 | The Fan Brand’s Guide to Facebook Commerce Tweet This E-Book

THE ECONOMIC DRIVERS OFFACEBOOK COMMERCEW e are trying to make this as simple as possible, friends. their info) with the offer? You’ll have to try lots of offers to find your sweet spot, so don’t get jaded if the first one or twenty don’t work. ThisNo business is easy. There are always factors is a learning process, and once you nail it, it’sbeyond your control that can impact how well a great revenue stream and low-cost customerthings will go for you in your business. And then acquisition channel.there are the drivers. We keep pointing to thedrivers, because they give you a simple way to Placement - How did you integrate the offer intoassess your opportunity, and your performance your brand’s social experience? Will fans findagainst your opportunity. it? Is it surrounded with social triggers that can inspire sharing? Did it come across as relevantIn our experience, there have only been four (4) with the surrounding content? Did it appearkey drivers that we have had to measure, both at an ideal time to drive the most traffic? All ofqualitatively and quantitatively, to determine how these things matter big time when it comes tosuccessful a social commerce campaign can be, seizing the opportunity of your Social Commerceand how well we’ve actually done. Behold: campaign.Audience - Qualitatively, you need to understand Virality (new word, gotta love the Interwebs) –how engaged your audience is and what How easy and compelling is it for the offer totheir threshold for buying directly from you is. be shared, thus expanding the audience andQuantitatively, you need to understand how growing the overall opportunity.many of your total audience you are able toactually reach. Both of these can be determined These are the only things that we focus on(approximately) from previous social interactions when working with partners to build great Socialand marketing conversion metrics. Moontoast Commerce campaigns. Keeping it simplehelps you get concrete results by monetizing lets you measure and improve towards Socialdirectly, to add another dimension to the data Commerce excellence, which we all want. So let’spoints around your audience. But Moontoast keep it simple friends, focus on the drivers.(or anyone for that matter) can’t monetize adisengaged audience, or an audience too small Have you been measuring your drivers? If so,to get meaningful results from. how do you think you’re doing? Let us know.Offer - What are you offering? Is it compelling?Does it have game dynamics tied to it to motivateyour audience to engage (buy, share, give you5 | The Fan Brand’s Guide to Facebook Commerce Tweet This E-Book

FINDING SUCCESS WITH THE FACEBOOK CONVERSION FUNNEL Now that we understand the Economic Drivers of Facebook Commerce, let’s talk about the Facebook conversion funnel.6 | The Fan Brand’s Guide to Facebook Commerce Tweet This E-Book

T he keys to leading a person from casual user to Liking a page, and through makinga purchase, lie in having a solid social strategy turn, your community will grow. We believe authenticity, consistency, and great content that encourages a reaction are big drivers inand compelling offers that your community gets developing a community. Posts with photos andexcited about. So how can your organization use videos encourage sharing, and therefore expandthose, regardless of size, to be successful in your a brand’s reach. An authentic brand voice willown efforts? build trust, leading the casual brand fan to have a deeper sense of personal ownership whichLet’s take a look at the following factors and how makes them pay more attention when yourthey can be applied to marketing on the world’s updates crawl down their news feed.largest social network: Getting DirectLiking with Limited So you have a community. Your fans are yourWhy is Black Friday so popular? Because a fans for a reason. They like your products, yourlimited quantity of product is available for a great customer service, your stores, your marketing,price. There’s only so much of it to go around, so and any number of other things. You are thepeople freeze their bums off outside of Target at authority on your brand and your fans want to buy3:00 in the morning just to get a $20 toy. Scarcity from you.is a powerful tool. Why deny them that? Take out the middle manWhat do you have that’s scarce? Maybe you and go where your fans are gathering. Thathave an awesome backlog of merchandise that’s way, you’re in control of the experience. Fansbeen collecting dust in the warehouse for years. appreciate that experience much more than justThe fewer, the better. This is what drives impulse buying your wares at a big box retailer.buys in social commerce. If your customers knowthey can’t get it anywhere else and there’s only ahandful left, they are much more likely to buy. Facebook Commerce is notScarcity will attract new Likes (and customer about constantly postingacquisition) as word of the offer spreads. your products or servicesQuality Over QuantityPopularity is a tricky thing and a little relative. A to your Fan Page. It’s aboutbrand with 20,000 fans on Facebook is popular building a community...compared to one with 100 fans, but pales incomparison to the brand with 20 million fans. This is a big factor in the conversion funnel.It’s really about what you do with your fans and People buy from the source because the senseless about how many you have. Do you think of trust is very high. A great social experiencea brand like Timberland is any less effective at that ends with a sale builds affinity and is anaccomplishing a social commerce goal than opportunity for brands to build repeat business.Coca-Cola just because they have only 425,000 Note I said “experience”. The experience flowsFacebook fans compared to Coke’s 32 million? all the way from the initial introduction to the offer through the message a person receives after theEngage with your fan base and continue to transaction. Be solid here and you will see thatoffer a unique and awesome experience. In person again.7 | The Fan Brand’s Guide to Facebook Commerce Tweet This E-Book

Friends get Benefits When it comes to Facebook Commerce, youIt’s simple; reward your fans for being loyal to your need to just keep at it. Your fan base is built overbrand. Think about what you are a fan of. What time, and the best way to build that base is bymakes you feel appreciated for being a fan? staying top-of-mind. This can be in the form of polls, photo caption contests, giveaways, quotes,This doesn’t have to cost you a fortune. In choosing a fan of the day, anything that gets yourfact, many of the best rewards are simple and fans involved.affordable. Wufoo is famous for sending thank youcards to random customers. What does that cost Facebook Commerce is not about constantlythem per card? Less than a buck? posting your products or services to your Fan Page. It’s about building a community that, whenGet creative! The best part about social the time is right, is open to doing business withcommerce, and Facebook Commerce specifically, you. When used well, the Facebook conversionis that it’s completely open to interpretation. There funnel is a loop. By being smart with the offer andare no rules, but there are things that just work. providing a great experience along the way, youFind what works for your brand and make it a part can train your audience to expect to shop throughof your overall strategy. your Facebook page.Be Regular Now go. Be awesome.The key to success in any endeavor isconsistency. As Woody Allen said, “Eighty percentof success is showing up.” We think that numberis even higher.8 | The Fan Brand’s Guide to Facebook Commerce Tweet This E-Book

BRAND THE FACEBOOK FAN ENGAGEMENT SPECTRUM9 | The Fan Brand’s Guide to Facebook Commerce Tweet This E-Book

L ikes and comments. That’s the first thing we look at when someone asks about engagement on Facebook, right? Okay, maybe community size, thenLikes and comments. The truth is that measuring community engagement onFacebook is much deeper and more complicated than that. Let’s take a look atwhat engagement looks like from a numbers perspective, then drop some ideason how to get better and more repeat interaction with those beautiful people whohave publicly told your brand, “Hey brand, I like you.”Engagement by the NumbersOur numbers match up with other analysts pointing out that community engagement on the wholesits a little over 3%. That means that out of all of a brand’s fans, each post might have 3% of theiraudience engage with it. And that’s if it’s a GOOD post. Of course there are things you can do tobump up your EdgeRank, which helps your posts to be seen by more people, but we’ll assumeyou, as a social media marketer, are doing a pretty stellar job talking to your community. 3%. Notnecessarily the same 3% with each post, but 3%. It varies by community, but 3%.There is a fascinating series of blog posts by Michael Wu over at lithosphere.lithium.com aboutlooking into deeper metrics to find superfans within the engagement spectrum on Facebook. Hetakes a look at things like comment thread depth, repeat interactions within the same post, timingand velocity of those interactions, and Facebook as a community for brands verses a socialnetwork…that is, pre-established relationships (social network) vs. opportunity for relationshipgrowth through engagement (community building). Several of his stats stand out: 30% of active fans reengage with Only 9.6% of fans return to the same fan pages. That means 70% of fans conversation on a fan page. 90.4% of post once to a brand page and never active fans post once in a thread and return. never return to the conversation.He points out that, while social, Facebook is not inherently designed to be a relationship buildingwebsite. Because the news feed falls down the page so quickly, it’s very difficult to create andmaintain meaningful conversations. From that view, a 9.6% return rate makes sense (and evensounds a little high).10 | The Fan Brand’s Guide to Facebook Commerce Tweet This E-Book

The Case for Facebook Commerce as a RelationshipSustainability Tool. We talk a lot about rewarding fans for publicly saying they like you. The process of liking a brand is not difficult. A button falls in front of you and you click it. But the emotional high five that comes along with it, we think, is highly underrated by brands. We get so caught up in the number of fans we have that we forget these are PEOPLE who are very much alive. We have the opportunity to superserve them because by Liking us, they have also admitted they’d like to be entertained by us or learn from us or be treated like VIPs by us. It’s a remarkable opportunity.The Fan Engagement SpectrumWe believe communities can beat 3%. First we have to look at a brand’s audience and how fanbehavior and engagement travels through various engagement levels. We believe in a Leap 5social commerce philosophy. What we mean is there are 5 types of fans which are at differentlevels of engagement. • Superfans • Purchasing fan • Advocate fan • Engaged fan • Potential fanThe Path to Superfan Starts with Reach1. Reach (Potential Fan Opportunity) – A key to growing your base in any medium is reach. Quality of channel is also critical, but the Social Graph creates an efficient, high quality, word of mouth channel. So the key here is measuring and growing your reach constantly. Key metrics include: • Monthly Active Users • Total Fans • Total Fan Network Size • Count of Shares, Likes and Comments per post11 | The Fan Brand’s Guide to Facebook Commerce Tweet This E-Book

We get so caught up in the number of fans we have that we forget these are PEOPLE who are very much alive.2. Interaction (Potential Fan -> Engaged Fan) – Once a fan has chose to “like” the brand, they must be driven to engage. Key metrics include: • Plays • Page Loads per fan • Count of Shares, Likes and Comments per fan3. Conversion (Engaged Fan -> Purchasing Fan) – After engagement, ROI becomes critical. Driving sales from impressions and cart building are key metrics to watch: • Conversion from Impression • Conversion in cart4. Revenue & Referrals (Purchasing Fan -> Super Fan) - The power of Social Commerce is empowering fans to promote the brand to their networks, as well as making it effortless to have great buying opportunities over and over. Super Fan metrics to watch are: • Average Cart Size by fan • Frequency of purchase by fan • Total sales by fan • Referred members by fan • Referred buyers by fanWe believe the tools are there – Facebook has built-in engagement and what they don’t have, theylet you link to. Tools + Caring + Consistency = Relationship Building. Here are the ways we engagefans on Facebook: • Surveys – ask your community questions – do you like this or this? Don’t be afraid to go off- topic and speak to current events. The conversation does not have to be exclusive to your brand. • Photos – share photos of live events, behind the scenes at the office, photos that prompt comments (what do you think of this?), and photos of new products. Ask questions in the title or description of the photo and participate in the comment thread – answer questions or comment back multiple times as your community comments. • Videos – Use a similar strategy to photos…or take a queue from the Old Spice Guy and make custom videos for specific users in your community based on a question they ask.12 | The Fan Brand’s Guide to Facebook Commerce Tweet This E-Book

• Comments – Comments are what started social. Each piece of content created can have comments. Use them. Jump in to your community’s posts and comment on them. Then react and interact with comments on your own wall. We’re aiming for conversation that takes the relationship to a deeper level. • Free Downloads – offer communities something for free. Free is the first step toward commerce, you know. Some of our most viral campaigns have been free offers that let people discover new offers from their friends. Friend-to-friend marketing is the essence of social. • Commerce – You signed up for Rue La La or Gilt Groupe, didn’t you? You want that discount. You crave the well-fashioned sales opportunity and limited quantity. You want to receive notices every day of what the next sale is shaping up to be. Learn from the wave of discount retail sites and implement similar strategies to your Facebook page.The case for Facebook commerce sneaks in there when you empower your Facebook page toreward those fans with great offers. That could be deep discounts, items only sold to Facebookfans, limited edition or autographed items, etc. Teach a community to show up every Tuesday at10a.m. for a deal, and you’ll reach an entirely new level. Commerce is a great way for a Facebookfan to get a payoff. Suddenly, it’s worth it. That emotional high-five got them in the door. That’swhen you push the pedal to the floor and build affinity.To Sum UpAt the highest level, fan count (Liking a page) is not a good metric for engagement. Communityengagement (likes and comments) on average sits around 3%. To increase interaction with thefan, utilize different types of content to drive conversations that deepen the relationship with thecommunity and drive potential fans to superfans. Introducing commerce as part of your overallsocial media strategy is a fantastic way to reward fans and create buzz about your Facebook page.This all requires an understanding that the world we live in today makes it easier than ever to havereal relationships with global customers and to increase brand affinity. Treat customers well andword will spread.13 | The Fan Brand’s Guide to Facebook Commerce Tweet This E-Book

14 | The Fan Brand’s Guide to Facebook Commerce Tweet This E-Book

SO WHAT’S THIS EDGERANKTHING ALL ABOUT?M arcus was on a social media panel with the top execs in the industry discussing social commerce and the conversion of Likes in to The first is affinity. Basically, if you spend more time talking with certain friends on Facebook by posting to their wall, your affinity with those friends dollars. One topic he brought up was Facebook will be stronger. EdgeRank. It’s not exactly water cooler talk, so we’ll explain the basics here. The second factor is what Facebook calls weight. Weight is essentially the level of interaction a piece When you view your wall in Facebook, the of content gets…for example likes and comments. default view shows you “Top News”. This is not The third factor is the age of the post. Over time a necessarily a live stream of updates from your post’s relevance decays. friends. Since the average Facebook user has 130 friends, plus any pages they’ve liked, all of those For brands, being seen on Facebook is obviously “content creators” are competing for a spot on incredibly important. What Facebook has done your wall (how do you like that ego boost?). with EdgeRank encourages all content creators (Friends and Pages/Brands) to be engaging. What “Top News” displays is the result of the Based on the criteria EdgeRank considers, some EdgeRank algorithm which selects what Facebook suggestions to increase your edge are: thinks you will find the most engaging, and then delivers that edited news stream to your wall in the 1. Be engaging. Don’t oversell, but become part Top News display. (Note: To view a live feed you of the daily conversation within the Facebook can simply click “Most Recent” at the top of the community. Ask questions that encourage wall next to “Top News.”) responses (comments). So the question for anyone who wants to appear in 2. Be a media mogul. Adding photos and videos as many Top News feeds as possible is, “How do to your posts require people to click to view. These I get my posts placed in the top news feed?” And clicks increase your weight. that, friends, is where EdgeRank comes in. 3. Be consistent. Since a post’s relevance EdgeRank looks at several factors to determine declines over time, posting regular content will what posts will show on your Top News feed. keep the conversation fresh.17 | The Fan Brand’s Guide to Facebook Commerce Tweet This E-Book

ue we de AFFINITY (ue ) WEIGHT (we ) TIME DECAY (de ) If you spend more time Weight is essentially the level Over time a post’s relevance talking with certain friends on of interaction a piece of content decays, thus making it less Facebook by posting to their gets. (for example likes and important and pushing it down wall, your affinity with those comments). the feed. friends will be stronger.18 | The Fan Brand’s Guide to Facebook Commerce Tweet This E-Book

CONTENT DRIVESFACEBOOK COMMERCEW e hear you. “We sell merchandise. We aren’t in the content business!” This means you have to post consistently without being the annoying brand fans hide from their streams. Post enough to stay top-of-mind withThese days, though, everyone is in the content your fans, don’t let them forget you’re there, butbusiness. If you have a presence on the web, remember that you are only a small part of whyyou are creating content. Your website copy, your fans are on Facebook.your blog posts, and your Facebook Fan Pageupdates are all forms of content. Be Authentic Each brand has its own voice. If you’ve foundAs a brand, what’s your ultimate goal in creating yours, congratulations! Use that voice to guidethis content? To drive sales, of course. But we your content strategy on Facebook and beyond.all know that you can’t just create blog posts or Before posting, think about why your fans followstatus updates hawking only your products and you. What are you trying to accomplish with thisexpect quality leads. Your content needs to be update? What update would resonate with yourinteresting, engaging, and keep your audience fans? Allow the answers to these questions, yourwanting more. fans, and your brand voice to guide you.Even then, the content you create on Facebook Be Funis a little different from the copy on your website Seriously, don’t over think this one. There are tooor those long blog posts. How can you use many other things to worry about when it comescontent on Facebook to your advantage when it to your brand. Just have fun with it. Updates cancomes to driving sales? be in the form of photo caption contests, polls, behind-the-scenes videos of your operations,Be Regular anything that gets your fans involved and letsAs you know, when it comes to your Facebook them see what you’re all about.Fan Page, your content needs to live in theNews Feed. The Facebook News Feed moves Follow these three “rules” and your fans will befast and, like a new car driving off the lot, engaged with your content. When the time is right,your update begins losing its value almost this will allow you to sprinkle in targeted offers toimmediately. We have found that posts are your loyal fan base. And since they are activelyrelevant for up to 60 minutes. After that, it’s following your consistent, authentic updates, theypretty much run its course. will be ready to jump at the opportunity.19 | The Fan Brand’s Guide to Facebook Commerce Tweet This E-Book

SOCIAL MEDIA LISTENING ON FACEBOOK20 | The Fan Brand’s Guide to Facebook Commerce Tweet This E-Book

It’s easymedia strategy andinfocus on social to get caught up yourexecuting killer content, dreaming up community and you just start dropping in stores trying to game them for transactions, you’re brand is kind of a jerk.engagement plans that would make Listening is Step OneNine Inch Nails swoon, and debating At Moontoast, we empower brands to extendabout the perfect time to send out a their e-Commerce reach into the social stream.Facebook post. In fact, these days it’s Transactions are very important. We understandtoo easy. Let’s face it, social networks the bottom line. But we also have the obligation tomove at the speed of now. It’s no advise our clients how best to weave commercewonder that at 6pm on a Friday you into the social stream. We want brands to win atfeel like you’re running to stand still. social. We want brand authenticity to trickle down from the top. And so we want brands to listen to what their communities are saying, good andSo take a breath for a minute. Relax. Do you hear bad, and then show the community that you hearthat? That’s the sound of hundreds of millions them.of people buzzing away about a vast arrayof subjects on one of the neatest technology Listening means you have a chance to giveplatforms of our time. And it presents brands with people what they want from your brand, bean unequaled opportunity to listen. it a product or an experience. You have an opportunity to ask questions and receive realBy this point, many brands get this…and many (free) feedback by people who have publicly tolddon’t. Facebook (and other social networks) has the world they like you. Listening also means youpersonalized what was, for the past 20 years have a chance to very quickly correct or makeor so, a commerce landscape dominated by right on an issue that your community might becompanies who didn’t have to be personable. complaining about.Online commerce started out the same way.Then through comments, and especially now Until you open this relationship as a two-waythrough social networks like Facebook and street, your community probably isn’t ready forTwitter, a bad buying experience or a customer commerce.support issue gone bad can spread like wildfirethrough social media. So can great experiences. Perfect is BoringPerhaps no one articulates this better than our It’s tempting to want things to be perfect beforefriend Gary Vaynerchuck in his book The Thank letting the world see it. The painter Paul GardnerYou Economy (highly recommended). said, “A painting is never finished, it just stops at an interesting place.” Social campaigns areNow that word-of-mouth can spread virally, similar. As soon as a social media campaignbrands have a fantastic opportunity to engage is live, you have already lost control. Your fanswith people on a scale that we’ve never seen will mold a campaign into the most interestingbefore. Why does this matter to eCommerce? shapes you can imagine. Social media managersBecause if you don’t have a dialog with your can do their best to lead the campaign to its21 | The Fan Brand’s Guide to Facebook Commerce Tweet This E-Book

destination, and when you get to that destination, When commerce is introduced to a trustingodds are that the people in your community have community, it can be a win-win. People come tosurprised you. People are smart. They love to be expect great or exclusive offers as rewards fora part of something big. showing their affinity to a brand. Brands deepen their relationship with people, increase customerA great social media campaign starts with acquisition, and add to the bottom line, to boot.understanding a community…their wants…theircomplaints…their triggers…those are things Listen to what your community likes (or doesn’tthat help shape the most effective social media like) from your commerce offerings. Use the built-incampaigns. And that starts with listening. tools on Facebook such as comments, likes, and surveys. Can you offer better products or greaterListening also carries through the entire discounts? Can you improve the message in thecampaign. Once you throw a campaign out into notification a customer receives? All throughoutthe world, someone might find a flaw or it might the engagement and checkout process there isnot go the way you hoped. That’s okay. Perfect is opportunity. So listen. People are smart. Learnboring. Unexpected turns give you an opportunity what your community wants. Teach them you canto show the community you’re listening. be trusted because you are listening.Commerce with EarsWe learn with each campaign. We get ideas forthe next one. We respond to issues. We grow.22 | The Fan Brand’s Guide to Facebook Commerce Tweet This E-Book

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Fan brands guide to Facebook commerce

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Fan brands guide to Facebook commerce Document Transcript