Facebook Webinar Slides
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How to Use the Internet’s Hottest Social Platform to Attract, Engage, and Inspire New Clients and Customers to Rave About Your Business!
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Facebook Webinar Slides
- 1. FACEBOOK: How to Use the Internet’s Hottest Social Platform to Attract, Engage, and Inspire New Clients and Customers to Rave About Your Business! Sponsors: Tim Evans
- 2. Main Objective • Learn how to use Facebook effectively • How to avoid being distracted on Facebook • New ways to interact with clients & customers • New ways to promote your company • How you can build your business using Facebook
- 3. Understanding Facebook Stats • What is Facebook? – A social network where people meet to discuss their mutual interests – Similar to alumni gatherings or family reunions – An easy way to network with your target market – Ability to reach thousands of people in your target market
- 4. Understanding Facebook Stats • Facebook is the most powerful social network in the world – More than 1 billion active users – Users spend more than 700 billion minutes on Facebook per month – 500 million users access Facebook via their mobile phone – Mobile users are more active on Facebook than non-mobile users
- 5. Understanding Facebook Stats • Do Facebook users make purchases? – Yes! – How many big brands have Facebook pages? – Most active user demographic is 18-34 – Largest growing user demographic is 50+ – International markets grew to 95 million users in 2008-09 – Largest countries on Facebook are: U.S., Indonesia, U.K. and Turkey
- 6. Pros & Cons of Facebook • Pros – Affordability – Low learning curve – Your target market is here – Leading social media platform – Flexible format supports customer engagement
- 7. Pros & Cons of Facebook • Cons – Distractions – Overwhelm – Easy to forget other marketing tactics – Time consuming – Ability for audience to see negative comments or reviews
- 8. Plan Facebook Strategy • Identify your objectives – Increase sales? – Promote products or events? – Build brand awareness & loyalty? • Identify your target audience – Start networking – Use this info to craft a Facebook ad campaign
- 9. Plan Facebook Strategy • How will you reach your audience? – Daily posts – Facebook ad campaign – YouTube video contest on your business page – Build a list from your Facebook page • How will you track & measure each strategy? • If your strategy worked, then repeat it! • If it didn’t work, make a change & try again
- 10. Customer Engagement • Customers can now ask questions, provide feedback & see other reviews • Would you rather buy something from an ad or by having a real conversation with a representative of that company? • Traditional advertising is losing power • People want real responses from authentic people
- 11. Customer Engagement • Consumers are more proactive in their product research • Businesses should be involved in these discussions with consumers • Provide regular updates to consumers • Provide a Facebook page to encourage conversation • Engagement brings awareness & interest
- 12. Customer Engagement • Daily posting is easy with an editorial calendar • Ask your audience questions relevant to your business or product • Encourage them to post their answers on your page • Customer engagement is a free marketing tool!
- 13. Setting Up Profiles • This is where people learn more about you • Must have a profile FIRST before you can have a business page • Your personal network can help build a following for your business page
- 14. Profile Must-Haves • “About” Page – Business name & URL – Short description about yourself • Profile picture – Headshots build credibility & trust • Cover Photo – Should reflect your interests, family or hobbies
- 15. More Profile Details • Privacy – You control who can see your posts • Send invitations to new friends – Current friends or family – Business acquaintances – New people with common interests
- 16. Business Pages • Assign a name – Usually your business name – You can get the vanity URL without the extra numbers, like www.facebook.com/txcoffeenews – Edit Page/ Update Info • Fans – People who visit your page & click the “Like” button
- 17. Business Pages • Cover – Large image placed at top of business page – Dimensions = 851 pixels wide x 315 pixels tall – All covers are public – Think about what business image you want to project
- 19. Business Pages • Profile picture / Avatar – At least 200 x 200 pixels – Clear headshot is best • Send invitations – Invite people to like your business page – Friends, family, real life customers – Others will see your popularity increasing – Post quality content & engage your followers
- 20. SEO & Facebook • SEO = Search Engine Optimization – Process of using keywords so your page appears on the first page of search engines • Business pages are public & indexed in the search engines • Aim for first page of search results – After page 2, few website links are clicked
- 21. Improve Your SEO • Do NOT choose an obscure URL • Get people to link to your Facebook page – Search engines see these links & push your page further to the top of the listings • Link to your Facebook page directly from your website
- 22. Getting More Likes! • Number of likes provides social proof of expertise • Offer a promotion or special offer • Publish interesting & valuable content regularly • Purchase ads that reach beyond your current network • Visitors to your location can “like” your page when they arrive
- 23. Getting More Likes! • Learn about what type of content readers want – Provide a tip a day – Post tip at same time each day • Choose different themes or topics for each day – Invite readers to join the conversation • Ask loyal fans to spread the word!
- 24. Contests & Sweepstakes • Contest involves voting on a winner based on certain guidelines • Sweepstakes requires very little to enter, no judging, winner chosen at random • What is your objective? – To increase Likes, hold a sweepstakes – To increase engagement, ask readers to vote on best entry, photo, etc
- 25. Contests & Sweepstakes • Sweepstakes generally have a larger number of entries than contests – Fewer people will want to do the work for a contest • ALWAYS follow the Facebook Terms & Conditions regarding sweepstakes & contests • Try a 3rd-party app for contests & sweeps – Wildfire.com or Votigo.com have apps
- 26. More On Likes • Make a charitable contribution for each Facebook like • Pay it forward • Add to email signature, business cards and brochures • Integrate with all advertising • Share across social media • Post to others Pages/Groups
- 27. Facebook Apps • Standard programs built into the Facebook platform – Photos Events – Video Notes • Did you know there are 70,000 apps available to use with Facebook? – Find business-focused apps at AppBistro.com
- 28. Facebook Apps • Apps create seamless ways to connect with your business page fans – Email lists – Selling products – Promoting online & offline events • Live example… – Login to Facebook & go to facebook.com/txcoffeenews & Click on Contest facebook.com/barefootexecutive & Click on Book
- 29. These are 3 examples of customized business apps
- 30. Building Interaction • To increase sales, build a loyal following – They will regard you as industry expert • Plan strategic but authentic interaction – Use editorial calendar to plan topics of conversation – Provide high-value products, services & information regularly
- 31. Building Interaction • Question & Answer Sessions – Make yourself available weekly to answer questions – Block out 60 minutes – Experiment with times of day • Post Daily Tips – Post at same time each day – Make posts short but useful – Tips may encourage questions or sharing
- 32. Building Interaction • Share photos of you or your brand in the community – Photos of you inaction, at events, or product images • Share experiences – good & bad – Brings you closer to your audience – Reinforces your commitment to being authentic and real – Write blog posts & share link of your page
- 33. Shareable Content • Share a post on someone else’s page – Now your post is visible to THEIR network • Sharing options – On your own timeline – A friend’s timeline – In a group – On a different page
- 35. Video • Video marketing is exceptionally popular – YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine – YouTube receives 4 billion hits per day • 61% of business to business marketers use YouTube to deliver content • Over 100 million internet users watch videos each day
- 36. Video • Are your competitors using video? – If so, then you risk losing your audience unless you produce videos • Facebook is the leading referral source for video content • Videos should engage, educate & entertain
- 37. Should You Upload Directly to Facebook? • Yes! – People who view & Like your video automatically become fans of your page – Easier to share • To share a YouTube video, you can only share the link – Audience can tag Facebook videos with own keywords – Facebook supports wider variety of video formats & lengths
- 38. Types of Video Content • Talking head – you sit & talk about a particular business experience • Webinar replays – showcase some or all of a webinar you hosted – Particularly effective if you’re demonstrating something or showing your work • Screen captures – weekly newsletter showing screen captures that illustrate a point
- 39. Photos • Makes your content more engaging • Adds dimension & interest to posts • Use as an add for your business – Upload professional photo – Include hyperlinked URL in the description – Write a brief text description using keywords
- 41. Selling on Facebook • Do you have an app to capture emails? • Do you have an app that integrates a sales page into your business page? • Mix up your content with relevant posts & sales promos • Respond to every question! • Promote your page – Start with friends & then expand your reach
- 42. Analytics • Are you reaching your goals? • Is each strategy paying off? • Facebook Insight – Total Likes – Number of unique people (friends of fans) who liked your page – Number of unique people who created a story about your page (people talking about this) – Gender, age, visitor’s city & country of origin
- 44. Analytics • Record your baseline numbers BEFORE starting any promotional campaigns • Did your contest triple the number of women to your page? – What can you learn from this? – How can you capitalize on this? – How did the increase affect your sales?
- 45. Return on Investment • What Facebook marketing strategies & investments lead to increases in sales and by what percentage? – How much traffic was generated to the page? – Has that increased brand awareness? – Has Facebook activity increased website traffic? – How many sales can be linked to a sales page on the Facebook business page?
- 46. Return on Investment – How much influence did you gain? • Influence means how many times is your company mentioned on Facebook • If your video goes viral, this can increase your influence • And you can make a connection between your marketing efforts, the video & increased earnings
- 47. Conclusion • Any business – no matter what the size – can find a market on Facebook • It’s FREE to get started marketing on Facebook • People want to be engaged & have conversations • People value the opinions of others • Have authentic & real conversations
Editor's Notes
- Over the next hour you’re going to learn about the leading ways to attract, engage and inspire new clients and customers using the Internet’s hottest social platform – Facebook!My objective with this workshop is to equip you with a number of tactics and strategies that will help you to use your time efficiently and effectively on Facebook. There are so many tools and so many options when it comes to marketing on Facebook that you could easily go off in several directions without actually achieving what you set out to do which is hopefully to grow your business and income. Clear distractions and get ready to take some good notes You’re here to learn how to make one of the world’s greatest marketing machines work for your business. This is an exciting decision and one that could make all the difference in the way you interact with clients and customers going forward. Not only will you have new ways to promote your company but your target market will have new ways to interact and engage with you and your company brand.
- First of all Facebook is a social network where people of various interests meet to discuss and share information about those interests. Examples in the real world of social networks might be things like alumni gatherings, family reunions, trade show events, and after-hours business mixers.Instead of reaching perhaps a few dozen or a few hundred people at our local social networking events, you now have the ability to reach thousands of people with strategic marketing on Facebook that costs only a fraction of what traditional marketing can cost.
- Facebook is considered by most marketing experts as the most powerful social network in the world. Now that’s a big claim but it is supported by statistics. There are more than one billion ACTIVE users on Facebook. According to Facebook, people spend more than 700 billion minutes per month on the Facebook platformThink about 500 million people a day browsing through Facebook, chatting with friends, sharing birthday greetings with families and learning more about the products and services they need by visiting business pages…like the one you will be developing for your brand.Statistics actually now verify that Facebook users on mobile devices are twice as active on Facebook as non-mobile users. Now do you see how incredibly important it is for you to be on Facebook? The likelihood of your particular customer being on Facebook is now higher than ever.
- Facebook recently analysed over 60 Facebook marketing campaigns launched by businesses and found that 49 percent of those campaigns realized a return on investment that was 5 times greater than what they spent on the campaign. A similarly impressive statistic is that 70 percent of those campaigns realized a return on investment that was at 3 times greater than the original campaign investment. Who is using Facebook - fastest growing demographic for users is the 50+ age group. Most importantly these folks are purchasing products and purchases and they are being influenced by the campaigns they are viewing and participating in on Facebook.
- Facebook is first and foremost an option for marketing; it is not your business. You need to carefully address the pros and cons of this marketing tool before you begin in order to ensure that this approach is the right one for you.To create a basic presence on Facebook you need not spend any money. But, if you wish to have a professional presence and you’re not a designer, you might need to purchase the services of graphic designer to create a logo and other branding. You also need to invest your time.Another argument in support of Facebook is the fact that it is fairly easy to learn how to navigate the platform and utilize its resources. Help with workshops, webinars and YoutubeIf your business doesn’t have a presence on Facebook, you could be losing quite a bit of income and market share to the competition that is on Facebook.Among the social networking platforms out there (including Twitter and Google+) Facebook is the most popular, at least for now. That’s a big benefit to you as it makes it easier to connect with your market.Unlike Twitter which limits users to 140 characters (though links can be included to other content), Facebook offers plenty of space for posts/updates and these updates can include videos and pictures. This kind of flexibility helps to engage your audience. Engagement is vitally important when it comes to realizing your return on investment and we will talk more about engagement a little later on in our presentation.
- Facebook is the most wonderful place for interesting and stimulating ideas and activities. However, precisely because Facebook is wonderful in these ways it can also be a very distracting place that can waste one of your most valuable commodities – your TIME!Have a planThere are so many ways that you can use Facebook to grow your business that at times it can seem overwhelming. There are many options like apps, events, etc.successful marketers always use a variety of tools to reach their target market. If something was to happen to Facebook down the road you’d be stuck if your entire marketing strategy relied only on Facebook. Time consuming – think about your time and plan accordinglyOne of the greatest things about Facebook is that it facilitates engagement with your target audience. It achieves this because communication is transparent and fast-paced when managed well. Customers like transparency and they like the fact that they can read recommendations from happy customers via comments on your business page or on the profiles of their friends.
- You’ll need to always keep in the forefront of your mind that your business isn’t Facebook. Your business is to increase sales. When you’re on Facebook it can be easy to become distracted as mentioned previously. One way to deal with this and to ensure you do what you set out to do, is to have a plan.Generally you’ll want to do the following to create your plan: Identify the purpose of your Facebook campaign (e.g., increase sales)Identify your target audience – this will help you to determine which groups you might want to join to start networking with potential customers or clients and it will also help you to answer questions about demographics and target markets when developing a Facebook advertisement campaign (something I highly recommend).
- Determine the strategies you will use to reach your target audience to promote your product or service. Following are some examplesCreate a monthly editorial calendar of daily posts on a particular topic, designed to generate comments and discussion that ultimately reinforce the need for your product or service.Launch a Facebook advertising campaign that will help to promote your product/service to a wide segment of your target market.Launch a YouTube video contest on your business page – promote prizes and generate excitement for the contest.Use your Facebook page to build a list separate from Facebook – offer a free gift as an incentive to encourage visitors to share with you their name and email address.Determine how you measure the success of each strategy and then MEASURE. Use many of the analytical tools provided by Facebook (we’ll discuss these tools later in the workshop). If things aren’t working after a decent interval of time, adjust as needed.At the conclusion of your campaign or promotional effort examine how successful your overall initiative was at increasing your sales. If you succeeded then repeat! If not, look at where you could have changed strategies, then adjust and start again.
- The Internet and interactive marketing has opened the door to real customer engagement. No longer do members of your target market have to be targets of a one-directional marketing effort where they’re told how wonderful a product or service is but have few if any meaningful opportunities to provide feedback or ask questions. If you’re still wondering where the payoff is for all this engagement ask yourself this question: Would you be more inclined to buy a product based on a print advertisement that highlighted the benefits you wanted from that item or based on an actual conversation on Facebook that you had with a representative of the company producing the product?
- More consumers are doing their own research and Facebook is one place they are looking What this means for businesses is that you have to be involved in these discussions, but doesn’t mean you’ve lost all control. You can actually provide a place for discussion through your own Facebook page. By providing regular updates that feature information your target market can use, you become the “host” for a dialogue that can support customer interest and attention to your product or service.
- You might create an editorial calendar on topics that ultimately demonstrate how valuable your product is to your target market and then post topics according to that calendar. For example let’s say you produce party plates and decorations. You might start a discussion on the best games for 5-yr. old birthday parties. As your Facebook followers respond with ideas you too can participate and when appropriate mention any of your products that might complement the games mentioned. Consider how much better your suggestion would be received within the context of a discussion about children’s birthday party ideas
- Now that you understand Facebook is really a place to engage your audiences, let’s dive into the technical aspect of how you set yourself up on Facebook. As a business, you’ll want to have a Facebook Page. But before you can do that you’ll need to set up your profile.Your Facebook profile is the place where people can learn more about you
- “About” Page: Here’s your chance to provide a short but relevant description about what it is you do and/or what is important to you. If you don’t mind letting your friends know about your business I would list your business and website URL on your About page. The advantage here is that you may have friends that will be in a position to recommend your product or service to others. Make it easy for them to do so by providing a comprehensive and interesting About page. Profile Picture/Avatar: Whenever you post on Facebook you will be identified by the picture you upload to your profile. The only exception to this happens after you set up a business page when you will then be given the option to post as your personal profile or as your business.You’ll want to choose a picture of yourself (I suggest a clear and engaging head shot) as your profile image. Some people like to feature their pets or favorite beach shot but I would recommend you avoid such options. Remember you’re in the business of building credibility and trust and the more potential customers see your online presentation as professional and engaging, the better off you will be. Cover Photo: The cover photo is a significant percentage of your Facebook profile page and you should choose something that reflects your interests, family or hobbies. Whatever you choose, again, make sure it is not an embarrassing snapshot or some other picture that doesn’t support the way in which you want to present your company as your presentation on a personal level will closely linked to your presentation on a professional level those very people who you hope to have as loyal fans and customers.
- Privacy: Everything posted to your profile page can be published as private content only viewable to the people you choose. You have the choice to make private or public certain posts or all of your posts. Start Things Off With Invitations: The way to get involved in conversations on Facebook is to invite others to be your friend. These may be people you are already friends with in other networks or in real life, or people you are even less familiar with but would like to know based on your shared interests (something you might be able to read on their “About” page if they made it public). Once you have a profile you can set up a Facebook Page for your business.
- Name – can only change 1 time – be careful with name. Cannot already be in use
- Your “cover” refers to the large image that you can place at the top of your page. You can feature any photo you want about your business as long as it meets Facebook guidelines. The dimensions should be 851 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall (for best results). NOTE: all covers are set to public so anyone on Facebook can see your Page cover.
- Profile Picture/Avatar: Facebook recommends you choose an image that is 200 x 200 pixels for your avatar, however your avatar will be shrunk down considerably in the News Feed so you should choose a photo that provides a large clear shot of your face. Start things off with Invitations: To get your Facebook community business page “going” you’ll want to start by inviting your friends to support your page. Once on your page hopefully they will click the like button so that your number of “Likes” will go up and others will note the increasing popularity and join as well. As your community grows so will the conversation on your page as long as you are following an engagement plan that ensures quality content is posted to your Facebook page on a regular basis.
- We have spent the last few weeks on this topic so you should be familiar with SEO and ranking
- Okay, so how does SEO fit into your Facebook marketing plan? First of all, unlike personal profile pages, most Facebook Pages are “public” and are indexed by major search engines like Google. Ways to make your Facebook Page more visible to search engines (and improve your SEO): Do not choose an obscure URLGet people to link to your Facebook page (we’ll talk in great depth about this when I get to the next section)Note: each time a person clicks on the “Like” icon on your Facebook Page, a link will appear on their Profile pointing to the business Page.Search engines will see these links and push these Facebook Pages further up in the search engine rankings You can also link to your Facebook Page directly from your website page
- Based on what I’ve just explained about SEO and if you’ve been on Facebook for any time, you know that getting a like on your page is extremely important.So what do you need to do to get more likes? Common sense would say provide the content your target market want and do so frequently and consistently. That is definitely part of the equation but if you’re on a timeline to raise awareness and create excitement and support for your business, you likely want to kick-start your Page with strategy that will attract attention and fans. According to a poll published by Econsultancy, the number one reason people decide to like a Facebook Page is that they received a reminder by the Facebook Page Administrator about a promotion or special offer. We’ll talk more about promotions and contests in the next section but let’s look at a few more ways to generate “Likes” for your Facebook Page:Purchase ads that can promote your page beyond your immediate network and a make sure when you launch your Facebook ad campaign that you are publishing interesting and valuable content on a regular basis. You wouldn’t want to pay for the traffic and have people leave before liking because they found valuable to read.If you’re a local business – make sure your page is set up as a Facebook “Place” this means that customers can check in at each location. When using a smart phone or tablet the user is immediately presented with a Like button which can help to generate additional “Likes.”
- Generally speaking to get more likes you really need to understand what your target wants and provide that to them in the most convenient way possible. Consider a tip of the day and provide that tip at the same time each day. Perhaps you can create calendar where you focus on some topic or them each day and invite your audience to join in the discussion. Again your choices of themes and topics will reflect the interests of your audience. As you fulfill their needs you’ll increase your chances of more “likes” from visitors and more referrals from those visitors who have become loyal fans!
- If increasing the number of “Likes” on your page and generating engagement are top priorities for you, consider offering a contest! As stated earlier research shows that the number one reason users decide to like a page is because of a promoted offer.If you run a web design service you might offer one free web design to the winner of your contest or sweepstake. To be clear, a contest involves voting on a winner based on submissions that are guided by certain criteria whereas as a sweepstake requires very little to enter, there is no judging of entries and the winner is chosen at random. Determine your Objectives: before you decide on holding a contest or sweepstake determine what it is you want to achieve. If your goal is purely to get more “Likes” you might consider a low threshold sweepstake. It’s easy to enter a sweepstake and sometimes entrants believe the least they could do is click “Like” to acknowledge their appreciation for the “opportunity” to be a winner. Now if your goal is to increase engagement on your Facebook Page you might prefer to host a contest where you review the entries and choose the winners or better yet where the community reviews the entries and collectively votes on a winner. This is particular effective where entries require entrants to write a statement about some topic your community is interested in. Or you might require entrants to submit fun pictures that reflect shared interests in your group.
- Whatever the submission requirements, contests can help to increase likes and engagement, though the number of entries may be significantly less than a sweepstake because of the work involved in preparing the submission. Whatever your choice you’ll need to ensure that your contest or sweepstake adheres to Facebook guidelines (terms and conditions for contests and sweepstakes are on the Facebook website). One of the challenges with hosting promotions like this is that they can be time consuming and if you are running a business by yourself or with little support, you may be taking yourself away from important management tasks. One of the things you can do to streamline your work while ensuring that you do not run afoul of Facebook guidelines is to use a third party application designed specifically for contests and sweepstakes. Some companies that are repeatedly recommended precisely because of their familiarity with Facebook guidelines are Wildfire (www.wildfireapp.com) and Votigo (www.votigo.com).
- Contact Laura at Salvation Army Pay it forward – if you post a comment on the page you will get something in return Share across SM – linkedin groupsCaution on posting on other Pages and Groups – DO NOT SPAM
- The term “apps” is the common term used for applications which are really small programs that perform all kinds of interesting functions to help you achieve certain objectives on your page. Some of the standard Facebook apps you are likely already familiar with are:Photos – this is the app that organizes your photos into timeline photos, albums and photos posted by fansVideo – this is the app that helps you upload videos to FacebookEvents – this app lets you know about events to come and events that have passedNotes – this app provides users with the option of posting small blog posts that contain photos or other objects. What may be of more interest to you are other apps that can be customized and used to help market your business page and engage your customers and clients. In the Facebook App Center are more than 600 apps but those apps are designed for personal accounts. There are however more than 70,000 apps specifically for Facebook business pages but they are not in the App Center. One of the resources most recommended for obtaining business focused apps for Facebook is AppBistro (www.appbistro.com).
- Apps allow Facebook business page owners to create seamless connections to key business processes like maintaining their email subscriber list(s), selling products, and promoting online and offline events. These custom apps (once loaded) will be located below the Cover photo on your business page. To see an example of a Facebook business page using custom apps see the following image and note the buttons above “Welcome from Carrie” and “The Barefoot Book” - both items are custom apps:
- We talked earlier about achieving immediate goals like increasing likes on a page through big impact events like contests and sweepstakes. But if your goal is to increase sales you’ll need to do more than attract temporary in your page – you’ll need to develop a loyal fan base that will begin to regard you/your brand as a leading authority in your section of the marketplace. To achieve that, you’ll need to support strategic and authentic interaction. As I’ve mentioned before, creating an editorial calendar that supports your marketing strategy (special events, promotions, new product launches, etc.) can generate enormous interest in your audience if you are consistent in providing high value information, products and services.
- Question and Answer Sessions: Consider hosting weekly Q & A sessions where you make yourself and other informed members of your community available to answer questions. Plan ahead to have some of your community members ready with questions that they can ask you during a 60-minute time slot in the evening to accommodate people who would like to participate after returning home from work. Post Daily Tips: Make a commitment to post daily tips at a certain time each day. Ensure the tips are brief but useful and relevant for the kind of customers/clients that you serve. Useful tips may encourage questions and sharing on other pages (we’ll discuss shareable content in a few minutes).
- Share pictures of you/your brand in the community: Are you meeting with a client that isn’t camera shy? With your client’s permission post a picture of you in action providing the service that you promote on your page? Or perhaps you’re speaking at conference – make sure you post many pictures from the event. Being a speaker at a major event makes you a celebrity to your audience. Don’t overlook the opportunity to share and promote your involvement in high profile events. If you produce a product, I hope you are sharing images of that product whenever appropriate. Your audience likes and needs to see what it is you are promoting – this will help to advance your sales. Share Experiences – good and bad: Now, you don’t have to share your dirty laundry, but if you have a work related case study that involved overcoming some significant challenges, consider sharing the experience in a concise post on your page or make it a blog post and share the link on your page. A more personal sharing of experiences helps to bring you closer to your audience and reinforces your commitment to being authentic and “real.” Make it about the community not just your business: Ask questions and solicit comments that help the community to learn more about their peers.
- One of the really convenient and wonderful things about Facebook is that it’s a platform that makes it easy to share content that you consider valuable whether the content is yours or someone else’s. When you share one of your pages or posts on someone else’s page you immediately make that page or post visible to your friends and “their” friends. This is a great way to reach new networks of influence quickly.You have a few options to share a page or a post on a page: you can share it on your own timeline, on a friend’s timeline, in a group and on another page (if you administer other pages).
- Video marketing is so popular now that any company that wants to be competitive today has to seriously consider including video in their marketing mix. Here are the numbers to support this assertion: YouTube (the free video sharing platform) is now the second largest search engine and receives more than 4 billion hits each day61% of business to business marketers use YouTube to deliver contentAlmost 100% of Internet users in the U.S. viewed some type of video content in 2012 and over 100 million watch each DAY.
- The facts are clear – your audience is watching video and if you can’t provide some kind of engaging video in your Facebook marketing strategy you risk losing to the competitor who is sharing this kind of content. Businesses have caught on as recent statistics reports that Facebook is the 2nd largest referral source for video. When you consider that people spend an awful lot of their time on Facebook it’s really not surprising Facebook is a leading source for video referral. So what does this mean for you? It means you need to support the content you share on your Facebook business page with videos that will engage, educate and whenever possible entertain your audience. Based on the statistics, if you offer the information your market wants in a video format they’ll stay on your page and likely come back for more!
- Now the question is should you upload your videos to YouTube and embed or link to the YouTube videos from your Facebook page OR should you upload your product or service videos directly to Facebook. The experts claim that uploading directly to Facebook has far greater benefits and they include: People who are not fans of your page can view the video and click “Like” to indicate their preference for the video but in actuality they also become one of your fans.People can easily share Facebook videos (whereas with YouTube videos you can only refer others to the link).You or your audience can actually tag videos uploaded to Facebook with their own keywords.Facebook can support a wider variety of video formats and videos that are much longer that the average cap for YouTube videos (15-minutes).
- You may be wondering about the kind of content you can feature given your particular type of business. There are many options that include: A video of you talking about some experience in your business that relates to customer service, or a new product launch, etc.If you’re a designer, or trainer etc., you might show a video of a webinar you delivered (many webinar services will record these online events and make them available as MP3 video recordings that you can then embed into Facebook or upload to YouTube (or both)You might deliver a weekly newsletter completely in a video format and include yourself and screen captures that illustrate the points you are making. Whatever you choose to feature on video just DO IT as the more you get acquainted with how some of the more technical aspects of this work are done the quicker you’ll become more proficient at it. However, if it is taking too long for you to create and upload videos consider outsourcing and brining in professionals who can produce what you need. Remember you are doing this to increase your business so outsourcing some work may actually make more sense than doing it yourself and using up your valuable time on a task you should not be mastering.
- Just like videos, photos help to make the content on your page more engaging. Photos provide an added dimension to posts that may include copy that isn’t very engaging but that with a photo completely comes alive. One of the more innovative ways to use photos is as an ad for your business.How you can achieve this is by uploading an image from your promotional collection and in the description section for the photo include your URL and ensure that it is hyperlinked. See example below.
- At the beginning of this workshop I stated it was important to remember that Facebook is not your business and that you have to be clear on your reasons for using Facebook. If your objective is to increase sales then you need to ensure you are using strategies that directly support your revenue building goals. So if your earnings are closely tied to the size of your email list and your goal was to use Facebook to grow your list you’ll need to ensure that you are involved in strategies that support this. Here’s a list of some actions you might want to consider taking to ensure that you are selling on Facebook: Are you using a custom app that allows you to capture the emails of your Facebook business page visitors? Check with your email list management vendor to see if they have information on apps that are compatible with the vendor’s system and Facebook and then upload that custom app so that it shows up just underneath your Cover photo on your Facebook business page.Are you using a custom app that will integrate your sales page into your Facebook business page? Once again the app will be located below your Cover image and can be customized to be called anything you like e.g. “Purchase Your Website”.Ensure that mixed in with your page posts containing reference and topical information for your market that you also include links to posts on your website where you promote products or services that you are selling.If members of your community post questions about services or products that they are in need of and you can fulfil – RESPOND!Promote your “page” by sharing it on the timelines of good friends who you know will support efforts to promote your business. Remember when you share a Facebook business page, Facebook pulls in profile information you provided on the “About” section of you page. Review that regularly and ensure the description is well written, concise and includes a the URL to your business website.
- One of the most important steps you can take in executing your Facebook marketing strategy is assessing and measuring your success at achieving objectives you have set for each strategy. For example if you decide to hold a contest for the purpose of increasing the size of your community with followers from the east coast, you can that information from Facebook analytics. The service is actually called Facebook Insight. You can view your Facebook page insights by clicking on the graph that is viewable on your business page. Along the graph lines you’ll see small nodules and when you hover your mouse over any one of the nodules you’ll see the date of the post and the level of engagement it received. Information you can view in this area includes: Total LikesThe number of unique people who friends of people who liked your page (Friends of Fans)The number of unique people who created a story about your page (People Talking About This)Gender, age and visitors’ city and country of origin External referrers
- Make sure you record your key measurement indicators before you launch any promotional efforts. You’ll need this data as a baseline to compare changes in statistics after your campaign or promotion. You may find that your contest tripled the number of women who visit your website. What can you learn from that? If you tracked conversions before and again after your promotion how did the increase in women affect your rate of conversions (sales)? By answering these questions you’ll be able to determine more clearly what motivates your market, and how best to engage them to support your business goals.
- Calculating the return on investment in social media is still not quite a science. What we want to clarify is exactly which Facebook marketing activities and investments lead to increases in sales and by what percentage? These direct connections are still difficult to trace, instead the kinds of questions we might ask include: How much traffic was generated to the page and has that increased brand awareness throughout our section of the marketplace?Has the activity on Facebook increased website traffic and can we attribute growth on the business website (more traffic, higher rates of conversion) to the efforts directed to Facebook marketing?How many sales can be linked directly to a sales page on the Facebook business page (created using a custom app)
- How much “influence” did you gain as a result of your marketing activities? Influence essentially refers to how much your company is referenced in conversations on Facebook.If a video you’ve uploaded featuring an overjoyed client whose just viewed the website you’ve created is linked to no a page with 25,000 fans and for that reason the video of your exuberant client goes viral, you’ll now have a level influenced gained directly through your video marketing efforts on Facebook. Influence like that can boost traffic which will inevitably increase sales.In that case you could likely make strong connection between your marketing efforts, your viral video and increased earnings to conclude a certain and measureable amount ROI.
- Facebook has successfully taken the world and put it in an arena where all businesses no matter how small or how large can enter and have the opportunity to carve out a market for themselves. Only 20 years ago this would not have been conceivable and might be considered sheer fantasy. The traditional model for marketing had a threshold for entry that was dictated by the size of your bank account. If you had enough money and could purchase the research necessary, you could then identify the location and motivation of your market. With that information you would then dip into your deep pockets and spend another few million