Presentation to Brand Council, along with Diane McDonald

1. Building a (useful)
Facebook Site

2. • Building a Facebook successful site is the
same as building a successful site of any
other kind.
• There is no “special knowledge” required
just because it is Facebook

3. • IT is the easy part. The vast majority of
your work needs to go into the planning
stage.
• Use your IT staff. You hired them for a
reason, listen to their expertise.

4. HAVE A PURPOSE

5. • Why are you building a Facebook site?
What are its goals? How will you measure
to see if these goals are met?
• Define all this in a written statement of
purpose.

6. • Purpose of TAMU site
• Purpose of Dr. Loftin’s site

7. Personally, I liked the University; they
gave us money and facilities, we didn't
have to produce anything. You've never
been out of college. You don't know what
it's like out there. I've worked in the
private sector --they expect results.
Ghostbusters

8. • We’re like the private sector now, we do
expect results.
• Projects cost time and effort, which must
be carefully managed in today’s
environment.
• We need to be sure that projects we
devote our time and effort to produce
some tangible benefit

9. • Social media funnel
• Use social media (Facebook, Twitter,
YouTube, all of them) as a way of
channeling potential customers to the
information you want them to obtain.

10. NEVER, EVER TURN YOUR FACEBOOK
PAGE INTO A FINAL DESTINATION.

11. ALWAYS USE YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE
TO DRIVE TRAFFIC TO WHERE YOU
CAN GIVE VISITORS WHAT THEY NEED
TO KNOW.

12. • Funnel diagram
– Seek
– Engage
– Retain

13. SOCIAL MEDIA
Respect the Platform

14. • Facebook is social media. Don’t use it in a
way that breaks the norms or expectations
of social media. (Be authentic, be willing
to accept criticism, interact with audience,
etc.)
• Your desired audience is savvy and will
turn away in an instant from what they
perceive as traditional institutional
marketing on these pages.

15. • Social media is by very definition social.
• This means finding content that will allow
your users to interact with the site.

16. • What kind of content do you want?
• This brings us back to planning. Decide
on the desired content, then figure out
how to implement it.

17. • Don’t implement features that are “cool”
for their own sake, have a purpose for
everything.
I want to post a video… OK, so what does the
video tell me or try to do? … I don’t know, but
everybody is posting video now so we need to
as well.

18. • Wall posts
• Images/Links to other sites
• Applications
– Photos
– Videos
– Events
– Polls
– Gifts

19. • How do I get an app to do [whatever]?
– Build one if you have the staff, time, and
expertise
– Use a pre-written one. Facebook is big, and
somebody has likely already written an app to
do whatever it is you want (i.e. to borrow from
another presentation, “there’s an app for that”)
– Use Google to find them

20. • Gifts application added to Dr. Loftin’s site
– After fast growth we have reached a plateau
in growth; add something as a way of
increasing interaction.

21. • Applications
• How do I find the right one?
– Right one for me might not be the right one for you. (YouTube
on TAMU vs. Dr. Loftin)
• Potential pitfalls
– There is no such thing as a free lunch

22. Make Sure You’re doing it Right

23. • Monitor your site traffic
• Install Google analytics
– USE Google analytics
– Didn’t know that you could use Google Analytics on Facebook?
See http://webmaster.tamu.edu/2010/04/09/google-analytics-in-facebook-
pages

24. Ignore your “fans” count.
It means nothing.

25. • Fans = number of people who have visited
since day 1 and have clicked a button.
• Doesn’t tell you about whether they have
ever come back.
• Doesn’t tell you about whether they read
your posts.
• Doesn’t tell you whether they interact.

26. • OK, almost nothing.
• Since this is Facebook rather than a
traditional website Fan count does give you
an idea of how many people are (potentially)
seeing your messages since they go to each
fan’s wall.
• Note that this is all they get, they still might
not be interacting with the site or even
reading these messages.

27. • Does Walmart stockholders’ meeting
report the number of people walking
through the door? No, they report actual
sales receipts.
• Friending IS an interaction, but…
• Our object is to have repeat visits and site
interactions.

28. • Fan count IS useful when you look at the
rate at which it is increasing as this gives a
measure of site use and interaction levels.

29. • Even this alone is not enough.
• Absolute numbers can be deceptive
because of site size. Compare rate to
actual traffic levels.
• How?
– Use Google Analytics

30. • Examination of what information is
available in Google Analytics