The following four steps should give companies a guide to managing their social media marketing plan:

1. Who are you targeting?

Define your target audience. The Internet has given us new ways to view our favourite TV shows or read the top news stories, so targeting your market with traditional advertising has become more complex. If a targeted viewer doesn’t watch a TV programme on RTE1 at 9pm, they can simply stream it online and watch it when it suits them. Similarly if a reader forgets to buy the newspaper in the morning, they can simply read it online instead. These changes have made it harder for traditional advertisers to target audiences, and no longer guarantee that ads will be seen by the target market.

Now more than ever, it’s vital for companies to accurately define their audience, to investigate what web tools they are using, and how they are using them.

2. Where in the virtual world are your customers?

Now that you’ve defined your audience you need to know where to find them, and how best to reach them. There are many web tools available, so it’s a matter of elimination. You need to know what tools are popular with your target market, and learn how to use them to your advantage. If you’re targeting college students in the 18-24 age group, focus your efforts on Facebook rather than LinkedIn. LinkedIn is predominantly more business-orientated.

If your purpose is to provide information, then you should consider starting a blog rather than using Twitter. Micro-blogging sites, such as Twitter, only allow you to use 140 characters. Don’t risk leaving out important information just because you’re limited by a web tool. Find an alternative web tool and use it to your advantage.

We often hear people shouting’ ‘we need to get on Facebook,’ but what happens if your customers aren’t on Facebook? You can’t reach them if they’re not there so consider developing an Email marketing campaign instead.

Whatever you do, don’t try to use everything at once. Decide on what web tools most suits your company’s campaign and concrete your efforts on these.

3. What can you give them?

Remember that the role of the customer is changing. They will no longer be sold to, and will search elsewhere for a similar product if they feel that a competitor can offer them a better deal. Discounts and offers have always been a good way to build rapport, so transfer these techniques to your online campaign.

Why would someone want to ’follow’ your business on Facebook? If they felt like they were a part of your special Facebook members club where they receive privileges like advance notice of new products, special sales nights, discount codes/vouchers, ask their opinions on new product ranges etc. They would be sure to follow you and invite their friends to do so also – so easily done now on Facebook (this is where you see a viral uplift for free when customers/followers become advocated of your brand).  

Like it or not, your customers can go online to any forum or Facebook and talk about your brand. The best thing to give your customers is good customer service. Facebook provides users with an instant platform to make contact with companies where you can clearly demonstrate good professional service. Likewise, online customer service forums can offer support or advice to users at a quicker pace than an automated phone system.

Web tools are essential to develop your brands personality online. There is a noticeable absence of a physical person when communicating online, but there are many web tools available to create that personal touch. Install a video of your employees or company directors on your website welcoming visitors. Frequently interacting with your visitors via Facebook, LinkedIn, Email campaigns etc. are other ways of communicating on a more personal level. Don’t let your customer feel like just another number; make them feel part of your brand.

4. Do you personally engage with your customers?

If you have traditionally engaged with your customer e.g. in-store, then it’s essential that you develop this engagement online. Web tools will enable you to build a better relationship with your customers, by connecting with them more frequently. 

Some industries, such as a dairy supplier to a supermarket, generally don’t engage with the people that consume their products. By developing your brand online, consumers will finally get the chance to get to know you and your brand, thus developing brand loyalty. When your consumers connect with your brand, they’ll be more inclined to choose your brand than a competitor that they don’t know.

For companies that don’t usually engage personally with their customers, they should look at the success that some brands have had online.

If you would like to talk to us about setting up a social media strategy, managing your digital marketing plan, defining a strategy to use Facebook or indeed designing/installing an f-Shop for your business contact us here…

Read on to make sure you are taking full advantage of ALL of Facebook’s marketing features…

1. Custom URL/username

This is often referred to as your vanity URL. Usernames allow you to personalise your business page and establish a sense of professionalism. If you don’t have a username your Facebook URL will consist of random numbering.

Having a username makes it easier for users to find you when they search for your business page in Facebook toolbar, and plays a vital role in search engine optimisation (SEO). Usernames can also be used in conjunction with your advertising tactics. Think about promoting your custom Facebook URL alongside print advertisements or on business cards e.g. find us on Facebook.com/freshweb.

Be careful when choosing your username as once it’s saved, it can’t be changed. Register your username at http://www.facebook.com/username

2. Profile Picture/Photostrip

Take a look at how Barry’s Tea Facebook page branding goes well together:

There are huge branding opportunities to be gained from a visually appealing Facebook business page. Create a strong brand presence on your page by ensuring that your profile picture and photostrip (the 5 pictures that are displayed across the top of your page) complement each other.

Facebook automatically shuffles the pictures in the photostrip each time a user visits your page so make sure that ALL the images represent the visual theme of your page no matter what order they’re shown in.  You can hide unwanted photos in the photostrip by hovering over the photo and clicking ‘x’.

Did you know that your profile picture can be 540px height x 180px width?  We all know the saying ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ so don’t waste the space! 

3. Left-Side Links Panel

Every Facebook business page has a links panel set with 3 default applications-wall, info and photos, which can be found underneath your profile picture. Facebook has been very generous with this panel and you can install as many custom tabs as you like, but remember that only the first 8 tabs will be visible to users without clicking the ‘more’ button. So these can be re-arranged in order of importance.

Popular applications (apps) include YouTube tabs, blog tabs, competition/promotions apps or apps designed to welcome visitors to the page (known as landing tabs). Be careful to keep in accordance with the Facebook guidelines when running competitions or sweepstakes on Facebook as the rules state that all promotions must be administered by a third-party i.e. not Facebook.

If you’re familiar with HTML you can create and develop tabs. We’d be happy to quote your for this and many related services here.  Facebook previously operated using Facebook Mark-up Language (FBML) but this has since been replaced with iFrames.

The good news is that there is a simpler option than iFrames; use a third-party tool to create competition or landing page apps. A third-party tool is a user-friendly application, offered by a software company, which allows you to submit the content for the app yourself. 

Still confused by all this? There’s a good chance that you’re a business owner and not a developer so get in touch with someone who has experience working with third-party tools. Contact us here if you want to discuss your options regarding custom tabs and apps.

4. About/Info

Which ‘about’ section catches your attention most?

The ‘about’ section is found on the left-side of your Facebook business page underneath the left-side links panel. You have 240 characters to describe what your company is about, but only around 60 of these are displayed on the page without having to click ‘more’.  There’s no doubt that the ‘about’ section should show your website address, and perhaps a sort, snappy line describing your company. 

The ‘info’ tab is where you should elaborate on the nature of your business. Provide keyword-rich descriptions to improve SEO.  Attach outbound links to your website, blog pages and any other external links related to your company. Don’t forget to claim your place with ‘Facebook Places’. After registering your location, Facebook will display your physical store location on a map, and will also give users the option to ask for directions. A Recommendations box will appear in the right-hand corner of your page where visitors can leave comments/recommendations about your store, product or service.

5. Landing Page:

Facebook will automatically select a default landing page for your Facebook business page. Landing pages are the first page that a user arrives at when they visit your page. Many businesses prefer to create customised welcome pages. They should be eye-catching in line with your brand rather than a generic Facebook page. They generally have a strong call to action that leads the visitor to ‘like’ your page, submit their email address or sign-up for exclusive offers and discounts.

Decide on the default landing page that you want your visitors to land and change your settings. You can do this by clicking on ‘Edit page’ at the top right-hand corner of your page and click ‘manage permissions’.

Unless you’re familiar with HTML and coding, most businesses enlist the help of companies that specialise in such applications to design and host their landing pages. Feel free to contact us if you have any enquires regarding the installation of a landing page.

Here are a couple of examples of what your customised landing page could look like:

6. Install Social Plugins:

Make your company social. Install ‘like’ or ‘share’ Facebook icons on your company website and beside any other published content. Not only do these icons advertise your brand and promote your presence on Facebook, but they also enable visitors to share your content with their friends via their personal Facebook profile. Over 50% of people are logged into eCommerce sites and Facebook concurrently.  Surpass your competition by maximising your sales using Facebook plugins and connect integrations.

Social plugins let users interact on Facebook while staying logged onto your company website at the same time.  If a visitor is reading a blog article on your company website and the visitor likes or shares the article with friends via Facebook, then this activity will be shown on the user’s wall, and depending on your EdgeRank, it may be shown on the newsfeed on the user’s friends.  By doing so, users have created awareness about your website and given their friends a sneak peek of what your company has to offer.

Consider that there are nearly 2 million Irish users on Facebook, and each user has approximately 130 Facebook friends… it’s not hard to imagine the vast scale of Facebook users that you could connect with through social plugins.

7. fShops:
fCommerce provides a fully functional online shop on you Facebook business page. This includes the ability for customers to choose product size, colour, delivery as well as paying for the goods by secure Credit Card payment – all done on your Facebook page very simply.

Every time you steer a customer away from your Facebook page to your external online shop, you risk losing a sale and a customer. The real advantage here is that instead of directing these customers off Facebook to buy your products back on your main company website (through hyperlinks), you instead bring your online shop to Facebook (an environment that many people are comfortable in).

The UK is Europe’s leading eCommerce community with online sales of over €70 billion in 2010, and fCommerce grew by 8.8% between June and October 2011. 

Click here to see a variety of established fShops.

If you would like to talk to us about setting up, managing your Facebook business page, defining a strategy to use Facebook or indeed designing/installing an f-Shop for your business contact us here…

Before we go into detail about the new Insights, let’s take a look at what Facebook Insights means.

What is Facebook Insights?

According to Facebook, Insights is a free service that:

“Provides Facebook Page owners and Facebook Platform developers with metrics around their content. By understanding and analyzing trends within user growth and demographics, consumption of content, and creation of content, Page owners and Platform developers are better equipped to improve their business with Facebook”.

Take a look at the snapshot below taken of the new Facebook Insights lay-out. When you click on the Insights tab on the top left-side column of your business page, this image will appear as the main Insights page with your relevant data. For convenience, the page has been broken into 3 steps. Each step will be explained separately.

 The Insights page example has been taken from a Facebook campaign that we’re currently running. We have omitted the name of the client and certain content for privacy reasons.

Now, let’s take a look at each step separately and explain them in more detail:

#1. The New Insights:

Data taken from a campaign running from the 14th November
to the 6th December

Definition of terms:

Total Likes: The number of users who have visited your Facebook page and clicked the like button at the top of your page. Users who like your page are called fans.

Friends of Fans: When a fan interacts with your Facebook page, this activity is posted to their wall and, depending on your EdgeRank, may also appear in their friend’s newsfeed, which creates more visibility and generates awareness of your brand. So ‘Friends of Fans’ refers to the number of friends of all your fans combined. It refers to your social reach. The Friends of Fans figure shows the amount of people in total that a fans activity on your page could potentially be shown to.

Talking About This: This refers to any user activity on your page (often referred as creating a story) such as liking your page, posting on your wall or sharing page content, checking-in to your physical store, tagging your page in photos, recommending your place or RSVPing to an event.  

Weekly Total Reach: This is the number of users who have seen your page for the first time in the past week. This also includes any Facebook ad campaigns or sponsored stories related to your page.

Understanding the Data

The purple dots along the bottom of the graph show the exact dates that content was posted by the page administrator. Each post correlates with number of ‘people talking about this’ and ‘weekly total reach.’ With this data, page administrators will be able to understand the relationship between their fans and their posts. Posts that perform well will have a higher number of people ’talking about this,’ and consequently, such activity will leverage a page’s ‘weekly total reach’.

#2. Page Posts

The page posts section evaluates the influence each type of post has over user activity.

  Data taken from a campaign running from the 14th November
to the 6th December

Definition of terms:

Reach: The number of users who saw your post for the first time.

Engaged Users:  The number of users who clicked on your post for the first time. It shows how the users saw your page, either through an organic search or by viral effect. It also shows how many negative comments the post received, and the percentage of likes, shares and comments.

Virality: The number of users who saw your page for the first time after their friends created a story about it. If 100 users saw your post and 20 users created a story about it e.g. published a comment related to the post, then the post would have a 20% virality rate.

Understanding the Data

The ‘post’ section gives you a brief summary of the post. You can use this information to gauge what type of content fans respond better too and what content drives your fans to act. Page posts can be evaluated and separated into categories under posts, photos, videos, links and questions.

The ‘engaged users’ tab is fundamental to understanding your fans. The data shows how fans are reacting to your content and how exactly they’re choosing to interact with page. Comments carry more weight than likes or shares so it’s worth remembering to model new page content around previous posts types that received comments.

If the levels of ‘talking about this’ and ‘virality’ are high, then your fans interacted with the post and were more inclined to share or like the content. By assessing what type of post users respond most to, page administrators can adapt future page content around this. Such activity will improve your EdgeRank and expand your social reach by making your page visible to friends of fans.

#3. Advanced Features

The advanced features can be found in the left-side column of your Facebook business page. Each tab; likes, reach and talking about this, includes additional statistics and analysis of the data previously displayed on the main insights page.

Definition of terms:

Likes: Breaks down where the page likes came from. It illustrates the demographic and geographical location of your fans, and shows how many fans liked your page and the source of your likes. Like can come from various sources, for example:

• Facebook Ads/Sponsored Stories
• Facebook Recommendations
• Mobile phones
• Third-Party Apps
• On page

Reach:  Shows the age, gender and location of the people you have reached. It also provides data on how people saw any of your page content. It’s divided into organic, paid and viral reach. It also shows the number of times users viewed specific tabs on your page, and any external referees pointing to your Facebook page.

Talking About This: It shows who is talking about your page and their location. This concept is explained under section #1. The New Insights.

Understanding the Data

Evaluating the advanced features data is extremely important for pages that are advertising on Facebook. If the page content isn’t reaching the correct target audience, then the page administrator needs to reassess their ad campaign and keywords. It also gives insights into where you’re most active users are based, so make sure you’re Facebook campaign and content is appropriate to this audience. For example, if you’re fan base reacts enthusiastically to open-ended status questions and predominantly based in Kilkenny, don’t post a question poll with 2 possible answers about an event in Galway.

It can’t be emphasised enough how crucial your EdgeRank score is to the success of your Facebook business page. EdgeRank can’t be manipulated, but with the new Insights, we’re finally able to accurately measure the quality of our page content and its ability to engage users and encourage interaction. 

Starbucks has nearly 26m fans on Facebook, compared to 1.8 million website visitors.  They’ve build up a large, loyal Facebook fan base by listening to their fans and posting suitable, social and likeable content that they want to interact with. The new Insights lets you walk in the shoes of your users. You’re given the chance to get to know your audience and evaluate your potential social- reach for free, so don’t waste the opportunity. Give your fans what they want, and watch your brand expand on the most popular social platform in the world.

Refer to our Facebook Glossary of Terms if you’re looking for more definitions relating to your Facebook business page.

If you would like assistance setting up, managing your Facebook business page or defining a strategy to use Facebook to sell your products and services contact us here… 

Every time you steer a customer away from your Facebook page to your external online shop, you risk losing a sale and a customer. This is particularly important for impulse buyers where, you’re basically allowing customers to leave your store and reconsider their purchase en route to a different cash register.

The answer to this dilemma is f-Commerce, (sometimes called an f-Shop) where you make your online shop available on your business Facebook page.

Why is this important now?

• Many Irish businesses have been slow ‘out of the blocks’ and either don’t realise or haven’t considered f-Commerce as a way to sell online.
• Businesses that are taking advantage of this, are achieving great success particularly with impulse purchasers.
• There are now 2 million Facebook users in Ireland, over 30 million in the UK and 750 million users worldwide.
• The average person will visit Facebook 2.6 times a day, has 130 friends and will spend 1 hour 20 minutes every week on Facebook.
• The fastest growing segment on Facebook is Female 30+. Research shows that wwomen under 40 years old are most prone to impulse buying. Facebook has a 56% bias towards female users, with this age group showing the biggest increase in numbers in the last year.
• The recession has seen high street retail sales plummet in the past few years but, in spite of this, online sales in the UK are growing at 18% annually.
• The UK is Europe’s leading eCommerce community with online sales of over €70 billion in 2010.
• An eCSI survey showed that 25% of all online consumers log onto Facebook every day.
• f-Commerce grew by 8.8% between June and October of this year.
• 50% of eCommerce shoppers are already logged into Facebook concurrently.
• Facebook shops (f-shops) offer a unique viral angle that most businesses haven’t realised through ‘Like Pricing’ / ‘Share Pricing’ etc.

fCommerce and the Impulse Buyer

Wikipedia defines impulse buying as ‘an unplanned decision to buy a product or service, made just before a purchase. Products are prominently displayed [...] to trigger impulse buyers to buy what they might not have otherwise considered. Alternatively, impulse buying can occur when a potential consumer spots something related to a product that stirs a particular passion in them.’

Let’s apply this to f-Commerce:

f-Commerce while more established in the USA, is a relatively new concept to the UK and Ireland, but it is rapidly gaining momentum. It’s fair to day that most users log onto Facebook to socialise rather than shop, so any spontaneous purchases made in fShops can be viewed as impulse buys. F-shops provide the unique ability to let friends know you have just bought X product at Y Facebook shop online. This is both an endorsement both for your product and brand and regularly draws interested friends to your f-shop to check you products/prices. Having your products available to buy instantly provides a huge opportunity for impulse buying.

Because f-Commerce is new in Ireland, it presents an immediate business opportunity for astute businesses / early market adopters. It is also important now to capitalise on the initial customer excitement and turn fans into loyal customers quickly before Facebook becomes flooded with competitors.

Impulse buys are often made based on promotional incentives. If you look at your business Facebook page as a club, you can seduce impulse buyers and create loyalty with a sense of ‘exclusivity,’ by offering special price reductions and promotions to fans who ‘like’ your page or buy from your eShop. Make sure to advertise your products using words as ‘limited’, ‘exclusive’, ‘special edition’ etc. to entice customers.

Who’s using fCommerce?

Take a look at our f-Commerce page to see some successful f-Shops large and small from Irish and overseas companies …

Heinz: The f-Shop launched its limited edition balsamic vinegar blended tomato ketchup. It was made available exclusively to Facebook fans before going on sell in stores worldwide.

Rachel Roy: A jewellery store that set up a pop-up (temporary) f-Shop to sell its ‘fan-only’ jewellery collection. The collection sold out within 6 hours.

Nike: Freebies are given to fans when they buy from Nike’s f-Shop.

Pampers: Sold 1,000 ‘cruiser diaper packs’ to fans via their f-Shop before making the diapers available in stores.

Kembrel: Launched a private shopping community on Facebook for students which sells clothing, books and computer gadgets at 40-75% off.

Tesco: Launched a Halloween pop-up store. Fans were given a 20% discount on all costumes purchased from the f-Shop.

The above companies are only a few examples of the many f-Shops that have been launched on Facebook. The vast majority of f-Shops have been set up with the intention of offering fan-only merchandise or discounts, while other f-Shops have been used as a platform to launch new products. With this in mind, it’s fair to say that currently f-Commerce is most attractive to impulse buyers, and if designed and promoted correctly, f-Shops can lure impulse buyers and become viable long-term retail platforms through initial promotional incentives and fans-first offers.

People are like magpies; we like shiny new things. Treat your f-Shop as something new and shiny, and exploit your fans curiosity and impulse to buy.

If you would like to talk to us about setting up, managing your Facebook business page, defining a strategy to use Facebook or indeed designing/installing an f-Shop for your business contact us here…

I recently read an article entitled ‘How to Keep Loyal Customers Happy and Improve your Bottom Line,’ by a company called Surveying &Mapping. I’ve taken on board some of their ideas and included a couple of my own to show how Facebook, the most popular social site, can be used as a medium to keep loyal customers happy and increase your profits.

1. Know your customers and vice versa:
   Look at Facebook as a database. It keeps a record of all your fans, with their names and their personal profile photo. Companies can put a face/personality to their name with Facebook, and fans can correspond with your business by posting comments on your wall, looking at photos and videos and participating in polls and competitions.
2. Stay in Touch:
   Facebook provides a huge platform to stay in touch and re-connect with fans on a regular basis. Don’t presume that just because a user has become a fan, it means that you are constantly visible to them. EdgeRank determines what content is shown on a users’ newsfeed so it’s crucial to connect with fans frequently to ensure that your activity is seen by fans. It is recommended to update your status on a daily basis, and open-ended questions encourage fans to interact with your page. Click here to read some helpful tips about what to post on your business page to keep fans engaged and improve your EdgeRank.
3. Actively seek customer feedback:
   Physical stores often seek feedback by chatting with customers and distributing customer surveys. This can be very costly and time-consuming to compile the final data. Businesses can design question polls on Facebook asking customers to rate, tick the box or comment on a particular subject. Businesses can also conduct market research via Facebook by asking customers for their opinion on particular products or ideas.  Facebook is a quick and efficient way to reach out your customers and solve their problems.
4. Express Yourself:
   Your business page represents your company and your product. It allows you to inject excitement into your brand and creates brand individuality. Facebook users are visually attracted to pages so make sure your page is creative, interesting and aesthetically pleasing. Offer discounts and run competitions to users who ‘like’ your page. We all know the saying ‘you can’t bore your customers into buying,’ and this also applies to Facebook. A boring page won’t attract fans or encourage sales. 51% of users said they are more likely to buy a product after liking it on Facebook, so use your page to boost customer loyalty.
5. fCommerce:
   fCommerce has made it even more convenient for shoppers to buy products online. By setting up an fShop, users can buy your product directly from Facebook. People don’t like change so if fans are already comfortable with your page and they are keen to make a purchase, don’t give them a reason to become perplexed or frustrated with external websites that they’re not familiar with. Another important feature of fCommerce is incentivised pricing. fShops can customise their online pricing policies or alternatively,  offer discounts and run fan-only promotions to reward users for becoming a fan of their business Facebook page.
6. Reward Schemes:
   56% of consumers are likely to recommend a brand to a friend after becoming a fan. Word-of-mouth advertising is one of the best forms of advertising, so integrate reward schemes into your Facebook strategy to encourage this. Think about offering special discounts to fans or organising facebook fan nights in your store. Facebook Places is another excellent feature that could be used similar to a loyalty card scheme. Allocate fans points every time they ‘check-in’ to your physical store, and after collecting a set number of points, fans should be rewarded. Not only are you attracting a customer to your store, but you’re also enticing them to return.
7. Become a Resource for Customers:
   Whether it’s a subscribe newsletter or a blog on your website, try to provide valuable, relative information in your area of expertise. Remember to attach links on your Facebook page to direct customers to your blog. Being knowledgeable in your field is an invaluable tool, and customers will place more faith in your products and brand if they know they can rely on you to give them helpful advice/information. However, don’t oversell your product. Social media is all about building a relationship with your fans- Gain a customer’s trust and loyalty first and sales will follow second.

The degree to which customers are satisfied directly affects your balance sheet. We all know that loyal and happy customers equal higher profits, but with so much competition out there you have to remain visible to your customers and keep ahead of your competitors.

If you would like assistance setting up, managing your Facebook business page or defining a strategy to use Facebook to sell your products and services contact us here…

http://www.humansinvent.com/#!/1102/tesco-virtual-supermarket/

• Open-ended questions:

Phrase your status update in the form of a question. Use words such as where, who, how etc. EdgeRank Checker recently published statistics illustrating that comments carry 4x more value than likes. Likes remain the most common form of engagement on Facebook but comments receive nearly 4 times as many clicks. When a user comments on a page the comment is shown on their wall and, depending on your EdgeRank, their friends’ newsfeed, generating more awareness and promoting your page among other users.  Starting a conversation or discussion is the best way to get fans to participate but remember not to be too controversial with your status updates. The question feature on the status bar at the top of your page also facilities discussions as it allows you to create polls.

• Post videos or photos:

Content that takes a longer time to process gets a higher EdgeRank score. Videos and photos are visually attractive and improve your page aesthetically. Videos also pose the possibility of going viral which will enhance your profile within the online community. Don’t forget to include a strong call to action underneath your posts such as ‘go ahead and share it’ or ‘so you find this pic funny, share it with your friends and see if they do too.’

• Tell it, don’t sell it:

The purpose of Facebook is to build a relationship with fans that will turn into future sales. Direct, immediate, pushy selling is not appreciated on Facebook and fans will lose interest in your brand and turn off quickly. Furthermore, EdgeRank will downgrade your ranking if your content is all about pushing your products rather than networking or engaging with your fans. It is possible to predominantly use Facebook to engage with customers but insert an eCommerce shop (called fCommerce) onto your Facebook page as a new tab. In this way you can engage fully with your fans, make you product available to buy from you Facebook page and from time to time refer fans to your Facebook Shop for special offers/news. In this way the selling is more subtly allowing fans to approach this at their own pace, maintaining integrity for your brand. 

You can also publish information that is relevant to your business/products but the important point is not to come across as too pushy for sales.  Try not commit the Facebook status crime of boring updates or general status updates that are totally irrelevant to your product. We’ve seen some businesses at a loss on what to say and their last ten updates were merely commenting on the weather. Of course some businesses are luckier than others. For example Travel Agents, have more opportunities to post creative statuses that relate to their products. An example of a status update for a company that sells luggage could be ‘what are your top 3 must pack holiday items?’ instead of posting ‘The weather is miserable here today, I’d love a holiday’ or pushing the product with a status such as ‘New suitcases in stock for just €19.99.’

• Showcase your expertise:

If you write a blog or have a company website, be sure to post links on your Facebook page back to your website and visa versa. Show your expertise in an area by posting a link to your business blog with your latest article. Fans can share and like your articles or company website and this will show on their wall or newsfeed. Blogs create interesting page content and also give fans the opportunity to learn more about your business, comment and interact.

 If you would like assistance setting up, managing your Facebook business page or defining a strategy to use Facebook to sell your products and services – Contact us here…

http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/22/ecommerce-logged-in/

What is EdgeRank?

EdgeRank is the Facebook algorithm that rates and values the engagement between your page and your fans. It determines what content is published on a user’s newsfeed. Contrary to popular belief, not all new activity/content is published on a user’s newsfeed so the greater your EdgeRank score, the greater visibility you’ll get on a fan’s newsfeed. One of the primary reasons for a decrease in fan activity on your page is due to the fact that you’re not visible to your fans, and they may have forgotten about your page. You need to create an edge over competitors (Facebook refers to any actions such as a comment, new posts, likes or shares as an edge) and maximise your visibility. On a technical level, EdgeRank grades a page based on affinity, weight and time decay.

Affinity: This is the relationship between the page and the fan. Pages which have fans that frequently interact with them have a greater chance of been shown on a newsfeed.

Weight: This refers to the quality of your content. It is believed that videos carry more weight than photos and that status updates carry the least weight. However, comments on a status update carry a lot of weight.

Time Decay: EdgeRank publishes current content so the older the edge/content, the less likelihood of it appearing on a fan’s newsfeed.

Now that you understand EdgeRank, you need to decide on a strategy to optimise your page activity for EdgeRank. But let’s bring it back to basics for a minute.

Facebook is a business, and at the end of the day it needs to make profits to survive. Facebook earns revenue from advertising so the more time a user spends on the site the greater opportunity marketers have to target consumers. Interesting posts and content encourage users to participate and spend more time online with Facebook, and in return for capturing and holding a users attention Facebook will reward you with a higher EdgeRank. EdgeRank can’t be manipulated so the solution is interaction, interaction, interaction!

Take a look at the tips in our post “what should I post on my Facebook page for business use”. We hope this will provide you with useful tips to engage your fans and increase your EdgeRank.

If you would like assistance setting up, managing your Facebook business page or defining a strategy to use Facebook to sell your products and services – Contact us here…

Facebook is fast becoming the web’s top destination site with 1 in every 8 minutes of online time spent on Facebook. Unlike more traditional methods of advertising, Facebook offers businesses a cost-effective way of tapping into a customer base of over 750 million users with 2 million users based in Ireland. 

Originally started as a social platform for University students, Facebook has expanded its user profile and the fastest growing demographic for Facebook is those of 35 years old and upwards. Not only does it continue to attract more users everyday but its popularity in the world of business has also grown. The number of marketers who say Facebook is ‘critical’ or ‘important’ to their business has increased by 83% in the past 2 years. Facebook also offers free word-of-mouth of marketing with 56% of consumers likely to recommend a brand to their friend after becoming a fan.

So the question is how do you attract customers and build a fan base for your business?  This is the first step in a strategy to use Facebook for business and we like to talk about one aspect here – Facebook adverts.

Every Facebook user creates a personal profile when they join Facebook that details their age, gender, where they live, their likes and interests, education and work information and languages spoken. This gives businesses invaluable information to target Facebook adverts at the right audience and expand their social reach. Each business can set a budget of how much they want to spend per day (to limit the cost) and schedule when they want to run the ad. The ad can then be ‘linked’ where it takes potential customers to either, your Business Facebook Page, event or App, or to your Business website which sits outside Facebook. A really strong feature of this kind of advertising is that your advert can be seen millions of times by your target audience, but you only pay for the customers who are interested in your product/service and click on the advert (Pay Per Click Marketing).  But perhaps the most impressive tool of Facebook advertising is Facebook Insights which allows you to monitor the success of your ad and make any adjustments if necessary. Below is an Insight snapshot over the course of 10 days on a highly successful Facebook campaign that we ran recently. The name of the campaign has been omitted for privacy reasons.

These specific figures have been taken from a campaign that we ran from the 5^th of November to the 15^th of November 2011 for a client.

What does this tell you

• The company achieved this with a total spend of just €255.42.
• They limited their daily budget to spend a maximum of €25 per day.
• The campaign reached 229,862 target users within 10 days.
• 132,210 users saw the ad as a result of their friend ‘liking’ it – as we noted earlier people are more likely to buy from a brand if it has been recommended by a friend.
• The company was charged for 1,220 clicks but reached 229,862 users.
• The target market saw the advert 4.9 times.
• These views converted into 703 connections and a potential 703 new customers.

There are some very interesting conclusions that can be drawn from these figures. Firstly, Facebook ads enable companies with limited spending power to maximise their marketing budget and expand their customer reach. These types of ads generate viral marketing benefits. Not only did this campaign appeal to the target audience but it also reached their friends as well.  

Secondly, this campaign resulted in 703 new connections which can be viewed as potential long-term customers. The company can build a relationship with these fans long-term, engage and communicate with them and eventually convert them in real customers. The campaign clicks show that users are interested in what the company is offering. They have attracted the user’s attention and the onus is now on the company to sell to these customers.

And finally, this campaign shows the rate at which a Facebook ad can accelerate product/ brand awareness. The total cost of the campaign was just €255.42 and it was seen by a target audience of nearly 300,000 users.  When you compare the cost and the effectiveness of a Facebook ad campaign with other forms of marketing such as print or radio, it’s easy to see the benefits. Your ad is guaranteed to be seen by your target audience, your social reach is expanded and, above all, the cost is minimal.