FACEBOOK MARKETINGCHRIS ALLEN FOR SPRINGFIELD COLLECTIVE

FACEBOOK MARKETING

• Is Facebook viable anymore?

• Will anyone even see my posts?

• How do I get people to interact with my page?

• Do I have to buy adds?

• Do I have to buy likes?

• Should I post pictures of me getting’ drinks with my girls? (No!)

IF YOU TAKE AWAY 1 THING TODAY I WANT IT TO BE THIS…

WHOEVER TELLS THE BEST STORY WINS

If what you have to say is worth hearing it will be heard. If what you have to say is worth sharing it will be shared.

Chris Allen 6/7/2014

DOES ANYONE EVEN USE FACEBOOK ANYMORE?

These numbers have moved a bit since this graphic was made, but, Facebook is still king.

DOES FACEBOOK MATTER ANYMORE?

According to the Facebook statistics updated January 1, 2014 from StatisticBrain, 1,310,000,000 Facebook users are active monthly, with the average amount of time users spend on Facebook at a time being 18 minutes. Every 20 minutes, 1 million links are shared.

SO WHAT?

Q: That is all good and well, but what if my business is in B2B instead of B2C what then? Shouldn’t I be on LinkedIn instead?

A: Nobody is going home and spending half an hour browsing LinkedIn. They are going home and looking at pictures of their family. Or checking out their old boyfriend from High School to see if he is fat yet.

BE THERE OR BE SQUARE

Everyone, yes everyone is on Facebook.

This includes business owners.

This includes merchandisers for international retailers.

This includes hiring managers.

Most of the decision makers you are trying to get in front of even as a B2B company are spending their time on Facebook.

TIPS

USE ENGAGING COPY, IMAGES AND VIDEOS

Rich media like photos and videos get more attention and help your message stand out in News Feed.

Lifestyle images like the ones you see from your friends on Facebook are always engaging. Try sharing images of your products or photos of your customers enjoying your services.

Try to keep your posts between 100 and 250 characters to get more engagement. Shorter posts are better received

PHOTOS ARE GREAT!

PHOTO POSTS GET 39% MORE INTERACTION

Not only do photo posts get more engagement than links, videos or text-based updates, they actually account for 93% of the most engaging posts on Facebook. According to Kissmetrics, photos get 53% more likes, 104% more comments and 84% more click-throughs on links than text-based posts. Self-explanatory photos seem to perform best.

ALBUMS ARE BETTER!

1. Photo posts get 120% more engagement than the average post, and photo albums actually get 180% more engagement.

2. This was a surprising one for me, but it seems that if you have multiple images to share, you’d be better of putting them into a Facebook album than publishing separate photo posts.

PERSONAL NOTE OR PRO TIP

On average over 40% of your interactions will be from people on mobile devices. I expect the number to be nearly double that in a few years.

Remember that when you share:

-Video: Auto-Play, stream rate

-Links: Crazy websites, image heavy

PERSONAL NOTE OR PRO TIP

Another note on people using mobile devices to open links that you post from Facebook.

If you site is covered with flash or it is not responsive, be careful where you send people and what you are planning on them doing when they get there.

If going to your landing page will just make them furious when they try your links, don’t do it.

SHORTER POSTS GET 23% MORE INTERACTION

Writing shorter posts isn’t just handy on Twitter. Keeping your posts below 250 characters can get you 60% more engagement than you might otherwise see. You can even get up to 66% more engagement if you cut it down to less than 80 characters.

Less Is More

USING EMOTICONS INCREASES COMMENTS BY 33%

If you thought emoticons were only for teens, you might want to rethink that idea. According to AMEX OPEN Forum, emoticons can make a big difference to your engagement rates. No only do posts with emoticons get 33% more comments, they also get shared 33% more often. Even better: they get liked 57% more often than posts without emoticons.

IS IT WORTH IT?

You have to count the cost. I would almost never use emoticons, especially for a clients page. But, there is something to be said for “humanizing” your brand and or business.

ENGAGEMENT RATES ON THURSDAY AND FRIDAY ARE 18% HIGHER

Compared to other days in the week, a Buddymedia study found that engagement rates for Facebook are 18% higher on Thursdays and Fridays. As they put it, “the less people want to be at work, the more they are on Facebook!”

ENGAGEMENT RATES ON THURSDAY AND FRIDAY ARE 18% HIGHER

The same study also looked at different industries, including sports, retail, automotive, and health care, to see which days worked best in each industry. Although they did vary, most of them sat around the end of the week, from Wednesday-Friday. Apparently no industry has users that are engaged on Mondays or Tuesdays!

ENGAGEMENT RATES ON THURSDAY AND FRIDAY ARE 18% HIGHER

You can view this information 2 ways.

You can say hey, nobody is getting anything done these days anyway, so let’s not try.

OR…

You can be an aggressive proactive marketer and try and leverage your reach and take up some of that dead air at the beginning of the week and have a head start on the competition going into the weekend.

QUESTION POSTS GET 100% MORE COMMENTS

If comments are the kind of interaction you’re after, questions might be the way to go. According to Kissmetrics, they get 100% more comments than standard text-based posts. HubSpot shares a similar finding, although this data points out that question posts often get fewer likes and shares than images.

QUESTION POSTS GET 100% MORE COMMENTS

What I found really interesting about this stat is that HubSpot’s data also shows which question words attract more comments, with the most popular being "should," "would," "which," and "who.”

This makes me think that closed questions which have a very limited answer option are the highest attractors of comments. Open question words like ‘why’ and ‘how’ which make the user think more to articulate their answer sit at the bottom of this chart.

QUESTION POSTS GET 100% MORE COMMENTS

So, to emphasize. It is better to ask “should I marry Jeff or Mark” than to ask “who should I marry?”

35% OF FACEBOOK FANS LIKE A PAGE SO THEY CAN PARTICIPATE IN CONTESTS

If you’re chasing down new fans, a contest seems like a fairly good way to encourage likes. A report from earlier this year showed that 35% of Facebook fans liked Facebook pages specifically to compete in contests. Contests obviously solicit interaction by asking for people to enter.

35% OF FACEBOOK FANS LIKE A PAGE SO THEY CAN PARTICIPATE IN CONTESTS

It turns out this can work, as "caption this photo"-style contests actually bring in 5.5 times more comments than regular posts.

HAVE FOLLOWERS GENERATE SHARABLE CONTENT

Combine running specials and promotions with a contest where your followers have to submit their own pictures and post them on your wall to enter. This creates the urge to like your page as well as them creating content for you, they can be shared out to their friends, and everyone else who likes your page. THIS IS SOCIAL MEDIA GOLD!

42% OF FANS LIKE A PAGE TO GET A COUPON OR DISCOUNT

According to Socially Stacked, 42% of Facebook fans like a page in order to get a discount or coupon. A study by Wildfire Interactive showed that coupon-based campaigns received the highest engagement rates. Giveaways and sweepstakes came in just behind coupons as highly engaging post types.

NEVER FORGET

The allure of running promotions and getting cheap, easy likes is strong. But remember, it isn’t the brand with the most likes that wins. Whoever tells the best story wins. You can have all the likes in the world, but without people buying in to your story no one will care.

CREATE A TWO-WAY CONVERSATION

Ask your audience to share their thoughts and feedback on your product and services. This is another way to listen to your customers and improve your business.

Posting content that shows you took their feedback into consideration can build customer loyalty and show you value their ideas

In Action: Modify Watches, a company that creates mix-and-match watches, asks customers for input on product designs and names, and builds ongoing watch designs from this real-time feedback

BE TIMELY

Your audience will be more likely to engage with posts when they’re related to subjects that are top of mind, like current events or the holidays

Timeliness is also important when replying to comments on your posts. The faster you reply, the more likely fans will engage with you in the future.

GET PERSONAL

Post the initial post from your business account, and will want to answer any questions or comments as your business. But, you will always want to like the posts and share them from your personal account as well. That way all of your friends will be able to see and share the post as well.

BRING SOME ORDER TO THE POSTING CHAOS

PLAN YOUR CONVERSATIONAL CALENDAR

The easiest way to stay in regular contact with fans is by creating a conversational calendar with ideas about what to talk about each week or month

A content calendar will not only help you post regularly, but will ensure your content is well planned, interesting, and that you don't miss major business events and news. Find a frequency that works for you and your audience.

PLAY TO WIN

If a regular posting schedule seems to daunting for you. Start small, make it 2 or 3 days every week and then work yourself up. The only way you can be successful is if you stick with it. You wont be doing your business any favors by half-heartedly posting every few weeks. In fact you will be doing more harm than good.

SCHEDULE YOUR POSTS

To better manage your time, you can schedule your posts in advance and plan for upcoming events and specials

To schedule your posts, simply click the clock icon on the lower left-hand corner of your Page's sharing tool

Schedule your posts when most of your fans are online. You can find out when your fans are online by visiting your Page Insights and going to the posts tab

After you've scheduled a post, you can manage your scheduled posts by going to the top of your Page and choosing Edit Page and then selecting Use Activity Log

SCHEDULING TOOLS

There are some very good scheduling tools out there.

Hootsuite: they have a free plan and a plan starting at $8.99

Sprout Social: starts at $59.99

Buffer: has a free tier, starts at $10, $50 for businesses

SO, DO WE HAVE TO PAY FACEBOOK?

No and yes.

No you don’t have to. But you should try it out. You will be surprised how many likes or page views just a few dollars can get you.

SO, DO WE HAVE TO PAY FACEBOOK?

Each year the YMCA runs a membership campaign, and they give out free hoodies to new members. Every year they have done a printed piece, spent roughly $3,000 and had 50 or less people join. This year the Y ran a targeted, curated promotion on Facebook, spent half the money, and saw 3 times the amount of memberships. And, on top of that, during the promotion they picked up over 500 likes.

BUT WHAT IF I DO IT WRONG?

You might. I am sure some of you have heard horror stories of people who meant to spend $20 on a promotion and then $500 got deducted from their account.

Other people say they will never pay for posts cause they used to get all this social reach for free. That is a good point, but good points won’t get your content in front of your fans.

TRUTH

Never start a paid Facebook campaign without a focused goal in mind. Otherwise you will waste your money and not have any idea how to hone in on conversion.

Facebook allows you to be very specific when targeting ads. From age, gender, and location to interest and marital status. And if you were wondering, yes that is why they want you to share all that stuff. So they can sell it to marketers.

MONEYBALL

You can chose to run your add for a set number of days and spend as much as necessary over that time. Or, you can chose to spend a set amount of money and let the add run as long as you have money left over to spend. For first time marketers I suggest the limited amount approach. That way you know exactly what your ceiling will be.

FACEBOOK $

I think Facebook adds is probably the area that I hear people have the most questions about. Let’s stop right here and if anyone has any questions specifically about adds we can answer those now.

HUMANIZE YOUR BRAND

Brand voice and tone is one of the biggest blind spots on social media right now.

Many get it right, but just one incident can tarnish your brand.

We had one just this week in the NBA.

LEBRON AND CRAMP-GATE

DON’T DO THAT

Social Media is not the place for you to practice snark and sarcasm, alright maybe for your personal account, but not under the name of your business. Nothing good will come of it.

DO THIS

Be yourself. Let people see inside your business. Being approachable makes a huge difference especially when you can back it up with exceptional work. Make sure you tell your story with your voice. The rest is easy.