What Facebook’s Recent Change Means for Your Company’s Fan Page

March 31, 2010 in Business, Facebook, fan page, social media by gtaylor | No comments

Facebook is changing the way users interact with brands.  Before, you could become a fan of a company or product.  Now, the “Become a Fan” button will be replaced with a “Like” button and you will be a “Connection” rather than a “Fan”.

According to Facebook, users click the “Like” button almost twice as much as they do “Become a fan” on a daily basis.  This new change will help brands accumulate “Connections” quicker, but may end up leaving Facebook users confused.

The change will no longer allow brands to communicate with users who “like” a particular post, photo or link.  Only users who “like” a page itself will see updates in their news feed and notifications.

The change Facebook is making will also affect advertisements.

The “Like” button and a thumbs up icon will replace the “Become a Fan” button, in the advertisement.

Facebook does not plan to openly communicate the change with its users, so there will be some confusion about the difference between “liking” a page versus “liking” a page’s update.  Inevitably, users will subscribe to pages they didn’t want or intend to — for example, people may click the “Like” button on an ad thinking they are liking the business or product, when they are actually subscribing to the updates without being redirected to the page.

This new change will increase the amount of engagement ads purchased on Facebook.  Since “liking” content is a much easier process than becoming a fan, users will be apt to click an ad that has a “Like” button rather than an ad inviting them to “Become a Fan”.

Even though Facebook is not communicating the change to their users, businesses should update their current “fans” on the changes. ”Become a Fan” verbiage on creative, blogs and websites will soon be irrelevant, but “Find us on Facebook” always works.

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Does the Perfect Social Media Marketing Plan Exist?

March 30, 2010 in Business by gtaylor | 2 comments

If you Google “social media marketing plan” about 183 million results appear in 0.52 seconds.  Everything from a step-by-step guide to creating a social media marketing plan, to bloggers giving their best advice on using social media for business, is available for you to read.  There’s tons of resources you can use to put your social media marketing plan together, but does the perfect social media marketing plan exist?

Over the past few years, social media networks have changed.  Some features have been removed and new ones have been added, the layout and design may be different, and some networks have become obsolete.

For example, a few years ago, MySpace was the number one social network. When Facebook started gaining popularity, MySpace users migrated to the “new” network and MySpace social media marketing strategies soon became irrelevant.

Modeling your social media strategy after a highly successful social media campaign is not a good idea.  Your audience and your customers are unique to your business. A social media strategy that works for other companies may not work for yours.

Identifying the networks that will work for you and putting your social media strategy on paper is a step in the right direction. However, for your social media plan to be successful, it has to be just as dynamic as social media itself.

The best social media strategies are the ones that anticipate change.  The more fluid and less concrete your social media marketing plan is, the more successful your social media efforts will be.

The perfect social media marketing plan may never exist, as the social media landscape is constantly changing.  The only social media component that will remain constant is, in order for your strategy to work, a good amount of time is required.

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Spice Up Your Facebook Page with FBML

March 29, 2010 in Business, Design, Facebook, LinkedIn, Technology, brand identity, graphic design, social media by gtaylor | 1 comment

You’ve probably read multiple blog posts, tweets and LinkedIn discussions praising the value of creating a Facebook page for your business.  You’re still in the dark as to how you can differentiate your Facebook page from the rest of the businesses in the world. An easy application called FBML can give your Facebook page a face-lift and attract some new fans.

What is FBML?  Facebook Markup Language, FBML for short, is simply HTML for Facebook.  FBML allows you to take HTML coding and insert it into the FBML application.  Facebook does its magic on the back end, and your fan page will never look the same.

Sound easy enough?

Unfortunately, you can’t just copy the coding on your website and paste it into Facebook.  You have to keep your coding within the Facebook wall size in order for your images to appear.

FBML allows your Facebook page to act as a landing page or microsite.  Using Facebook for a landing page or microsite saves you money because you don’t have to host the page on your server and don’t have to pay for a domain name.

Below are a few examples of fan pages using FBML:

Wendy’s ‘Get the Party’

SeaWorld’s Photo Adventure

Donato’s Pizza

Sunkist Soda

As you can see, your Facebook page can be customized to fit your business or product.  How will you spice up your Facebook page?

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Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your eBlasts

March 26, 2010 in B2B, Business, Communications, Design, Marketing, New Business, email, emarketing, internet marketing, prospecting by gtaylor | 1 comment

People still question the effectiveness of eBlasts even though they subscribe to receive coupons, blog and news updates via email. An eBlast may not be working for you because the design and content are simply missing the mark.

On a daily basis, my inbox is flooded with newsletters, webinar invites, LinkedIn invitations to connect and, of course, eBlasts. Some of the eBlasts look like they were thrown together in ten minutes or less, and nine times out of ten, they are deleted.

If you’re looking to get more out of your eBlasts, here are a few tips:

Don’t promote – provide value

The biggest mistake most companies make when sending an eBlast is too much promotion.  You should be more focused on providing information your target audience will find interesting, and hopefully, learn something from.  Open the door for questions and offer advice.  You can get a good idea of what people want to know from tweets and discussions on LinkedIn. Providing your recipients with value will keep them looking forward to receiving your eBlasts, and they’ll be more likely to share the information with others.

Include social media

In addition to having your social media profile links in your eBlast, include some notable tweets or discussion excerpts to show what you and others are saying about the topic at hand.

Link to other RELEVANT sources

Although you are sending the eBlast, it doesn’t have to be all about you. See “Don’t promote, provide value” above.  In case you haven’t realized it yet, you aren’t the only source of information. Post a link, and quick summary of some articles you’ve recently read.  It doesn’t hurt or cost any extra money.  Just make sure the links you are posting are relevant to the topic of the eBlast.

Frequency matters

I recently ran an eBlast campaign for a client that had a weekly internet radio show.  The eBlast went out the last Friday of the month.  The eBlast included all the episodes for the month, sound bites from highest rated shows and best comments from the audience chat room.  The eBlast acted as a monthly recap and informed the recipients of what was to come next month. Eighty percent of the emails were opened each month, and the traffic to the client’s website dramatically increased. If the eBlast would have been sent weekly, the audience response would have been completely different.

Hire help

Doctors aren’t marketing executives and marketing execs aren’t doctors.  Hiring a marketing agency to help create an eBlast campaign will get you the results you are looking for.  Determining how to get through the clutter and come up with a creative design and layout for your eBlast isn’t easy, so why not ask for an experts help?

Yes, social media is a great marketing tool to reach large and targeted audiences, but it isn’t the only option.  You still have to get your message to those prospects or customers who work at a company that blocks social media sites and eBlasts are a great way to do just that.

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Is There Any Real Benefit to Advertising on Facebook?

March 25, 2010 in Business, Facebook, social media by gtaylor | 2 comments

Facebook is a great medium to use for social media marketing, especially if you have a product consumers have an interest in. You can see how customers really feel about your product, create polls that people love to share, or even create a unique landing page using FMBL for your inbound marketing efforts.  But what about advertising on Facebook?

When you create a Facebook page, one of the first suggestions Facebook makes is to promote your page with an ad.  Facebook ads are good for targeting a specific audience and some companies have found that advertising on Facebook does work.

Facebook ads are subtle, off to the side and look just like a page suggestion. People click on page suggestions all the time, especially if one of their friends is a fan. But, why spend the money when you can create a fan page for free?

Just like anything in life, there are pros and cons to Facebook ads and Facebook pages.

Facebook pages are free, and any time a fan interacts with your page, it goes into their news feed for all their friends to see.  You can create a fan page in just about 20 minutes and then you’re off to recruiting fans and creating fun polls, quizzes and top five favorites to engage your fans.

The biggest problem businesses have with Facebook pages is growing their fan base and getting those fans talking to talk. Here is where creative content comes into play.  Using FBML and contests are great ways to prompt your fans to interact with your page.

It may take a while to grow your fan count, but here’s where you can really target your brand loyalists and educate those fans who are just getting familiar with your company.

Advertising on Facebook makes your fan page grow quicker.  If you have a product that will be available for a limited time, and you have created a fan page for it, then spend some money on Facebook ads to get the word out as quickly as possible.

You can target the audience you want to receive the message, but you have to remember that once you’re out of money, no more ads will be displayed and your campaign is over. If one person clicks on your ad 15 times a day, that’s 15 potential fans you missed.

Advertising on Facebook does get your message out there, but there’s a price for it. Creating a fan page and using Twitter, LinkedIn, your company blog and other social media networks you are on to recruit fans may take a little time, but it costs you nothing extra.

Is there any real benefit to advertising on Facebook?  Sure.  But, what’s it worth to you if your most important customers are getting lost in the multitudes of fans Facebook ads attract?

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