The Idea Spark discussion about Facebook Marketing was very lively last Friday during our Creativity Coffee Tweetup in celebration of the 5-year anniversary of @TechCrunch. The discussion surrounded how consumer-facing brands and businesses can gain more than just “fans” or “likes” from their presence on Facebook. Here are some ideas to spark your marketing creativity.
- Facebook is a “game changer” that is appealing to a broad demographic of users that is mapping to the general population’s demographic make-up.
- Embrace Facebook for more than the youth market. In fact, the fastest growing segment of Facebook users is women 55+.
- Facebook is a great way to reach your target customers and draw them into deeper engagement with your brand. Try using Facebook Ads to begin finding new fans for specific target markets.
- Post sharable content.
- Post videos, photos, links and other content that your fans will want to share with others—content that's interesting, entertaining or fun.
- Sharable content enables your brand to grow beyond your fan base and to be redistributed throughout (and beyond) Facebook.
- Let your "fan" or "like" count be a goal—but not your only goal.
- DO drive people from your other marketing efforts (print, TV, direct mail, online ads, website, SEM, events, etc.) to engage on Facebook and through other social channels
- Getting people to "like" your brand is not that difficult. Getting people engaged with your brand and getting them to recommend and purchase—that is your ultimate goal. Use content, open conversation and conversion tools like promotions to engage them further.
- Reward your fans for engaging with you.
- While fun content will keep your Facebook fans entertained and engaged, providing unique offers will drive measurable return of your social marketing efforts.
- Unique offers reward your Facebook fans for their loyalty and participation. Make sure that your offers are also sharable so your fans can invite others to participate as well.
- If your business has different locations, enable offers to drive revenue and participation at specific locations.
- Let your fans be your guide.
- Even though your Facebook fans are engaged with you on one channel, make sure that you enable each individual to drive the channels, the frequency of communication and the content they'd like to receive from you. JitterJam's Make Me Happy™ permission marketing system does just that.
Would you like to join in our live discussions? We hold a Creativity Coffee hour every Friday morning at JitterJam's Bedford, NH office. Come by and join us! There's no charge, and no "sales" going on!
Would love more concrete examples of rewards that work well on Facebook, i.e. I promised a book to my 500th friend … but maybe it should be one of my friends to celebrate achieving 500 friends?
Tina, I think you’re missing the basic steps. Instead of thinking about incentives to get people to “friend” you, you might want to think about the following:
1. Figure out what you want from your social engagements. Create a social marketing strategy that is clear on your goals and objectives including how they tie in to your overall business’ goals.
2. Your Facebook profile and personal page is linked to you personally. You have not developed your business’ presence, brand or page. Are you trying to get people to connect to you personally or to your business? Here are a couple of blog posts that I found in a quick Google search that explains the difference: http://www.socialmediahound.com/2010/02/15/facebook-fan-page-vs-personal-profile/ and http://marketingroadhouse.com/?p=246
3. Your blog needs to also reflect your business’ presence on social networks (your business’ Facebook page, Twitter account, etc.). Make sure your blog(s) and websites link to your social accounts/pages. This way, they have a method to engage more deeply with you.
4. If you do make these choices to engage on social networks, make sure you’re present and current in them. DO engage people in conversations. Do regularly post comments, questions, etc.
I hope this helps!
Margaret
i found post is very useful for me thanks for post