social media

5 Ways to Increase Your Facebook Engagement | Social Media Examiner

Posted by TJ Goulet on Dec 19, 2012 in Advertising, Branding, Coupons & Deals, Marketing, Multifamily, Resident Communication, Resident Places | Comments Off

5 Ways to Increase Your Facebook Engagement | Social Media Examiner.

Looking to increase your Facebook page engagement?

Wondering why some pages have very high engagement and others nearly none?

In this post I’ll share five tips you can put to work right away.

About Facebook Engagement

What is it that makes some Facebook fan pages wildly successful with constant high engagement rates where the fans and their friends eat up the content like there’s no tomorrow… while other pages sit there dormant with hardly any activity, yet they produce great content, too?

Making Facebook work for your business can often take a bit of trial and error… and time.

You need to have patience and be willing to invest your own time and/or invest in a team to help you. You might refer to my post Facebook 101 for Business: Your Complete Guide and scroll to the section on Recommended Six-step Approach to Building Your Facebook Page for a refresher.

Though Facebook has introduced a plethora of changes since I wrote that post, the six-step approach remains valid.

In order to create success on Facebook, you need to have a clear objective and great design, plus:

• Solid content strategy (what you’re going to post on your page)
• Promotion strategy (how you’re going to continually increase your fan base)
• Engagement strategy (how you’ll respond to fans and build community)
• Conversion strategy (how you’ll turn your fans into customers)

In this post, I’ll explore five factors that contribute to exceptional engagement and measurable results!

#1: Launch Creative Incentives

From time to time, keep your fans engaged with fun promotions. That mayinclude contests, offers, games, vouchers, codes and more.

Arby’s recently rolled out a clever campaign to celebrate its 48th anniversary. The company added a nifty retro-style coupon as a Milestone way back in the year 1964 (the year the company was founded) on its Facebook Timeline page.

Visitors to Arby’s Facebook page were encouraged to click on the beginning of its Timeline to get a coupon for a Classic Roast Beef sandwich at the 1960s price of $0.64.

Coupons could only be redeemed on July 23, the company’s anniversary date.

The post announcing that the coupon was coming got over 2,600 shares and the poston July 23 got over 3,000 shares. Both posts received thousands of likes and hundreds of comments.

This was a wonderful opportunity for Arby’s fans to play a ‘treasure hunt’ game of sorts, and clearly yielded significant engagement.

Jo Ann Herold, VP of communications and public relations at Arby’s Restaurant Group, said,

“One of our goals for this promotion was to increase engagement and entice sharing, so we wanted everyone to explore our Timeline and have access to the coupon.”

The promotion was also featured on Instagram and Twitter, both directing people to Arby’s Facebook page.

Simple campaign, yes? What can you take away from this idea?

It’s perfectly within Facebook’s Terms of Use to do a giveaway on your fan page. The rule of thumb is does everyone get one? If the answer is yes, you’re good to go—that’s a giveaway. If the answer is no because you’re drawing select winners, then that’s a promotion where you must adhere to Facebook’s Promotions guidelines and use an app to administer the contest/sweepstakes. More on that here.

#2: Post Highly Shareable Content

You might be familiar with the expression “Facebook candy.” This is the type ofcontent that Facebook users get very excited about and immediately want to share with all of their friends.

Your own Facebook news feed is likely peppered with such candy!

This is almost always an image, which tends to get a higher EdgeRank (more news feed visibility). And often, the images contain inspirational or motivational quotes along with an eye-catching photo.

My friend JB Glossinger does a great job of posting consistent shareable content. The interesting thing is JB frequently shares what I call “OPC”—other people’s content.

And, JB’s team engages well with his community (see below).

JB has a daily podcast and has grown his subscribers considerably through his highly engaging Facebook page.

For more on this topic, see this post: 7 Ways to Craft Your Facebook Posts for Maximum Shares.

I’ve compiled a Facebook Interest List, Facebook Candy to Inspire, featuring 83 fun sources of content to share. (Let me know in the comments below if you have any fan pages to suggest for this list!)

Could your content use a bit of a boost? How many images do you post vs. links? The latter does tend to get much more visibility!

#3: Build a Tight Community

Some Facebook pages just seem to have a knack for building a real community—onewhere visitors and fans often engage with one another and there is much peer support.

Plus, you can feel the page owners’ presence. They don’t just use their Facebook page as a one-way broadcast channel.

Bridal Hotspot page owner Sylvana Spiby stated on this post that she can’t remember the last time her engagement rate (ER) was lower than 100%.

Now that’s saying something! Given that the average ER for most brands and businesses is a mere 2%!

To calculate your own engagement—or that of any fan page—here’s the formula:

(PTAT / Likes)*100, where PTAT is “people talking about this.”

This is the most common and quick way to calculate ER.

The screenshot below shows an example of an ER over 100%. This is Modern Parent‘s fan page:

However, there’s also per-post engagement rate which is:

(Likes + Comments + Shares on a given day) / # of wall posts made by page on a given day / Total fans on a given day)*100

On Bridal Hotspot’s fan page, Sylvana responds to ALL posts by others, always has a warm and personal style and often uses people’s first names. Plus, something else that stood out for me: she encourages others to share their own content… even if he/she could potentially be a competitor!

Do you have an active community on Facebook? Are you or someone on your team consistently responding to fans’ posts and comments?

#4: Have a Quirky Brand

Have you seen the Dollar Shave Club‘s comic marketing video featuring CEO Michael Dubin’s dry humor? It’s exceptionally well done and currently has well over 5.5 Million views on YouTube!

The Dollar Shave Club is an innovative concept where members pay a small monthly fee to receive razors by mail. That’s it—super-simple and highly successful!

The company culture is clearly fun, quirky and creative, and this spills over onto the company’s Facebook page, too. Although DSC doesn’t post that often on its fan page, the fans post regularly… and they frequently get a personal response by DSC admins.

The company involves fans with giveaways such as flasks, t-shirts and “handsome-ass bottlekeys!” Fans can participate via Twitter and DSC’s blog, too.

Along with a hilarious marketing video and quirky brand, this company clearly filled a niche that people didn’t know they needed, and as such the company has built a cult-like following.

Even though he doesn’t shave often, Sir Richard Branson was so impressed he felt compelled to blog about this fun company! See also this writeup on Inc.com. (I first discovered the DSC in an article in the July 2012 Inc. Magazine.)

How can you add humor and maybe a wee bit more quirkiness to your brandand Facebook engagement? People LOVE to be entertained!

And, when you mix entertainment and education, you get edutainment. Social Media Examiner’s own community manager, Andrea Vahl, has an alter ego as a fun social media edutatiner, Grandma Mary.

#5: Be a Beloved Personality

Last, but by no means least, is the inimitable George Takei. He’s really in a league of his own on Facebook!

George is a widely recognized actor, starring in some 40+ feature films and hundreds of television shows. But, he is probably best known for his portrayal of Mr. Sulu in the acclaimed television and film series, Star Trek.

On Facebook, George seems to have an incredible knack for posting extremely viral content—his fans just can’t wait to share the next nugget of wit.

At any given time, George frequently has an engagement rate GREATER than 100%. At the time of writing this post, per the screenshot below, the ER is 135%. (Remember, the average is just 2%.)

Almost all of George’s posts are fun and quirky Facebook candy. Notice that the majority of his posts are photos and he typically posts a very short (humorous) narrative, both factors in getting higher news feed visibility and engagement rates.

What we can learn from George and the way he’s built his Facebook community is that he is extremely consistent. He posts around 3-5 times per day, every day. And, in terms of driving his fans to action, George does get the word out about the upcoming musical Allegiance, in which he stars (and was inspired by his family’s experience).

Nonetheless, aside from being a celeb, you can definitely take away from factor #5 how it’s important to give your fans plenty of excellent content on a regular basis that they just love.

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What Do Facebook Users Expect from Brands?

Posted by TJ Goulet on Dec 18, 2012 in Advertising, Branding, Content Marketing, Marketing, Multifamily, Multifamily Marketing, Resident Communication, Resident Places, Social Media | Comments Off

Facebook users have both positive and negative expectations when “liking” a brand

Companies are often on the hunt for more “likes” for their Facebook pages, hoping to get more brand advocates and social media fans. However only 42% of US Facebook users think marketers should interpret a “like” in that way.

This data comes from a June 2011 study from ExactTarget, “Subscribers, Fans and Followers: The Meaning of Like,” which found that 25% of US Facebook users disagree that marketers should interpret “like” to mean they are a fan or advocate of the company.

Facebook users themselves have some preconceived notions about what to expect when they “like” a company on the site, and among those who do not become brand fans, many are negative. More than half of users expect to be bombarded with messages or ads (54%), while 45% do not want to give companies access to profile information and 31% do not want to push content from a company into friends’ newsfeeds. These possibilities have prevented users from making brand connections on the social networking giant.

On the flip side, many US Facebook users also have certain expectations of perks they should get after following a company’s Facebook page.

The ExactTarget study found that 58% of US Facebook users expect to gain access to exclusive content, events or sales after “liking” a company, while 58% also expect to receive discounts or promotions. Additionally 47% expect to see updates about the company, person or organization they “liked” in their newsfeed, which bodes well for brands as they work to have their content always show up for their followers.

Additionally, younger consumers, ExactTarget found, have fewer expectations and generally “like” brands as a form of expression, not to get certain perks. Meanwhile, older consumers want something of value for “liking” a brand. By listening to what their target fanbase wants out of the Facebook relationship, marketers can get more interaction on their page and encourage more people to “like” rather than avoid brands on Facebook.

 

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How to Develop Customer Evangelists

Posted by TJ Goulet on May 22, 2012 in Advertising, Branding, Content Marketing, Marketing, Multifamily, Multifamily Marketing, Social Media | Comments Off

When you have evangelists for your product or service, you have the best possible kind of customer. Your evangelists are passionate, loyal, and thrilled to recommend you. They are communicators — when it matters. They are your public defenders when times are difficult. Evangelists are also forgiving. They assume your mistakes are honest. They believe you have their best interests at heart. Best of all, evangelists are hyper-repeat customers.

If you agree with the above then you’ll probably agree with the following. No matter what business you are in – large or small, product or service, public or private – you should be doing everything humanly possible to develop these kinds of customers.

With a critical mass of evangelists, you can succeed in unimaginable ways. Companies like Apple andAmazon are proof of this. Netflix also enjoys evangelists (Remember how evangelists are forgiving? If they weren’t, Netflix would be out of business). So, if you want to develop the kind of evangelists that stick by your side through thick and thin, here are three critical steps.

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Customer Insights

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First, you must develop deep insights about your buyers. This is the single most important activity you can undertake to create powerful marketing. Start by conducting qualitative interviews with your customers, prospective customers, and even your competitions’ customers. You want to know what they think, what they want, and how they use your product or service.

 

This activity is so critical because your most effective messaging comes from your market. If you do this right, your will gather language that you know resonates strongly with your customers because it comes from your customers.

Sure, Steve Jobs famously said it’s not the customers’ job to know what they want. He could say that because he had an unparalleled instinct about what customers want. Everybody else — us included — needs to be talking to customers, asking them strategic questions to uncover the most effective messaging.

Amazon enjoys uncommon access to customers’ feedback via its consumer reviews. And Netflix certainly has received its share of customer feedback over the last year. To the company’s credit, it has actually listened when it abandoned its terrible idea of spinning off Qwikster. However, the company could have avoided every one of its mistakes over the past year by simply talking to its customers. That Netflix was surprised by the consumer outcry that followed its actions is nothing short of negligence. There is no excuse for not knowing exactly how customers will react to something you are about to do. To find out, all you have to do is ask.

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Emotional Marketing Language

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Once you have customer insights, you use them to develop simple, emotional, lifestyle-oriented marketing language. No matter what you do, you are in the life-improvement business. If your work is in the business-to-business space, your language must focus on how you improve the condition of your clients. Not technical specifications. Not features. Just simple, salient statements.

 

For example, you do not make Airplay wireless speakers, rather, you bring beautiful music into people’s homes and hearts without wires.

You are not a social media marketer. You make your clients’ dreams come true by dramatically increasing their sales.

You are not in the cloud business. You protect the precious, priceless memories of people’s lives.

This may sound like basic marketing 101, but take a look around. Is any technology company besides Apple and Amazon talking like this? Even public relations agencies and social media outlets, which are in the business of helping clients connect with customers in effective ways, tend to tout their process and technique.

Here’s the bottom line: most customers don’t care about the steps you take to improve their life. All they want know is how you’ll improve it. So, tell them!

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Proper Platforms

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Finally, you must communicate this effective messaging on the proper platforms. Here is a list of good ones and forgotten ones:

 

• 1. A long list of your customers. Names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses.
• 2. A long list of your competitions’ customers. If you have good lists you can communicate directly with that market.
• 3. Powerful relationships with earned media resources: bloggers, writers, editors, producers, etc.
• 4. Social media.
• 5. Your product package. It’s generally an overlooked opportunity to communicate to potential customers how you can improve their lives.
• 6. Your product manual is generally useless. Product manuals should be filled with success stories: how various features and uses of your product or service has improved the lives of real people.

There are many more, but the above list is a good place to start. Once you develop evangelists, you must work hard to simply maintain them. In fact, you must continue to innovate your products and your marketing just to maintain your position of success. Need proof? Research in Motion used to have evangelists. So did Best Buy.

If you stop aggressively doing the things that made you successful, the world will pass you by in three seconds. It’s not difficult to create evangelists — you simply have to do the work that most businesses do not do: gather qualitative insights from your market; use simple, emotional language; and communicate it from the right platforms. Do that, and your competition will be an easy crowd to stand out among.

via How to Develop Customer Evangelists

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Facebook to Marketers, It’s Time for a Click to Action | TechCrunch

Posted by TJ Goulet on May 14, 2012 in Advertising, Branding, Content Marketing, Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Multifamily, Multifamily Marketing, Social Media | Comments Off

You Like me…you really Like me. Wait. Maybe you don’t really Like me after all. According to our Facebook engagement metrics, only 1% of you actually react when we post. So, to keep the numbers up, our team posts more often, asks questions, runs polls, curates content, introduces more and more contests, and asks for your help to submit your pics and videos as part of our “user-generated” content campaigns. We measure success by the Likes, comments, shares, the number of conversations, and reach. While the Likes are rising, we’re starting to recognize the pattern…I guess we never really defined why you should “Like” us beyond the initial click. We just took for granted that a Like equated to an opt-in.

This general scenario is more common than you may think. That’s all about to change however. Marketers must now rethink their Facebook strategy to define click paths and results. As Josh Constine recently reported, Facebook is now giving advertisers access to its API to improve post-click actions. In his post, Constine walks through a series of various scenarios for brands, developers and also local businesses to take advantage of the new Ads API. Here, we’ll talk more about how to start with strategy.

With the updated Ads API, advertisers must now think beyond the “Like.” Facebook’s Ads API will allow advertisers to present ads most likely to take specific post-click action such as content sharing, in-app purchases, Facebook Offers, among a list of other actions (see below). In the great pursuit of ROI, Facebook is also taking a lot of the guesswork out of ad campaign development and deployment to enhance desired performance. The new improvements give Facebook advertisers an unprecedented opportunity to connect with specific market segments based on intelligence to introduce more informed campaigns that trigger relevant clicks, conversions, and return.

What does “more informed” actually mean? Facebook is studying the behavior of its consumer population and as it does, it will provide deeper insights to brands seeking specific actions, such as those who are more likely to be a virtual good buyer, someone who actively shares content, who attends events, individuals who appreciate deals and offers. Over time, ads can be optimized for audiences based on this behavior as well. As such, brands must not only compete for attention and clicks, but also context and relevance based on behavior and preferences.

For brands and agencies, advertising based on keywords is no longer good enough. Now that you have a better shot at reaching the right people based on behavior, advertisers must now also become architects of experiences and outcomes.

Now advertisers can specifically optimize for…

1. People talking about this page
2. Page likes
3. Page post likes
4. Page post comments
5. Page post shares
6. @ mentions
7. Check-ins
8. Photo tags
9. Offers shared
10. Offers claimed
11. App installs
12. App used
13. Credit spend events (number of times someone uses credits in the app)
14. Credit spend amount (value of credits that were spent in the app)
15. Number of RSVPs

This is a click to action…

Designing campaigns now require brands and advertisers to think about the “click to action” they want to encourage. I refer to this as the A.R.T. of Engagement, where brands intentionally design campaigns to provoke relevant actions, reactions, and transactions. To take advantage of Facebook’s API, brands must now employ sophisticated advertising approaches that combine segment and contextual research, segment-specific strategies, app and channel development for each approach, UX, creative design, and real-time conversion metrics, review and optimization.

It’s more than Likes or forcing people through Like-gated apps or campaigns. Now it’s about performance and conversion science where…

1) Contextually relevant content appears in front of qualified and desirable audiences that…

2) Triggers a defined, useful action that…

3) Leads to optimized click paths that result in material content or activity, which then…

4) Motivates conversions to preferred outcomes and…

5) Delivers a more integrated, consistent, and efficient experience.

To engage more effectively through Facebook’s social advertising platform requires that all strategies and campaigns commence with a stated purpose. I believe that the best way to outline these scenarios is to begin with the end in mind and work backwards from there. By starting with the end in mind, the ability to research desired behavior and who to reach as a result becomes incredibly clear…and also inspiring.

The dimensions of engagement you’ll need to define are 1) what are you trying to accomplish, 2) what the experience looks/feels like, 3) what benefits you’ll offer and what they mean to the people you’re trying to reach, 4) the desirable outcomes you wish to measure, 5) How people feel as a result of the A.R.T. experiences you evoke, and 6) What the experience will look like in the most prominent channels of your connected customers.

This is why you’re now an architect of experiences and outcomes. It takes vision. It takes design. It takes measurement and optimization. The A.R.T. of Engagement is realized through a Social Experience Framework that starts with intentions and ends with resulting sentiment…not just the outcome.

There’s an old saying, “it’s not the gift that counts, it’s the thought behind it.” The same is true for social advertising, marketing and well, business overall. Intentions count for everything. Therefore your intentions must be realized as experiences where technology serves as the enabler to creatively and contextually engage to create experiences that meet or exceed expectations and ultimately inspire desirable outcomes.

Facebook to Marketers, It’s Time for a Click to Action | TechCrunch.

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Snapshot: Social Media Marketing Industry Report | Social Media Marketing

Posted by TJ Goulet on May 13, 2012 in Advertising, Content Marketing, Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Multifamily, Multifamily Marketing, Social Media | Comments Off

Snapshot: Social Media Marketing Industry Report

For a lot of companies worldwide, moving their marketing to the social Web has got to be the most important decision they’ve made. Indeed it is, with all the benefits of leveraging on social media marketing tactics offering to make their businesses thrive online and get ahead of the competition. Because of this, more and more companies are getting onboard the online marketing train, learning the ropes, and finding the best ways to use the social Web’s real-time capabilities to achieve their goals.

An infographic published by VA Simple Services titled 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report: Key Findings, lists down a rundown of important facts. For starters, it says that spending more time on social media platforms helps brands understand the medium and, therefore, can easily provide insights which are essential in planning social media campaigns, and ensuring they are effectively targeting accomplishing their objectives.

And with the social Web’s real-time capabilities and varied features, it should not be much of a surprise that the brand’s business exposure online is the biggest benefit businesses are reaping from their social media uses.  Here, Facebook tops the list of most used social media sites, unsurprisingly followed by Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs and YouTube.

Snapshot: Social Media Marketing Industry Report | Social Media Marketing.

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