5 ways to connect better on your Facebook page

Marketing used to be about “reach and frequency”. Today, it is about the relationship you are able to build with your customer that organically leads to new relationships. Sure reach and frequency can still play a role, but people will always buy from people and brands that they build trust with, and they will respond to recommendations that people they trust offer. So why use Facebook for marketing?

When Facebook rose to the forefront of marketers minds, a lot talked about how they can connect with new people and expand their marketing. A successful campaign in social media was all about increasing fans, so that they can see your updates about your latest product sale.

After countless debates on the ROI of social media, I’m here to tell you: Bad social media delivers poor ROI. Good social media delivers ROI that can be measured (contrary to what many social media mavens might say) People are not going to visit your Facebook page because your content is “really compelling”. Facebook is about the relationship, and relationships are therefore measurable when it comes to your business. In other words, when creating a Facebook marketing campaign, don’t think “how can we attract new customers with Facebook?” but rather think “How can use Facebook to connect better with our current customers?”. Then think about how you can nurture these relationships and gain new business.

This thinking is also going to lead you to thinking about more than status updates. In fact, the activity of your “fans” on Facebook is more important than your company’s activity. Here’s are 5 tactics you can use to bring your Facebook page to life.

1. Create an offline Strategy: Your Facebook page is not an island, it is an opportunity. How about passing out cards – inviting people to download free coupons from your Facebook page. If people respond, it’s because they are a perfect match for your business, and you’ve just increased their purchasing frequency.

2. Ask – Use Crowd-sourcing: Let’s say you are a car dealer looking to increase the connection to customers (this is a joke because car dealers notoriously reject meaningful marketing in exchange for interruptive marketing). Ask customers to tell you how their experience was by uploading a picture of them and their new ride. Offer a free oil change or car wash.

3. Use apps: There are hundreds of apps available for a variety of uses on Facebook. You can use apps to make your Facebook page into a destination for Videos, Contests, Shopping, Email Signup, Games and so much more. The fact is, if your Facebook page is fun, I’ll be back and I’ll tell my friends.

4 Reward your best customers: Sometimes a little thank you really makes a difference. The people that are the most engaged with your Facebook page are often the people that are the most interested in or committed to your brand. How about offering a gift card for people that share your contest or post on your wall? Integrating special promotions with email marketing allows you to get really targeted with this.

5. Make it exclusive: Are you a band? How about a free song download for Facebook fans only? Running a contest? Why not give everyone a special offer or coupon ‘just for entering’. This way, even for those who think they may not win, it’s still worth something, right?

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redwall LIVE is an Indianapolis Marketing Company that creates compelling campaigns that make your Facebook Page come alive. We would love to offer a free consultation if you would like to consider how you can turn Facebook into a revenue generating machine for your business.

Google+ vs Facebook and what Google needs to do to succeed

Google+ (say: goo goal pluss) is the social media “answer to Facebook” from one of the largest online companies in the world. Even though Google is a huge entity and they own the lion share of the search market, they still have an uphill battle to be a success in social media.

Some of the interesting things that Google is offering such as “circles” and “group video chat” might make Google+ an interesting product, but Facebook is where people are already comfortable and already connected. In Social Media success, it’s not about who’s better, it’s about who gets the attention of the users better. For example, someone I know would say that Gowalla is better than Foursquare, and I would agree if user interface and design is our primary focus. Foursquare has 5 times the users according to this article in Fast Company. Is it because of their product? I don’t think so. Foursquare has had greater success because of their method of connecting with new users as well as their process of marketing, not because their product is superior.

Believe me, Google+ is coming up with some cool stuff, pictured here. I think these features will attract some users -especially if executed well, and that’s what I would like to talk about.

Where I think Google+ needs to excel to make a successful social network is based on their process of marketing . To create a product that stands a chance to compete against Facebook -the fact that they have an HTML5 product may make them superior in some ways, but it is not what will bring more users. The way that they bring them in is what matters. Here are two things I think are critical factors at hand for Google+ to compete with Facebook.

(1) SOCIALLY COMPELLING REASON TO JOIN: Facebook brilliantly started with the exclusivity of being for specific college communities only. That exclusivity allowed people to have a common reason of why it mattered to be on Facebook (it was a similar common ground that attracted me to Foursquare). After this, it eventually grew to an “everybody but you is on Facebook” mentality which brought people into the network so as to not be left out. The fact is, if it was “everybody but you” in your Euchre group, that same “don’t miss out” attraction draws new users just as much as “everyone in the world”.

(2) NATURAL DRAW TO SOCIAL CONTENT: Google is a part of our everyday life. Gmail is a widely used email tool for example. This is not to mention any of their other popular products. For Google+ to succeed, they are going to have to make the social features a natural part of the experience of their other products. For example, if a Gmail user sends another Gmail user an email, they should be prompted with a one click option to connect with them on Google+. They are off to a good start with the coming Google+1 button in search results, but how will the search results display my friends search interests? What level of control will I have, without making it tediously manual? What if I don’t want people to know I am interested in midget racing, but I do want you to see what restaurants and products I purchase or recommend? Will the social feed elements show up in search results – such as picture sharing? It sure better!

We’ll see what Google+ comes up with, the “invite only” beta worked for several of Google’s products, we’ll see if it works with Google+. I’m looking for more right now.

Twitter is More Advanced than Facebook (Think #NewTwitter)

So over the course of the last few weeks I’ve been watching the beginning of the New Twitter web interface. I’ve determined that the social network is more advanced and more useful than facebook. Using #NewTwitter as the point of reference, the functionality and speed of their new web interface out performs not only the old interface but the current structure of facebook. While facebook has tremendous value to users, it is limited to itself… more on that in a moment.

Now let me lay a foundation by saying that this is a marketing blog and not a tech blog or social media blog. So from a marketing standpoint, twitter is extremely useful. Twitter has begun to explain their advertising model, which makes it a viable outlet for marketers all over the world. I’m confident they will continue to work out new ways of creating engaging advertising. In the mean time one of their best models is promoted tweets. These tweets are currently showing in trending lists and in feeds when relevant. The fact is according to their website they will make sure that ads are relevant and that resonate with the user. Twitter.com describes it this way:

We strongly believe that Promoted Tweets should be useful to you. We’ll attempt to measure whether the Tweets resonate with users and stop showing Promoted Tweets that don’t resonate.

The reason why this is key is because simply another ad may or may not get my attention, by when it is modeled for interaction it is meaningful. This model will continue to grow and change, but I think they are on a great path.

Why Twitter is More Advanced than Facebook: Facebook is a fantastic social networking tool, and they have done a great job of making the user interface into a brand. The “Like” button has become a recognized staple of many websites as they’ve integrated the portability of it. Facebook however is primarily limited to itself. Facebook is Facebook.com.

Discovery: Twitter allows you to discover new things and new people. Twitter is becoming a big player in search, and is even a relevant factor to google search rankings. This makes the value of twitter extend well beyond the platform itself. People are searching for many things, and conversations are part of that.

Open Source: Twitter has operated on open API for quite some time now, which has allowed apps like Tweetdeck, Hootsuite and Seesmic to make the tool more useful for social connection as well as other uses. Forget about the fact that the site and it’s functions run faster, the open API has allowed an open collaboration of people learning how to use the tool the way they want to. The open source model has essentially allowed third party apps to help shape what twitter is becoming.

Innovative and Personalized Use: At the redwall LIVE : Experiential Marketing office we have an account that is purely for internal communications. It is following and followed by our team only and mobile is turned on for this. What does this do for us? Well it’s very simple, if you have to tell the team anything: (On my way, going to be late, last minute client call, special memos about bathroom policies at the office) you simply for to your android phone, load up the hootsuite mobile app and send the tweet. Everyone gets it by text and the message is distributed. Let me simply state that this is not revolutionary, it is simply our team using the software to work for us. With an open source developer API, many many more advanced uses will be developed. Some already exist.

Facebook Crashes for Several Minutes, World Waits

So in this world of social media and internet dependency, people are integrating more and more of their lives into the web,… or should I say more and more of the web into their lives?

Yesterday Facebook was unavailable for a really, really long time – perhaps 15-20 minutes. It seemed like an eternity to some who have developed a dependence on the technology. People on twitter were cracking jokes about how they hadn’t even offered us some form of a fail whale to make us feel better (as if they are working on it). It was just down. A question was posed in our office by Adam Bocik our Creative Director said “What do you think their office is like right now?”. I said Mark Zuckerberg is probably turning over tables – based on the way he is depicted in the movie The Social Network.

The New York Times said yesterday:

At  one point in “The Social Network,” Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg proclaims that it would be a disaster if the social networking site he co-founded ever went down. Well, today Center Networks and various other tech and news sites are reporting that Facebook is apparently currently down, at least for many users in the United States and other parts of the world.

In all seriousness, how important is social media to our lives? How important will it become? I tend to agree with Gary Vaynerchuk who predicts that Facebook will become in essence the drivers license of the future. Twitter may be the primary tool for sharing instant information, company memos, etc. Tools like Hootsuite might become more important as people create different accounts for different types of information.

The fact is people often say Social Media as synonymous with advertising or marketing when in fact, I am excited about the future of these tools as more practical communication and not only social or a marketing tool.

So I have two questions for you:

1. How dependent will we get on Facebook, twitter or other Social Media Tools?

2. What is your prediction of Social Media and it’s uses?