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All blogs and articles on Facebook
Yesterday, we had the distinct pleasure to present our Essentials to Digital Marketing to the Mid Jersey Chamber of Commerce. Our presentation covered SEO, Social Media, Reputation Management as well as some of the best content management systems to build on.
The the number two website in the world is Facebook with one billion user worldwide. Naturally, with so much website traffic, the ads on Facebook can be a worthwhile investment for any business local or Fortune 500. One of the best ways to set up a Facebook ad campaign is to build a campaign that builds upon itself so that not only are you building audience, but you are also building awareness of your posts so more people see them and potentially click and visit your site.
Start with the basics
The first and most important thing in building a Facebook campaign is to understand your core audience and your own business. Are you selling online and shipping in the U.S.? Are you a bricks and mortar store only selling product in a certain zip code or area? What are you selling and in what industry? Who are your core customers? Women? Young? Single? etc. Once you understand what you are selling and to whom you can start setting up a Facebook campaign.
Step 1 - Build Audience
The first thing to do is build an audience. It doesn't matter if you have the world's greatest post if you don't have someone to see it. So the start of any Facebook campaign is to build your core audience of people who are interested in what you have to say. Facebook makes this pretty easy to do.
Your campaign will take about ten minutes to get approved. In the mean time you can start building your awareness of your messaging.
Step 2 - Build Awareness
Once you have a audience building campaign set up, it's also time to set up a campaign that is able to show your posts to your audience. While your posts are able to get organic views within the Facebook News Feed, it can be advantageous to have your posts viewed along the left hand side of Facebook as well. This will not only show your posts to your audience but their friends as well. Again, Facebook makes this pretty easy to do.
Using this step means that you should be posting to Facebook once per day. This can be done using the Facebook scheduling feature, which allows you to set a number of posts six months into the future.
You can let your Facebook ad campaign run on auto pilot, checking it every week and making some adjustments. Using this method will not only help you build your audience but also build awareness of your brand and create a large and engaged audience.
Our most popular blog continues to be how can a business like a another business on Facebook. We continue to get questions as well. In order to help demonstrate how a business can like another business on Facebook we have recorded a quick how to video and posted it to YouTube.
If you're a businessperson looking to create some type of online presence to take advantage of the quickly growing (and already massive!) Internet market, then perhaps your first step should be to create a Facebook brand page. Now, a lot of people still like to pretend that Facebook isn't number-one in every category that matters. They still preach about Twitter and LinkedIn and other networks.
Okay. So, you can create other pages, too; nothing's there to stop you. In fact, it's recommended that you build up a social network if you plan on participating in social networking. It's a great thing for your brand. But just remember that Facebook shouldn't be neglected. It's the biggest social media site in existence, and it's at the top of the heap for quite a few good reasons.
So, before you build a page and start developing posts and ads for Facebook, take a few minutes to understand exactly why you should be creating a brand page. Then you'll understand the importance of social networking by understanding just how massive, connected and appealing a site like Facebook is.
5 Reasons to Create a Facebook Brand Page
1: Facebook Connects to Everything/Everything Connects to Facebook
Well, for sticklers out there, “everything” may not be a literal truth. But in terms of things social-minded people do online, Facebook shares a connection with them all. From blogging and using YouTube to checking-in with Foursquare or pinning a Pinterest, Facebook can interlink everything. That also goes for your Google, Twitter, etc, etc. Essentially, Facebook can act as your marketing hub, driving traffic effectively to and from any destination. It's a very innovative, well connected site.
2: People Spend Huge Chunks of Time on Facebook
As of 2012, the average Facebook user was spending six hours and thirty-three minutes on the site every month, according to ComScore. The next closest social networking competitor? Tumblr., coming in at a meager (in comparison) one hour thirty-eight minutes per month. And the people who are browsing Facebook aren't just flippantly clicking through memes and ex-girlfriends' statuses. They're sharing material, liking posts, commenting, following people and brands, and engaging with multiple aspects of the site.
3: The Audience is Tremendous, and Still Growing
This is a statistic that's impossible to ignore. Facebook has around one billion users. That's a 1, followed by 9 zeroes. And that is an amazing amount of people; roughly 14% of the entire planet's population. Just imagine how Facebook is going to look in 2023, a quick ten years down the road. Then think of how the Internet used to look 2003, ten years previous. Yeah... wow. A brand wishing to be successful and to reach a mobile, active audience needs a Facebook presence to compete.
4: On Facebook, Sharing is Caring
One of the most appealing aspects for a Facebook user, the ability to share, is also one of the best things that could happen for a brand using the site. People love to use Facebook in order to share interesting material with their friends. Some also love to search specifically for sharable material or specifically for helpful material. For a brand offering high-quality, relevant material to your niche, your material is far more likely to be shared. This is free advertising, increased exposure, and potentially a much higher total ROI all from playing into the social context of the site.
5: Facebook is a Tool of Emotional Provocation
As a brand, you're undoubtedly searching for the right audience for your Facebook ad. As basic social users, however, most of Facebook's audience is looking for something else. They're emotionally drawn to Facebook in a lot of cases, taking seriously the opportunities to post status updates, to air grievances, to interact with friends, etc. This works out well for you if you can only put your brand in their face in such a way that you cater to their needs. The audience isn't going to seek you out, but if you can seek it out, the click-happy, engaging nature of the Facebook user will take over.
Time and again statistics show that Facebook is the biggest thing in social media, yet a lot of brands don't quite understand how to harness the power of the site. It all starts with understanding why people use Facebook and what you can offer to someone using the site. Figure that out, you can build a thorough audience that remains highly engaged.
Today, Facebook announced that it will start rolling out search. On first glance this might not seem like such a big deal, after all there already is a nice little search box on Facebook already. However, graph search is an entirely different search for things on Facebook.
Presently the Facebook search box does one thing well, it helps you search for friends or people you might want to friend. It helps you answer the question, what ever happened to______? Once we find those people we are able to connect with them and start to share our lives. The next step in that relationship is going to be powered by Facebook search. And it let's you ask A LOT more questions
What graph search will be able to do (so we are told) is to search though all your friends activities from when they have been on Facebook and come up with a list of things you may be looking for. Think about it this way, it makes everything you and your friends and their friends' activities searchable and discoverable. For example:
The search results that come back are the recommendations within Facebook. Unlike Google that redirects you to another site from its search results, Facebook wants to keep you in their walled garden a little longer. Also, all of the information in Facebook is not publicly available and is unique to you and your circle of friends which may make it a better source of "local" knowledge than Yelp or Google.
Facebook is making a big bet that the data they have been collecting will be able to inform those searches. If the search comes up empty, then Bing which is a Facebook partner will search the web. My guess is that more most things it will not come up empty. They just have too much information on what people have done over the last few years.
What this means for marketers and business is still a little foggy as the product is brand new and will likely be improved in the months and years to come. However, what we can surmise, is that marketers and business that have invested in Facebook should be rewarded early as they will appear in search results and most likely higher in each result based on likes, the posts they made, check-ins and recommendations. Those businesses that have not invested or ignored their social media are going to be forced to play catch up in a hurry so they can get ranked in Facebook searches.
It is not surprising given the number of ex Googlers at Facebook that they have made search a priority. Over the next couple years, this search will improve. What any business should keep in mind is that just like SEO for a website, they will need to be vigilant about their social media and particularly Facebook. Ensuring you spend time on Facebook every day or pay someone to do it for you will ensure your business is found soon via Facebook.
Because your customers care. Your competition probably cares about it, too. For companies of any size and most life-stages, public relations is something businesses should not ignore.
Public relations can do so much for a company, and yet, like social media, larger companies may see PR as an alternative to what they can already afford in advertising. (It is not an alternative to advertising.) PR is better than advertising. (Yes, I'm probably a bit biased.) It may take a bit more creativity and elbow grease, but the rewards and benefits of PR far outweigh advertising or marketing activities.
The tangible evidence of reduced costs is probably the one most used when trying to create advocates for PR, but there are more, intangible results that a PR team/firm can share with its company/client. Those are:
I think you get the point. How does PR attain the above? By being the contact person of the company. By being aware of customers online. By being responsive to those customers online. And by being truthful, transparent, and engaging. With things like social media use, press releases, websites, blogs, etc., companies can be more connected with their buyers online, be more personable, and more personified.
As has been said time and time again, PR is more trustworthy than advertising. However, with the changes in technology, companies are more in control of their PR and are able to be more involved in the public relations process. In the past, companies were reliant on the media to cover them in a publication, and that was PR. This sort of PR was more credible than advertising because it was coming from another source.
The same is true today: advertising doesn't instill credibility or trust. In fact, it can often do the opposite. See the comments here about Toyota's attempts to rebuild its brand after their safety fiasco. What was a valiant effort to say "we're making a change" came across as a rather money-wasting endeavor. Had they simply shared with others, done interviews, and communicated with their customers online about this change in spending to increase safety, WOM (word of mouth) may have done more for them than a costly TV ad.
Even though Toyota (and BP) can afford advertisements, showing us the difference in ways other than a TV ad (like through PR) can be much more successful, and much more trustworthy. (BP's ads don't make me trust them more; it makes me wonder, "Why tell me you're doing something, instead of simply doing it?")
As can be seen above, public relations today involves more things than simply getting mentioned in a publication. It involves social media, where a company can represent itself and be its own identity there. Companies can also have a blog, where they write about their company, their industry, etc., and try to set themselves apart from the crowd as a trusted source of information. This is also referred to as the process of positioning oneself as an authoritative figure. Over time, if you write on a subject, share information, or offer advice, people being to trust you and see you as a knowledgeable, go-to source
Looking to schedule one or more Facebook statuses to appear on your page’s wall at another date and time? Thanks to Facebook’s recent scheduling feature, page administrators can now schedule as many updates as they want to be posted at a past or a future date. For administrators, this tool can greatly reduce the amount of time that they must spend on Facebook each week, as well as ensure that statuses updates are posted regularly- which is essential to a business on Facebook.
The scheduling button is a clock icon located in the bottom-left corner of the status update screen. When you click on the button, you will first see an option to choose the appropriate year. Once a year is chosen, you can select a month, and date. For future dates you can also select a given time for the status to be posted.
If you wish to backdate a post, you would do the same, except you will not be given the option to choose a specific time. However, for backdated statuses Facebook allows you the option to hide your post from the newsfeed.
You can check your scheduled posts by using the activity log. To do this, click the “Edit Page” dropdown menu at the upper-right hand corner of the page. Then choose the “Use Activity Log” option. From here, you can edit the time that an update is scheduled to be posted, or you can delete a post.
Social media continues to grow in an evolving technological society. At this point, 60 percent of Americans use some kind of social media. At the forefront of social media is Facebook. The company recently boasted that it now has over one billion users worldwide. Businesses do not necessarily need to purchase ads in order to reap the marketing benefits of Facebook. By creating a fan page, businesses can increase their exposure, and become more engaging to customers without spending a dime. So why have some companies been slow to adapt to Facebook?
Some companies remain skeptical because the platform is such a shift from traditional marketing, and they are not yet seeing a return on their investment. What they are not seeing is that Facebook can greatly enhance a company’s popularity, as well as increase visibility. Through creating a fan page, companies have the advantage of being able to engage their customers on a regular basis. Businesses will receive feedback, and gain an important insight as to what their customers want. This information is free, and can really benefit a company.
A recent study found that 72 percent of companies that use social media do not have a clear strategy on these platforms. An important aspect of using Facebook is regularly updating the page with interesting posts, and links. When posting this content, businesses will see users like, share, and comment on their posts. As more and more Facebook users share their posts, a business will continue to gain popularity, and exposure. As a post gets shared, it will begin to appear on other users’ news feeds.
There are three important factors that allow users to see content in their news feed.
When you increase your likes, and comments on Facebook you’re also developing a fan base. Some users might even be seeing your company on Facebook for the very first time. As a post gains more likes, and comments it will show up on more users’ news feeds. This is why it is very important that the content posted is engaging, and interesting for users.
Facebook is also an important SEO tool, and can be used to increase a company’s page rank on search engines like Google, or Bing. When businesses post content, it is important to regularly include links back to the company website. These links can that get indexed, and move a company up the search rankings.
While a company can spend money to advertise on Facebook, they may be getting just as much out of the site by creating a fan page. As long as content is posted regularly, and is interesting and informative to users, a company can largely increase its exposure.
The other day we were contacted by a company on the opposite coast who requested help with their SEO process and Social Media needs for an entire product line they will be launching shortly.
When I asked them how they found us, they said we just searched on Google. Hmmm, great, what exactly did you search on I asked? Ummm I don’t remember was the reply, just some stuff about help with social media I guess.
Now being in the business of getting found on search knowing exactly what someone types that finds you in search is important, right? Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps it was timing based on Googles indexing – right search at the right time. Perhaps we matched on some keyword that was entered from one of our blogs. I tried to mimic a bunch of phrases to see where we popped up. After a few minutes, I had no additional clarity. Upon further reflection I concluded that it really didn’t matter “how” it occurred but rather trust that our own practices of maximizing search actually works!
So yes we are in the business of “getting found” on the Internet. So we did a little case study on ourselves to see what’s been going on. We’re not that old, our website has only been around for 15 months. We knew we had solid expertise, but we didn’t have any real reputation when we started.
We put together a solid website in the fall of 2011 and implemented our own tactics for search. We put the right keywords in the right places on every page and every tag of our site. We kept it fresh and changed keywords and phrases according to the trends. We started to blog, and throttled our Social Media into high gear with daily updates. We grew our digital content substantially. We created downloadable ebooks that coach people on tactics and techniques for SEO and Social Media. We invested in some Adwords and set a monthly budget for them. And then it started to happen. We got phone calls, emails, and contact requests. Suddenly we found our business was starting to accelerate. We quickly built up our reputation with a solid client list foundation and are continuing to experience substantial growth. Looking at the recent website data which started at zero:
Getting contacted by a company on the other coast showed us that our practices work for ourselves. I guess I don’t need to know how every aspect of what we do works, only that as a whole – it does work. It’s not just about keywords, a Facebook profile or Adwords, it’s about an all-encompassing approach to digital marketing – that’s what works.
