Category Archives: facebook

What Do Facebook Users Expect from Brands?

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Facebook users have both + and – expectations when “liking” a brand! Many Companies are very often on the hunt for more “likes” for their Facebook pages with  hopes that people will soon recognize its brand or sometimes it’s just for increasing number of exposures on social media. However only 42% of US Facebook users think marketers should interpret a “like” in that way.

Study from ExactTarget on June 2011 study from, “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.

 

Reasons US Facebook Users Have Not "Liked" a Company on Facebook, June 2011 (% of respondents)

 

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

Study from 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.”

 

Expectations US Facebook Users Have After "Liking" a Company on Facebook, June 2011 (% of respondents)

 

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.

Source: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008630

Google+: a One Hit Wonder or a Classic?

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Following up to Google+’s buzz these past couple of weeks, an article that was originally published in the San Jose Mercury News by Mike Swift covered the surge of popularity that Google+ is getting. Noting that this is Google’s fourth try at social networking, Google+ has reached 20 million people in about three weeks. While the numbers and the response seem to be in favor of Google+, two executives that are in charge of Google+, Vic Gundotra and Bradley Horowitz commented that, “We’re Google. We can get anybody to kick the tires of a product…It doesn’t mean it’s going to be successful…”

The sentiment is shared upon as experts also agree that it’s too early to decide. Michael Fauscette, an analyst with IDC, commented, “Until it really starts to go mainstream, and I see my cousin in Florida decide to get on it, I just don’t think we can say it’s a success. We’ve got a ways to go.”

While I do agree that Google+ still has a long way to be titled a hit in the social networking field, it definitely has some, if not a lot, of potential that can be explored in the future. In the mean time, enjoy Facebook’s Zuckerberg’s thoughts on Google+ as shared by Mashable.com.

 

Like in Every Relationship… You Gotta’ Give a Little…

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You’ve probably heard it many, many times: the importance of keeping up the relationship with your Facebook fans. Since Facebook is a social media whose effectiveness relies crucially on developing relationships, engaging the fans of your business page is a given. Easier said than done, it’s not surprising that even though you’ve been advised on it many times, you still scratch your head every time you think about how the actual practice would pan out.

A few months back, Mashable.com published a post that originally from the American Express OPEN Forum, titled 4 Creative Ways to Reward Your Fans.

You guessed it, just like any other relationship, the act of giving rewards is highly beneficial in maintaining the relationship.

In the article, Blake Cahill, principal and president of social media agency Banyan Branch, commented on the issue, “Fans have signaled a level of passion or connection with a brand, so rewarding that acknowledgement only further endears the brand to those fans… Giving fans what they want can vary from discounts, to empowering them to support causes, to providing them with exclusive content and information. In many cases, success is a mix of all of these.”

There are four ways to treat your Facebook fans for their support and maintain the relationship:

  1. Offer exclusive discounts, coupons and contents
  2. Help fans give back
  3. Show you’re listening
  4. Recognize individual fans

In managing the image of your brand, the maintenance of your customer relationship would be supported as you follow a little of each advices.

 

Quick Survival Guides to the Social Media World

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It’s not easy going through the jungle that is social media. Though it seems simple at first, everything is just constantly updated that just as you’re getting used to one social networking site, another hip and upcoming social networking site came up.

In the past, I’ve often given advices mostly on a specific type of social networking site. While nowadays, social networking sites are popping everywhere like daisies, these three points should be able to be applied in any type of social networking sites.

So, here my three quick guides to survive in the jungle of social media:

1. Timeliness is Relevance

The world of social media is scarily fast-paced. One day something is trending, next day it’s old news. If a company fails to update instantly, then other new stuff will pile up, covering the relevancy of the company’s message.

2. Focus on building relationship, not sales

People do not use social media (social networking) for the means of being marketed for. People use social networking to make relationships. So, don’t expect instant sales, instead focus on maintaining the company’s image to create loyal followers.

3. Not everything is about you

Social media is about a relationship between the consumer and the business. Just like any relationship, when one refuses to think about the other person’s needs, it fails. Therefore, when making posts or updates, make it through the consumer’s eyes. Is this information relevant to their needs in relation to the product/service the business offers?

 

Facebook To Overthrow Yahoo! in Display Ad-Selling

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Through the blog post that I wrote back in April, I expressed the growing development of Facebook Ads in the marketing world. So, I wasn’t all that surprise to see a headline from Mashable.com a few days ago that said, “Facebook To Take Number 1 Spot in Display Ad Market This Year [REPORT]”

Although much speculation had prophesized the success of Facebook in Advertising, the report seems to display that the prophecy is on its way to be fulfilled. The article by Todd Wasserman of Mashable.com was based on a research done by eMarketer. In the report, researchers predict that Facebook will grow its net US display revenues in 2011 by another 80.9% and reaching an estimate of $2.19 billion. With this growth, Facebook will be overthrowing Yahoo! as the country’s no.1 display ad-selling company.

David Hallerman, a principal analyst of eMarketer commented on the revelation, “Facebook’s supreme popularity—both in terms of numbers of people and amount of time they spend there—creates a plethora of display ad impressions, mainly for its unique form of banners…And that popularity is also boosting what advertisers will pay for its display ads.”

Aside from Facebook, eMarketer also report that Google is also showing a solid growth this year with double the revenues in display ad compared to 2010.

 

When in doubt, ask questions

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With all these crazy demands for companies to have a website, a Facebook page, a blog and a Twitter profile, I wasn’t exactly surprised when this non-profit organization that I recently volunteered in asked, “What is actually the difference?”

Especially in differing between Facebook and Twitter, questions like “Aren’t they basically the same old same old social network sites?” shouldn’t be a given a raised eye-brow as if it should be common sense, instead those question can be extremely effective in constructing a working marketing strategy.

With this post, I’ll try my best to give my two cents in why various use of social networking site is crucial in marketing. For one, each different medium provide different forum and reach to different markets. In crude words, they’re all different sides of marketing that in the end, should lead customer toward the same goal and that is for the company. While websites and blogs provide thorough detail about the company, it’s usually used by loyal customers and requires some sort of intention from the customer to check these media. Facebook and Twitter, on the other hand, is integrated within the customer’s daily life, thus having the ability to turn curious, potential customers to regular followers of the company. Twitter is especially effective because it’s also updated constantly.

Maybe some of your questions were answered, maybe not. My main point of this post is not exactly to answer all the questions in one post, yet I’d like to say it’s okay to ask questions. In fact, it’s highly crucial that companies ask questions to really dissect their vision and mission for the sake of an effective marketing strategy.

Nowadays, there are many resources that companies can use to really dissect the matter; there are consulting companies and positions have been opened for “Social Media” intern. When in doubt, ask questions.

Facebook Shopping

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Just when I thought that Facebook could not get any bigger, it just did. Recently, Express, the retail company, expanded its Facebook marketing platform by adding a new application tab “Shop EXPRESS” that enables Facebook users to access its retail products and buy from the Facebook page.

While reviewing the application on Facebook, I have to say I was quite impressed. By adding these functions and app, EXPRESS is able to both promote their product and sell some products. One of the functions that I love is the ‘Like’ function. When a Facebook user click ‘Like’ on one of the products, that action will automatically be shown in the user’s news feed, thus promoting the brand to the user’s circle.  After researching more about shopping through Facebook, I discovered that a similar function that enables Facebook fans to shop in Facebook has actually been done by other retail companies such as DKNY and BANANA Republic before although each company seem to utilize it differently.  An interesting article titled “Would you go shopping on Facebook?” by theclosthingmenu.com discusses further the topic of online shopping through Facebook.

As for the matter of integrating Facebook for shopping, my opinion stands that I’m not really sure of what the future holds for shopping through Facebook, but I find the use of Facebook for marketing the brands is definitely effective. The ‘Like’ functions and the ability to comment on the product from the company’s Facebook page are quite brilliant. In a way, it’s like an upgraded version of the word of mouth marketing.

Maintaining the Relationship through Social Media Marketing Tools: Ask Questions

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As mentioned in a previous post, Facebook, as a social media marketing tool, acts more in favor of relationship marketing rather than drawing instant sales to the company. Just like every relationship, it must be maintained. Therefore, in Facebook, the company’s interaction with the fans, or in other words the market, becomes highly magnified and crucial.

There are many functions in Facebook that allow company to interact with its fans even more freely and easily than before. One of which is for example, the Questions function that is just recently implemented in Facebook.

The Questions function in Facebook allows users to ask questions and share it with their circle. Through the Questions function, company should be able to collect rough data, such as Jamba Juice and its vote asking “What’s your favorite post-workout snack?” on April 27th 2011 to the fans of its Facebook page. This function is also equipped with the “Ask friends” option for fans of the company’s Facebook page to ask the questions to their circle of friends. Moreover, when one of the fans answered the questions, that activity will be likely to appear on the Home Feeds, thus by answering the questions; fans are also promoting and sharing the question and the company’s page.

By asking questions through Facebook or other social media tools, companies are able to interact with the fans in a more casual yet personal level. The data that’s obtained may or may not be concrete data that can be used for products, but the main goal of asking questions through Facebook and other forms of social networking sites, such as Twitter, should be to interact with the fans, who are both loyal and potential consumers, and to maintain the relationship between the company and the consumers.

How to Find Your Customers On Facebook?

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One of the easiest ways to figure this out is actually to go through the Facebook ad platform. Part of the Facebook ad platform lets you target your advertising and don’t worry, you don’t actually have to launch an ad for you take advantage of this feature.

Part of the process for setting up a Facebook ad allows you to target your ad to specific demographics or specific audiences based on their interests or their age, or their gender, or their location, all sorts of different factors. Part of that targeting actually gives you a number of the people who fit that criteria.

So it’s definitely a great free way to find out a ballpark number for who fits your target demographic on Facebook.

Understanding the Role of Facebook Places

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What should people who have a physical location be considering? Would they want to combine their Facebook Page or their Facebook Place? What does that look like?

Facebook has recently rolled out a specific type of Page called a Place page. It’s still fairly early in the adoption of Place Pages. If you are a single-location business, it might be better for you to use a Place Page instead of a fan Page just because there’s some additional things that you can do with a Place Page, such as the ability to do offer ―deals.

Deals are when somebody checks in at your location and you give them an offer. You pay for that in a similar way you pay for advertising. It’s the only form of mobile advertising available on the Facebook platform right now.

If you are the type of business with multiple locations, then it would be a good time for you to continue to keep your brand Page but then roll out a Facebook Place Page for each of your locations. And again, that allows you to roll out deals specific to each of those locations, and it allows people to start to then interact with the other fans. This interaction is one of the key things that people are looking for from the whole fan Page experience, and they can do so with people who are from their same geo-location.

If you are a massive franchise or a very large business, something like a CVS Pharmacy or a McDonalds or Starbucks, then you would have thousands of Place Pages to roll out. Right now, the problem that we have seen with brands is most brands are just trying to figure out how to manage a single brand page.

The idea of adding the complexity of thousands of these individual locations when the tools really aren’t mature enough to allow you to be able to manage a volume of Place Pages like that, it’s probably a little too early for a brand like that to get in unless they have some large investment that they plan on making for a Herculean effort to manage it.