engagement

How to Get More Fans on Facebook

“Need to attract more fans to your Facebook page?”
“ Offer more engaging content.”

Hmm.. I don’t know about you, but for me something about that solution doesn’t quite feel satisfying.
Oh.. I know why. Because it’s vague and not very actionable.
Yet time and time again, this is the leading advice you’ll find for solving the problem of sluggish fan uptake on a Facebook Page.

It’s not that the advice is wrong… it’s just hard to apply  if you don’t know how to engage your fans, or in which way they want to be engaged. Certainly, trial and error is a big piece of the puzzle. But I think the key is finding a way to be engaging that is unique to your company or organization AND that is innovative enough to stand out from the pack. Let’s face it. A Facebook Page, while once a rare and forward-thinking component of a company’s online offering, is now commonplace. Just two short years ago, it was hard to find a company that had a Facebook Page. Now it’s hard to find one that doesn’t.

People need a reason to flock to your Facebook Page in the first place. And then they need a reason to return. If they get a laugh the first time… and see from past activity that this is what they can expect, they might be hooked. If they see that every Wednesday morning you stream live video from your office in which you have show dogs performing tricks, they might be back next week for a second look.

The bottom line is this.  If you have a Facebook Page, have an objective.  What is the reason you’re there?  What is it that you want your fans to do or get?  Then measure the performance of that objective using Facebook Insights or web analytics or both.

It may take some experimentation.  When you find an approach that works, feels right for you and your fans, commit to it and keep delivering.

What Facebook Pages do you ‘like’ and why?

Erin

Tags: engagement, Erin, Facebook Page

Does Google Index Flash?

On November 11, Google’s Webmaster Central Blog announced its progress with indexing Adobe Flash content. A webpage is indexed when Google becomes aware of its existence and is added to Google’s database. In the past, Flash was a big problem for search engine optimization because search engines like Google, were not able to crawl (read) content within Flash files. As a result, Google was not able to understand and properly rank websites created largely in Flash.

In June 2008, Google announced significant improvements for indexing Adobe Flash files, such as the ability to index textual content and discover URLs within Flash files. Further improvements were announced in June 2009.

In the announcement on November 11, Google explained improvements with JavaScript compatibility which helps index sites that use JavaScript to embed Flash files. Video indexing technology also improved to help detect pages with videos.

Flash content and videos offer a richer medium to engage website visitors. There is always a trade-off between making a website look attractive with Flash content and making it more search engine friendly. With these improvements, the trade-off is reduced and ultimately allows website developers to improve the visitors’ experience, from finding a website to exploring it.

Victor

Tags: adobe, engagement, flash, google, index, SEO, video

Free Your Brand

My favourite quote of the day:

“…Old Spice parent company Proctor & Gamble exhibited incredible bravery in allowing his team to write marketing content in real time, with little to no supervision.”

I love this quote because I think that is the future. Companies must start easing up on the tight controls they’ve historically had over their brand. If you need to control every word that is spoken and written about your brand – forcing writers to submit every word they write for scrutiny, you’re doomed. Not to say you should let writers run wild with your brand, but creativity is so quickly quashed when the pen can only write one of 12 “approved” words to describe a product.

Honest exchange, meaningful engagement and worthy interaction in social media comes when speed (aka: real time) is a part of the equation.

Picture this: someone poses a tough question on Twitter to a company (well, hopefully a *person* with a name and a head shot, representing that company). Two days pass and no one has responded. It’s not because the tweet wasn’t noticed. It’s because the person managing Twitter for that company needs to get approval on the response before they can post it. In the meantime, the person who posted the question has grown increasingly frustrated and is now bad-mouthing the company due to the lack of timely response. It even starts to appear that the company is trying to ignore or dodge the tough question.

It may be the most counter-intuitive to let up on brand control.. but the wild success of the Old Spice online campaign proves that if you’re brave enough, and trust enough, it can pay off in ways you never imagined.

If you disagree – let me hear it.

FYI: the quote came from here.

Erin.

Tags: brand management, branding, engagement, interaction, Social Media

Social Media Strategy? Spare Me

A friend of mine quietly sent me a slideshare presentation yesterday.  It was created by a long established advertising and interactive agency in town.  She sent it to me quietly because it was entitled “Why You Don’t Need a Social Media Strategy”. I guess she thought I should know I might soon be out of work, if word of this got around.

I enjoyed going through the slideshow.. and I didn’t entirely disagree with its point. However, there is an “it all comes down to semantics” argument to be made against it. Let me explain.

The presentation stated you don’t need a social media strategy.  Instead, you need an engagement strategy, or an influence strategy. My take on the presentation was that it was capitalizing on the nausea widely experienced when hearing the ubiquitous phrase “social media strategy”. Fair enough.  However, in our shop, engagement and influence are key parts of every strategy. Doesn’t that go without saying?  Perhaps what the slideshow was trying to get at is the fact that it is vitally important to venture deeper than social media when designing an online plan. Mobile, website content, optimization, online advertising are all important, sometimes more important than social media depending on the business objectives for the strategy.

There is no question “social media” is getting way too much airtime. But for people new to the concept of having an integrated online strategy, this term can really help get them in the right line of thinking, despite its shortcomings.

What do you think? Do you agree or disagree?

Tags: digital strategy, engagement, influence, Social Media, strategy

Social + Search = Marketing (Part 2)

This is part 2 of the Marketing basics series. After discussing the 4 P’s of Marketing in part 1, I thought it would be useful to talk about brand positioning. In particular, the basic T-C-B model is a good, simple framework to organize your thought process and approach when creating social media and search engine marketing strategies.

Brand positioning is an enormous topic in itself. Traditionally, companies tried to create a brand image for their companies through broadcasting marketing messages to their audiences through advertisements on TV, radio, print, etc. With the advent of social media, online marketing and engagement focused communications, it is suicide to sound like a traditional broadcast ad when engaging with your audience.

Traditional messaging approaches and the notion that you can define your brand for your audience do not carry over to online marketing. So it is important to understand your company’s brand positioning.

Even though you can’t tell your audience how to perceive your brand, your communications and actions do influence how they perceive it. What you say and what you do must be consistent with your desired brand image.

What is the T-C-B model?

I was first exposed to the T-C-B model while reading a Marketing book by Rossiter and Bellman. T stands for Target, C stands for Category and B stands for Benefit.

Target

It is important to understand who is your target audience. With social media, your target audience may be just one person or a small, special interest group you engage with. Whichever the case, you need to understand them on a deeper, more personal level than traditional marketing.

Category

It is also important to understand what category need your audience will get from your product, service or interaction with you. By category, I mean the type of product. For example, the iPhone’s category is a mobile phone. The iPod’s category is a MP3 player. The iPad’s category is…I’m still trying to figure out that one… If you cannot quickly communicate to your audience what your product does, why they need it or why they should care about your company, they will not pay attention.

Benefit

As touched upon in part 1 of this series, the benefit of a product to its consumers is the value your audience will receive from your product. If you understand who your audience is and what category need they desire, then the key benefit is the “thing” that will satisfy that need.

Try considering T-C-B before sending that next tweet. Who are you engaging with? What is it you’re talking about? What value will your followers get?

Victor Chan
eMarketing Strategist

Tags: benefit, brand, brand positioning, category need, digital strategy, engagement, internet marketing, marketing basics, online marketing, target audience