Social Media
3 Ways to Increase Your Reach on Facebook
Facebook is a powerful and expansive channel for connecting with your target audience. However, as the number of posts and interactions increase, the likelihood of a specific user seeing your wall post decreases.
Here are 3 ways to change that.
1. Pin or Highlight Wall Posts
Pinning a wall post attaches it as the first post to appear on your Facebook Page’s timeline even when more recent posts are published. Pinned posts will automatically unpin after 7 days if it is not manually unpinned.
Highlighting a wall post enlarges the post to stretch across both columns of the timeline. Compared to pinned posts, highlighted posts still shift lower as new posts are published.
Both options increase the prominence of a post on the Page’s timeline.
2. Encourage Users to Comment or Interact
Newly published wall posts are typically seen by only a fraction of people who Like your Page. If a users comments, likes or shares your post, your post has the chance of appearing in the users’ friends’ news feeds. As a result, your post will be exposed to a secondary audience.
Users who regularly interact on your Facebook Page are more likely than others to see your wall posts on their news feeds.
3. Promoted Posts
Promoted Posts is a Facebook advertising option that lets Page Administrators pay to have specific posts displayed to users or friends of users who like the page. Facebook charges a flat fee based on the number of people the advertisers want to reach. Promoted posts are displayed within the news feeds of users.
Promoted posts may be a suitable option if you have an important event or conversion goal you want to promote.
Victor Chan
Digital Strategist
Tags: advertising, facebook, pin, promoted posts, Social Media, strategy
Why Monitoring Matters
A key feature of ALERT & ALERT-TV+ is a way to set up monitoring for your social media channels and general online presence. This is an essential part of any social media strategy. Monitoring not just your own social media channels but also your competitor’s social media channels can pay dividends.
Let’s take a look at two recent case studies to illustrate the point.
Case #1: Samsung – Monitoring and Responding to Its Facebook Fans
In August, electronics giant Samsung showed how monitoring and responding to its social media followers can result in great publicity.
It all began in May 2012 when Facebook user, Shane Barrett posted a picture to the official Samsung Facebook Page. The picture of a crudely drawn dragon was accompanied by a message asking Samsung for a new Galaxy S III smartphone to replace his older model. In return for the phone Shane said that Samsung could keep the picture he had drawn.
Samsung responded, thanking Shane for his picture and query but declining his request for a new phone. Instead, Samsung’s online community manager drew a Kangaroo on a unicycle and sent it back to Shane in response! Shane posted the conversation on the popular social news website Reddit. The post of the conversation quickly became one of the most popular on Reddit and the story went viral.
At this point, Samsung could have sat back and enjoyed the free publicity it had earned. Samsung did not, instead choosing to send Shane a brand new Galaxy S III smartphone with a custom case featuring the dragon he had drawn on his original Facebook post (see below). After receiving the phone, Shane posted a picture of it on Reddit and once again the story and picture went viral earning even more publicity for Samsung.
This token of Samsung’s appreciation for a customer resulted in lots of positive online sentiment for the brand and millions of views of the Reddit posts. By monitoring and responding to its Facebook fans, Samsung gained loads of publicity for the low cost of a new phone.
Case #2: Low Cost Holidays Moves in on Another Travel Firm’s Turf
In November 2011, UK based travel agency Thomas Cook received an interesting request posted to its Facebook Page. The request came from a man who shared the company’s name, Thomas Cook. In his request Thomas asked for a free holiday, posting “Seeing as I share the exact same name as your huge company, and because of this I have been ridiculed for as long as I can remember. I think it’s only fair that you help compensate for this by giving me one of your lovely holidays.” Thomas Cook politely declined and instead directed Mr. Cook to its website where he could book his own holiday.
One of Thomas Cook’s (the travel agency) competitors, Low Cost Holidays was monitoring this conversation. After reading of Mr. Cook’s plight and of Thomas Cook’s reluctance to offer him a free holiday, Low Cost Holidays intervened and offered him one instead saying, “Here at lowcostholidays.com we completely sympathize with your suffering and if your name was “lowcostholidays.com” we would certainly have accepted your request to be sent away on a weekend in Paris. … So how about we send you on that weekend in Paris? In fact why not make it a week for you and a friend?”
After his free holiday Mr. Cook posted a picture of himself in front of the Eiffel tower along with screenshots of the Facebook exchanges he had between Thomas Cook and Low Cost Holidays to Reddit. The posting quickly shot to the number 1 most read slot on Reddit and has garnered thousands of views and comments since. By monitoring its competitors social media channels and reacting in a humorous way, Low Cost Holidays has received lots of positive online sentiment and has been featured across news websites such as Fox News and The Daily Mail.
Despite posting a message to Facebook stating how happy the company was for Mr. Cook and his free holiday, Thomas Cook (the travel agency) received criticism online for its lack of sense of humor when Mr.Cook initially approached for the holiday. Mr. Cooks Reddit post has received over 2,000 comments and has been viewed in excess of 50,000 times, add this to the publication of the story in major news outlets you’ll see that Low Cost Holidays has gained lots of publicity for the relatively low cost of a holiday for two to Paris.
What other great examples have you seen of companies monitoring and responding to their online followers?
Aidan
Tags: digital strategy, engagement, facebook, internet marketing, monitoring social media, Social Media, strategy
Why Your Business Needs ALERT®
Magnify Digital was created in 2007 as a digital strategy agency. The team here soon realized that they were creating much more than just an agency. They pioneered a process for aggregating, simplifying and leveraging the non-stop avalanche of digital platforms, tools, and tactics. That’s when ALERT® was born.
ALERT® is an automated web based system that enables marketers and small businesses to take control of their digital presence and devise effective strategies that actually work for them and their clients. ALERT® stands for ASSESS, LOCATE, ENGAGE, RESPOND & TRACK – the five key steps to the system and we’d argue, the five essential components of every successful digital strategy.
Assess & Locate make up the first stage – a rigorous Assessment of a company’s digital presence, and that of its competitors. A scan of the industry reveals what your target audience is saying and where they are hanging out. The second stage is Engage, which consists of devising and implementing a manageable and measurable Strategy. Once the strategy is in place, it’s time to Respond & Track, which essentially is monitoring your online presence.
The benefits of using ALERT® are endless! Marketers often complain they don’t have enough time to keep up with the seemingly endless changes in social media features, emerging tools, guidelines, policies, and thought leaders. ALERT® does the heavy lifting for you. Think of it as a digital whisperer! ALERT® makes licensees look like digital strategy rock stars without the expense and hassle.
Here are some key features. The ALERT® system is:
- Updated daily. The tools are updated whenever a new feature, viable platform, or tactic comes to market.
- Resourceful. Includes a resource area full of aggregated information, such as social media statistics, news updates, and case studies.
- Easy to use. You don’t have to be a digital expert, the system takes you through a step-by-step approach on how to use each tool and feature.
- Time saving. We’ve already done the work for you. You don’t need to keep on top of trends and new tools. ALERT® aggregates this information into one place and best of all makes the digital jargon make sense.
- Web based. You can use it anywhere.
- Professional in design. The system is designed to make you and your company look great. It automatically creates polished documents based on the data you input.
ALERT® is the perfect system to help get you and your business get on its way with an effective digital strategy!
Please contact us if you have any questions regarding this system.
Maryam
@socialmaryam
Tags: digital, small business, Social Media, strategy
Social Media is Ruining TV
We’ve all been there, sitting down to watch the latest episode of say … The Bachelorette. As we hit the first ad break we check our Twitter feed and that’s when it happens. Twitter ruins everything. Within a few seconds we discover who has been voted off. Thanks Twitter. Thanks “friends” on the East Coast.
The truth is: social media is ruining TV.
Over the last few months there has been a number of high profile spoilers. Lets begin with the highest profile spoiler of the summer – NBC’s North American coverage of the 2012 London Olympics. Instead of showing some popular Olympic events live, NBC delayed them to a primetime slot. This made sense for the broadcaster, more viewers = more advertising revenue, but it didn’t make sense for viewers. For example, the much anticipated 400m swimming duel between American swimming giants Ryan Lochte and Michael Phelps was shown during an NBC primetime slot. The result of the event, which had taken place six hours earlier, had already been thoroughly posted, tweeted, and retweeted all over social media. This resulted in an online backlash against the broadcaster with #NBCSucks and #NBCFail trending worldwide.
In the UK, popular talent show “The Voice” was dragged into an online furor thanks to a Tweet from one of the show’s judges. The judge in question, popstar Jessie J is well known for being outspoken but it was a picture that got her in trouble. The show was approaching the semi final stages. Viewers were intrigued to learn which two members of Jessie J’s team were going to make it. Three hours before the show aired, Jessie J tweeted a picture showing herself and her two chosen semi finalists along with the caption, “Team Jessie.” Viewers were outraged and complained to the broadcaster.
Hit design show Project Runway is currently taking extra steps to avoid spoiler activity in social media. The show, screened across North America, developed Realtime Runway. The tool allows viewers to filter tweets by timezones. Meaning, if the show already aired in Toronto, viewers in Vancouver can avoid seeing what’s being said about the show by using Realtime Runway instead of their own Twitter feed. Again, with a show as popular as Project Runway this will probably mean West Coast viewers will have to endure a social media blackout for a few hours, but is it not worth it if it keeps the magic of television alive?
So have you ever had a show ending spoiled for you? Have you seen any other tools that help to avoid social media spoilers?
Aidan
Tags: olympics, Social Media, Social TV, spoiler, TV, Twitter
You Can’t Do That On Facebook
Did you know that Facebook reserves the right to “reject or remove (Facebook) Pages for any reason” at any time? Of course you did, right? It’s stated in those terms and conditions you read and agreed to. Except, even if you were one of the few that really did read through every word of the legalese, rules can change. And they do. Especially on Facebook.
Recently, I’ve stumbled across various articles that have laid out what you can’t do on Facebook, which inspired me to write this post. Consider it a Coles Notes version of the current status of Facebook “law”. Because the last thing you want is to have your Facebook Page, including that carefully cultivated community you’ve been building, torn out of the almighty book.
So listen up. Here are just some of the things you cannot do on Facebook Pages:
- Be Real. You can’t use a fake name or pseudonym for your Facebook username, and you need a legit username before you can launch a Page. Oh – and while we’re talking about name restrictions, don’t use ALLCAPS, or any $ymbol$ in your Page name.
- Keep Your Contests (Mostly) Off Facebook. You are not allowed to base a contest solely on Facebook. You also can’t make Facebook functionality, as in “liking”, sharing or commenting, the core action of your contest.
- Take Responsibility. You cannot hold Facebook accountable for any data collected on Facebook via promotions, surveys, or polls you run. You must include a disclaimer not only stating that you are collecting the information (not Facebook) but also disclose who the entrant is giving their information to and what it’s being used for.
- Find Another Voting System. You cannot use the ‘like’ button as a voting function. For example, stating that an entrant can win a contest if his/her photo receives the most ‘likes.’
- Reach Out To Contest Entrants Outside of Facebook. You cannot use Facebook messaging features, including inbox messages, wall posts, chat, or a business Page to notify contest winners (or losers) of their status in the contest.
- Keep Advertising Tactics Off the Cover Photo. The cover photo cannot be used as an advertising billboard. That’s right folks. That means no contact details, no pricing information, no discounts, no promotions, and no calls to action. You can’t even have any graphical elements in the cover photo that would entice users to select a Facebook feature, such as pointing to the Like or Share icons. As if that wasn’t enough “don’ts” for one photo space, there is one more, don’t upload any photos you don’t own the rights to.
- Use a Third Party Application. Since you cannot use Facebook features to run a promotion or contest, instead use a third party application to make sure you are in the safe zone. You can ask an entrant to like your Facebook Page, check in, or connect to your app as a step in the process of entering, but this action alone cannot automatically result in the entrant registering for the contest or promotion.
As you read through these rules, you’re probably thinking how can any of these actually be true since you see people break them all the time. Well, you are right. People do break them all the time, likely because they have no idea what the rules were or are now. Facebook has been known to shut down or remove Pages it feels violates its rules, but how does it monitor and keep track of every Page? Especially considering the rules, functionality, and features change all the time. It’s really tough to say, but best to stay on the good side of the world’s largest, arguably most powerful, social network.
Maryam Mehrtash
@socialmaryam
Tags: contests, cover photo, facebook, pages, promotions, rules, Social Media
