I just released the newest whitepaper entitled, “The Future of Marketing With Facebook Pages.” You can obtain a copy here by either opting via email or using your Twitter account to download the copy.
This is a 12 page whitepaper. The first part of this paper articulates how 3 stakeholders within the community will play a role in shaping Facebook pages as a strong emerging social marketing tool. We will then explore 4 mission critical elements that a successful marketer will need to have in order to succeed with Facebook pages. The final part will include a summary of 7 key takeaways. Below is an excerpt from each part of the paper.
In future additions to the paper, I will explore how Facebook Ads and Facebook Connect can round out the suite of Facebook marketing solutions. The only way to be notified is to opt into the Smart Social Media Tip of the Week. I welcome comments and feedback.
You can learn more about how our Facebook engagement marketing solutions can help your business here.
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Stakeholder #2—Consultants and Vendors
The second stakeholders include vendors such as social media consultants and web designers who will start to offer services catered around Facebook pages.
The services will be categorized into several areas:
- Setup and Implementation of Applications: Vendors such as web designers will go beyond simple set-up of pages. They will offer customized page designs that enable embedding of flash, multi-media, and static html designs. They will also offer implementation of applications that are relevant to the client’s business, as many do not have the time to search for relevant applications.
- Engagement Marketing Services: Vendors will provide engagement-marketing services that will assist fan page owners to learn to engage and interact with fans more productively. The marketing strategies that consultants offer will revolve around:
- How to best integrate the fan page into the overall marketing mix
- What types of content to produce to facilitate word of mouth
- How to use Facebook ads as part of the overall marketing campaign
- Customized Applications: Geared more towards established brands and enterprise-level businesses that have sizable marketing budgets, vendors such as agencies and application developers will create customized Facebook applications to help these brands achieve the goals of their Facebook marketing campaigns.
Mission Critical Elements to Master For Facebook Pages
Anyone interested in successfully marketing Facebook pages will have to understand the mission critical elements. Most page owners can grasp mastering 1 or 2 of the elements below. However, true success will come to the marketer who can simultaneously master all four elements of the following elements:
- Analytics
- Applications
- Integrated Marketing
- Engagement Marketing
Mission Critical Element #1– Analytics
When Facebook rolled out the analytics tool Insights, it indicated how determined the company was about pages becoming a viable social marketing tool. They know that a robust social marketing platform isn’t simply about the features but also about the ability to track and measure activities. Although measuring website traffic with tools such as Google Analytics has been around for sometime, offering data about the interaction with a social network is relatively new. Facebook is one of the few major social networking sites to offer this type of data.
The metrics that Insight offers are in-depth and measure every imaginable type of interaction. Some key data that Insights offers about fans are:
- Breakdown by sex and age
- Top countries and cities represented
- Interactions per post
- Media consumption – what type of media fans are viewing (photos, audio, and video)
While more businesses and marketers are starting to accept social media, very few have deciphered how to exactly measure success or lack thereof. As a result, Insights is a key stepping stone for Facebook to persuade marketers and brands to use the platform by providing measurable data that can track activities.
Why Master It?
Understanding key data about an audience allows a marketer to create a customized engagement strategy. Insights will help in two areas:
Review Existing Engagement: Existing analytics allows a marketer to review existing engagement strategies to determine why they are succeeding or failing. Let’s say the goal of a page is to market and attract a certain age bracket. Through Insights, you realize that the age bracket is not heavily represented; you can then perform an audit of your strategy and make corrections.
Customize Future Engagement: Based on the existing makeup of audience and their interaction, messages that are tailored toward them can be crafted, thus resulting in a sustainable base. Performance measured is performance improved.
Going forward, it would not be surprising if future enhancements to Insights offered data on interests, activities, and other information that we include on our profile. This would be rich data for any marketer to use. Imagine a future where brands can send out tailored messages to their fan base that revolve around a specific interest and the only people who receive that message are the ones who list that interest in their profile.
Key Takeaways With Facebook Page Marketing
- Have a customized landing page: Avoid using the wall as the landing page and consider a customized landing page created with simple html markup. The Static FBML app is a great application that allows embedding html, CSS, and images. The application makes it easier for page owners to define and implement calls to action such as simply downloading a coupon or opting into an email newsletter.
- Leverage applications: These are the tools that help power your interaction and amplify your voice.
- Social media Integration: Integrate other social media tools such as blogs and Twitter onto your page. This will help increase exposure to other platforms you are using. Conversely, integrate Facebook Fan Box widget, badges, and share buttons onto your website, email newsletters, and blog in order maximize touch points.