Chapter 1
In This Chapter
Discovering Facebook’s marketing potential
Looking at four key Facebook marketing strategies
Mastering the art of Facebook engagement
Examining Facebook’s global market opportunities
Understanding the basics of Facebook marketing
Seeing the benefits of selling from the Facebook platform
Facebook is the most powerful social network on the planet. With more than one billion active users, Facebook presents a unique opportunity to connect with and educate your ideal audience in a way that your website and your blog can’t even come close to matching.
The reach of the Facebook platform has grown exponentially in the past few years and will only continue to get bigger. In fact, the number of Facebook Pages created by brands was over 50 million in February of 2013. Today, almost anyone or any company can find a following on Facebook, from big brands such as Starbucks to small mom-and-pop shops. Facebook’s platform can turn a business into a living, breathing, one-to-one online marketing machine. Facebook has changed the game, and there’s no better time than the present to jump on board.
In this chapter, we cover why Facebook should become a key marketing tool to help you grow your business. Specifically, we look at Facebook’s massive marketing potential, its expansive capability to reach your ideal audience, and the core strategies you can implement today to seamlessly add Facebook to your marketing program.
We have good news and bad news for you when it comes to Facebook marketing.
Facebook can help you create exposure and awareness for your business, increase sales, collect market data, enhance your customers’ experience, and increase your position as an authority in your field. However, before you can start to see real results, you must determine why you’re on Facebook.
If you take the time to ponder the following questions, you’ll gradually begin to create a road map to Facebook marketing success:
When you’re clear about why you’re on Facebook, you’re better able to design a strategy that best fits your business needs. We explore many potential strategies through the course of this book.
For now, though, in the name of helping you better understand how you can use Facebook to market your business, here’s a list of just a few ideas you can implement when you embrace Facebook marketing:
The preceding list is just a glimpse of what you can do inside Facebook’s powerful walls. Many more opportunities await you, as we explain in later minibooks.
When it comes to business-to-consumer (B2C) companies, one of the greatest advantages of Facebook marketing is the ability to engage one-on-one with your ideal clients. By asking questions, encouraging conversations, and creating personal engagement with your customers and prospects, you can build relationships in a way that wasn’t possible before social networking took the marketing world by storm.
Here’s a thought experiment: Rather than feel frustrated because your company can’t compete with big-brand giants on Facebook, turn the success of those companies into an opportunity for you to model the best and learn from them.
Here are four key strategies that the big B2C companies have adopted in their Facebook marketing strategies to help them stand out from the rest:
One great example of this strategy comes from Oreo, which knows a thing or two about standing out. Oreo created a campaign to spotlight what fans think about Oreos. Fans share their videos, photos, and stories via a Facebook app, providing Oreo with limitless content and customer loyalty. Oreo’s Facebook Page has millions of fans, so those folks must be doing something right! See Figure 1-1.
The team behind Red Bull’s Facebook Page knows what its audience will respond to best and then delivers. A series of online games and apps for fans, for example, is geared toward sports and high-impact competitions, as shown in Figure 1-2.
JetBlue knows that many of their customers appreciate culture. Working with local and independent artists, they presented live music concerts at several of their locations, as shown in Figure 1-3. So not only are they using videos, but they’re also providing rich cultural experiences in addition to affordable and enjoyable air travel! Very smart, JetBlue!
We know that Facebook marketing works well for B2C businesses, but if you’re a business-to-business (B2B) company, you may be wondering whether Facebook makes sense. In short, the answer is yes! In fact, according to the 2013 State of Inbound Marketing Research Report from HubSpot, 41 percent of B2B companies have reported acquiring a customer through Facebook.
Not only can B2B companies incorporate the four key strategies mentioned in the preceding section, but B2B companies also have a unique advantage over B2C when it comes to Facebook marketing: Facebook’s platform is designed to support exactly what B2B companies need to be successful in attracting clients and securing sales.
To better explain this idea, here are three factors that make B2B a perfect fit for Facebook marketing:
For B2B companies, connection, knowledge sharing, and reputation management are key ingredients of success. Facebook’s unique platform can help optimize these key strategies.
No matter whether your business is B2B or B2C, it really comes down to one person talking to another. No one wants to interact with a faceless brand, business, or logo. We all want to buy from a friend — someone we trust and feel comfortable engaging with regularly.
Facebook allows us to move beyond the obstacles of traditional marketing (very one-sided) and instead communicate with our clients and prospects on a one-on-one level by putting a face with a name, making the entire exchange more human.
Engagement is crucial in mastering Facebook marketing. If you build rapport and can get your Facebook community talking, your efforts will go a long way.
It’s one thing to broadcast a special promotion on Facebook, but it’s an entirely different experience to ask your fans a question related to your products and services and receive 50 responses from people telling you exactly how they feel about what you’re selling. In many cases, this real-time engagement can be priceless. In Figure 1-4, the popular online shoe and clothing retailer Zappos.com asks its female fans about “girls night” preferences for fingernail polish color preferences.
Before the days of social networking, phone calls, e-mails, and handwritten letters were just about your only options when it came to reaching out to your clients. Today, you can send a tweet or make a Facebook post to inform your customers of new features, benefits, or changes to your products or services. Social media allows you to get the word out quickly, making it easier for you to keep your customers informed and satisfied.
Imagine this: You sell shoes. A client orders a pair of your shoes online and receives them in the mail. When the shoes arrive, they’re the wrong pair. That client logs on to Facebook and posts this message:
I just received my much anticipated pair of red stilettos in the mail today … too bad the company messed up and sent me sneakers instead! I’m frustrated!
At first glance, you may think that a post like that would hurt your business. On social sites like Facebook and Twitter, however, you can turn a potentially bad post into an opportunity to gain a customer for life.
Imagine that you respond within just five minutes with this post:
Julie, we are so sorry that you received the wrong pair of shoes! We are shipping your red stilettos overnight, and make sure to look for the 50% off coupon we included in your box as well. Two pairs of shoes are always better than one!
Here’s what’s great: The opportunity for real-time problem solving is powerful. You not only just saved a sale and made Julie a happy customer, but you also showed anyone watching on Facebook that you care about your clients and will go above and beyond the call of duty to make them happy. This type of experience wasn’t possible before social media came on the scene.
In addition to proactively monitoring Facebook for customer service issues, you can use many robust tools to create a virtual service desk directly inside Facebook. Livescribe, for example, has incorporated a support desk directly into its Facebook Page. As you can see in Figure 1-5, you can ask the folks at Livescribe a question, share an idea, report a problem, or even give praise directly from that Facebook Page.
Customers commonly use social media sites to post questions or complaints. If you provide a designated place for support, you’re likely to keep your customers happy and turn them into repeat buyers!
What’s even more important is that others can see these posts. Then fans and potential buyers can go to this custom app to get answers or see what others are saying about the products. It’s another great way to educate fans about your products and services. In addition, this tool can cut down service calls when it’s executed correctly, saving your company time and money.
Facebook’s expansion into the e-commerce sector might forever change the way we shop. In the past, creating an e-commerce website took a lot of money and even more time. Today, Facebook’s platform — interwoven with third-party apps — has allowed millions of businesses to showcase their products and services and to sell them online. (To find out more about how third-party apps can be part of your Facebook marketing strategy, check out Book V.)
When it comes to the kinds of shopping interfaces you can create on Facebook, you have two options:
Facebook offers an extremely valuable opportunity to showcase your products and services and to create a new portal where you can sell your goods.
Few people would deny that the social media phenomenon — and Facebook, specifically — is growing at a staggering pace. Online users in Australia, Japan, and Italy all show even stronger adoption of social media than Americans do, and those in China, Denmark, and Sweden are said to be adopting social media at the same rates as Americans.
Facebook breaks down barriers and makes introducing your products and services to international audiences easier. Here are some opportunities you can explore to extend your brand’s footprint in the global market:
In many countries, the majority of people do not have access to computers with Internet access. Mobile devices are making it possible for Facebook to reach more people, however.
Facebook can supercharge your existing marketing efforts by giving you a platform to grow your audience, create deeper connections, and create new experiences to foster loyal client relationships. Facebook’s unique platforms that let you market and promote your brand online are your Profile and your Facebook Page.
Subscribing to someone’s personal account is a lot like following someone on Twitter. In other words, you don’t have to be Friends with someone on Facebook to see their Public posts. If you’re marketing a personal brand, the Profile with a Subscribe button may be perfect for your marketing outcomes. There are some strategic marketing reasons to have a personal account with the Subscribe button. We cover the complete marketing strategy for activating your Subscribe button in Book II, Chapter 1.
The other way to market on Facebook is via a Facebook Page. Pages are like digital storefronts, or places where your prospects can take a digital walk around your business to learn more about your brand and what you have to offer. Here you can highlight your best programs, products, and services to interact with an interested audience.
A large portion of this book is dedicated to creating and optimizing your Facebook Page. Before we get into the how-to’s and strategies, though, we point out a few of the most important details you need to know to get off on the right foot.
Although you’ll soon find out all you’ll ever need to know about the differences between a Profile and a Page, for the purposes of starting things off, here’s a quick rundown:
A Profile is meant to be all about you. It has been referred to as a living scrapbook of your life. It highlights who you are and gives details about your life experiences over time. With the addition of the Subscribe button, you now have the option to make some of your posts public and other posts private. The opportunity to select who sees your posts gives you a unique advantage by allowing you to be selective and use your Profile to connect with family members and friends, as well as to post information about your business.
It isn’t against the rules, however, to mention your business and keep your relatives, friends, and those subscribed to your Profile informed about new happenings with your business.
Those who follow your Facebook Page expect to see promotions and conversations about your programs and services, so it’s perfectly acceptable to promote your business on a Facebook Page.
For a more comprehensive understanding of Profiles and Pages, check out Book II, Chapter 1.
Your Facebook Page can serve as a meeting place for people who have similar interests and values. Involve your customers in your conversations by asking them questions and encouraging them to share their thoughts.
One way you can create a hub of activity is to encourage your fans to use your Facebook community as a platform where they can connect with other like-minded individuals.
You can become the go-to source in your industry, for example, making your Page the hub of your industry’s latest news and happenings. By delivering valuable content via your Facebook Page, you’re setting up your company as the authority — a trusted advisor.
One great example of a company using Facebook to position itself as the go-to source for an industry is HubSpot, a major player in the marketing automation software space (see Figure 1-7).
During the course of this book, you’ll have the opportunity to familiarize yourself with many strategies that can help you create a unique hub of activity, including a bunch of strategies we show you in Book VII.
After you set up your Facebook Profile, you have several privacy options to choose among to determine just how much or how little of your Facebook self you want to share. These options become even more important if you decide to activate the Subscribe button, making your Profile more accessible.
First, Facebook has what it calls an “inline audience selector,” which is a drop-down menu that lets you decide which group of people sees your post (see Figure 1-8).
With the inline audience selector, you can choose to display your post to five groups:
Here’s how to access your privacy settings:
A drop-down menu opens with privacy options.
On the Privacy Settings and Tools page, you can see all your options for setting your privacy controls on Facebook, as shown in Figure 1-10.
Facebook’s privacy settings allow you to control exactly who sees what within your Facebook Profile. The challenge is that the privacy settings are extremely detailed, and Facebook changes or upgrades them often. But don’t worry: When Facebook does make changes, it always notifies users, thereby keeping everyone informed.
Also included on the privacy options dashboard is the option to set your default privacy setting to Public, Friends, or Custom. You can also dive deeper into the settings and customize specific sections of your Profile Timeline, and we suggest that you do just that.
Facebook gives you the opportunity to give a face and personality to your company. Sure, many of us use Facebook in our day-to-day business (as we mention earlier in this chapter), but the vast majority of Facebookers are there to engage with their friends and have fun. And no matter how serious your product or service may be, you always have room for a little levity.