Tag Archives: facebook fan page

5 Easy Steps to Your Successful Facebook Marketing Strategy

fb-marketing-strat

As business owners we all know that strategy -the game plan- is key to long term success! When it comes to Facebook marketing, there are 5 parts of the game plan that work together as a solid strategy. Read on to learn more about the 5 steps to your Facebook success!

#1 Start with a clear Mission

Your business success should start with your clear mission. Your mission explains to everyone -prospects, customers and employees- what your company is all about. It’s the answer to this key question: “why does your company exist?”

A lot of well known brands owe their success to a clear mission. When Steve Jobs started his company he was not motivated by selling computers, but by supporting people with their creativity.

And 1-800-Flowers.com is not in the business of selling flowers. When Jim McCann founded his retail florist shop in 1976- he was motivated by

“helping people express themselves with the important people in their lives”.

So, before you even think about Facebook marketing, you should know in what type of business you are in. How are you solving people’s problems or fulfilling their desires?

#2 Take Your Facebook vitamin C’s

vitamin-CMari Smith -a social media leader and someone I admire as a top professional- has talked about the 6 C’s in one of her Facebook Success Summit presentations. I like to refer to these as your 6 Facebook vitamin C’s, and advice you to take them daily:

  • Clarity: make it crystal clear what you are offering on your fan page. Use a tagline on your cover photo and add clear calls to action on your About section and in your page updates.
  • Content: share stories that get a lot of likes, shares and comments.
  • Connection: think relationship first! Listen well and keep listening.
  • Campaign: use Facebook promotion tools to support your campaigns.
  • Conversion: work on converting your fans into paying customers.
  • Culture: make your fan page the extension of your brand or company’s culture. This involves more than just using the same brand (look and feel) on your fan page. This concerns your community management: who you hire, your response time, how you respond, the type of content you share, formal or informal, humor, etc…

#3 Use shareable content

Here are some basic rules for shareable content:

  • keep it short (80 characters get more shares),
  • vary your content (audio, photos, video, links),
  • respond to people that share your content with a like,
  • ask questions,
  • make it fun,
  • learn what people like by visiting other fan pages related to your niche,
  • know the best time of day and day of the week to engage with your fans.

For more tips on shareable content for your Facebook page, read this article by Mari Smith: “7  Ways to craft your Facebook posts for maximum shares“.

If you wonder how to manage your content, check out Search Engine Journal’s article Shareable content.

#4 Experiment, test and track your results

planning-150x150When it comes to your successful Facebook marketing strategy, one size does not fit all. By experimenting, testing and tracking your results, you learn what works and what not. Think about experimenting with the frequency of your posts, time zones, types of content (photo, video, links, updates) and variations in your calls to action.

#5 Learn from other successful fan pages

A lot of big consumer brands -like Coca Cola, Disney, Starbucks, Oreo, Skittles- are doing extremely well on Facebook. In fact they are in the top 50 of branded Facebook pages.

Monitor these fan pages and visit a lot of other pages and see what type of content gets a lot of shares. Study their branding, apps, cover photos, taglines, calls to action, text in the about section, page updates and Facebook promotions. Go to Facebook pages to search for other brand pages.

Conclusion:

Your goal should not be to be good at Facebook, but to be good at business because of Facebook. It all starts with working on a well thought out Facebook marketing strategy. Follow these 5 steps, experiment, test and track your results. And remember, social platforms like Facebook offer a lot of new opportunities for everybody, but it takes time to get results. So, be patient and work with people who understand this and know what they are doing!

What are your best tips to grow your business on Facebook? Please, share your tips or thoughts in the comment box below.

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6 Ways Restaurants Can Best Use Facebook

Facebook offers EVERY restaurant a great way to stay in touch with their customers and find new ones. The key is in providing timely information and great value.

Restaurant

By offering regular, fun, social information and timely updates via Facebook posts, a page has started well! By then making sure you offer easy access to information, deals, and more RIGHT ON Facebook to would-be customers, restaurants can really benefit. This provides easy, fast, and immediate access and removes barriers of potentially losing fans by transferring them to your website (more on that below).

6 Things Restaurants Should Do on Facebook

1. Post Inspiring Content, Images, and News Regularly

While it could be tempting to offer deals, specials, and more continually, please remember that social media is about building relationships, being social, and offering value. Users are on Facebook to connect and engage with things of interest. Being too salesy all the time will turn fans off. A loyal following and community can only be created if you actively seek out and share valuable content, yours and community related, that inspires, informs, educates and connects.

Post on a regular schedule, such as 2-3 times per day at key times and in a way that invites Likes, Shares, and Comments. Use a mix of post types from status updates to photos of food and short videos of life and times at the restaurant.

NOTE: people are visual and the popularity of Facebook and Pinterest prove that people connect with images. If you want to quickly capture the attention of your fans or followers, add images that are eye-catching and pleasing to the eye. Also, consider using simple tools like Vine and Instagram’s Video tool along with Facebook Video and YouTube as ways to easily create shareable videos that display well on Facebook.

2. Highlight Special Items on the Fan Page Cover Image

Now that Facebook no longer has a text limit of 20% on Cover Images, use the Cover Image regularly as a means of showcasing valuable items like this week’s special, new seasonal offerings, or pictures of the live band, whatever is relevant to your restaurant! This can be changed out weekly or 2x a week. Consider using a Cover Image template to enable you to customize images quickly and be sure to edit the image to include a description and a link when it is posted. Here’s 12 more ideas for creating buzz with your Cover Image.

3. Include a Menu Tab

It’s not rocket science! Let visitors on your Facebook Page know what you got right on Facebook!

Add a tab and add your menu to the tab. Want to save more time? Use the TabSite Website ReSizer and simply add your existing menu from your website to a Facebook tab! Why? It saves time! Update your menu on your website and the tab is updated automatically since it’s the same page, just on Facebook! Website ReSizer allows the powerful advantage of making any website page fit perfectly in a tab.

Then share updates to your menu via a post on Facebook and link to the tab via a Smart URL (mobile friendly) to take visitors direct to the tab!

4. Offer Reservations via a Facebook Tab

Does Friday evening get packed at your hot spot? Do you already offer reservations via your website? Then simply bring it into Facebook for use! Same as the menu tab above, create a tab and use the Website ReSizer app to bring your web reservations page into Facebook for use. Then post about it in the news feed before prime time and get customers used to coming to your page on Facebook to make their reservations! Sweetness!

This adds a great dimension of functionality to your fan page. When people are on Facebook, they want to stay on Facebook, and this allows them to do so by giving them the information and tools right on the Facebook page tab.

5. Use Facebook Check Ins and Check In Deals

Restaurants can have the Check In feature enabled, which is valuable to get extra exposure on Facebook!

Facebook offers quite a variety of page category options. One of the biggest features that any local business should take advantage of is the Check In option.

This will allow users to check into your location, which is helpful for at least two reasons. First, it can raise awareness of your business and location with friends of the user checking in. Second, check ins can be part of Graph Search results, so that if a Facebook user is searching for a restaurant in Chicago that friends have visited, check ins appear in results.

Graph Search result with check-ins of friends listed.

Graph Search result with check-ins of friends listed.

To check or change your Page category, go to the Admin Panel and select Edit Settings. Then go to Basic Information, and find Category at the top of the list.

Check In Deals

A big bonus that Facebook offers is ability for locations with Check In feature to offer a deal for visitors checking in. This is a great way to generate some buzz and get more exposure leading to more customers. (Note: I’ve seen that they are not available in some countries).

What is a Check-in Deal?

A Check-in Deal is a way to offer an incentive to customers to check-in to your business on Facebook with their mobile devices. When they check-in, you can offer any of the following Deals in exchange:

Individual: Offer a discount to an individual for simply checking in.

Loyalty: Offer a discount or freebie for checking in a certain number of times.

Friend: Offer a Deal to groups of friends who check-in together.

Charity: A check-in results in a donation to the specified charity.

Access Deals in your Page Admin area:

check-in-offer-deals

Check In Offer Deal Types as Shown in Page Admin

Check In Offer Deal Types as Shown in Page Admin

6. Offer a Special Deal for Email Sign-ups via a Facebook Tab

By adding a Email sign-up tab to your Facebook page and making users aware of it periodically through posts and tips, restaurants grow their email list and then reach potential buyers and sellers via this means as well. This is critical! Email continues to be a primary marketing success method. When it gets into the inbox, it gets attention.

Email marketing continues to provide value to those who use it by creating a routine of regular information and education that is in the inbox! With integration’s for tabs from services like MailChimp and Constant Contact among others, having a custom tab for email sign-ups is a snap! More powerful still than a basic sign-up form is to create incentive by offering some of value, a free guide, offer, or resource, that is the motivator that is shared to encourage users to opt-in.

Deal Download Offer Tab options >>

tabs

Together these tips implemented and carried out with regular news feed updates on your restaurant fan page can be a valuable method of marketing to grow more customers!

What about your business? Most of these tips can also apply to other industries as well! Do you have other ideas to add to the mix?

How to Use Facebook Hashtags to Increase Facebook Contest Results

Facebook Hashtag Contest Promotion Communication Facebook recently announced the incorporation of hashtags into their platform.

What is a hashtag?

Hashtags turn topics and phrases into clickable links. They can be used on your personal timeline, Facebook page, photos on Facebook and the list goes on. Facebook hashtags make it easy for users to easily follow conversations and even find topics or products they are interested in.

Check out this post which provides a good summary of the new Facebook hashtag feature and capabilities, “Hashtags on Facebook Arrive.

As marketers are starting to dig into the opportunities for using hashtags on Facebook to increase their marketing results one way that must not be overlooked is the ability to use Facebook hashtags for contests and promotions.

How to Use Facebook Hashtags in Contests and Promotions

1. Select a hashtag to represent your contest, promotion and/or brand. Make it simple and easy to remember.

2. Include the hashtag as part of the foundational communication for the contest or promotion. Include it in all communication such as email, tweets, Facebook posts, Facebook images and photos, Pinterest posts, and blog posts when announcing and inviting people to participate in the contest or promotion.

3. Give participants clear instructions on how to use and include hashtags as they participate in the contest and as they share with their friends and colleagues.

4. Monitor the hashtag on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and other platforms as appropriate. Watch for conversations to engage, answer questions.

5. Leverage the hashtag in your metrics to measure the overall success of the campaign.  Facebook has not launched integrated hashtag measurement features for this yet. Efforts currently will need to be manual and leverage available tools, manual monitoring and tracking of conversations etc.

As with anything you do with social media and Facebook marketing, hashtags should not be used as a stand-alone strategy or tactic. Integrate hashtags into your marketing. Align them with key marketing initiatives, campaigns, and promotions. Take the time needed to learn and understand how they can help you achieve your goals and objectives, not just randomly throw them into your contest.

Check out our recent Facebook webinar for details on how to use hashtags in Facebook Promotions and Contests and much more. “How to Run a Successful Facebook Photo Contest.”

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20 Ideas to Rock Your Facebook Business Page With Tabsite Website Resizer

facebook website resizer ideas to rock facebook page

facebook website resizer ideas to rock facebook pageOne of the top questions we receive from customers of all kinds is “what do I put on a Facebook tab?”

The answer is easy if you know the right answers to a few of the most important questions to be successful online, offline and in business.

How you use Facebook and what information you put on your tabs for your audience to devour depends on your audience, their needs and your business goals.

What you need to know:

  • Your audience. Who are they?
  • Your audience’s needs. What keeps them up at night?
  • What are your business goals?
  • What are the goals for your Facebook business page?
  • How does your audience engage with you? What type of communication do they like? Tone of conversation? Frequent or infrequent? What mediums do they prefer? Video, podcasts, written word?
  • How much time do you have?
  • How much time does your audience have?
  • Do you have access to a designer?
  • If an agency or consultant, how much time and money does your client have?

All of these questions can impact the answer for “what goes on my Facebook business page? ”

Tabsite just launched the new Facebook Website Resizer engagement application. You can check it out here ->> Tabsite Website Resizer Application Announcement In summary it enables you to very quickly grab a web page from your existing website and embed it into Facebook in a matter of minutes. Check out this guest blog post and video tutorial from Pam Moore of Marketing Nutz, where she shows you how easily this can be done in 10 minutes!

Below are 20 ideas to rock out your Facebook business page with our new website resizer application.

  1. Welcome page to welcome new visitors to your Facebook page.
  2. Email list opt-in page to grow your email list and generate leads.
  3. Call to action page to download free whitepaper or other information.
  4. Hotel booking page.
  5. Restaurant menu.
  6. eCommerce sales page highlighting your top products or services.
  7. Food truck location page to help customers know where your Food truck is at any given time.
  8. Announce a new product.
  9. An “About You” page highlighting a video of your company or simply plain text describing who you are and what you do.
  10. Customer testimonial page.
  11. Page listing your clients.
  12. Page highlighting top blog posts or articles you have written.
  13. Page summarizing top news and announcements.
  14. Showcase of your work such as graphic design, website development if you are an agency or consultant.
  15. Upcoming events.
  16. Event registration page.
  17. Event calendar page.
  18. Frequently asked questions page.
  19. Contact us page.
  20. Google Maps Page

Your Turn

What ideas do you have? What unique ways are you using Facebook for business?

How to Add your Website to your Facebook Fan Page

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