Tag Archives: Facebook

Stop Worrying About the Competition on Facebook!

Guest post via Jenny Brennan of Virtual Office Worx, originally posted here.

Are you worrying about the competition on Facebook? In all honesty this is a natural reaction though, but don’t get so obsessed with “the others” that you lose your focus – this is not a great plan, take it from someone who knows.

I’ve spoken to so many business owner’s that spend too much time looking into the next field that it paralyses them from doing anything.

I feel that pain because I used to do the same, but this year I am GOING FOR IT!

Do you ask yourself these questions?

  • What is my competition doing?
  • How many fans do they have?
  • How much business are they generating from Facebook?
  • How much time do they spend on their Facebook Marketing?
  • Do they “buy” likes? (I’ll come to this later)
  • How much do they spend on ads?
  • What content are they sharing?
  • Where do they get their content?

Every time I get asked one of these questions I think of one of my favorite quotes-:

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Of course you can learn from your competition, but don’t get so focused on them that you forget about what you need to be doing.

Here are 5 ways that will help you to stop worrying about the competition and take control of your own Facebook Marketing.

#1 But My Competition Is Doing Better – STOP

Really? How do you know that for sure. You don’t know how many leads they get from Facebook or how many of these leads are converting into paying customers.

We all have a different perception of success.  If you see a competitor page with 1000′s of Likes is this what you are bench-marking yourself against?  Their likes may not be high quality, and many page admins get caught up in the vanity of numbers. So what “CAN” you learn from the competition?

About Section – Look at your competitions “About Section” and see if you have filled yours in effectively. This is a great piece of real estate that tells people more about you and your business.

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Update Frequency – Analyze the number of updates that your competition post. Posts only have a short time to be seen in the news-feed, so frequent posting is advised – but don’t over post or you’ll alienate your fans

Engagement – How much engagement do they get? Engagement really is key to success on Facebook, this is where you have an opportunity to build a relationship with your fans. Look at the number of engagements your competition gets per post and what type of posts they get the engagement on. Users on Facebook like to be entertained, educated and responded to.

The engagement on this post cost me less than €5 and I received 23 website clicks, 6 new relevant likes and 5 new email subscribers – not too shabby!

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Custom Tabs – Are your competition using custom tabs? What added value do they have that you don’t. Giving away a free e-book or special offer is a great way to build your email list and further develop the relationship with your fans. Include a sign-up form for people who want to hear more about your business.

Custom-Tabs

Competitions – How many contests are your competitors running? Are they timeline contests or run on apps. Contests are a great way to engage and reward your fans

The new feature on Facebook called “Pages to Watch” let’s you  add your competitions pages. This will give you a weekly overview of how many likes they are building by, but not much else. Personally I don’t find it a ground breaking addition and I fear people might get obsessed with the numbers game.

Pages-to-Watch-1

You will find this option in your admin panel then simply add the pages you want to watch.

Pages-to-Watch-2

The main reason I don’t like this feature is because Facebook are prompting you to advertise for more likes based on the numbers your competition have (see the bottom of the graphic). I’ll cover this a bit later, but you really should focus on attracting quality fans that will “LIKE” your page.

There are some great third party tools that you can also use to analyze your competition.

#2 Plan

Having a plan is going to be the secret to your success. Here’s a post I wrote in early January “Social Media Planning 2014 – 5 Hot Tips To Help Market Your Business”

Points you can list before you start :-

  • What are my goals? Increase sales by X% – Increase Engagement by X% – Build fan base by X% – Build list by X%
  • Audience – Who are they and do they spend time on Facebook?
  • Frequency – How often will I post and do I have the resources?
  • Content – What content can I share that will entertain, add value and educate my fans?
  • Budget – What is my Facebook ads budget for the year – it’s imperative that you have one no matter how small to start. This is due to the newsfeed changes, but as you can see from my example above a little can really go a long way!
  • Design – Who will set-up and design my page – what ongoing design costs might I have?
  • Competitions – How often will I run them and what prizes will I give?
  • Lead generation – What strategies will I use to drive traffic to my website, increase sales and build my list? Will I use automation tools?

Once you have brain stormed this one you can start to create a content calendar to keep you on track. 

#3 Your Audience

Stop focusing so much on the audience of your competition. If they are doing well and have a highly engaged audience the chances are they worked hard for it, so don’t compare your beginning with someone else’s middle!

Here are some things you need to think about:

  • Is your audience on Facebook? – Test this by breaking down your target market in Facebook’s Ads Manager.
  • Are they inherently social? If they are social you need to create content that will get them talking, liking and sharing
  • What kind of a journey are you taking your fans on?
  • What is your ultimate goal?
  • What are their interests?
  • How can you help them?

If you can answer these questions your well on the way to finding your perfect audience.

#4 Focus On “YOUR” Page

Focus is a key word that even I have to remind myself to remember. If you lose focus on your own marketing efforts because your so wrapped up with the competition, you are missing out. There is plenty of room in this big online world for everyone and relationships are built on the experiences you share with your fans.

Break down your focus into the following headings :-

Content Creation – How much can you create yourself? If you are a restaurant owner you are constantly creating so taking images and sharing them with your fans will be easy. If your B2B you need to be creating content that will help your audience, whether it be video, blogging or podcasts

Content Curation – What third party content will help your fans? Sharing other people’s content is a good strategy to building your network with influencers in your industry

Scheduling – How much content do you need to schedule. This goes back to what we covered earlier with post frequency. You need to make sure you’ll have enough content to go round without losing quality on your page.

Insights – Focus on your insights. What are your fans really engaging with and how will you create more of that content?  Great post from Emeric Ernoult CEO at Agorapulse on how you can Improve your Facebook Marketing using Insights 

Tone & Personality – Be true to who you are and what makes you tick. Show some personality on your page, your fans will appreciate it

#5 Pay to Play – The free party is over…

Right I’ve said it. Facebook is no longer a FREE advertising platform. In fact it never really was. If you were managing your own page or outsourced it to a marketing company or paid someone in-house – the fact is you were paying for their time.

Facebook Ads are highly targeted and the cheapest way I know to market a business – once you know how! Your competition may have 1000′s more fans than you and the truth is they are likely advertising on Facebook to build their audience.

In the early days of advertising we would place an advert in the newspaper or on radio and hope that our target audience was a percentage of the readership, and we would hope that that percentage might pick up the phone or come to our shop and buy. Don’t get me wrong both forms of advertising can work, and if you have the budget to compliment your Facebook efforts with traditional advertising then good for you.

Facebook Ads are great because they are:

Targeted – I can target people who are interested in my services & products

Custom Audiences – I can upload my customer list, create a custom audience and take it a step further create a lookalike audience and target people who look like my customers – #Strong

Value for Money – If I target well I can get great value for money attracting the right type of fans

When you identify your perfect audience you can start an ad campaign that has a number of objectives

  • Attract new fans
  • Engage my fans
  • Convert my fans
  • Drive traffic to my website

On an ongoing basis you can focus on the first two. Don’t forget about your content though and how it ads value to your fans or the strategies you can use to convert them. I always use the 80/20 rule – 80% third party non-selling content and 20% promotional content – this may vary for you and your competition.

I’ll be writing about each of these topics in the coming weeks in more detail and giving you examples of what has really worked for me. Once you’ve analyzed your competition please follow steps 2 – 5. I’d love to hear how your doing so please share your facebook page in the comments below and let’s connect.

In the meantime don’t forget to shine your fans will love you for it  Jenny 

Valentine’s Day Facebook Tips for Businesses

valentines-day

Valentine’s Day is coming soon.  Are you ready?  

Valentine’s is an important holiday for business!  

  • $18 Billion in sales happens, second only to Christmas (Nat. Retail Federation)
  • Average amount spent per person for Valentine’s Gifts is over $131 (Forbes)
  • Restaurants can feast! 
    • Overall, 38% say they plan to go out for dinner on Valentine’s Day. For those who are married, that number jumps to 45%. (Forbes)

Consider also…

  • 50% of Valentine gifts are purchased in the last week before February 14! (Source)
  • In 2013, the average man planned to spend more than twice as much as the average woman on Valentine’s Day. (NRF 2013)

TIP: Tweet these Stats!

Tactical Tips for Retailers:

  • One Size DOES NOT FIT ALL – Target your Marketing to Niche Segments

“Bombarding shoppers with irrelevant, one-size-fits-all messaging and offers will be the death of retailers this Valentine’s Day. ” said Daniel Toubian, principal consultant for U.S. retail and consumer brands at Maxymiser. Read more: Maxymiser Valentine’s Day Study

  • Most men shop late for Valentines, so you still have time!
  • Free Shipping is a “most desired incentive” for those making purchases (Maxymiser)

How Can Your Business Quickly Roll Out a Valentines Deal on Facebook?

Need something quick and easy for your Facebook Page this Valentines season?  TabSite offers businesses the power to offer a Facebook approved Deal on Facebook Pages. (See Apps)

1. Identify your ideal buyer first!  – Male? Female? Age?

2. Identify the time when this audience is on Facebook (Use your Facebook Insights to view data about your fans)

3. Use Language in your Posts and Tab that connect with that audience!  Different words, even slang, connect with different demographics.

4. Solve the Problem that your ideal buyer has in deciding what to buy!  Men need the gift fast, easy, no hassles.  Women will spend more time thinking through the gift they plan to buy! (See below – full details here >)

ailyinfographic_com_men-vs-women-online-shopping-info

5. Repeat this process for Ideal Buyer Type #2 and #3! Yes, it can be so important to run not just one campaign, but 2-3 unique campaigns each designed for a specific audience!

Ideas for Promotions:

1. Timeline Contest to win a Valentine Gift Card (Do it all in 1 day!)

2. Easily create and launch a discount code for online use, or a coupon or a discount on specific products that fans can bring in to your store to make their Valentine purchase.

3. Offer a “Dinner for Two” Giveaway contest via a Sweepstakes App

View Complete Facebook Marketing Campaign for a Tab Details >>

 BONUS TIP:

Yes, Valentine’s is a romantic holiday, and, yes, this is a post related to the digital side of business sales geared towards that romantic holiday.  How else does digital tie into the romantic side of things??  Well, in case you needed to know this, Logitech did a survey and….

21 percent admitted to damaging their
tablet or smartphone while being intimate!

– Complete weird study results here >>

 

Edit Scheduled Posts on Facebook – Now Available

FInally! It’s long overdue but we just saw it roll out today….

edit-scheduled-facebook-posts-

Scheduled Posts in Facebook now offer the Edit option!

For so long, once you scheduled a post on your Facebook Page you had to delete it if you spotted a typo in your text.  Now, however, you can edit your text AFTER you have a post scheduled.

This feature is in the Activity Log that each Facebook Page Admin with Content Creator role privileges and above has access too.

Here’s the alert from Facebook:

edit-scheduled-posts

Here’s the feature access via the drop down menu:

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Let’s hope this change is NOT temporary!

To access your Activity Log, go to your Facebook page Admin Panel, then select “Edit Page” and finally, “Use Activity Log”.

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Do you have this feature for your Page yet?

Want more Facebook Resources? See these:

Capturing leads and Growing your Community on Facebook

Get Relevant! 10 Tips to Stomp the Status Quo Social Brand

12 Point Facebook Page Checklist for Page Admins [INFOGRAPHIC]

You need to Get a Grip on your Facebook Marketing!

 

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5 Easy Steps to Your Successful Facebook Marketing Strategy

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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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Five Facebook Marketing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

5 Facebook Posting Mistakes to Avoid and How to OvercomeCreating profitable Facebook pages takes time, effort, and strategy.

It is not at all a “if you build it, they will come” once and done “field of dreams” type situation.  Facebook page marketing success takes time and effort.  As a developer of apps that over 80,000 businesses use on Facebook, we’ve seen a lot of Facebook Pages!

Here are five common Facebook mistakes that small and medium businesses make on Facebook, and pointers on how your page can avoid such mistakes!

1. One Way Communication

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Social media, by its very definition, is an interactive medium where users engage with one another. One-way communication is a sure way to ensure that the fans gradually fritter away, disinterested. Even if it may not be possible to personally respond to the 1000+ comments that a post attracts, it is easy to simply like the comment, and reply to comments that do deserve a reply.

Solution: Create formal mechanisms to give feedback, post complaints or offer suggestions. The very basics of social communication needs to be met at all times – a word of thanks for suggestions, or a communication in the lines of “the complaint is being reviewed and the appropriate personnel would contact you via email” is in order.

2. Posting Primarily Sales Messages

Today’s customers have wisened up and see through obvious marketing pitches. A recent Pew Study estimates that 58% of Americans research on a product online before they make a purchase. They primarily seek information on the product, specifically how the product would fulfil their needs, and how the product is more value-for-money compared to competitor products. Businesses who are guilty of using their Facebook page as free real estate to park their ads invariably find their fan base dwindling.

Solution: Offer product and brand information through your Facebook pages in easy to digest capsules of information. Use e-books and case studies to highlight product features and benefits.  Be a resource, not just a selly sell infomercial!  Try this: 80% tips and resourcing from your content and others, 20% more direct sales type posts.

3. Auto-posting your Twitter Messages

Facebook users invariably have Twitter accounts as well, and most users subscribe to companies and people they like through all these channels. Auto-posting the same things from another social media channels may seem to make the marketer’s job easy, but provides their followers with good reasons to stop patronizing the Facebook page!  Twitter is different than Facebook!  Posting 140 characters and having your “@ replies” going to your Facebook page is NOT HELPFUL.  Different networks require different types and styles of communication.

Solution: Even when communicating the same message, marketers need to customize for the channel, and offer differentiation. In differentiating messages, marketers can leverage the unique style and culture of each different channels. Twitter, for instance, it is best to communicate a link 60-80% of the time or a short and succinct message. The link could actually be to the Facebook page that provides in-depth details, a compelling infographic, and discussions.

4. Posts that are too wordy and have no call to action

Yes, Facebook posts can accept well over 5,000 characters.  That doesn’t mean you should!

According to data by Kissmetrics and shared by Post Planner, “posts with 80 characters or less get 66% more engagement.”

Yes, we did say that being to “selly” is a problem.  However, a CTA, call to action does not have to be a pitch to buy!  Good calls to action that work, according to research data by Dan Zarrella, include actions to “Like”, “Share”, and “comment”.  These are calls to action that can be integrated!

People flock to the social media to interact with friends and do things. Posts that offer mere information, such as say prices, may attract a few likes, but the game-changers would come from posts that have definite call-to-action, something that creates an activity or engagement. Wordy and bland content, even if informative, may put off fans, harried as they are with information overload.

Solution: Offer calls to action, ranging from a link to the ecommerce page that leads to a special discount, or a fun-trivia quiz that deepens engagement, anything that would interest the followers to come back for more from time to time.

5. Not paying attention to design in images and tabs

For many businesses – guilty as charged!  Yes, you are busy but don’t just throw out a form with no offer and invitation.  That’s BORING!  Social Media in particular is visual and so you must communicate visually.  Common errors are no design or way too much competing imagery.  Images and design should not detract or deter, but should enhance and clarify.

Are you inspired to sign-up here?

constant-contact-basic-email-sign-up

This is boring.  It DOES NOT inspire me to submit my email address!

Solution: Attention to design ranks as a time tested Facebook marketing tip. Facebook users, like all Internet users, face information overload as marketers, friends, and myriad others of all vie for their attention with different content. Attractive designs in images and tabs serve to attract such users and bring them into the page, after which the content itself does its job of engaging such users.

It is not enough that the marketing content has meat, and that the strategy is in place. Successful, appropriate and helpful delivery through social media channels is critical to your success!

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