Thinking about creating a Facebook fan page? Don’t just jump in | Social Media Answers

Thinking about creating a Facebook fan page? Don’t just jump in.

By: Kevin Palmer on 10/13/2009
Thinking about creating a Facebook fan page? Don’t just jump in.

Over the last few weeks I have come across multiple tutorials on creating a Facebook fan page. None of these tutorials were exactly groundbreaking and they all essentially said the same thing. (You can import your RSS feed! Integrate Twitter! You can have conversations! People can share your stuff!) Another trait they have in common is that they completely ignored the fact that different Facebook pages have different default settings that you can’t change once they are selected.

Here is a great resource on the different default settings available based off the type of page you are setting up.

So BEFORE setting up a Facebook page here are two things you should do.

1)      Look at other pages in and out of your niche.

Go look at your competitors, go look at other brands/people/artists that you like, and examine what you like about their page. Pay close attention to a couple of different areas. The first being what is in the information section of their profile, these differ based on what profile you choose.

Take a second to see what features beyond the standard page setups that you like. Take a few seconds to find out what applications are powering these features. Some applications you can determine just by looking at that section, you can also try searching for the functionality through the Facebook application directory, or if all else fails ask.

2)      Layout your desired page on paper first

Think about the desired applications you want to add and then draw out a sample page. Start thinking about the layout now to avoid total and utter application overkill and glut. What is the most important information that you want to share on your page? What is the best way to share it? How can you keep the focus on this information without people getting lost in unimportant bells and whistles?

Thinking about the layout before jumping in gives you a roadmap but also helps you think about goals. I find that a lot of the time when you just jump and start playing with the tool the idea of goals and strategy get lost in the shuffle.

via socialmediaanswers.com

excellent advice from kevin

5 Ways to Get Your Customers Talking | Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

word of mouthWord of mouth marketing is considered by many to be the most desired form of marketing. The trust, referrals, and overall brand building buzz that’s garnered by customers spreading the good word to prospects is worth its weight in gold. Some products, services, and experiences naturally produce chatter, but there are certainly things that any company can do to stimulate word of mouth and cash in on the buzz.

Here are five way to get your customers talking about you and your organization:

1) Ask them – the best word of mouth starts with “word of listen.” Call your customers up and ask them why they buy, why they stick around, and why they tell their friends about you. You might be a bit surprised by their answers. Hint: it’s usually not the stuff you have in your new marketing brochure. You stand a far greater chance of attracting the right customers and the right buzz if you really understand what your current customers value about doing business with you. This goes for online and social media listening as well – what are they saying in chat rooms, blog comments and on twitter?

2) Teach them – sometimes great word of mouth just happens, but sometime you’ve got to help it along. One way to do this is to make sure you are teaching your customers how to spot an ideal client, what a prospect in need might say when looking for your products, and how to properly and concisely describe how your company in different. Of course, in today’s hyper social media world you should also be teaching your happiest customers how to write reviews on Yelp, Insider Pages and CitySearch type rating sites.

3) Include them – People like to be asked what they think, it’s just human nature, but it’s also a great way to get some sound advice. Create a round table discussion group made up of select customers and charge them with advising you once a quarter or so on new marketing and business initiatives. (Reward them for this in some way as well.) This can include advising on everything from a product extension to the look and feel of your web site redesign. Members of your marketing round table will become natural ambassadors for the brand. (You can do this with simple video chat meetings – tinychat)

4) Star them – Letting a customer testimonial or success story go uncaptured or untold is downright criminal in WOM circles. Go out and get a TouchMic MityMic to record customer testimonials to your iPod or get a Flip video camera and start doing video interviews with customers to record their success stories. These “real life” bits of content are gold and turn your featured customers into talking referral billboards for your brand. Want to take this idea up a notch? Hold a customer party and film a dozen or so at one time in a great atmosphere – this alone will get your customers talking.

5) Surprise them - I like to think I saved the best for last – few things get people talking faster than surprising them. This can include doing something that was out of the blue and much appreciated to just giving them more than they bargained for. I remember a PR firm that was pitching me some business and the account rep showed up to meet with an apple pie (I’m still talking about it.) I once worked with a financial planner that hired a mobile auto detail firm to detail his customer’s cars during their annual review – that created some buzz.

Bottom line of course is that you’ve got to do good work, do something that somebody appreciates, and create an experience worth talking about, but then, prime the pump and leverage all that greatness.

Image credit: rego
via ducttapemarketing.com

 

Integrating PPC with Offline Marketing - Search Engine Watch (SEW)

We've all heard the stories about companies spending millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads, only to forget to include their URL in the ad, or to load-test their Web site. Let's look at how to make the most of those offline marketing dollars by including PPC in your marketing mix.
via searchenginewatch.com

specific to search marketing, but very useful ideas of hybrid media strategies

On Twitter, Information Beats Sentiment

On Twitter, Information Beats Sentiment

Written by Sarah Perez / October 2, 2009 6:22 AM / 4 Comments

Researchers at Pennsylvania State University recently revealed the results of a study which looked into how people were using Twitter to talk about products. Companies, of course, fear what a negative barrage of tweets can do to their brand, leading many to establish Twitter accounts themselves to provide information, customer service, and support. As it turns out, these businesses may not need to worry too much about what the "Twitter effect" can do their image after all. The study revealed that the number of brand-related tweets where sentiment is expressed is not the dominating force that you may think. In fact, the majority of tweets mentioning a brand are merely casual comments or tweets from someone giving or seeking information. And when sentiment is expressed, it's generally positive.

More Tweets are Information-Seeking, Not Opinions

According to the study, which looked at 150,000 tweets, 11.1% of the brand-related tweets were information-providing while 18.1% were information-seeking. The latter of these two is especially useful to companies looking to understand what questions and concerns customers have about their products. However, the large majority of the tweets - 48.5% - were simply comments made in passing which mentioned the brand but whose primary focus was something else.

The remaining 22.3% of tweets were sentiment-related, meaning tweets in which a user was expressing an opinion about a brand, either negative or positive. What was surprising about this subset was that users were more likely to express positive tweets than they were to complain.

Why So Cheery, Twitter?

This seems odd, actually, given that the Internet has typically been a place for disgruntled consumers to rant and rave more so than it's been a place to praise what works. You can see this type of negative sentiment expression everywhere from online forums to whiny blog posts about how such-and-such company "did me wrong!" In fact, the desire to express a negative opinion even seems to dominate feedback systems like blog comments, for example. Rarely does a writer receive comments like "great post" or "I totally agree" - rather, more comments are resemble "you're wrong and here's why" or "how could you not mention X?"

That's why it's strange to hear that on Twitter, it's positive sentiment that reigns. What makes this platform more different than the rest of the Internet as a whole? Are Twitter users simply happier people? Or has the data been skewed by marketing campaigns where Twitter users are encouraged to tweet nice things about the company in order to win a prize?

Perhaps it's because Twitter simply makes it easier to express yourself, allowing for a better balance between negative and positive sentiments. Typically, sharing your opinion on the web meant exerting a good deal of effort. Writing a blog post, recording a video, or leaving a blog comment are things that take time. For the most part, busy, information-overloaded web surfers aren't going to take that time unless something really gets them fired up. Twitter, on the other hand, is so quick and easy to use, you can post a missive of joy in only seconds. And the 140-character limit allows you a no-pressure way of doing so.


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  1. We're looking at millions of brand-related tweets to create http://rankspeed.com and I confirm that most of them are neutral, some are positive and few are negative.
    The percentage of positive tweets is really relevant if you compare this number with other brands. One number alone does not really make sense.

     Posted by: Florent Author Profile Page

    | October 2, 2009 7:19 AM



  • Without going into a long dissertation on the psychology of color, I'd say a contributing factor to Twitter positiveness is the GUI.

    "happy", "cute", bordering on cartoonish ( in a good way ) look and feel, the great emphasis on left-to-right page read with profile pictures being first, plus the subtle use of serif and sans serif fonts, all subliminally contribute to positive input.

    Posted by: Todd | October 2, 2009 7:23 AM



  • I soo... wish you guys (and e-marketer, who reports on the study) would include the citation to the original source. Was this study published? Where? Who are the authors? If I want to read the original study, where do I find it?

    I assume it's based on this news release from PSU:
    http://live.psu.edu/story/41067 - and they don't provide a citation either :(

     Posted by: Mihaela (Dr. V) Author Profile Page

    | October 2, 2009 7:42 AM



  • Different purpse for communication. If I'm in a support forum - chances are I have a problem. With blogs -the format itself seems to solicit feedback - "here's info, little opinion, what do you think?". So the commenter goes into critical thinking mode. Same story with forums. Now social networking on the other hand is a different story. For most of us Twitter is not yet a forum for conversation, more like shouting into a clammed of other voices. So we tend to speak with emotion, especially current emotion. So it's more natural to say "I love Foldgers". Plus, how many blog posts make you think about the morning cup.

     Posted by: Rob Colburn Author Profile Page

    | October 2, 2009 7:43 AM



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    M.I.T. Lets Student Bloggers Post Without Censoring - NYTimes.com

    Dozens of colleges — including Amherst, Bates, Carleton, Colby, Vassar, Wellesley and Yale — are embracing student blogs on their Web sites, seeing them as a powerful marketing tool for high school students, who these days are less interested in official messages and statistics than in first-hand narratives and direct interaction with current students.

    But so far, none of the blogs match the interactivity and creativity of those of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where they are posted prominently on the admissions homepage, along with hundreds of responses from prospective applicants — all unedited.

    via nytimes.com

    a lesson for membership organizations?

    The 8 Major Differences Between Traditional and Internet Consumers | Microgeist

    Customers are no longer just customers. They not longer sit in front of the tube and absorb messages from self declared authorities or people who play doctors on TV. At the very least, even with the traditionally no-brains medium of television, viewers are encouraged to call in, ask questions or vote on the most talented singer. At a more advanced level, people are providing the content, commentary via comments, technological infrastructure, design, acting, video production and everything else involved in producing, consuming and interpreting content. By the time that someone has participated, even in the most rudimentary level in this process, they are more media and business savvy. This creates a more critical consumer who can see past hype, misdirection and has the resources to independently vet claims.
    via microgeist.com

    this is the shift I describe to clients, to friends and family, passersby: marketing has to change with the consumer!

    Twitter Inventor Invests in Foursquare

    Dorsey’s investment with Foursquare is personal and not on behalf of Twitter, but his involvement with both companies might raise some questions as Twitter enters the geolocation arena themselves with the upcoming launch of their location APIs.
    via mashable.com

    seems like foursquare is getting pretty darn close to some kind of tipping point...

    How Sharing Links Has Become Big Business - NYTimes.com

    Your parents probably told you that sharing was simply the right thing to do. But on the Web today, inducing people to share links has become big business, all about driving traffic back to a site and increasing ad revenue. Young companies like AddThis (owned by Clearspring Technologies) and ShareThis are the giants of this particular corner of the Web, syndicating their catalog of sharing buttons — at no charge — to major Web sites, and developing ways to make money by selling data about who is sharing, and how much, back to Web publishers and their advertisers.
    via nytimes.com

    share and share alike