Digital Marketing Training Week 23 Develop a Facebook Marketing Strategy

Task 23: Develop a Facebook Marketing Strategy This week, spend an hour developing a Facebook marketing strategy for your brand...

Task 23: Develop a Facebook Marketing Strategy This week, spend an hour developing a Facebook marketing strategy for your brand.

Why is this important? ▪ As of 2012, Facebook has 955 million users monthly. ▪ There are about 852 million log ins to Facebook every day. ▪ Facebook is one of the many sites being accessed daily via mobile, in fact, 54 percent of users access Facebook on mobile devices.

Step #1: Define Your Facebook Marketing Goals Defining your Facebook marketing goals is important for your success. They may include one or more of the following: ▪ Increasing brand awareness. ▪ Generating sales. ▪ Earning social signals for your site. ▪ Providing customer support. ▪ Increasing customer engagement. ▪ Promoting discounts. ▪ Managing your reputation. ▪ Building a community of loyal fans/customers.

Step #2: Define Your Target Market Getting to know your consumer demographics can help to focus your social media marketing efforts on Facebook. The visitor demographics on your website probably coincide with the demographics of your Facebook page fans. Check your audience demographics on WooRank.

Visitor Demographics on WooRank's Website Review

Step #3: Enhance your Facebook Page Take advantage of the various features of the new Facebook timeline for brand pages. ▪ Use a Facebook timeline cover photo. A recent eye-tracking study says that a Facebook cover photo grabs more attention for a Facebook page. Change your timeline cover photo according to seasons, holidays, special events or discount promotions. Use your cover photo to tell the story of your brand. ▪ Use your logo as your profile picture. ▪ Highlight the most important post on your timeline and pin it to the top of your brand page. You can do this by clicking on the star icon, found on the top right corner of your Facebook wall post. You can remove the highlight when you choose. ▪ Add timeline apps to your Facebook brand page (found below your cover image). See sample screenshot shown below:

Custom Timeline Apps Found Below Cover Image on Facebook

You can include a variety of apps from the drop-down menu, such as events, notes, videos or groups, or find other apps that may serve your Facebook marketing goals (as discussed in Step #1). Learn more about apps for pages here. You can also rearrange the order of your apps and choose a custom thumbnail for each.

Step #4: Engage with Your Fans. Facebook is an informal medium to engage and build relationships with your fans. Anything that you post on your timeline must encourage fans to Like, Share or Comment on your Facebook wall. Create fan engagement on Facebook in the following ways: ▪ Post regular company updates. ▪ Post industry related updates. ▪ Post high quality images and videos on matters of interest (depending on your customer demographics and other consumer-related data you have collected, as mentioned in Step #2). ▪ Create a poll. ▪ Ask questions relating to an event, season, holiday, or your product or service. ▪ Organize Facebook contests. ▪ Cross-promote offline events or other company marketing on Facebook. ▪ Post staff photographs or event photographs. ▪ Promote your coupons on Facebook. ▪ Support a social cause or collaborate with a charity and encourage fan support. ▪ Use humor, it grabs attention. ▪ You can use your Facebook timeline for customer service. Note: Respond to both negative and positive comments. Solve disputes and let your page visitors or friends know that you are actively taking responsibility for your services on your Facebook page. Here is a great post that talks about customer support tips on Facebook.

Step #5: Promote Your Facebook Fanpage ▪ Include a Facebook link on all your business-related communications and correspondences. ▪ Include a Facebook icon on your website or any other marketing platform that links to your brand page. ▪ Add Facebook social plugins to content that can be shared on your website, such as a blog page. ▪ Include your Facebook page URL on offline promotional materials, business cards, letterheads or on products at your physical place of business, for example, a menu card in a restaurant. ▪ Create a Facebook ad to promote your page. Feature an attention grabbing image, a call-to-action and a compelling message. Learn more about Facebook Ads here.

Step #6: Check Facebook Insights Facebook insights can be accessed by those who have admin access to your page. ▪ You will see an overview graph, as shown below, that indicates your number of posts, people talking about the posts and the weekly reach of these posts.

Facebook Insights Overview Graph

▪ Below the graph you will find reach statistics, the number of engaged users, people talking about each post and the virality for each recent post on your timeline. You can choose the type of post from the drop down menu to see the metrics for specific types of posts, such as text updates, photos, videos, links, questions and offers, as shown below:

Choose Specific Metrics for Specific Types of Wall Posts

▪ As discussed in Step #2, checking the demographics of your target market can be done externally before developing a Facebook marketing strategy. Once your page becomes popular and gathers fans, you can check your fan demographics within your Facebook insights by clicking on the option Likes, next to Overview, as shown below. This information will help you better target your visitors on your Facebook timeline.

Check Your Fan Demographics on Facebook Insights

▪ Click on the option Reach to check your page views and unique visitor views. You can also check your reach via organic searches and paid and viral searches.

Resources for Further Learning: ▪ Blog Article: Facebook Marketing Mistakes to Avoid ▪ Blog Article: Facebook Marketing Plan ▪ Video: Dos and Don’ts for Marketing on Facebook