Top tactics for being on Facebook
Your brand has seven different Facebook pages: one for corporate, one for employees, one for a promotion you did last spring and three created by so-called “fans” (two of whom actually hate you). You can see your fans’ pictures but no one in the organization has actually looked at their “profiles.”
Even a studious review of fan profiles, assuming they are both real and truthful, is unlikely to give you the consumer insights that will lead your brand to a new positioning or drive sales past all goals. But while you’re not garnering real insights at least your Brand is on Facebook. Right?
Now to those few but highly evolved marketers, like Quiznos and PetCo, who actually do great jobs on Facebook, my apologies. To those who run totally involving brands such as Starbucks, with their global reach and passionistas who need to share their drink of the day, I congratulate you.
For the rest of you, here are the six tactics you must be doing to truly say “My Brand is on Facebook.”
- Create self-fueling conversations and post at least once a day: short, engaging posts with a call to action.
- Respond to your fans’ posts.
- Use the apps Facebook so thoughtfully provides (such as polls and quizzes) then create your own. They have the shelf life of about a month, but that’s a year in Facebook time and users like them.
- Create promotions around your products: reward those fans.
- And never, ever forget it’s about “Me” not you. Everything needs to be tailored to let your fans show off some aspect of themselves. From the design of the app to the promotion it really isn’t about you at all, that’s why photo contests work so well.
- Integrate with your blogs and Twitter programs. Search out blogs that align with your efforts dialogue and become their fan.
Do these six tactics consistently and your brand will really be on Facebook. But, right about now it is hitting you; social marketing isn’t free at all. It takes time, effort and even some thought. So what’s the ROI? What’s the value of a fan (VOAF)? Only successful marketers know for sure.
