Social Media 101 – Step 7: Even More Facebook Strategies
Well – I’m back on the horse. Now, I’m very happy to have a lot of work coming in and all, but if any of you could share your tips on adding a few more hours into the day, I sure would be appreciative. I’ve been trying to figure that one out for many years now, and I just can’t seem to find the answer.
So – in the interest of keeping it brief and getting back to client work, I present to you even MORE Facebook strategies. When it comes to Social Marketing, Facebook is the heaviest hitter – so you’ll want to focus a lot of your attention there.
If you’re a business – you have to be on Facebook. If you’re not, you’re missing out on a huge market, huge virality and the potential for huge returns. But – you have to be smart about it, and sometimes “being smart about it” can entail some slightly less-than-comfortable actions.
I’m not saying to sell out or do anything seedy – what I’m saying is that you need to approach Facebook with a slightly more “salesy” mindset. I know – that kind of scares the hell out of me, too.
But anyway- I present to you, my intrepid readers:
Lesson 7: Even More Facebook Strategies
The Exercise:
Part 1: Call To Action: Getting folks to your Facebook page isn’t horribly difficult. Folks are on Facebook all the damned time. You think your secretary is busy building links to your business by posting comments on blogs? WRONG! She’s on chatting on Facebook. You think your customers are out there looking at your page and devouring your content? WRONG! They’re really just out there, screwing around on Facebook, wasting their time and – most probably – company time. In a lot of ways they’re being passive consumers, reading updates and messing with their friends and looking for old flames to chat up. So – how do you change that passivity? You give them a call to action. Use a graphic, a landing page, a special offer or some other incentive to click “Like.”
You want them to “Like” your page so that you can tap into their friends and their wall and their life. Them seeing your page once might be good – but getting them to “Like” you will bring you one step closer to being a part of their Facebook life – no matter how sad and unproductive that life might actually be. Give them something to “Like,” and they’re more likely to come back, post to their wall, share with their friends and help you spread like chicken pox in a daycare.
Part 2: Hide from Non-Fans: When you get eyeballs on your page, it can be a good idea to hide some stuff from non-fans. Make them click “Like” to see a special offer, get a coupon code or see more information. Tease them and they’ll be curious. You want your general information to be readily available (website, phone numbers, etc.) but you also want to give them more to pursue – but you don’t have to just give it away. Use folks’ natural curiosity to build your “mailing list” of Facebook fans. That’s a valuable list – very targeted and essentially limitless.
Part 3: Encourage Interaction: Once you’ve got them in, ask them questions. This can serve a couple of purposes. First, it gets folks adding content (answers) for you. This is good – it’ll bring them in, plus their friends will see their posts, helping you grow virally. Second, you can use this information to develop ad campaigns, new products, new ideas, blog posts, etc. It’s like a free focus group. There are lots of ways to encourage interaction – and there are a lot of rewards.
Part 4: Give it Away Now: Want to see lots of fans and some big interaction? Give something away in exchange for sharing. It can be a contest where you pick a winner – or you could give away information, links or special deals for simply sharing or interacting. Be judicious here – and remember that if you give something great away, you might have to give away hundreds or thousands of them. Even at a couple of pennies per item, that can add up if it explodes and grows like it can. 750 million people all wanting a free tshirt can be kind of expensive.*
Next up is Step 8: Twitterification…
