This looks pretty ugly if you were to include it on any material like a business card or email signature!
But once you’ve got 25 people liking your page (aka fans) you can apply for your username (also called a Facebook vanity URL).
Claiming a friendly username makes your page easier to find and looks more professional.
Try and come up with one that is appropriate for your brand name but easy to remember and read.
Once you claim your username YOU CAN'T CHANGE IT – so choose carefully! *
You have to be an administrator of a page before you can do this.
If you are using Facebook as your business page, Facebook will want you to 'switch from using Facebook as your page to using Facebook as yourself'.
If you do this, (by clicking on continue), you can still set a username for your business page in the same way as above. If you are the administrator for more than one page, you'll get a list of all the pages to select from.
You can also change your page name from your business page admin panel, via Edit Page -> Page Info. There is an option to Edit the Page Address which takes you back to step 2 above. Again you will have to switch back to the real you to do it.
*Update Sept 2013 - Looks like you can now change the name, but only once. Guess they got a lot of people wanting to 'correct' their page name!
]]>Advertising on Facebook is pretty quick to set up and get going, but like other online advertising platforms don't forget that Facebook's goal is to get more money out of you.
Fortunately they do this by helping you create ads that get lots of clicks because you pay when someone clicks on your ad. The trick is making sure this translates into business for you.
Facebook provide step by step instructions on the nuts and bolts of setting up ads with some specific help on managing and editing ads and campaigns so you might as well get it from the horses mouth.
Beyond that, how do you avoid your fledgling Facebook advertising campaign ending up on the scrap-heap of failed initiatives?
There has been conflicting reports on how well Facebook advertising works. Like most other marketing and promotional efforts, it's going to be a case of testing it and seeing if it works for your particular target audience and type of business.
But experimentation can be costly, so consider:
You can direct people who click on your ad to an external website (preferably your own!) or keep them within the Facebook ecosystem, which can mean lower cost-per-click.
If you are taking people to an external website, direct them to a purpose built landing page. If this page is being used by more than one campaign, add url parameters so you can identify in Analytics what traffic is being referred from Facebook. You can use this real handy url builder to make this easy.
With Facebook you can select who see's your ads using variables such as interests and location, age, gender and keywords. Social Fresh reports that there are big differences in performance based on gender, so optimise your ads by segmenting by gender (target one ad to the men, another one to women).
Of course to target the right people, you'll need to know what demographics your audience has and their interests, so if you don't know this you'd better stop until you do!
You could make the mistake of many new advertisers and 'go wide' for geographic location and stated interests, but this almost always ends up with lots of clicks but few sales and therefore a poor return on your investment.
Highly targeted ads are the smart way to go. Who exactly has the problem that you can solve?
You didn't think advertising on Facebook was free did you?
Facebook ads are charged on a CPC (cost per click) or CMP (cost per 1000 impressions). CPC tend to have a slightly higher click through rate, and ads that keep people on Facebook have (reportedly) a higher click through rate and lower cost per click.
Start bidding at Facebooks suggested amount, you can always limit the duration or daily spend until you have some initial data about effectiveness.
Once you've created your ads, it takes up to 24 hours to approve – although it can be quicker, remember to build approval time into the timing of your campaign
Create ads that:
You have to be concise as you only have 25 characters for the headline and 90 for the body text.
Create multiple versions of ads so you can see which gets the best response. Refresh your ads regularly to prevent them going stale as a result of people seeing them many times.
Consider sponsored stories instead of traditional ads.
It goes without saying (or does it?) that you should look at your statistics to figure out whether your campaign has been successful.
How you do this depends on the purpose of your campaign but might include:
There are tools starting to emerge to help you manage your Facebook campaign if your budget warrants stumping up an extra few hundred bucks to get things like fast ad creation, bulk editing, and ad rotation.
These include (this is not a recommendation of any of these tools):
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If you are in business you can't afford to get it wrong - at best it will be a waste of time, effort and money. It could cost you a LOT of money if you brand takes a mega hit.
Here are some tips to keep you on track:
Social media activity needs a quality website full of fresh shareable content to share and start conversations about. Social media and search engine optimisation has become entwined so what is good for one is going to be good for the other. Without good content and a compelling offer, your tactics could be a waste of time and money.
Even if you don't plan on using it straight away, claim your Twitter account, Facebook business page, YouTube channel. Unlike domain names that are country specific, Facebook, Twitter etc are global and if someone else claims the name first you will have to resort to adding numbers or letters to your account name making it harder for people to find you.
If you know where you are going you are more likely to get there. Before you devote time and effort, work out what you are trying to acheive by having a Facebook page. Is it to gather leads? Respond to complaints? Encourage your user community to support each other?
This will provide you some steer as to which networks to use and what support material and mechanisms you'll need to make it happen.
Even if just for your personal use. Have some experience using the tools even if you don't intend doing it yourself. You will make better decisions about your strategy, use of tools and who you employ to do it if you understand the basics.
You will avoid spreading yourself too thin. Each platform has it's own set of rules - both in the 'terms of use' sense and how it's user base behave. For example, many LinkedIn users don't appreciate a connection request from someone they don't know at all whereas this is not only common on Twitter, but necessary!
This will help you understand the competitive environment you are up against. Follow them and see what they are tweeting about and which ones get re-tweeted. See how they handle complaints and if they don't respond in a timely manner, you could contact the disgruntled party yourself and offer to help!
They can help develop your plan in detail, identify the best tools and platforms, develop policies and help guide you through the early days. These tools change rapidly, so it can be hard to keep up with all the changes if you are not doing it for a job.
Work out how much time and resources you have to allocate and make sure they have the right tools to make the job as efficient as possible. The write a plan of when you will be checking your pages, updating status etc. You may want to do this at a certain time each day.
Make sure you are monitoring your feeds, mentions etc. Measuring activity and results such as retweets, likes etc and can link these results to visitors to your website, leads and ultimately sales
Give people a reason to be a fan/follower – why should they? You can offer valuable tips, funny stories, latest news etc. Would you follow someone just so they can peddle their latest wares? Unlikely, so put yourself in their shoes!
Acknowledge people who contribute to the conversation – eg blog comments and shares. It's easy to say thank you
Remember that it's not all about you. Stay polite and professional when representing your brand, a social media mishap can go viral very very fast
Don't ignore customer complaints or comments, but don't respond to negative comments by being defensive and firing back at them. Use them as an opportunity to demonstrate how much you care about the quality of your products and level of customer service
If you want to learn from other's mistakes, read about these sometimes shocking often funny social media fails:
]]>Not everyone. And the only people you should be worried about is the people who you want to talk to. Ask your current and potential customers what social networks they are on and how they use them and that will give you your answer – where they are there, you should be too.
Google also looks for social signals as part of calculating your search ranking, so that could tip the balance into you taking some action. But being on every social network around isn't going to help, especially if you don't have the resources to do it properly.
Don't make this assumption based on your own experience or prejudice. Often when business say this, they can't back up the statement with research. Find out if your customers are social media, what platform and how they use it.
Don't even think about it.
Firstly, not everyone is on or actively uses one network exclusively. But the main reason you should not put all your online marketing in one basket, let's call it Facebook is that you need to own your own digital property so you can control it. If you use Facebook exclusively, they own you.
A third party set's the rules and can change them overnight. And they can also fail - taking your customers with them.
Some business owners think social media is just for kids or for fun and a sink hole of time and energy from a marketing perspective.
It can be if poorly targeted or used for broadcasting marketing messages. Like anything it has to be done properly.
Outsourcing it to a hip young agency to do it all for you isn't the answer either. Why we won't 'do' your social media.
Social media marketing takes time. It could potentially months or even years before a fan or follower engages you and a business relationship is built.
Don't forget you can use social media for customer service support and complaint/reputation management, not just marketing
Social is something you are, not something you do. Olivier Blanchard
Just having a Twitter feed that automatically spits out inspirational quotes of the day is not being social. Facebook, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon are just tools not ends in themselves.
Being truly social means integrating collaboration and connections with your business strategy. It means involving all the stakeholders (customers, suppliers, employees, industry bodies) in an environment where information is shared and ideas developed together.
A lot of businesses are still trying to integrate 'digital' into their strategy so it's probably going to be a while before we see the majority extend to becoming truly 'social'.
This myth is closely associated with the one above. Numbers can be bought. It doesn't mean they'll buy from you. If you are a local flower shop in Hamilton what's the point in having fans in India or Hong Kong unless they have a connection to Hamilton?
And a Facebook page like or a Twitter follower is NOT the same as someone who has opted into your email list. You can like a page and never interact or even see their content again.
Try and get an audience of interested, motivated people who you can build a rapport with. Having three percent of 500 fans turn into a lead is better than no percent of a five thousand fans.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. Signing up for a You Tube Channel might be free, but it takes time, effort and resources to build an effective presence.
This time has a value to your business in real dollar terms.
Usually the people saying this are trying to sell you social media services or they are an evangelist with a lot of time and energy to devote to it.
While it's true it's not going away, there are many digital channels – your website, email and the mobile space. None of which should be completely ignored.
Micro businesses, one man bands and sole traders are still ticking along quite nicely thank you very much without any kind of social media presence at all. I've tried to argue many times that there is sure to be opportunities for better customer communication (and therefore retention) but many of these business owners are happy sticking to what (for the present anyway) works for them.
Yes it can, but you will need to set up effective tracking methods to know where your leads and come from, then translate them through into your sales figures or customer satisfaction indicators.
There are metrics that can be assigned to a campaign or tactic such as growing your follower base, but these should link back to a specific outcome or goal, and will probably involve more than one metric.
Just having more Twitter followers or a high Klout score doesn't in itself translate back to qualified leads and on to more sales, and this is where much of the measurement of social media has fallen down – in the definition of ROI.
It is difficult to measure the monetary value of a fan, but establish a correlation between engagement and sales, or brand preference and the numbers will make more sense.
It's different, but people who working in businesses are people too. Businesses use social media to help make business decisions. It's a matter of finding out which platform is the most suitable. LinkedIn is probably going to be more effective, because people are there for business networking and sharing.
You need to take the time to understand your audience, set some goals and objectives and develop a plan to achieve them.
]]>Well there are always those impressive statistics, with over a billion users a month on Facebook. There is also over 2 and a quarter million kiwi's on the biggest social networking platform on the planet.
You can use Facebook to:
What connecting and engaging people really means is having conversations – not promoting your latest product and asking people to share or comment on it.
It means:
Did you know you can't put a call to action (even 'call us') on your cover photo.Before you use Facebook for marketing your business, especially if you are going to be running competitions - Read the full guidelines
Here are some of the important ones that can trip people up:
If your business involves selling any of the following you're out of luck, because you can't promote them on facebook: weapons or explosives, software that is spy or malware, prescription pharmaceuticals, dating sites with a 'sexual emphasis', tobacco or related paraphernalia. And nothing considered 'adult'.
]]>Facebook landing (or welcome) pages encourage visitors to 'like' your page or take some other action.
We've taken a look at some local examples to get a feel for what is best practise in New Zealand.
It's no longer something for the younger generation - 37.8% of NZ Facebook users are over 35.
Businesses are starting to embrace the social network 'revolution' (if you could call it that) with Facebook business pages starting to pop up all over the place.
We've only looked at landing pages so you can get some ideas, not wall interactions, photo's or use of other tabs (these might be topics for another post!).
With only 14% of NZ businesses using social media*, it was quite a hard slog to find examples. You can't just Google (or even Facebook search) for them easily. So it was a pretty random search for brands we knew or fell over in our journey! We've kept it to NZ sites as that's our context.
There is no doubt whose page this is with the menu tab looking just like the menu does in-store. Another tab has location information (handy). Neither of these are the default welcome page however, with the link from the website taking you to the Wall.
Curiously, BurgerFuel evidently feel they don't need to grow their Facebook fan base, which may be why they don't have a Welcome page that encourages visitors to Like the page. I would have thought their demographic and the fact that this is a franchise business would have made Facebook the perfect vehicle.
Still, the branding is consistent and fits well within the page constraints (and hey, I like BurgerFuel - yum)
This is the page that supports the NZ government department who's goal it is to provide tools and information for businesses.
The Welcome page is simple, colours are in line with their brand and it has a very clear call to action at the top of the page.
I like the use of photos of real people with their comments, as it humanises the bland and sometimes impersonal face of government.
There are some nice, succinct benefit statements included. Arguably they could have been closer to Like This Page at the top, but overall a good effort.
Similar: NZ Companies Office also clear, to the point with up front benefit statements
A simple graphic that is non the less friendly and appealing. More subtle in the use of the arrow pointing to the like button, it may get missed even though it says 'Like Domino's...' You could interpret that as saying "Just the same as Dominos, it's all good". Perhaps their demographic are a bit more savy!
There are no specific benefit statements to encourage visitors to like, so this would leave it up to their inclination on the day - a sort of "Do it if you want, but no pressure" kind of approach. Like BurgerFuel, perhaps it's not a priority for them.
They also have an eClub tab which has specific call to action to sign up to get good deals. Not as visually appealing but effective all the same.
The 'official' page for the trilogy of the much-marketed movie series, there are several campaign specific tabs or pages.
The Elvish Name Translator page is, as you'd expect, full coloured movie poster-esque. The like button image looks a bit odd in the middle of it, but it's surprisingly difficult to resist a simple click to get acces to the name translator. Lower on the page is promotion of the trilogy on blue-ray which dilutes the page a bit in my view. If motivated by the translator, you have to click through more screens than seem necessary - including more promotion for the DVD. This was probably necessary since there's no clear way to get back to the original page itself.
Back on the page, there is a page/tab for standard video-embedded promo for the DVD and insider rewards.
Pretty but a bit convoluted from a user perspective.
A Christchurch based print company, demonstrating a simple but effective Welcome page.
The 'Like' call to action is clear and to the point. Most of the rest of the page is devoted to specific and real benefit statements. If I was going to be picky, I'd say you might need a clearer link between the Like and benefit statements and a better USP, but overall this is nice, clean and effective.
Once you Like the page, however you get a call to register - this one isn't as effective as the previous page, as you don't know what you are registering for - email news? A competition?. If you go to the wall you can find out but remember that status updates are time sensitive and will disappear off your fans own home page quickly.
Huffer is one of those brands who are too cool for the likes of me - I don't get the poP it! reference under 'About'.
The Store tab for this business page has no call to action per say, but displays images from the latest collections which link through to the website.
Competent but not particularly compelling example of a page that may or may not encourage an action by their target audience.
They'd probably say "With 23,000 fans - who cares!".
I know ASB have their Virtual Banking Branch, but as an example of a simple and effective Welcome page, Westpac is a good example.
Financial institutions are not known for their caring side, so the welcome mat with the "Thanks for stopping by" is a nice way to seem friendlier.
There are simple benefit statements, arrow to the like button (although white on white might not have been the best choice of colour), and links to other social media channels.
Nice.
Again, simplicity can be the way to go. Pak n Save's Welcome page could be easily acheived by businesses with small budgets or modest aspirations.
The Pak 'n Save Welcome tab offers an incentive to Like their page that is hard to resist - the chance to win $100 for simply clicking a button.
Once you do there is more encouragement to interact further which is effective in drawing the visitor in further.
While Pak n' Save's target audience will be limited by geography, this is one of the more effective uses of Facebook to engage.
We haven't mentioned ones we've found that are ineffective for some reason, but based on the good, the bad and the down right ugly here's some tips:
SocialMedia Examiner have released a list of 20 finalists in their Top 10 Small Business Facebook Pages 2011 Contest, and here are a selection of them:
EConsultancy have a list of "25 Brilliant Facebook Pages"
* MYOB business monitor March 2011
]]>Although they've only just started posting regularly, it's a great example of how to use a Facebook business page to build relationships with your customers and encourage repeat business.
Posts include specials of the week and promotion of specific products as you'd expect - Fans/friends can see the weekly specials and decide to pop in to the Aussie Butcher on the way home from work or picking up the kids.
But the Aussie Butcher also encourages participation by asking for recipe ideas and responding to comments. The latest is a small competition involving best meat recipe.
In this way they are using Facebook as a community building tool, not just a marketing tool (although the desired outcome will be the same!).
The 139 142 people who like the page, now have an ongoing 'relationship' with the business, rather than the casual one-off nature of a visit to the store. It may be a tenuous relationship at first, but over time the business name, conversations about their products and communications from them will be seen regularly.
This will increase the familiarity with that business in the minds of those people, so they are more likely to do business with them.
Archer from The Aussie Butcher says it's still early days but explains the main reason they have done it because the retail food industry is very competitive.
Archer explains "Our prices are usually as good or better than the large supermarkets, while our meat usually has a better quality grading. This shows up in taste and tenderness. But some people don't rate this so highly and the supermarkets' one-stop-shop convenience and their massive advertising budgets can offset these advantages."
While the Aussie Butcher has extra services such as special cuts and some speciality preparations, they want to offer "relationship and character without being phony".
Most of the people who work in the shop live in the area and are therefore locals. The idea is to develop empathy with other locals and Archer see's the web as the key to reach out and build relationships beyond what would be possible in a busy retail shop that operates twelve hours a day, 7 days a week.
The competitions encourage people to sign up to their newsletter which notifies people of specials, encouraging them to buy. The newsletter promotes the Facebook page opening up "..a two way commentary. How else can we find out what things people like/don't like about us?"
Also the recipes "give us a local flavour (excuse the pun) and perhaps will create some pride in the submitters own creativity."
Describing Facebook as “the next frontier” because it is “more interactive” Archer goes on to say " ...people can feel a part of things. We can also read and react if we get suggestions."
Not only thinking of customers, this initiative gives the people working hard in the shop something more that's fun. Archer would like to try other things in the future so watch that space!
The philosophy expressed reveals an important concept behind successful social media - a true desire to add value and build relationships with customers.
A local butcher may not be the type of business you would usually associate with the internet. But this example shows how the web, with a little bit of creativity (and not much money) can extend and enhance your existing relationship with customers.
And that's great news for small business.
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