Posts Tagged ‘Facebook Pages’

Facebook Timeline versus App Contests

Tuesday, October 15th, 2013

imageWith timeline contests brands could ask users to enter with a like, comment or posting a message on the page. A ‘Like’ here can be termed as a sort of voting mechanism. Though it appears small, but here the barrier to entry is very small as fans can enter with a single click. And if brand managers wish to engage with their existing brand fans then this is a great way to do that. Where contests through apps encourage collection of email addresses, new likes and all such details, wall or timeline contests don’t do that. But if there is a well planned social media strategy, app contests turn out be great!

Well, if you are thinking as to what should you opt for; a Timeline contest or contest hosted on a tab on your Facebook Page? And when, then here’s a summation of the facts that will help you get through your brand contests on Facebook, whether you want to do a timeline or an app contest.

Both of these types have the pros and cons linked to each. The essence is in understanding the overall brand strategy and goals that have to be achieved through the same. And therefore, which one should be used or both should be used in collaboration. In other words, Timeline contests are more of an appetizer while contests on tabs turn out to be full course meals.

Timeline contest is great when:

  • · One wants to launch a contest right away
  • · High engagement is the requirement
  • · Low budget

It sure gives an engagement boost for the Facebook page of brands.
If at any point you want a promoted post on your timeline contest, it cannot be illustrated by an image containing more than 20% text.

On the other hand,

Contest hosted on the Facebook page tab work best when:

  • · One wants to grow the Facebook page likes (includes a Like Gate page that prompts the users to first like the page to enter the contest)
  • · You want to foster Lead generation, email adresses for future marketing of your brand
  • · Design control and advanced features is a part of your overall contest strategy

Therefore, a Facebook contest on tab gives you great control, customization and long term value of your lead generation.

This is how a Timeline contest works:

Future Generali came up with a Timeline contest during Navaratri. Check it out:

FG1 

HDFC Bank’s Timeline contest Auto to Automobile is another good example.

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HDFC1

And here is an example for an app contest:

Check out how Lotus Herbals, India’s leading natural cosmetics company with formulations inspired by Ayurveda is running an app contest Pure Colors of Joy!

Lotus Herbals1

Will these changes affect the Facebook marketing strategy of your brand?

Timeline contests are simple, i.e., fans are just required to like, comment, post their response or message on the Facebook page of the brand, out of which the winner is manually chosen. Timeline contests are free to run if you do not advertise and are mobile friendly too.

So, then, what are the limitations to running a contest on the timeline?

  • Reduced virality as fans cannot share the page posts. Where sharing is one of the greatest & most viral features of Facebook, not being used to its potential means limiting it just to the existing fans (unless of course you run ads).
  • Managing entries becomes a problem at one point as more the number of fans, more the engagement, more the likes, comments and entries etc; it becomes a great challenge to manage the entries as the numbers become high.
  • Terms & Conditions cannot be displayed when running a contest on the Facebook timeline. Every contest comes with certain rules linked to it. But, there may be cases when fans directly take part in your contest by just liking the post etc. which can later result into dissatisfaction from fans.
  • There is no lead generation when a timeline contest is run as there is no registration for the same neither are details like name, email addresses accumulated.

The reach is very limited as the contest run on a timeline can only be promoted using posts that talk about the contest unlike the app contests wherein multiple updates with a link to the app can be done.

So, does that mean Facebook Contest apps are anytime better?

Well, app contests do come with certain benefits like:

Allowing Social Sharing by fans on all social media platforms

Social Stories: when a fan interacts with an app, a newsfeed story is generated that is visible to friends of fans gaining more traffic to the contest

Offering customized fan experience by using custom brand videos, graphics, design etc. that in the end creates more brand recall.

Therefore, in this social battle of contests hosted on timeline and those on an app, apps stand as the winner!

However, you can also think of combining them both for a double advantage where you can:

  • · Manage your contest entries
  • · Analyze them under parameters of most likes, comments & responses.
  • · You can display contest rules & let your fans submit all details etc.
  • · Use it as a mobile-friendly app as it helps incorporate all the features mentioned

Pros final

Source: antavo.com, https://www.facebook.com/page_guidelines.php, https://www.facebook.com/faceboofforbusiness/news/page-promotions-terms

In a nutshell, if you wish to engage with your Facebook brand fans then run a timeline contest but if you wish to garner more likes and data to reach fans out of Facebook then apps are best. Brands can also try using both these methods in collaboration. The ‘TAT’ (talking about this) number of the pages can be raised with a timeline contest so that more posts are visible to the fans and then you can run an app contest to get more likes etc.

So are you all set to let your fans experience the best of both worlds? What would you, as brand managers try? Timeline contests or contests through apps? Do share in your thoughts with us.

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Posted in Blog Content, Blog Visibility, Blogs, Brand Promotion, Facebook, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Target Audience | No Comments »

The Significance of Facebook Brand Fans

Monday, September 16th, 2013

imageWell, there is no set idea to place a value on a single Facebook Fan. It totally depends; as all fans differ in their worth and the way a brand builds engagement on the page determines the potency of a fan. There are different categories that help in analyzing the effectiveness of a fan, who basically turn out to be either influencers, purchasers or the engaged ones. The value (in actual terms) of a brand’s fan base totally depends on how much that brand cares about its customers and followers. Therefore, one must consistently analyze how ‘FAN’tastic is their brand on social media.

When we are talking about Facebook Fans, one most important fact is that all fans are not equal and also that every brand should not turn to Facebook to acquire their business. For brand marketers, who plan to invest into the social media strategy for their brands, analysis of their return on investment and value of a fan is essential.

There are a set of equations we need to highlight when going further with analyzing the value of a fan.

Firstly, the value of Facebook fan depends mostly on your objectives in turn sustained by significant resources to help your brand page gain traction.
The cost of acquisition of a fan is not something on which the value of a fan is based upon. Infact, how clearly you align the value of the brand with the fan’s values determines the same.
Right content delivered by your brand page at the right time will foster amazing engagement.
Finally, be stable, consistent and regular in terms of building engagement with fans. This will help you extract the best value out of a fan over time.

imageTherefore, the value that one can put on a Fan will depend on a brand’s objectives, the context and the willingness to build engagement on a long term basis.
Well, brand marketers need to stop and analyse the objective of the same. This helps them generate awareness of themselves and their brand services. Brand marketers need to keep a tap of how much value, sales, awareness & loyalty gets generated as a result of increasing their brand’s Facebook community or fans.


Source: the Myndset, Yopps, Brand Talking

Are you thinking about the best ways to get Facebook Fans? Here are some:

  • · Turn fans into friends
  • · Re-post their content; give them a shout out for their work
  • · Take fans behind the scenes
  • · Don’t just post and leave, return and follow up, update them
  • · If you got a news fans can use it, share it
  • · Get input from them, post a link to your story and ask a question
  • · Listen – let your fans guide you to great stories

Facebook Brand Fans are more likely to be the users of that brand; spend more than non-fans, are loyal, and recommend your brand. In order to determine & understand the credibility and value of a Facebook fan there are certain things that need to be done.

One can do this by:

  • · Measuring the rise in unaided awareness
  • · Recommendations received
  • · Frequency of purchase
  • · Customer service cost savings
  • · Clicks, lead generation
  • · Lifetime customer value

· Coupon redemptions etc. as a result of exposure to and interaction resulted from regular posts/content on brand’s Facebook page.

imageFacebook fans indeed hold a great value from the strategic perspective of a brand. They are undoubtedly as important as the economic goals too. Brand marketers therefore, need to focus on analyzing the fact that are the actions in the right direction in terms of driving fans or target to the brand page. Finally, what matters in measuring the value, is quality. Yes, Quality does matter- quality of the fans, quality of brand engagement with the fans, quality of conversion & attribution.

 

Check out this statistical report of Fans telling what has motivated them to like a company, brand, or association on Facebook is as shown below:

image  image
Source: www.inventhelp.com

Click here to check a report on how the ‘Average Value of a Facebook Brand Fan Increases 28%’ recently!

The ROI will bear amazing results when the brand focuses on providing long term value to its fans and build deeper engagement levels with them. This can somewhere in near future raise the cost of acquisition and at the same time retention of fans on Facebook. But compared to the value a brand will acquire, it’s more like a reward for the brand. What do you think the brands need to do? Is it just creating a value added experience for Facebook fans or something more? Do share in your thoughts.

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Posted in Blog Content, Blog Visibility, Blogs, Facebook, Social Media, Target Audience, Twitter | 1 Comment »

Insight in to new Facebook Insights: Part II

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011

Insight in to new Facebook Insights Part I

 

Continuing our discovery of the new Facebook Insights, we would now look at growth measurement tools that have been incorporated.

Section 3: Growth Measurement

3.1 Like Sources

Facebook included Like sources in the previous iteration of analytics, but this is now more advanced. This number used to be fairly arbitrary as organic Like sources within Facebook were simply expressed as ‘unknown’:

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This has now been expanded upon to give a much more accurate view of how people are not only finding the Page, but also how they Like it. Importantly, this is split down for the different functionalities within Facebook. So, for example, one can now see how many Likes the page is getting as a result of another Page posting a link to the brand Page :

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3.2 Demographic Reach

While Facebook offered access to the demographic breakdown of fans, now it gives the admins the ability to see the demographic breakdown of active fans. This shows information on age, gender and location for anyone that was exposed to the content, whether they are a fan of the Page or not. As this gives a more accurate indication of who is actually engaging with the content, one might find that if the demographic breakdown here is different to the demographic breakdown of the fans, then you need to adjust the content to better suit these engaged fans.

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3.3 How you reached people?

This graph will allow admins to plot different visits to the Page based on how people were exposed to it. That is to say that if most people are finding the Page through ads, then there is a need to improve the organic content.

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3.3.1

Another insight is ‘unique users by frequency’ that gives the average number of times someone engaged with a piece of content. So, for example, one can now see how many people were engaged with your content once, versus the number of people who were engaged with the content 3 times. This counts people that viewed the content, as opposed to commenting or Liking for example.

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Verdict:

Overall it seems that Facebook has really jazzed up their insights with tools that give more or less a complete picture of the expanse to which the page admin can monitor developments without having to rely on external softwares. The various new tabs, sub tabs and sections introduced give a real time happening about the brand’s engagement with not only its primary audience (users) but the secondary audience too.

This development also means that as an owner one can gather various data and analytics and determine the course of the page. What kind of content is a hit with the users, what’s not, what will perhaps be received with much enthusiasm, by whom, how etc.

With features such as the Timeline and Subscribers already gaining popularity, carefully integrating the insights with these could only spell wonders for brands. Of course, it does not take away the fact that it becomes a little too complicated from a strategic viewpoint and the results are yet to be seen.

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Posted in Facebook, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Research, Target Audience | 1 Comment »

Insight in to new Facebook Insights: Part I

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011

Facebook Insights had always been a handy tool for page owners irrespective of the size they command. It always provided information about how to make the page even better. Last month Facebook launched a new version of Facebook Insight. Many had speculated it to be a paid service, but so far Facebook is not charging anyone. Here is a look at how the insights have evolved.

Section 1: Reach Measurement

1.1 Friends of Fans

Facebook advertising provides the option to target friends of fans. Essentially this means that the ad will only be shown to friends of people already on the brand page. Now through Page Insights, one can see the total reach of ‘friends of fans’. This is an important number to keep an eye on, as it will ensure that when someone engages with a piece of content on the Page, their friends are being alerted to it. It gives a more accurate reflection of your ‘ambient’ audience. i.e. those who might not be fans of your Page themselves (as this number excludes current fans) but who may have been exposed to your message :

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1.2 People Talking About This

This is the most hyped feature that Facebook has introduced. It gives a figure, for the time period that one selects, of the number of times a post was generated about the Page, including links in personal profiles, or posts in which the Page has been tagged in.

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Within this new metric, one can see a demographic breakdown of people who are talking about the Page by age, gender and location. One can also compare the viral reach (the number of people who saw your Page), compared to ‘talking about this’ (the number of people who actively created a story). As reach just takes into account people that were exposed to your content, this figure will always be a lot higher than those people talking about it. Individual ‘story’ can be compared, for example the number of times someone tagged the page in a post or photo:

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1.3 Weekly Total Reach

Earlier for a post on Facebook Page one could see the individual number of impressions, but not the cumulative total. Now Facebook has introduced a feature that gives the weekly total reach, which is the number of times someone has been exposed to the Page, either through a post, a friend commenting, or through an ad. One can see the percentage change over time, thus, if there is increase in fans but the reach is going down, brand may need to think about creating more engaging content, so as to grow organically:

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Section 2: Post Insights

2.1 How viral is a post?

Facebook ranks the posts in order of engagement, as before, but this has been massively expanded on. Now, ranks also show a number of different metrics, which cover : Reach (the total number of people that saw your post) ; Engaged Users (people who interacted with the post in some way, such as clicking on the post in their newsfeed or leaving a comment) ; Talking About This (the number of people who have created a ‘story’ from your post, such as leaving a reply or sharing with friends) and Virality which is slightly more complex. The ‘virality’ of a post is expressed as a percentage of people that created a story about the post, against the total reach. Seeing the posts in this way allows brands to see the content that clearly worked, or didn’t work:

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2.1.1

One can then expand on a particular figure, to get more detailed insights. Clicking on ‘reach’ reveals a breakdown of whether that reach came directly from your Page activity, Facebook Ads, or whether it was viral (fans generating stories)

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2.1.2

Clicking on ‘engaged users’ shows: Other  clicks (clicks on other parts of the post, such as the name of the person that posted it) ; Link clicks (the number of clicks in a link on your post) ; the number of stories generated from the post, by fans :

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2.1.3

Clicking on ‘talking about this’ allows people to see whether these stories generated were someone who likes the post or sharing it:

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Click here to read part two of this post.

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Posted in Facebook, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Target Audience | 2 Comments »

Social Universities

Saturday, October 15th, 2011

The question about digital technology and its place in academia is one that is yet to be clearly answered. Understanding the benefits and costs of using digital technology is crucial when deciding if a particular tool, site or package may be used in universities.

              Harvard Twitter

Harvard University Twitter Handle

Universities are constantly exploring new ways to use social media to fulfill their missions of engaging and sharing knowledge with their constituents. Here we look at few ways in which universities can use social media without distracting the students.

Reaching out to the world

Social media tools like Facebook Pages have given universities an opportunity to speak to audiences on their own, reaching thousands of people interested in keeping up with news at the school and connecting with others on the social network.

                    Reaching Out

Insight to the campus life

Perhaps the most common way, and the way in which most of us use social media, is sharing information about ourselves or things we find interesting. Because universities are educational institutions, they use social media to highlight their experts, as well as the resources they make available to the public/student. The point is to try to educate and provide a glimpse into what the institution is like.

               Highlighting

Showcase work

Aside from sharing news and information, social media is often used in showcasing student and faculty work. That can be as simple as featuring photos taken by students through a photo album on the university’s Facebook page. Or it can take the form of an elaborate YouTube video by students as a class assignment. The idea is to let the general audience know what kind of work is being carried out in the university.

               Showcase

Getting Innovative

Rather than just use social media to promote specific events, some universities employ the tools to provide a place for the university community to engage and participate in the event as it is happening. This can be done through live streaming videos or collecting tweets during commencement through a common hashtag. This allows students and others to report on the event happenings as if they were being attended.

  3tag

Hashtag Communications

Emergency Service

Emergencies and tragedies do happen. With the growing popularity of social media tools like Twitter, some universities are finding it easier and quicker to spread news during an emergency by complementing their e-mail and text alerts with a Tweet and a Facebook message or post. The University of Minnesota has an Emergency Notification group on Facebook that it uses to blast messages to its 2,300 members during a case of an emergency. It provides another way to reach students who spend a lot of their time there during critical situations.

Alumni Relations

Another key element of using social media is to keep the alumni body connected. With ever growing number of students passing out each year, keeping up with everyone becomes a task. Universities have utilized the services of groups and pages to get the alumni members stay connected. This not only helps connect various batches, it also gives opportunity to draw on resources that may be readily available to the university through its ex students database.

                    Alumni Relations

Providing Jobs

The key element of Universities is to provide jobs to the students. Some universities have used the social media platform to source out placements for students through the alumni members. Alma Mater is the best starting point for placements and a connected alumni cell with placement cell has made job search that much easier. The secret groups of Facebook seems to be a very popular tool not just to get fresh offers but also to source out the best job change for the members.

                   SIMC Jobs 2SIMC Jobs 1

Job Forums

The benefits of social media to help students search for information, learn to communicate effectively and work collaboratively are well documented. There are resources to help academics consider the advantages of using social media in universities. They provide advice on using blogs, social networking sites, social bookmarking, collaboration, presentation and information management tools, and more for academic purpose. All it needs is for the universities to cease the opportunity and use the tool in the best possible manner.

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Posted in Social Media, Target Audience, Twitter | No Comments »