Denuology: The Observation and Observations of Denuo. » mgibbs

5 Ways To Grow A Facebook Fan Base

mgibbs — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 15:22:06 +0000

[when you don't have supermodel help]

Anybody can create a Facebook page, and now every brand is. Whether it’s for a team, a movie, a blog, tech, or even risk management, it’s the new standard for appearing to be hip to social media. Now that Facebook has created a barrier to limit easy organic page growth, brands must work harder for their fans. Below are 5 tips that can help a brand’s Facebook page.

VIEW AS A CONVERSATION PLATFORM

Regardless of how many Social Media 101’s or Facebook How-to’s people read, many still kickoff their brand page with a megaphone communications strategy. Excuse me for my brief SMDB moment, but Facebook is a conversation platform, meaning that it enables dialogues rather than just monologues (1 to many vs many to many). Brands often fall into the 1 to many routine by broadcasting corporate messaging, signing off, and returning the next day to do the same. Does this sound like a page worth returning to? The next 3 tips contain suggestions for avoiding this common pitfall.

HAVE A VOICE

Does your brand have an inherent personality?

YES

This is where said personality should shine. Whether your brand is edgy or buttoned-up, Facebook can serve as the place to discover and connect with that personality. Ways to do this:

Share links that align with the personality (i.e. Taco Bell would share a funny YouTube link, Samsung would share a Top 10 CES Trends link)
Post status updates and respond to comments like a real person, not a robot with legal looking over its shoulder

NO

Now is the time to establish one. The easiest way to do this is to have a consistent voice on the page. Introduce whoever updates the page as your “community manager” and set the expectation that he/she will drive the page’s content and discussion. Over time, fans will closely associate your brand with how they’ve observed/interacted with this person.

PROVIDE DYNAMIC ENVIRONMENT

Fan pages do not follow the Field of Dreams method of success (refresher video above). Simply building a page doesn’t mean fans will come, and if they do, ever come back. For many, being a fan on Facebook of a brand is just an extension of who they are and how they digitally represent themselves. It DOES NOT mean they will visit your fan page regularly, especially with last year’s Facebook home page shift.

Like any website, people need good reason to become repeat visitors. Below are a few tactics on Facebook that can improve your page’s stickiness:

Interactivity – polls, thought starters as status updates
Q&A with relevant players – executives, celebrity endorsers
Regular links beyond PR and brand news
Design - spice up the page and show that it’s an important part of digital strategy by having it professionally designed

INCENTIVIZE FANS

I’m not suggesting that you buy your virtual popularity, but there are ways to entice traffic and engagement:

Exclusive discounts – if “exclusive” won’t work for you, just re-name your standard offer as a “Facebook Offer” and you’re set
Fan appreciation – rotate the fan page’s profile photo to feature fans showing the brand some love, create a photo album of top fans, start Fan of the Week program, etc.
Show fans that their voice/opinion matters – use Facebook as a giant, free focus group from time to time. Letting the fans decide on a new color/flavor/package/thing will deepen their connection to the brand
Treat the fan page like a fan club – make it the first place to reveal exclusive information and content

CTA IN ADVERTISING

If your brand has a media budget, think about its call-to-action at different touch points

Offline - Visit brandx.com for more…
Online - Click here for more information…(landing page on brandx.com)

Besides the standard corporate obsession with keeping everything in a brand’s controlled environment, why not drive traffic to the Facebook fan page?

CRM benefits of gaining new fans
Fans can engage in familiar environment
Conducive to content pass-along
Bulk of brandx.com content can still be featured or linked to on fan page

Facebook will never replace a brand’s website, but it should definitely play a lead role in digital consumer engagement.

What’s missing? Where do you disagree? Question mark?

Being a “Friend” Now More Difficult For Brands

mgibbs — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:15:01 +0000

In late October, Facebook launched a redesign to its homepage, unveiling 2 different views for users to discover content. The default view is called the News Feed, in which Facebook goes all Amazon on you and displays stories and updates from friends that it thinks you’ll like, of course based off of past site activity. The other view is called the Live Feed, which is essentially the Mini/News Feed you’ve grown accustomed to, but with some clear FriendFeed influence.

While I think it’s great that Facebook has created yet another way for users to get lost on the site while re-living their glory days, the new setup could seriously decrease the amount of easy (free) traffic to a brand’s Facebook page.

Let me explain:

As brands get better about leveraging their Facebook Fan Pages as CRM tools, they incessantly check to see how many fans they have
Since Social Media budgets are often hard to come by, new fan acquisition usually relies solely on organic growth
Organic growth on Facebook is mainly driven by fans interacting with a brand, which results in their friends being informed of that interaction
Brands typically spur fan interaction by posting status updates to solicit engagement(comment, like, view, share)
Fans would see these status updates in their News Feed in between updates from friends

But now:

The current News Feed is the default view, and it’s likely that the majority of brand updates will be filtered out and only appear on the Live Feed (this assumes a person rarely visits the brand pages they fan)
Split View + Secondary Placement = Fewer eyeballs to brand messaging (status update no longer easy way to drive pageviews)

Is this just another strategic move by Facebook to make it harder on brands to leverage the platform without paying them? When “Facebook Application” became the new buzz term in digital media, developers got rich while Facebook got an increase in time spent per visit. To counter, Facebook nearly made applications obsolete by shifting their profile location to a tertiary tab no one clicks on.

So how can brands grow their Facebook fan bases in 2010? I’ll detail that in my next post – Top 5 Ways To Grow A Facebook Fan Base.

New Formula For Viral Success?

mgibbs — Mon, 18 May 2009 22:49:27 +0000

Want to do something “viral” that “creates buzz”? Here’s how:

1) Hire 50+ dancers to show up at a crowded public hot spot
2) Turn on music
3) Dance party time
4) Smile at your brilliance when you see the crowd’s “I’m telling everyone I know” reactions
5) Record event with strategically placed randoms with handycams (assures authentic, not corporate-produced look)
6) Upload to YouTube

While I’d like to say it’s time for a new promotional stunt idea, the original and knockoffs have each delivered both eyeballs and pass along.

In January of this year, T-Mobile released the following video from Liverpool Street Station. It has been viewed 11.5 million times.

In March, Belgian commercial network VTM copied T-Mobile’s idea, leading to over 3 million views.

In April, Trident jumped on the bandwagon, staging this performance at the Piccadilly Circus. Already up to 1.2 million views.

Judging by the numbers, it looks like I’ll have to add an 11th component to the viral video components list – dancing. With America’s obsession over dancing shows such as Dancing With The Stars and America’s Best Dance Crew, it’s surprising that there haven’t been any twinkle toe promo videos filmed in the states. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before I get caught in what seems like a Missy Elliot video while on a walk through Millennium Park.

I realize that there’s a discussion to be had around the brand relevance of T-Mobile versus Trident, but I’ll save that for my next post. In the meantime, here are some more dancing videos:

Prison Thriller Dance:

Where The Hell Is Matt?

Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt Em

mgibbs — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 04:20:45 +0000

The latest Snickers ads with Master P and Patrick Ewing got me thinking why this hasn’t happened more often.

Have you ever received a creative brief that left you scratching your head for great ideas? Me neither. But in a hypothetical case where that were to ever happen to you, this seems to be a fix-all solution to keep in your desk drawer.

What solution you may ask? Insert “has-been” celebrity*

Nothing breaks through the clutter more than content with an old celebrity. Currently, the leading benefactor of this advertising band-aid has to be MC Hammer. Mr. Hammer has promoted everything from Nationwide Insurance to ESPN Monday Night Football. He was even featured in Cash4Gold’s Super Bowl spot this past February. Seriously, he has become the Peyton Manning of former celebs. While I know his cameos help solve his past money issues, I wonder why Hammer won’t share the spotlight or better yet why haven’t brands moved on to other faded stars?

There are plenty of out of work former celebs that would make for great advertising.

Imagine special cameos from the following:

- Ed Alonzo, better known as Max from ‘Saved By the Bell’, would be great for restaurant chains looking to reach youth

- Punky Brewster, aka Soleil Moon Frye, is made to showcase a new urban clothing line

- Chris Smith & Chris Kelly, formerly known as Kris Kross, come back to promote an overpriced vodka now that they are of age (sorry Diddy)

- Ralph Macchio, The Karate Kid, could do great work for an energy drink

- Gordon Shumway, or as the Tanners referred to him Alf, could be spokesman for an airline that goes everywhere

- Demond Wilson, who played Lamont in ‘Sanford & Son’, could recommend bargain shopping chains

All of that to say, marketers have only scratched the surface with “has-been” celeb cameos. Imagine the creativity waiting if we could just get Hammer out of the way.

*It is similar to the insert animal solution with less manure and more red M&Ms.

No related posts.

4 TYPES OF DIGITAL FRIENDSHIPS

mgibbs — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 03:38:41 +0000

Now that everyone and their mom is social networking in cyberspace, digital friendships are becoming a regular part of everyday life. Whether it’s broadcasting your whereabouts, stalking old friends, or managing a digital rolodex, the internet is a medium that can both enrich and tarnish friendships without any real interaction.

While much of the digital friendship discussion focuses on the extension of real-life relationships on Facebook or MySpace, there are numerous other platforms that facilitate different types of relationships. Not sexual ones. Well maybe, but I’m not talking about those.

Below are the 4 Types Of Digital Friendships that are a regular part of digital culture.

Everybody’s doing it

Platforms: Facebook, MySpace, Instant Messaging Clients (AIM, Gchat, etc.)

Description: This friendship includes your catalog of life acquaintances. Everyone you know (except the annoying “too cool” person) is using these sites and it’s how they can always reach you as well as discover your relationship status and social life (or lack thereof).

Annoyances:

Incognito = impossible
Awkwardly ignoring friendship requests (instead of declining) from long lost Johnnies that shouldn’t be keeping tabs on you
Old people not understanding that just because you don’t have an Away Message doesn’t mean you’re at the computer

I don’t know you, but I’m watching you

Platforms: LinkedIn, Twitter, Blogs

Description: This friendship is sometimes two-way, but typically one party puts in the bulk of the voyeuristic effort. It’s slightly different on each platform:

LinkedIn: Where you “connect” with long lost colleagues by only logging in when you get a request from someone interesting or you need a favor from someone distant enough to not be your Facebook friend. If you’re a recruiter or salesperson, you use LinkedIn the same way the rest of us use Facebook

Twitter: You follow Guy Kawasaki’s every tweet, retweet select items, and occasionally send @replies, but he never acknowledges you. Regardless, you still follow like a resilient teenage boy trying to score the head cheerleader. Or maybe you are trying to score the digital world’s head cheerleader, ijustine.

Blogs: You read PerezHilton so much that you say “Perez said…” when re-telling a story to your friends as if Perez speaks to you

Regardless of platform, all of these are ego-boosting aides for those atop the influence pyramid.

I want to know what you’re doing 24/7

Platforms: Twitter

Description: Very similar to “I don’t know you, but I’m watching you,” except that it takes a step further into stalkerdom. The relationship features an excessive life-blogging twitterer and their gang of followers. Interestingly enough, Shaq has built quite a following of people who are aware of and interested in what he ate for breakfast, watches on TV (Maury Povich), and when he goes to bed. While it kind of makes sense to want an inside look into the life of a celebrity, it truly becomes digital stalking when following a “normal” stranger.

I’m using you to increase my virtual popularity

Platforms: Reddit, Digg, Blogs

Description: This is a friendship where both parties openly use each other to boost their digital cred. It is a mutually beneficial relationship that exists amongst bloggers as well as those active on democratic editorial sites such as Digg and Reddit.

Blogs: Bloggers are traffic hungry, and 2 key traffic drivers are search and inbound links. These 2 things are responsible for bringing new visitors as well as making a blog look better in Google’s eyes. Because of this, establishing relationships with other bloggers is imperative to a blog’s early success. The basic relationship between bloggers is simply exchanging blogroll links, which is a digital way of co-signing each other’s site. Sometimes this can extend to a digital-friendship that includes daily communication and link exchanges. Either way, both parties are in it for themselves and could care less if the other’s dog died.

Digg, Reddit, Mixx, etc.: All of these sites are based around the concept of “the people” voting on what is the best content, so it’s only natural that users would campaign to strangers to vote for their submissions. It’s quite a digital ego boost for a person to have their submission hit the front page of any of these sites, so they work for it. Many of the top users have built large Instant Messaging networks comprised of people that will vote for their content when asked and vice versa. Their conversations don’t vary much from this:

digg4life567: Hey can you please digg my top 3 faves (link)

reddddit42: Sure man. Hit this on Reddit when you get a chance and it’d be great if you could Stumble and review it as well (link)

digg4life567: Will do. Let me know if you need anything else

reddddit42: thx!

It’s my hope that next year this post won’t have to include Google Latitude, because that’s too much technology/friendship integration.