iFrames FB
Facebook “Likes” have become the unassuming links between people and brands. These hooks, along with convenient login options like Facebook Connect, are giving brands more insight into who their customers are. Here we take a look at the level of information a brand can access when people interact with them in different ways. We also look at the fans as ambassadors in the Fan Engagement Spectrum and we simplify EdgeRank.
Through Facebook Pages, brands and business owners now have the opportunity to communicate with their consumers directly. No more need for costly, time- consuming focus groups to figure out what your customers want.
By providing them great offers and chances to interact with the brand directly, your existing customers become increasingly loyal to your brand and in-turn become brand ambassadors. This helps increase awareness for your brand to people who were not previously users of the product or service.
Interactive Facebook Pages applications can help you identify who your consumers are, where they are, what they like and what makes them happier. You also have an open channel for communication when you have something new to share.
Not every post that is placed on the Facebook Brand Page by administrator gets response from subscribers. According to Facebook the average Facebook Post reaches the target audience only in 16% of cases.
Due to the fact that the vast majority of “fans” of a page on Facebook, never return to it after “Liking” it, the VA Simple Services company created infographic to clarify issues related to the work of Facebook, and thus try to help the owners of pages to deliver their content in to the feeds of users.
According to the VA Simple Services, “average” user has about 130 friends on Facebook and associated with about 80 pages of brands, groups or events.
Many users may be overloaded by information generated by all these sources, so Facebook uses a special algorithm – EdgeRank – in order to determine what will finally go into the feeds of users.
This algorithm is based on three main elements: closeness (how often a user communicates with the page), weight (activity related to user interaction with the page) and lifetime (the newer post – the bigger value it has in EdgeRank) – are explained in detail in the infographics below. As described by the infographics there are 10 steps that will allow Facebook page to stay high in EdgeRank:
1. Time. The best days to publish the post – Tuesday, Wednesday and weekends. Nine o’clock in the morning – is the most successful time for publishing.
2. Be specific. Encourage users to comment and share your posts.
3. Sequence. Publish posts on the page at least once a day.
4. Ask “open” questions in your posts (use “when”, “where” and “why”).
5. Photos and videos. Actively use them in your posts.
6. Put a really interesting and useful content. Avoid self-promotion.
7. Use surveys and contests.Promote discounts in your posts.
8. Use Facebook Promoted Posts to highlight your posts in the news feeds.
9. Place the posts directly on Facebook, avoiding third-party applications.
10. Be concise. The posts with the length no more than 80 characters are the most popular.
Facebook has become one of the quickest means to communicate with the users. There was a time when not having a Facebook fan page was considered normal, but the scenario has changed. Now, it has become a necessity to have a fan page on Facebook. It is a superb media tool with fantastic viral capabilities, almost like twitter. Have a look at our latest infographic that will give you an insight into how you can popularize your fan page amongst Facebook users.
Everyday more and more companies are registering a Facebook page for their business in the hope of driving more traffic to their website and increasing their online presence.
For most businesses, Facebook can have a lot of value. Often, Facebook gets looked at as a time wasting platform or a website for friends to connect. The truth is that Facebook is a valuable system for businesses that are looking to stamp their footprint online and engage with their customers directly. Facebook shouldn’t be ignored – with over 500 million subscribers sharing knowledge and connecting every single day, it is one of the most visited websites in the world.
Using social media marketing techniques are very important for any business who wants to engage with potential customers on the internet. More and more people are going to the web to find answers to questions about the products or services they are looking for, be it via Google or social networks. What a business should ask themselves is ‘where are my customers likely to be looking’ and ‘will there be an answer’.
Creating an effective and well designed Facebook business page can provide you with many benefits, for example:
People who come across your Facebook page are more likely to then visit your website. Having a business page on Facebook will create more online exposure for your business.
Facebook as a social network has one of the largest web 2.0 populations and is mainly used for people to communicate with each other and share content (e.g. stories, photos and messages). By joining in this community and conversation you are placing your business in the best possible playground for global exposure.
Ignite brand awareness and brand loyalty by engaging your customers. Regular promotions and activities which your customers can participate in will increase the amount of time they spend engaging with you, as well as increase your awareness across other social networks.
Facebook is a real-time application and when customers leave comments you have the opportunity to respond to them instantly. Not only that, when you update your status, launch a marketing initiative or competition, you are able to read firsthand what your customers are thinking as well as being able to respond immediately. This shows your customers that there is a human behind the page.
By sharing relevant news and content and showing that you know what you are talking about, customers will begin to trust your business. By using Facebook as a platform to share your expertise you will gain brand authority and be seen as industry experts.
Most search engines are now incorporating real-time social media posts in to their search results, which means sites like Facebook are becoming incredibly important for any search engine optimization strategy that a business is implementing.
Specifically created for business pages, Facebook Insights enables you to look at demographics for customers on your page and track valuable statistics.
It is important to remember that the Facebook community is dynamic and growing all the time. Using a social media consultant to devise a creative and powerful Facebook campaign can be extremely rewarding for your business.
When getting started, using Facebook can seem very daunting and it’s likely that you will need the support of a local web design and SEO company who specialize in social media marketing services. Specialists in this area will be able to help you with your Facebook marketing requirements. Don’t forget to use blogs and forums where possible as there will be lots of people who are happy to provide further support and talk about their own experiences and successes carrying out different internet marketing strategies.
Facebook has been the fastest growing social network for five years and in the near future will hit 1 billion users. If you don’t already have a company page set up, or have one but are not using it to leverage your online presence, you’re missing a very affordable marketing opportunity.
If you’re in the process of setting one up don’t rush to send out links to your potential customers. Give the design a few days and then revisit it. Often new things will occur that you can add to it. The last thing you want is to send out unfinished work to your potential customers.
Even though it doesn’t cost money to send out updates, it’s best not to consider it free to send. Remember it takes time for the people reading them. You don’t want them to associate your company with spam. You can use any monetary figure you want. I often use $100. The question I always ask myself before sending out a message/link is, “Is this worth spending $100 on?” This has often forced me to rethink it and make the message and stronger and more compelling for my recipients.
Another reason to keep your business active on Facebook is that Google, to a small degree, uses mentions of your company in Facebook as a factor in their ranking algorithm to determine your place in their search results.
Article Courtesy of Keith Lovgren, a paid search analyst, on behalf of AllStarMove.com.
Facebook has been a great tool for reaching consumers directly for many B2C brands. But can companies focused in the B2B industry use Facebook to enhance a reputation and grow new business? Absolutely.
Quite a few B2B companies are successfully using Facebook to build important relationships with prospects and customers. If your B2B company is still considering where Facebook might fit within an online marketing mix, here are five tips on building a Facebook fan page that will better support a B2B brand:
1. Create Two Way Conversation – Rather than using Facebook to simply push out news at the audience, spend time understanding the challenges potential customers face. Search online using keywords and monitor other social tools like Twitter to find out current concerns the target audience is facing. Be a resource to potential customers by providing content and insight that will help them alleviate the problems.
After establishing a relationship with fan page followers, encourage them to provide input on the content being shared. Ask questions of followers and use responses to create content that will keep them connected to the brand. eMarketer does a good job at this.
2. Connect a Community – Create opportunities for fans to come together and share positive experiences with each other. Oracle is an example that has built a page providing valuable professional content, news, and fans discuss or share directly on the page.
The best advocates are happy customers already engaged with a B2B company’s product or services. Highlight success stories on the page and let followers see the value provided to similar companies. Should there be a negative comment, which scares many B2B companies, address it with understanding and sincerity. In most cases, transparency and listening go a long way in stemming off negative feedback.
3. Build Relationships – Often times B2B involves a greater commitment than simple retail transactions. Sales cycles can be long and, as the old saying goes, you’re more likely to do business with someone you know. Facebook is a place to let you brand personality shine – let them see who you are. According to a survey by Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate, customers are more likely to buy from companies they track via social media. By putting a face to a brand it is possible to position your brand as a resource that will be the first call for that follower when the time comes to make a purchase decision.
4. Cross Promote Content – Use Facebook as an outlet to share interesting content that’s been created elsewhere. B2B companies should consider re-purposing photos and video from promotional materials or industry events. SAP utilizes photos well and has a large number submitted by other users. Brands need to understand that not all contacts are fully engaged with every promotional effort. Don’t assume that if a message has been shared in one channel that it needs to be retired.
Connecting a blog feed to Facebook will increase the likelihood content will reach prospects through another social channel. By connecting and cross-promoting, a B2B blog will reach the walls of current fans and potentially new contacts if that information is shared.
5. Make it Shareable – Content that is interesting or fun will be shared more widely than a bland corporate statement. This applies to companies of any size or customer focus. Providing a list of copy-heavy pages is not going to help reach new targets because nobody is excited to share boring content.
Be creative and understand that humor, visual appeal, and brevity all increase your chances of having your content move through Facebook. Seeking a good example? Look at the creative holiday play from Cisco. A short video can convey a lot about a company and its culture. Companies that create content with sharing in mind are able to extend the reach of content significantly and build memorable connections for potential customers.
Facebook marketing for B2B companies isn’t limited to the mega corporations. At the core, it comes down to building meaningful relationships. If customer focused and creative, B2B companies can reap greater rewards from online marketing than many retails giants in the form of long-term customers.
TopRank’s Article
Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with 800 million users worldwide as of September 2011. 
More than any other company, it has defined what some see as the “social’’ era of the Internet, in which connections made among people replace algorithm-driven searches. And its policies, more than any others, seem to be driving the definition of privacy in this new age.
Every day, Facebook users comment or press the “like” button more than 2 billion times and upload more than 250 million photos. The McKinsey Global Institute has estimated that the network’s users post 30 billion pieces of content every month.
The company, founded in 2004 by a Harvard sophomore, Mark Zuckerberg, began life catering first to Harvard students and then to all high school and college students. It has since evolved into a broadly popular online destination used by teenagers and adults of all ages. In country after country, Facebook has cemented itself as the leader, often displacing other social networks.
It has also become one of the new titans of the Internet, challenging even Google with its vision of a Web tied together by personal relationships and recommendations, rather than by search algorithms. In a major expansion, Facebook has spread itself across other Web sites by offering members the chance to “Like’’ something — share it with their network — without leaving the Web page they are on.
In September 2011, Facebook announced features that would let users move beyond clicking “Like” and literally share news and entertainment with their network of friends. For example, a user could log on and discover that one friend is watching “The Hangover,” another is listening to Jay-Z, another is running a race wearing Nike sneakers, etc. Such updates — and the ability to immediately watch or listen to your friends’ choices — will influence what you consume. At least that is what Facebook and its dozens of partner companies are hoping, and what search-based companies like Google are dreading.
At the Facebook developer conference in September, the company also announced the release of a product called Timeline, which offers a highly visual view of a user’s Facebook profile and organizes content into photos, events and apps, all based on a timeline view that stretches back to the beginning of a user’s time on Facebook. Timeline is designed to work on mobile devices, too.
Source NYtimes.com
When we associate the words “Social Networking,” we automatically think of the two big sites Facebook and of course Twitter. Now with a third in contention, that of Google+, many thought that both the first two would suffer in terms of user numbers, but actually quite the opposite can be reported.
Just recently we spoke about how Twitter has upped its user numbers to over 200 million now, but its Facebook that have seen a massive jump with now 800 million to speak of. Not bad going when you think that it launched itself back in 2004 and its suffered quite a few changes since its arrival.
When you consider as ibtimes.com quite rightly pointed out, the number of people as a global population with some 7 billion and Facebook’s new figure of 800 million, this means that one in every nine are now fully fledged Facebook members.
As to Facebook’s popularity over Twitter is still a mystery, but some have made reference to Twitter being a little difficult to use, with the benefits of hashtags, usernames and so on. Facebook on the other hand has been a talking point over the last week or two, with news that their new layout called “Timeline” is on the way with some features already being added. Many have said that they prefer the “Old Facebook” and do not want something new.
If we consider how important both sites are these days. When clicking onto a site, nine times out of ten, there will be link to one of the above with both being questioned with their overuse at work or home. In the past we’ve brought you articles relating to how people are getting addicted to such sites, with the highest number being seen in teenagers choosing to stay in and talk to people online, rather than going out and interacting face to face.
A recent study from Citigroup showed that 16% of online use in America was from time spent on Facebook, with 11% on Google and 9% on Yahoo.
Source onlinemediasource.net
Companies have long been aware that Facebook fan pages offer a way to interact with customers and inform them of the latest deals, offers and just the greatness of their product.
Up until recently, the smart money has been about getting a thumb up from people so that their friends can see that they like it or even get friends to tell other friends.
This has worked well for many companies, and a successful fan page allows them to target a message to people that have shown an interest.
Target marketing is the better to promote your product or service rather than just throwing it out into the open. Facebook has really helped with this and a great custom made fan page has been at the heart of many firm’s social media marketing strategy.
The rules of the game have changed though and Facebook now offers a new level of potential for interacting with customers and potential customers.
The introduction of iframes provides far greater possibilities for a firm on their custom fan page and if you aren’t already considering this innovation, you are probably being left behind by your rivals.
Social media marketing is about offering more to users and creating more points of interaction. There more elements where people can saw “wow” and want to show other people, the more chance of spreading the word about your company.
In the past, you would have had to bring people to your site to unleash the full sense of style and quality about your firm but iframes has changed all that.
It is now possible to host all the exciting elements and aspects of your website on your Facebook fan page. This means your message will be spread quicker, read quicker and interacted with quicker which in the long run means more.
More people viewing your site and more people with an understanding of what your core product, service or being is. If you want to take advantage of what more can do for you, it is essential you move with the times when it comes to custom Facebook fan pages.
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