Southwick Zoo in Mendon, MA has a Facebook Page which is over a year old and has 3500 fans. Ashley posts frequently and the community is very engaging. Read what FB Smarty suggests as steps to bring this popular Blackstone Valley Business and its Social Media Strategy up-to-speed on the very latest Facebook strategies.

1. Southwicks Zoo
www.southwickszoo.com
And
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mendon-MA/S

2.  3,599 followers of
this page! Fantastic
interaction with lots
of pictures, videos,
and people
commenting and
posting.
 Kudos to the
poster…dedicated
and keeping it
interesting and fun!
Posting is frequent,
even through the
winter, keeping
people interested!
One posting had 88
comments!
 Page was started in
November of 2009
making this a
mature page!

3.  Branding – Missing
the impact of a
larger graphic (I
just grabbed a
printscreen to
demonstrate). You
can see the impact
vs. the previous
slide
 Great graphics on
the website, just
have webmaster
provide a 200 x 600
pixel image and
upload for
branding impact.

4.  User Name – Right now the link to get to the Facebook
page is http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mendon-
MA/Southwicks-Zoo-More-than-a-Zoo/162186827464
which is a little cumbersome. Southwicks can go to
facebook.com/username and get
facebook.com/southwickszoo for a username! Gives a
perfect URL to advertise their Facebook Page on
printed literature and website.
 Add more info to info tab. Depending on how the page
was set up, there could be room for things like
Company Overview, Mission, Products, etc. Taking
advantage of every field tells viewers more about your
business.
 Also, they could take advantage of the box on the left
under the graphic and change that text often. There’s
room for 240 characters there.

5.  Southwicks Zoo really is More than a Zoo. They are
globally minded as evidenced by their Earth Bash Event
http://www.southwickszoo.com/earthBash.php
 FB Smarty recommends that the rarely used Discussion
tab and Event tab be removed and that a Welcome
Page be added. Also Link Page is all Spam so should be
removed. Explore www.tabsite.com ($5 a month) for
easy custom Facebook Pages that allow embedded
video too!
 The Welcome Tab should be set up as the default tab
for new visitors to see when they come to the Page. This
Welcome Page can contain the mission, history,
objectives of Southwicks, even a welcome video.
Remember the wall is a newsfeed and always changes
and viewers do not necessarily know what is important
to Southwicks Zoo.
 The following slides will guide you on how to set up a
landing (Welcome) page.

6.  Link Page is
accumulating Spam.
Recommend
deleting this
tab/page. Use the
‘Save as Page
Favorite’s’ section
instead.
 Here is how that
works. When you are
looking at a
Facebook Business
Page that you want
to list under your
Page favorites, link
through the ‘add to
page favorites’ and
choose your Page
from the list.

7.  InsideFacebook.com wrote that the conversion
rate was 47% with a landing tab (Welcome tab)
and around 23% without. That is a BIG difference!
 http://mashable.com/2010/02/22/build-
facebook-landing-page/ - gives a good tutorial
on adding a static fbml landing page. Note that
static fbml is going to be replaced with iframe
technology. So, you won’t be able to build new
static fbml pages but the ones you have will
continue to work.
 An easy (offering free and paid) solutions to
adding tabs to your Facebook Page can be
found at www.tabsite.com

8.  Go to Edit Page (under
graphic on left of Page)
 Choose Manage
Permissions
 Set Default Landing Tab
to the name of your
custom tab (i.e.
Welcome)
 Once page is ‘liked’ the
Wall becomes the
Default page. We can’t
change that.

9.  Beautiful flash site
with lots of engaging
animal pictures
 Connect your web
and your Facebook
Page - Add a Join Us
on Facebook Button
which can be found
here
http://www.faceboo
k.com/badges/page
.php
 Add Like Buttons
throughout the site!

10.  Go to Edit Page, then Marketing to
find the Like Button instructions
 When code is placed on your site (i.e.
next to an animal named Molly) and
someone clicks on it, a post is made
on their newsfeed wall to ALL their
friends saying Marcy Smith likes Molly
at the Southwicks Zoo and includes a
link back to the website.

 Add Like Buttons throughout the site!

11.  A newsfeed would show
postings on the website,
almost like changing it every
day! And people who are not
yet fans, could instantly ‘like’
the page from this newsfeed.
 Here is an example from West
End Creamery’s home page..
www.westendcreamery.com

12.  Though a Flash site,
this site has plenty of
rich keywords in the
background and
comes up nicely in
Google searches –
kudos to webmaster
~ Images by Belinda!

13.  With these updated Facebook
strategies, and the continued
engagement that the Southwick’s
Facebook page already enjoys,
we fully expect that their fan base
could double before next season!
 We also assume a good portion of
the fan base is from this area and
are their true customers, so
increasing the number of people
in this community should make a
measurable difference in their
‘bottom line’.