Facebook marketing guide

Smarter Facebook Marketing
Author: Marie Page
Published: October 2013

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
© Smart Insights (Marketing Intelligence) Limited. Please go to www.smartinsights.com to feedback or access our other guides.
!
2
Contents
3  ONE
An introduction to marketing with Facebook
34  TWO
PLAN: Developing a Facebook strategy
51  THREE
REACH: Reaching your audience through Facebook
64  FOUR
ACT: Encouraging interaction with Facebook
93  FIVE
CONVERT: Turning Facebook interaction into leads and sales
97  SIX
ENGAGE: Keeping your audience engaged
111  SEVEN
Resources

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
3
1
ONE
An introduction to marketing with Facebook
What is Facebook?
Does Facebook need introducing, it’s the most trafficked social media site in the world.
Facebook can potentially connect a company to a huge swathe of potential customers. Since
Facebook collects detailed demographic information about its users and offers targeted ads, it
is possible to be very specific about those you attempt to communicate with.
However, Facebook is a social network. It is not a place where old, interruption-based forms
of marketing are effective. Whilst advertising bucks can indeed deliver new customers and
sales, there is a better way and that way is open to smaller niche brands as much as it is the
big players. In this guide we will explore both approaches, but the emphasis on using the
Facebook company page for branded communications.
Facebook facts and figures
You will know Facebook is big, very big. It has well over one billion monthly active users.
The latest Facebook Key Facts1
, last updated on June 2013 show that 819 million of these
are mobile users logging in at least once a month. Of its members, over half are active daily.
Companies have followed their customers to Facebook with 42 million brand Pages with 10
or more ‘Likes’ (Facebook, 2012). With two-thirds of US online adults visiting Facebook each
month and the average social networking American a Fan of about eight brands on Facebook,
the platform is ‘top of the hot list for marketers’ (Forrester 2012). Facebook influences many
purchase decisions in different ways too as this research by Vision Critical (2013) shows.
1 Facebook Key Facts

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
4
1
Of course Facebook’s users and the brands they interact with vary by country. Take a look at
this Social Bakers live compilation2
if you need the latest for a report or presentation. You can
drill down to see who is using Facebook effectively in your sector too.
Best Practice Tip 1 Use Social Bakers for benchmarking
Although a paid tool, it also has great free information on popular brands and consumer
demographics.
About this Guide
The aim of this Smarter Guide is to get you started using Facebook for marketing, or if you’re
already set up with a company Page, as many are, to help you use it in a smarter way to
boost your engagement rates and increase your Fan numbers. It’s designed to give you lots
of practical ideas for managing your Facebook Page in a way that facilitates engagement but
doesn’t just trot out the same old tired gimmicks.
We have created it as a practical Guide to give ideas and tips to marketers working
‘hands-on’ in-company or at agencies. To support managers at companies or agencies who
aren’t involved ‘hands-on’, we have also highlighted the main strategic issues to consider
when you are planning the role of Facebook in developing your brand and driving sales.
About the author
This Guide is written by Marie Page who you may know as a regular
Expert Commentator contributing to Smart Insights focusing on
social media marketing and in particular Facebook. Keep a look out
for future posts that will update you on this Guide.3
Marie is co-founder of Musicademy, a specialist e-retailer teaching
2 Social Bakers Facebook Statistics.
3 Smart Insights: Marie Page posts.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
5
1
contemporary music on DVD and online. She has grown the business partly through social
media and savvy use of digital marketing. You will see that many of the examples she shares
are taken from her real-world experience on this site.
Marie also teaches and examines for the Chartered Institute of Marketing and a number of
private training providers and universities in the UK and North America including: The IDM;
The Marketers Forum; The Australian College of Marketing; MMCLearning; and on the Digital
Marketing MSc at Manchester Metropolitan University.
A note about referencing
Whilst you won’t normally find Harvard-style academic referencing in the Smart Insights
resources, we wanted to properly reference the research we have carried out in putting this
Smarter Guide together. You’ll find the Bibliography containing our source material at the end
of this ebook.
Statistics
Hopefully you will find these helpful in making a business case yourself for investment in
Facebook, and students who access this Guide will also find these and the sources useful.
Examples
Rather than using the big brand examples you’re familiar with, but aren’t so relevant to many
businesses, the examples we’ve selected in this guide are mainly from small, often niche
businesses. Most can readily be applied to other sectors.
Key factors for success in using Facebook marketing
Before we start working through the Steps, it’s worth pausing to look at the big picture of
which marketing techniques work best within Facebook.
If you’re looking to go straight to the campaign tips we suggest you skip this
introduction where we introduce the fundamentals of success in Facebook.
Whilst Facebook is a great channel for advocates to Share brand experiences with others,
in a 2011 report, Forrester claims that ‘most marketers fail to derive value from those
relationships and engagement rates on brand Pages are in decline’. Many brands simply fail
to remotely tap into the interactive potential Facebook holds for them.
Strategy Recommendation 1 Don’t simply treat Facebook as a broadcast medium
While you can treat Facebook as a broadcast channel, to make the most of the
potential facilitating interaction and sharing are key. You will then take advantage of the
‘amplification’ that is built into Facebook.
In the old days before the ‘dot bomb crash’, it was thought that online marketing was all
about e-commerce, but what sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter have shown us is that
for many individuals and organisations, online marketing is actually all about connections and
networking.
Before we begin, it’s important to consider the conversational aspect of social media, the
paradigm of what Stephen Covey called the Giver’s Gain. This is not pushy, hard-sell
marketing. It’s about getting alongside customers, understanding them and providing them
with interesting, stimulating content and conversation. So you might not end up discussing
your own products much at all. Instead you could be facilitating a discussion about issues in
your industry, pulling together a round-up of all the relevant industry blog posts or filming an
interview with a leading guru.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
6
1
This concept – that of ‘content marketing’ – has become one of the hot new topics in
digital marketing in recent years. Pulizzi (2012), founder of the Content Marketing Institute,
describes it as ‘A marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable
content to attract, acquire and engage a clearly defined target audience.’
Recommended resource? Content marketing 7 Steps Guide
Use our content marketing strategy guide to define a plan to develop the most relevant
content to grow your audience through sharing (amplification) and brand appeal. Ultimately
your Facebook marketing effectiveness will depend on this.
As explained in Content Rules by Handley & Chapman (2011) promises that ‘if you can
deliver content that your prospects find interesting and informative and entertaining, they’ll
see you as a trusted source of information - an adviser’.
Often content marketing gurus will be encouraging the development of content on a brand’s
‘owned’ website, but the same principles apply to ‘earned’ media, such as Facebook, too. In
Get Content, Keep Customers (2008) Pulizzi & Barrett state that ‘The one who has the more
engaging content wins, because frequent and regular contact builds a relationship.’
Brands that have engaging content on their Facebook Page spend less on advertising
because engaging content has tremendous organic reach. And not only is reach high, that
content engenders trust.
Facebook marketing should be part of a broader social media strategy too, so if you haven’t
checked out our Social Media Strategy guide you may find that useful too.
Recommended resource? Social media marketing strategy 7 Steps Guide
Our Social media marketing strategy guide explains how to set goals for social media to
support your business and to manage social media in an integrated way across different
platforms.
Definitions
We have a glossary on terms relevant to Facebook users at the end of this section. But
from the outset we have to define those terms that all marketers need to understand. Note
that these terms are specific to Facebook compared to the more generic terms used within
marketing including the Smart Insights RACE (Reach-Act-Convert-Engage) Planning
framework.
þþ Reach – the number of people who have seen any content associated with a Page
(InsideFacebook.com, 2011).
þþ Engagement – an activity like posting a Comment or sharing a story (Nelson-Field and
Taylor, 2012).
þþ Engagement – an interactive and integrative participation in the Fan-page community
(Jahn and Kunz, 2012).
þþ Amplification – where friends of Fans have seen content associated with a Page
(Lipsman et al, 2012). Amplification is synonymous with virality.
Engagement has become the Holy Grail for brands, cited as early as 2007 as ‘marketing’s
new key metric’ (Forrester, 2007). Their framework remains relevant today for assessing the
effectiveness of your overall digital marketing, and Facebook marketing in particular.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
7
1
‘Engage or die’ is the marketing catchphrase of the social media era (Field and Taylor, 2012).
You can see the reasons behind this hype, an active Fan may participate 30 times and make
10 recommendations. Fans spend an extra $71.84 on the brand, are 28 percent more likely
to continue using a specific brand and 41 percent more likely than non-Fans to recommend a
product they are a Fan of (Gigaom, 2010).
Facebook only displays updates to an average of only 16 percent of Fans in their streams.
This is partly due to the fact that only about half of all users log on every day and partly
thanks to the Edgerank algorithm (which we will look at in detail in the section on ‘“Affinity” on
page 82). Facebook’s solution to this is that brands should pay to ‘boost’ their posts but an
increased reach is possible organically by increasing engagement, posting more of the kind
of content your Fans like and understanding what type of posts Facebook is more likely to
give high visibility to. Understanding what drives Edgerank is key to success in Facebook.
What is it? Edgerank
Edgerank is an algorithm Facebook uses in order to determine what should appear on a
user’s News Feed by looking at your interactions and your interests so that it can show you
what you most want to see. An ‘Edge’ is every interaction you’ve ever had on Facebook,
and when Edgerank filters your News Feed, it’s showing you the people and posts you’ve
shown the most interest in. The Edgerank algorithm is based on three factors – Affinity,
Edge Weight and recency.
The algorithm changed fairly dramatically in late 2012 (just after the publication of the first
edition of this Guide). Posts containing images were downgraded and plain text updates
upgraded.
Outside Facebook no one knows the exact algorithm that is followed, and we suspect minor
tweaks occur regularly.
The benefits of engaging with customers
Multiple bodies of research show relationships between engagement and value with
committed consumers providing five to eight times the value of an average consumer
(Woodcock et al, 2011).
Kim et al (2008) found that online community commitment is a driver for brand commitment
demonstrating that such consumers possess stronger brand commitment than those who are
not community members.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
8
1
Citing considerable academic literature, Jahn and Kunz (2012) reflect that customers can
increasingly act as co-creators and multipliers of brand messages which enables enormous
amplification effects creating word-of-mouth marketing. Companies should, therefore,
support as much interactivity as possible.
Average engagement rates for Facebook’s top 200 brands
Nelson-Field and Taylor (2012) surveyed Facebook’s top 200 brands over six weeks to
understand the degree to which brands engage. They found in any given week less than 0.5
percent of Facebook Fans engage with their brands. Only one Page showed engagement
over two percent, and only 10 percent reached one percent.
Amplification
Amplification has been described as perhaps the most important, and least understood,
element of achieving brand reach and resonance on Facebook (Lipsman et al, 2012). It is the
viral potential of the network that can help your content spread to other potential Fans and
customers.
What is it? Amplification
Amplification is the viral effect. The idea behind amplification is that Fans who are reached
with brand messages can also serve as a conduit for brand exposure to Friends within their
respective social networks. Because the average Facebook Fan has hundreds of Friends,
each person has the ability to potentially reach dozens of Friends with earned impressions
through their engagement with brand messages.
Due to factors like Fan Reach, the average brand message from the Top 1,000 brands on
Facebook are able to deliver an actual amplification of 81x if their efforts are maximised.
(Lipsman, Mudd, Aquino, & Kemp, 2012).
Scissons (2011) reviewed engagement data for 300 top brands on Facebook over a year
finding that engagement of leading brands was down 22 percent. He claims marketers
have led to this decline by ‘dissing audiences with bad content, coupons, polls, contests,
and boring filler’. The few brands not in decline (Deutsch, Renault, Hermes, Lowe’s and
Chanel) didn’t necessarily have the most Fans, but daily ‘performed magic’ to keep their
Fans engaged. As Sinha et al (2011) note, to be effective, a brand needs to resonate with
customers.
Who is using Facebook?
Before you (or your boss) suggest that Facebook is only for students (that doesn’t still
happen does it?), did you know that 55–65-year-olds are the fastest growing segment on
Facebook?
A study from the AARP – formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons
– shows that baby boomers in the 50-years-old-or-better age bracket are ‘cool with the
Internet, down with Facebook, hip to the iPad and not just using the web to spy on their kids
and grandkids’. The AARP interviewed 1,360 adults over the phone and found that more
than a quarter (27 percent) of Americans age 50 and older use social networks. Facebook is
the most popular – in fact, 23 percent of all survey respondents said they preferred it to sites
such as MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter. Another study from eMarketer showed that boomers
and seniors were flocking to Facebook.
Managing expectations for the potential of Facebook
While Facebook is clearly the leading social network it has some stiff competition from the

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
9
1
likes of Google Plus (G+), LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest each of which have particular
features and advantages. People often see it as a domestic social network, using LinkedIn,
G+ and Twitter for business interests. As such, business-to-business (B2B) companies can
struggle to get traction. You probably also noticed the tens of millions of brand Pages on
Facebook in the Introduction; so competition for Fans and engagement is tough too.
In the US Facebook is the number four traffic source to content Pages (Outbrain, 2011).
Social networks ranked fourth on the list of successful acquisition tactics for manufacturers
selling direct to consumer, indicating that this sector is able to leverage social networks to
drive engagement with their brands and promote peer-to-peer sharing (Mulpuru, 2011).
However, her report showed that less than one percent of online transactions in a group of
major US retailers could be directly attributed to social media.4
Other channels like search
and email marketing remain important for sales, indeed they offer great opportunities for
integrating with social media. But Facebook is increasingly popular for the softer goals such
as awareness, trust and buying intent.
Best Practice Tip 2 Review sector use of Facebook by brands in your market
To help set realistic expectations amongst clients it’s useful to sample Facebook pages in
your sector.
Social Bakers can help here again. The next chart takes the example of Kitchen and
Cookware companies registered with Social Bakers. This can be useful for finding some of
the leading adopters in a sector and a country.
However, it’s good to click through to the Pages in order to learn. Approaches that work for
big brands such as these can often be adapted at a more local level. And if you work on
building your Fanbase organically (rather than simply through competitions and advertising),
you are likely to grow a more engaged audience. The aim of this Smarter Guide is to show
you how
Why is Facebook so popular?
Through understanding the reasons behind Facebook’s popularity, we can harness these
driver of its popularity. Research by Dr BJ Fogg, of the Stanford University Persuasive
Technology Lab defines three main reasons for its probable success:
þþ Facebook helps us express identity – we join Groups to express who we are, where we
are from and what we like.
þþ Facebook helps us show support for other people or causes.
4 SmartInsights: Forrester: ‘Facebook and Twitter do almost nothing for sales’.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
10
1
þþ Facebook is a place for us to have fun – Groups with crazy titles, campaigns for
ridiculous achievements (Rage Against the Machine for Christmas Number 1 anyone?)
(From Perks & Sedley, Winners & Losers in a Troubled Economy, p 49)
Why do people follow brands on Facebook?
Research by Econsultancy (2011b) found that the most common reason for people to follow
brands on Facebook was to be notified of special offers (70 percent). Other reasons included
shopping (38 percent), to follow events (38 percent) and to leave feedback (29 percent).
Econsultancy’s respondents typically followed between two and five brands, though 35
percent were following more than five brands. Thirteen percent of respondents said they
followed more than 10 brands on Facebook. People typically discover Facebook Pages via
the company website, or having been recommended by a friend. Almost 60 percent of people
have recommended a brand to friends.
People primarily unsubscribe from Pages if they are dull, or not updated frequently enough.
They’ll also bail out if there are too many updates or if they see too many sponsored/boosted
posts and ads. It’s important to find the right balance for your audience.
Strategy Recommendation 2 Define the value you can offer in Facebook that fits your
brand
Research shows that many Facebook users are looking for value, so to maximise Fan
growth you have to go beyond content curation and offer unique value to Facebook which
isn’t available in other channels.
To find effective promotions within your industry use Social Bakers to see which brands have
rapid growth in the last week or the month. For example, we looked at the Health and Beauty
category and found this rather nice cross-channel social media campaign #kissoftheyear.
Research5
about US social media users suggest a similar phenomenon with a focus on
promotions and giveaways.
5 Lab42 survey of 1000 US social media users.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
11
1
Assessing whether Facebook investment is right for your brand
As always, decisions to use a particular marketing tactic should not be taken as a knee-jerk
reaction. Just because the boss thinks you should be on Facebook, or because all the
competition are, is not necessarily justification for a lot of investment by your company.
Facebook may be ‘free’, but the time resource can be considerable. And in terms of value for
your brand, it’s arguably better to do nothing than get it wrong – remember that quote about
brands ‘dissing audiences with boring filler’?
How does Facebook ‘sit’ in relation to your brand? Your Facebook Page will need to be an
extension of your brand personality. Is the platform right for that? Do you have the skills-base
to create content delivered in the right tone? Do you have a culture of two-way engagement
with customers, or are most of your communications to date one-way, not really embracing
the opportunities of web 2.0? Do you have the resources to monitor and manage it 24/7?
So talk to customers. Are they on Facebook? How are they using it? Do they follow (Like)
or interact with similar brands on Facebook? Would they like an occasional update in their
newsfeed from you? A simple survey will yield you a lot of information. You can also use the
survey as an opportunity to see what kinds of content customers would like you to publish.
Look at the competition. What are they doing on the platform? How many Fans do they
have? What levels of engagement do they enjoy? What can you learn from them? What can
you do better?
Look at brands in other sectors. Are they delivering the kind of content that you could mimic,
making it relevant for your audience?

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
12
1
Using an agency
If you don’t have the skills mix or time in-house, outsourcing your Facebook Page to a
specialist agency or consultant is one option. Not only will they be able to deliver content
that requires specialist know-how (such as a Welcome Page or apps to run competitions)
but should be able to coach your staff with a view to ultimately passing responsibility back
in-house. Some agencies will offer a weekend cover service so that your Page is monitored,
and Comments replied to 24/7.
Pages such as the hugely popular Park Bench and Scratching Post from Vets-Now were set
up by agency Fresh Networks working closely with Vets-Now’s in-house team. Together they
are responsible for content strategy and monitoring day-to-day activity on the Pages. As their
success on Facebook has grown, the organisation has employed a Community Manager
and also branched out to develop a standalone community outside of (but still fed on a daily
basis) by Facebook.
Tools to help manage your Facebook Page
Managing Facebook, particularly alongside other social media networks is time consuming.
While good practice is to post directly to each network, to review and report on each works
best with an integrated set of tools.
Strategy Recommendation 3 Invest in tools to help reduce time in posting, interacting and
reviewing in Facebook and across other social media networks.
A modest outlay in social network management tools will save you time, while more
sophisticated community building tools can help engage your audience and run promotional
campaigns across different networks.
Social network management tools enable companies to regularly interact with their audience
on the main social networks and track the results of these interactions.
What is it? Social network management tool
Software or services to post, schedule and track the response to social media updates
across multiple platforms. Sprout Social is an excellent example of such a tool and you can
get a month’s free trial to experiment with what it has to offer.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
13
1
Key functions of these social network management tools include the capability to use these
across the different social networks:
þþ Post the same status updates to multiple channels at the same time (although we’d
normally recommend tailoring updates by channel).
þþ Reply to Comments and questions for delivering customer service and pre-sales support.
þþ Tracking and reporting on sharing and click-through from these updates.
þþ Review updates from publishers and other influencers.
þþ Review Comments from named competitors or hashtag topics (basic social listening
features).
Best Practice Tip 3 Consider Hootsuite as a free tool for updating your company page
Hootsuite is another option for this functionality and has good support for Facebook pages.
To see which tools are available it’s useful to see which brands are using some of the other
tools available and their popularity – see this post for a review of the most popular.6
Online platforms are becoming increasingly available that publish interactive campaign
features too as well as status updates. For more information on these tools including an
in-depth review see this Expert member’s Guide.7
What is it? Social campaign or community management platform
Services which enable marketers to use different types of engagement devices within social
networks. They can also be considered to be community-building tools.
The main advantage of these tools is that you do not have to develop an application in-house
or use an agency. Key functions of social campaign management platforms:
þþ Enable interactive engagement devices to be deployed to run campaigns particularly
within Facebook, i.e. they go beyond posting text, images and videos.
þþ Examples of engagement devices include promotions, surveys, quizzes, coupons and
sweepstakes.
Why should you be using Facebook? Business benefits
Here is a checklist of reasons that you may find useful to build into your business case for
6 Smart Insights: The post popular social media management tools.
7 Smart Insights Expert members report: services for managing Facebook campaigns.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
14
1
more investment in Facebook.
þþ To give your brand/organisation a presence on a site that your customers know and trust.
þþ You’re a lot more likely to connect with the billion people that use Facebook if you have
a Page than if you don’t. Facebook provides an opportunity to find consumers you may
have not otherwise discovered.
þþ Reach the people you can’t get to on other platforms – Facebook is a great place for
generating brand awareness and is increasingly being used by a very wide variety of age
demographics.
þþ Customer engagement and two-way communications.
þþ To make a brand more accessible and personal.
þþ To foster customer-to-customer (word of mouth) engagement.
þþ To utilise the potential of viral marketing – when someone becomes a Fan (by ‘Liking’
your page), that shows up on their Facebook Wall which is visible to all their friends, and
is also reported as an action on their Friends’ Walls. It’s also likely that your Fans will
want to Share good content with their Friends.
þþ To encourage creation of user-generated content. Fans can even upload images to
Comments on your Wall now.
þþ To improve your search engine optimisation (albeit with limited impact).
þþ You can use the Page to listen to customers, to get feedback and ideas. It’s a neutral
space where real relationship marketing can take place.
þþ You can use the page to develop your brand personality, communicate promotions,
contests and events.
þþ The Page may also be a helpful customer retention tool.
þþ You can communicate with segments of your Fans. Updates can be targeted by age,
gender and location (click the ‘gunsight’ icon with the human figures on next to the ‘Share’
button).
þþ Facebook can act as a portal point for driving traffic to your website.
þþ Reviewing potential prospects’ profiles may help you build a relationship with your
prospects and aid in the lead generation qualifying process.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
15
1
So what specifically does Facebook offer for brands?
First, Facebook will drive traffic to your website. Take a look at these statistics from one
of the leading enterprise social sharing tools, Gigya. This research8
shows the ongoing
importance of Facebook.
However, many brands are realising that the purpose of their Facebook Page is far beyond
one of driving traffic to their own website. Facebook is the place where people connect. They
want to stay there rather than being distracted to other sites.
Forty-two percent of US online consumers follow a retailer proactively on Facebook, Twitter
or a retailer’s blog (ShopOrg, 2011).
For many, Facebook, rather than websites, is the preferred platform to engage with brands
(WebTrends, 2011). Pages now routinely outpace their corresponding brand websites
(Lipsman et al, 2012). People are spending increasing amounts of time on social networks as
the graphic below demonstrates.
In the past brands focused on driving traffic to their websites or micro sites but as customer
behaviour has changed and social networking dominates time spent online, those tactics
have also moved on. Writing in 2008, Dave Chaffey said ‘Despite a wide choice customers
are consolidating their preferred websites.’ Mark Stuart puts it well in this CIM Shape
the Agenda paper. ‘People tend to stick to the same five or six sites that they know and
trust. Within these small “villages” the marketer is replacing the shopkeeper – offering the
customer things they might not spot themselves…. With people self-selecting the villages
they inhabit, marketers need to ensure they have a presence in those places, rather than
trying to drive customers to their own sites, which is increasingly a much harder proposition.’
(Stuart, 2010)
8 Social sharing preferences - Gigya enterprise social sharing tool

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
16
1
Facebook has changed brand and consumer behaviour
‘What started as a means to an end of drawing people to websites is becoming an end in
itself. Facebook is gaining tremendous popularity as a destination to connect with brands
online, and is increasingly chosen over websites. Surviving online is no longer about
all-in-one websites, but measuring & improving performance in all the social, mobile & web
entities.’ (WebTrends, 2011)
Facebook will allow you to build up a closer relationship with existing customers who use it
and allow you to understand their preferences better. It will also help you harness the viral
effect of the platform in helping you reach out to new customers and show off your brand
values (see graphic below showing how Facebook leads sharing). It can help by driving web
traffic, build links and can be used for showcasing.
How will you benefit?
There are a great deal of benefits to gain from Facebook as long as you are willing to put
time and effort into it. You will be able to extend your reach to new and existing customers,
build up your web presence, drive web traffic and increase sales. You will also benefit by
finding out what your customers like and be able to build better profiles for your target
audience and therefore be able to engage with them on a closer level.
The limitations of Facebook
Facebook certainly has its faults. In most cases it will not be the primary driver of new
business. It is not a cheap, quick or easy fix to other more fundamental problems with a
brand. It is also no longer on the same growth trajectory that it was in previous years. But
let’s start with the biggest limitation first:
þþ Visibility of updates. Widman (2011) found that less than 10 percent of Fans see a
brand’s updates (other studies have put this at 16 percent). Comments and Likes to the
new (Oct 2011) Timeline version of Facebook only appear in the ticker so viral spread is
more limited than previously.
þþ Reducing consumer engagement. Gartner (2011) reported signs of social media fatigue
particularly with the 18–29-year-old Generation Y segment. Whilst this demographic were
early adopters of social networking, boredom and concerns about privacy appear to be
turning as many as a quarter of them away from the platforms.
þþ Limited interaction with brand pages. MarketSentinal (2011) has found that the vast
majority of Fans don’t interact with a brand’s Page. This poses a real challenge for brands
since under the Edgerank Algorithm unless someone has actively interacted with a Page,
they will rarely see updates.
þþ Relatively poor driver of customer acquisition or retention in comparison with
other channels. Forrester Research found that ‘Facebook excels neither at acquiring
new, nor retaining existing, customers’ and Social networks ranked last on a list of 10
customer acquisition tactics for retailers surveyed in 2010 (Mulpuru, 2011).
Facebook advertising
The value of Facebook based on its advertising potential has been much discussed since its
IPO in 2012. Globally, companies are now spending more than $1 billion each quarter
on advertising with Facebook.
Facebook advertising certainly has its critics and even as a PR tool its role can be misrepre-
sented
Even with the ability to target the user closely to determine how and to whom an ad is
served with great demographic accuracy, Facebook ads have low click-through rates of only

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
17
1
0.011–0.165 percent, compared to Google’s 0.4–0.7 percent (MarketSentinel, 2011). Whilst
tracking click-throughs is easy, tracking conversions to sale is more challenging. Whilst you
can now set up conversion tracking pixels on your site triggered by Facebook ads, these
will only pick up immediate, direct sales. And do not take into account anything beyond the
‘last click’ referrer. Research undertaken by my colleague Jon Paget for Tui Travel showed
that there was a significant difference in measuring ROI resulting from Facebook activity
depending on the way sales success was measured.
Jon’s research, carried out on a 12-month data set, showed that Facebook appeared as
the first point in the path to conversion 30 percent of the time, in the middle of the path
67 percent of the time, and only at the end of the path (traditional last click), around three
percent of the time. If we use what is now becoming a common classification across
attribution modelling, this shows Facebook as primarily an influencing channel, a significant
introducing channel and a poorly converting channel. More background on this research will
be available in a Smart Insights blog post.
Do you really still want to measure your Facebook ROI with last click?
Whilst many marketers have believed this to be the case, Jon’s research and others like it
are only now starting to prove this relationship and that Facebook and other social channels
can be greatly undervalued when measured with a last click model. The research suggests
Facebook certainly helps convert sales even when it’s involvement is not at the final stages.
A user might see an advert or read an article about a brand, then find it on Facebook, then
interact with a few more channels which eventually leads to a sale. But crucially the user has
engaged with the brand and its content on Facebook throughout.
People are generally not in ‘search mode’ on Facebook and many ads are not seen or are
ignored as a result of banner blindness.
Deciding to advertise on Facebook is a key strategic decision. You should carefully establish
the returns you get from Fans. Remember that in 2012, General Motors pulled an annual $10
million Facebook ad budget because they felt they could get better returns from other media.9
A smart move?
We know that many companies aren’t convinced by the value of Facebook advertising
and would rather spend their paid media budgets elsewhere, so in this Guide we focus on
methods of growing engagement organically, by adding free updates to a Page. We will take
another, more detailed, look at advertising in Step 2 Reach.
Strategy Recommendation 4 Don’t invest in Facebook ads unless you’re clear on the
returns it gives.
Organic growth or using giveaways will often give a better ROI than advertising.
The most savvy brands are also not using the straightforward ad options (boost post
and marketplace ads). They are using ‘dark posts’ and newsfeed ads which dramatically
increase effectiveness.
You shouldn’t use paid advertising for the vanity value of the Like. The problem is that some
marketers are now judged on the number of Likes they generate, and some are even lured
into ‘Like and Share’ competitions that break Facebook’s Terms of Service, or black hat
agencies that sell you fake Fans. Case studies show that advertising is one of the most
effective methods in generating Fan growth. You should build up a picture like this one
9 Arstechnica: report on GM Facebook decision.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
18
1
from B2B services provider Eloqua10
that shows the importance of paid advertising to their
promotional mix.
Facebook Glossary
Not every marketer uses Facebook, maybe you prefer LinkedIn or Twitter. If so, this section
is for you!
þþ Page. The place where organisations, brands and celebrities ‘live’ on Facebook. The
Page is the organisation’s equivalent of a Profile. This is where an organisation Shares
information and interact with Fans.
þþ Profile. The place where individuals ‘live’ on Facebook. This is where individuals Share
information and interact with friends.
þþ Group. A collection of Facebook users that have a common interest – a Group is a little
like a Page but there are some key differences. In some cases a Group may be more
appropriate for you than a Page.
þþ Fan. A Facebook user who signs up to follow a Page by clicking ‘Like’ on it.
þþ Friend. Someone you are connected to on Facebook via your personal Profile. It is also
used as a verb when you add someone as a Friend (to Friend).
þþ Network. A collection of Facebook users identifying with a particular region, school or
workplace – you can join up to five Networks on Facebook.
þþ News Feed. The content posted on your Wall which includes the aggregation of your
Friends’ individual News Feeds via the ‘ticker’ in the top right hand corner.
þþ Wall. The main element of your Profile or Page that shows content, Comment and
actions.
Facebook Profiles v Pages v Groups
As we’ve said above, Facebook Profiles are used for individuals, and Pages (formerly called
Fan Pages) are used for businesses. So you don’t create a Profile for your business, instead
create a Page. Facebook Pages ‘allow entities such as public figures and organizations
to broadcast information to their Fans’. If you are looking to set up your company’s ‘official
Facebook presence’ you would opt for Facebook Pages.
Simply put, Facebook Pages are a tool for companies and public figures to engage their
Fans and customers.
Here are some technical detail about Pages:
10 Smart Insights: Eloqua case study.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
19
1
þþ Pages allow you to designate multiple administrators so that other people in your
company can manage the account.
þþ Pages segment your company into the right category (brand, local business, organisation,
etc) which means you get listed in the relevant lists.
þþ Pages are public (although you can change this) and so will start ranking in Facebook
and search results.
þþ Anyone can then become a Fan of your page (they click ‘Like’) whereas on a personal
profile you have to additionally become a mutual Friend.
þþ Facebook’s suggestion feature as well as the paid for Sponsored Stories advertising
option is a further way of spreading your brand profile to the Friends of your Fans ‘if you
liked this you may like this’.
þþ If you are an individual who’s incredibly popular, you might find that you have more than
5,000 people trying to befriend you. 5,000 is Facebook’s limit so you might be best setting
up a Page instead of your Profile. Often individuals this popular are actually celebrities of
some sort in which case they should convert their Profile to a Page.
Facebook has these roles for editing a brand page.
þþ Page Admin Roles
þþ Insights Analyst: View Insights
þþ Advertiser: View Insights and create ads
þþ Moderator: All of the above, plus send messages as the Page and respond to and delete
Comments
þþ Content Creator: All of the above, plus create posts as the Page, edit the Page
What are Facebook Groups?
With the focus on Facebook Business Pages, Groups tend to be discussed less often,
but they are great for some purposes. Facebook describes the purpose of Groups as ‘for
members of groups to connect, Share and even collaborate on a given topic or idea’. Options
for using Groups include:
þþ Groups can serve as an extremely effective marketing tool. Most importantly, Groups
serve as a tool for building awareness around various ideas.
þþ Many users use Facebook Pages for the same purpose, but this is what Groups were
initially intended for.
þþ The key feature behind Facebook Groups is the ability to make them ‘invite only’ or
limited to specific networks.
þþ Groups can be open, closed or secret. Membership to closed or secret Groups is by
approval by the Group administrator.
Groups can be a really useful option, particularly for membership-type uses. The author of
this Guide (Marie Page) co-runs a private, highly active Group called Digiterati, comprising
digital marketing practitioners connected with Manchester Metropolitan University’s Digital
Marketing MSc course. The closed nature of the Group is part of its appeal – it’s a ‘safe’
place to engage, make recommendations, ask questions and also to have fun. One upside is
the ability to email or Facebook Message any members of the Group regardless of whether
you are a personal friend of them. One downside is the lack of Insights into Group activity
which makes tracking effectiveness more challenging.
Is a Facebook Group more suitable for you than a Page?
þþ Groups offer a sense of a smaller, more engaged community.
þþ Groups include privacy controls and three types of settings: Open, Closed, and Secret.
þþ Closed Groups are visible to anyone on Facebook who can ask to join the Group, but

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
20
1
only members can read posts.
þþ Group administrators are responsible for approving and removing members and
monitoring the Group for rude or inappropriate posts.
þþ Posts are not subject to Edgerank. The post with the most recent interaction is at the top
of the pile. Members can adjust notifications to get alerted to every new message posted
at the start of a thread.
þþ Great for people with similar interests.
þþ Can feel like a user-friendly forum/support group.
þþ Not great for archiving and searching past posts.
þþ Any member can upload files to a file folder.
þþ Polls are still an option.
þþ No Insights.
þþ Choose the name/vanity URL carefully as it can’t be changed again.
Many businesses would use LinkedIn groups for a similar purpose. Look at the tab options to
upload/download photos and files. Note too that ‘Ask Questions’ is still an option for Groups.
Setting up or improving your Facebook business page
Along with many things on Facebook, the layout of business pages changes from time
to time. One such change was in March 2012 where we defined 10 tactics for effective
Facebook pages.11
It’s still worth taking a look at the examples in this post if you’re reviewing
your page.
Here, we’re going to take a single example, looking at the brand Page for Marie’s company,
Musicademy:
11 Smart Insights: 10 Tactics to improve your business Facebook business page.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
21
1
Scrolling down the Page you will see some further options to the right of the screen:
Cover photos
The cover photo is an instant way to make an impact and many brands update their cover
picture regularly.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
22
1
Here is one cover photo used by Park Bench:
It’s pretty obvious from this image that the Page is all about dogs. And more than that, it’s
about different breeds of dog.
Change your cover photo regularly. The change itself will be tagged in many of your Fans’
News Feeds (don’t believe the reach reporting that Facebook gives on this, it seems to be
buggy). Change your photo to draw attention to competitions, giveaways, news, new product
launches or to showcase different aspects of your business.
Dyson has chosen an arty image that reinforces their OVP (online value proposition) as kings
of design.
Facebook guru Mari Smith has chosen to draw attention to a sale of one of her books (note,
too, the consistency in styling with the profile picture).
Fashion brand Cavan have created an eye-catching sale cover image.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
23
1
In 2013 Facebook quietly loosened the restrictions on the amount of text allowed in cover
images. It used to be just 20 percent which would have got rejections for two of these
pictures.
Cover photo good practice:
þþ Cover photos can look very different on mobile as they are often cropped.
þþ Suggested Page ads also crop the content (see below).
þþ Dimensions are 851 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall.
þþ Keep important content away from the edges.
þþ Have key text in the right hand area (ideally towards the top).
þþ Include a call to action, give a reason to ‘Like’ the page, include social proof.
þþ It’s incredibly difficult to balance all the options. A recent Musicademy image had the
following criteria in mind:
rr Text in the right hand side towards the top.
rr Incorporation of a call to action with an arrow pointing towards the ‘Like’ button and the
Likegate app (even this can backfire as the image can surface in a place where the arrow
direction makes no sense – hence the arrow is fairly muted).
rr Design integration with the website (colours and Windows 8 theme).
rr Highly professional look and feel.
rr Clear communication of the product range.
rr Integration of social proof (industry awards).
rr Selection of Views/Apps most relevant to the brand.
rr About text carefully written and including the URL.
rr Call to action.
rr List of benefits (as well as a product listing of sorts).
Autographer has a good balance between their product, the cover photo, profile image and
their apps. Elements of the product feature in the cover photo, the profile picture and the
current photo album cover. There is a consistent colour theme (which should also ideally be
continued in any landing pages or corresponding website). Photographs taken by the device
are showcased in the picture. And, lastly, simple calls to action describe the three apps
available.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
24
1
Social Identities has a similar approach to apps. Founder Hugh Briss also features
prominently. This makes perfect sense once you read through the posts. Hugh himself posts
all the content, and engages regularly with Fans of the Page.
Do be aware that cover photos can look very different on desktop PCs, tablets and smart
phones. Photos will normally be cropped for the more square size requirements of mobile.
Suggested Page ads (which pull in content from the Page) also crop the content. Key things
to bear in mind when designing your cover image include:
þþ Dimensions are 851 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall.
þþ Keep important content away from the edges.
þþ Have key text in the right hand area (ideally towards the top).
þþ Include a call to action, give a reason to Like the page, include social proof.
Here is Musicademy’s implementation following the above rules.
Note the benefits to encourage visitors to ‘Like’ the Page. (this also points to ‘Likegate’ app
offering free content).
At some times we also use social proof with industry awards. This design was developed at
the time of the launch of a Windows 8-style webstore.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
25
1
The tone and messaging on this MetaFit cover image nicely communicates brand personality.
The same is true for the Red Bull home page.
What should you do to get started?
Setting up a Facebook Page is pretty straightforward and Facebook itself publishes helpful
Guidelines. Go to this Facebook Page to create a Page and learn more about the options.12
You can also get further. You’ll find a simple wizard which will help you create the Page.
If you need some help, or want to review your existing approach, simply follow these steps:
1. Go to any brand Page and hit ‘Create Page’.
2. Select the category of Page.
rr Local Business or Place – bricks and mortar places where people can visit.
(If you have more than one location then ‘Organisation’ may be a better classification.)
rr Company Organisation or Institution.
12 Facebook Pages resources.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
26
1
rr Brand or Product.
rr Artist, Band or Public Figure.
rr Entertainment.
rr Cause or Community.
The ‘Local Business or Place’ Page type gives extra info Page options for you to fill out,
including your open hours, parking options and the ability for people to ‘check in’ using
Facebook Places when they visit you in person. A count of people who have checked in will
appear on your page next to your Like (Fan) count.
You can always change category later as explained here.
This is an excellent post explaining the differences between categories .
3. Select a sector, choose a name and agree to the terms.
4. Complete the About info.
5. Add a photo.
6. Add to Favourites.
7. Start adding to the Page, inviting friends, giving more info
More help is available from Facebook’s Help page on Page creation.
Review the options for the company information you write. Options include showcasing
your online value proposition, a strapline, including sub brands or keywords or even a very
simple description of your Page and the benefits it brings Fans. Remember to check how it
looks after you have published it. It’s good practice to include your URL. See Musicademy’s
example:
The ‘About’ text
The short ‘About’ text copy will surface in your Page Like ads. The business/page type
(category) surfaces.
The second bit that appears in ads (desktop News Feed only) is the first few words of the
description. There are two descriptions available on pages, a short and long description.
Facebook pulls the text from whichever one it determines to be the best (in other words

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
27
1
there’s no fixed pattern!) so we recommend to always suggest to start both descriptions with
exactly the same copy. You have about 15–20 words to play with.
Best practice for the ‘About’ text:
þþ Include key words and hashtags.
þþ Make sure the text fits to the three-line description on your profile Page.
þþ Include your URL.
þþ Provide a snapshot of your brand.
þþ Make sure it fits to Marketplace ads.
Here are three examples of well written ‘About’ text:
Apps
The four little boxes that appear under your Page cover Image are known as ‘apps’. The
Photo app is fixed in the far left and can’t be moved. It will show the most recent photo you
have uploaded to the Page. Then you have another 11 app spaces to play with (four show
on the top and users click down to access the others). By default the number of Fans (Likes)
will show up and possibly other info such as your location, Facebook Videos and events
depending on how the brand has used Facebook in the past. Other apps (such as in the
example below) are either custom built or off-the-shelf from integration with platforms such as
YouTube, Pinterest or Mailchimp.
Facebook has made several of its core Facebook Profile Page applications available for

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
28
1
tabs. If the functionality you want for your Facebook Page isn’t yet available via an existing
application, you can build your own. Third-party developers can also use tabs. Since each
tab has its own URL, you can choose any of them as the Landing Page for your Facebook
ads and off-site promotion. You can also choose which tab to set as the default when users
who aren’t yet Fans organically navigate to your Facebook Page from within Facebook.
The important thing to realise is that you are not stuck with the default positioning of these
apps. You can move them around (see the example below). We’d suggest demoting the Fan
count app (this number is shown elsewhere on the cover anyway) and choose to showcase
the most important apps for your brand.
There are thousands of Facebook Platform applications built by third-party developers
available for use on your Facebook Page. Do a bit of research and find out what works for
you. Be aware that you MUST use an app to run a competition on Facebook. Those ‘Like
and Share’ competitions actually break Facebook’s Terms of Service (and due to privacy
settings, the identity of most users who have Shared the post will not actually be visible to the
Page in question – so no way to award the competition prize).
DON’T fill your page with loads of tedious stuff about your products. Make it fun, intriguing
and with lots of industry relevant stuff too. Think about what your customers are likely to want
to click through. And make sure you have plenty of content before promoting the Page.
The vanity URL
Nowadays the creation process for a Page allows you to set a vanity URL. Let’s check you
have that in place. When you access your company page, do you see this in the address bar:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/yourpagename/12345678910 or this:
http://www.facebook.com/yourpagename
If the former, you need to register your Facebook username which gives you a friendly
URL featuring your brand name (a ‘vanity’ URL). Marie’s business Musicademy uses www.
facebook.com/musicademy for the Facebook Fan page. @musicademy is also the brand’s
Twitter name and the login used normally use when Commenting on blogs. Consistency here
is important.
To select a vanity URL for your page go to the Admin settings and Edit Page > Update Page,
Info > Select the right Page and put in your chosen user name. Assuming the user name is
available you can click to confirm It. Be aware that you can only change the name once.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
29
1
Summary checklist – 10 key techniques to improve the marketing effectiveness of your Face-
book Page
A. Brand essence and value proposition
This is communicated through…
rr 1. The cover photo.
The signature feature of consumer Timelines, this will need special commissioning to be
consistent with the brand as Tiffany & Co. have in the next example:
As we’ve already found, a lot of restrictions on cover images have been lifted. You CAN now
include sales promotion text and calls to action, you can include URLs, requests to Like the
Page pretty much everything you would put on a standard landing page.
rr 2. The brand ident
This is straightforward – this is the box on the bottom left of the cover photo. It’s 160 x 160
pixels. Some brands foolishly try and upload a rectangular logo into this box. Don’t because it
will get cropped. Get your designer to work up something square. Autographer started with a
simple ‘A’ and are more recently using an image associated with their wearable camera – it’s
part of the start-up process on the device (we’ve given five examples here of how the ident
surfaces in different places/on different devices on Facebook):
Remember that this is the image that will surface in sponsored story ads:
rr 3. The page summary box
It’s important to explain your proposition given you can’t add text to the main image. Options

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
30
1
are limited according to the type of company.
Facebook says:
‘You can edit the information that appears in your Page’s About section summary box below
its profile picture, but you can’t choose which fields display there. The types of information
that appear in the summary box are specific to your Page’s category. For example, Pages
for restaurants show price range, address, phone number and hours of operation in
the summary box, while artist/musician Pages show the About field of the Page’s basic
information.
You can change your Page’s category at any time.’
This example for a hairdressing salon shows how small companies can feature maps and
other local information:
rr 4. Direct link to website
This is a simple trick, but we find it’s not used so often.
Best Practice Tip 4 Use a hyperlink in the About box to give a call to action to your site
This is a trick we’ve used – feature www.domain.com in the summary and it will be
displayed as a hyperlink. Give a reason to click if possible...

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
31
1
B. Customer journeys
Access to different content are available through ‘Views and Apps’ which appear on the
right below the cover image. The Facebook Marketing solutions page gives one of the
best examples of these – it’s the best example of a B2B page – you can see here they are
expanded:
rr 5. Views
In addition to Photos, three more Views/Apps can be highlighted. Developing appealing icons
may help here and using relevant text below each View such as ‘Free’ in the example above.
rr 6. Apps
Apps are important for encouraging interactions and data capture. They are included within
the Views.
The Facebook Marketing Solutions Page for the UK has a range of apps or tabs with different
purposes. Unfortunately, the call to action in Facebook to expand to show apps isn’t strong,
so it’s best to feature your three main views.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
32
1
C. Editorial and merchandising features
There are several editorial options to position your most popular content more prominently. I
noticed around half the featured sites weren’t using these so make sure you take advantage
of these.
rr 8. Pinned posts
This example on the next page shows how key campaign offers and content marketing
assets can be pinned top left.
Best Practice Tip 5 Use pinned posts
Pinned posts give your offers prominence for seven days. They’re another under-used
Facebook merchandising technique.
rr 9. Starred posts
By starring a post it will appear full-width – great for campaign offers.
rr 10. Timeline
Last, and probably least, you can add images for earlier in a brand’s history. Full-width
imagery works well here.
Our final example in this section is taken from the case studies for an Expert member
company Scribblers.13
This uses an app positioned in Views to enable email sign-up, at the
top of Scribblers’s Facebook page and given Pinned Facebook status update so it appears in
the all-important position, top left, remaining there for a week.
A customised version of Constant Contacts Social Campaigns platform featured in our Guide
to campaign management tools14
was created to give people access to the PDF in exchange
13 Smart Insights: In-depth case studies - Scribblers.
14 Smart Insights: Social media campaign management tools.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
33
1
for a Like.
A promotional code is included within the ebook to encourage purchase from the site. Great
joined-up marketing!

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
34
2
TWO
PLAN: Developing a Facebook strategy
rr Q. Has a Facebook plan been created?
To get the most out of Facebook, you should build a strategy that will allow you to plan
and manage your resources to make best use of the platform for marketing. It’s just the
same as for other online communications platforms. You can damage your brand and miss
opportunities if you don’t have the strategy in place to manage communications.
Strategy Recommendation 5 Outline a Facebook communications strategy
The communications strategy for Facebook should outline the types of content you will
Share, the frequency and, most importantly, what you’re looking to achieve. Thinking about
who your target audience is a good place to start when considering content type, time of
posting and tone of posts.
rr Q. Has competitor use of Facebook been reviewed?
An obvious starting point is to review competitor use, but what should you look for? We
recommend you check:
þþ How many Fans do they have?
þþ What is their PTAT (people talking about this) score like?
þþ What kind of content are they posting? How often do they post? When do they post?
(Lots of brands miss the important weekend slot.)
þþ Who is Commenting? What is being said? How good are they at responding to Fan
questions and Comments? How are they driving Likes? Are they overly reliant on
competitions and advertising?
Best Practice Tip 6 Assess competitor use of Facebook for communications
Use competitors (and other brands you admire) to inform your use of social media. Set
targets based on their success and use them to review the frequency and type of updates.
What is it? People Talking About This metric (PTAT)
PTAT is the number of unique people who have created a story about your Page in the
last week. A story is created when someone Likes the Page, Comments on or Shares a
post, answers a question, responds to an event, mentions or tags the Page, checks in or
recommends your Place. Be aware that engaging with a Facebook ad will also drive up the
PTAT score so brands that do a lot of advertising appear to be somewhat more engaged
than they really are organically.
rr Q. Has a communications plan for your Page been created?
Whilst the phrase ‘If you build it they will come’ has some truth in it, the likelihood is that
many potential Fans will remain ignorant of your new Facebook presence until you tell them.
Even then you may need to incentivise or cajole them to Like the Page.
Strategy Recommendation 6 Invest in a communications plan to drive people to your Page

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
35
2
Profile your Facebook Page in all your communications such as your website, newsletter,
emails, signage and print ads. Consider investing in Facebook advertising to drive new
visitors to your page. You will also want to consider advertising to enable more of your
posts to be seen even by existing Fans. Thanks to Edgerank and the fact that probably
half your Fans will not be on Facebook in any given day, only a very small percentage (on
average 16 percent) will see any given update.
rr Q. Have good practices been considered and incorporated?
Take a look at the Pages of effective Facebook Pages like the ones we have showcased
here.
Best Practice Tip 7 Review how best practice interaction can increase page engagement
levels
Whilst the average Page engagement rate for big brands is often under one percent
(Nelson-Field & Taylor, 2012), many smaller brands such as those showcased here
regularly enjoy PTAT scores in excess of 10 percent. What are they doing right that you can
copy for your Page?
How should you use Facebook to grow your business?
An obvious starting point for creating your Facebook strategy is to think how it will support
generation of leads and sales. We have specific ideas for this in the Convert section, but
there are other goals. Brands are currently using Facebook for many different reasons. You
should decide what you want to gain out of Facebook and use this to determine how you will
use it. It might be one or all of the following:
þþ Drive web traffic – post status updates with links to your website, blog articles and
products. This will encourage Fans to follow links to your website or web store so that
they can access the material or product. Links alone do not provide a great call to action
and so you will need to still encourage this on your website with appropriate landing
pages. You can also develop specific apps that will drive traffic to your website.
þþ Grow awareness, build brand image or reputation – use images to demonstrate
what makes your company special. You could allow behind the scenes access, show
personnel, product images or colours that represent your business. Facilitate User
Generated Content that delivers social proof.
þþ Showcase products – Facebook is an opportunity to really show off your products.
Photograph detailed images and use the opportunity to show different angles and
highlight what makes the product special. You can ask Fans to Comment and add
testimonials too. Beware not to be too pushy in terms of product-related posts. The
most engaged Pages that we have considered here are those which minimise the
product pushing, and post relevant interesting content for Fans. Seth Godin has written
extensively on the subject of permission marketing. He states that ‘interruption marketing’
simply doesn’t work any more and brands must earn the right to communicate with
potential customers about products. So make sure any sales-focused updates are
liberally interwoven with other valuable, relevant content.
þþ Offer incentives – as well as driving web traffic you can use Facebook to boost sales by
giving discount coupons, video clips and other useful content to Fans. Facebook can also
be used to launch products and run competitions or promotions.
þþ Get to know customers better – the more you interact with Fans, the better you will

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
36
2
get at understanding what they are looking for, what makes them tick and what they
think about your products. Encourage dialogue by asking open questions. Post polls
and surveys. Ask for their opinions. Thank Fans for their responses, ‘Like’ the odd Fan
Comment.
þþ Identify influencers for outreach – organisations such as Social Bakers or Fangager
will help you identify your most influential Fans. You can choose to reward such Fans,
although often they will be easily incentivised simply by the personal engagement that
you offer them.
The singer Paloma Faith gives a name check each week to her top five Fans:
Here is an indication of the basic capabilities of FanGager:

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
37
2
What should be included in a Facebook communications strategy?
Since Facebook is only a single channel, this strategy doesn’t have to be too involved.
It should be based around key communications issues and resourcing to keep your
content fresh and relevant. It should reference content creation strategies, resourcing and
communications to build awareness of Facebook.
Your goals for Facebook?
rr Q. Have our goals been defined for Facebook?
Before building your Page, you should think about how you want people to see your
company and think about what content represents your company best and what content
you can utilise to drive engagement (see the later section on Edgerank). Facebook gives an
opportunity to link your digital and offline marketing strategy with social media and so the
image you present must represent your company.
You should think about and ask yourself the following questions:
rr Q. Which communications goals can you support by using Facebook?
This may be measures such as increased brand awareness, increased interaction with
customers, reach out to new customers, build a brand identity, humanise your brand,
increase traffic to your website, increased sales, or showing your core values.
We explained in the Introduction how it is dangerous to use ‘Likes’ as a vanity metric and
other metrics are preferable. Later in this section we will show how you can measure
influence of Facebook on levels of leads and sales using the Social Reports feature of
Google Analytics.
Strategy Recommendation 7 Set goals for online brand metrics and review them
Social listening tools like Radian6 can report on measures such as brand Share of voice
and sentiment polarity (positive or negative) compared to a set of competitors.
rr Q. Who will be responsible for managing Facebook and how much time can be dedicated
to it?
You can assign multiple contributors to save time and so have multiple administrators
although they will each need to have their own Facebook profile. It is worth spending time on
Facebook as it can support SEO and drive traffic but it is also easy to get caught up with it
and lose track of time so manage this carefully.
With the introduction of Scheduled Posts in June 2012, it is possible to plan your content
several months in advance, however newsworthy posts will inevitably surface which might
challenge the planned programme. Even if you set up a schedule of updates you will need to
be on hand to respond to Comments and questions that may arise.
rr Q. How will we measure success?
You need to know that it is working so decide what methods outlined later on you will use to
track your success.
rr Q. How does Facebook add value to your company to change customer perceptions?
Facebook can add depth and build on company values and image. Make sure that it is not
only successful but also showing the company in a positive light.
How will Facebook support lifecycle communications?
We will cover the details of setting the best communications for Facebook in the later steps

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
38
2
in this Guide, but you should sketch out your initial thoughts here, by answering these
questions:
1. Method for generating awareness (covered in Reach section)
How will you encourage people to visit your Facebook Page, for example through outreach,
embedding, content types, Facebook specific campaigns? Here are some ideas to review:
þþ Using existing content assets such as your blog.
þþ Sourcing popular, interesting content from other sources such as guest content or links to
other sites and Pages.
þþ Running Facebook-specific competitions or promotions and then featuring them in your
other social sites and email.
þþ Specifically developing interesting content that encourages users to Share.
þþ Linking to Facebook from your website, blogs and social presence.
þþ Including a ‘This Week on Facebook’ section to your regular e-newsletter.
þþ Adding ‘Like Us On Facebook’ buttons in your online and offline content.
þþ Commenting on or ‘Liking’ other Pages.
þþ Using Facebook’s ‘Grow Audience’ tool as well as the various advertising options.
2. Content types that will encourage engagement with the brand (covered in Act section)
These will form the areas of different boards, some will lead to lead generation or sale.
Sketch out additional ideas here, for example, products, team, promotions, etc.
þþ Asking questions/opinions.
þþ Asking Fans to upload photos to the Comments.
þþ Posting relevant quotes (quotes seem to enjoy disproportionately high numbers of Likes
and Shares).
þþ Fill-in-the-gaps status updates (be aware, however, that these have become
commonplace and somewhat tired. Many now seem something of a desperate attempt at
engagment.
þþ Caption ‘competitions’ (so long as a real prize isn’t offered these can be run as a bit of fun
without using an app).
þþ Special offers/promotions/voucher codes/offers (the old offers feature is still available
when using Power Editor).
þþ Behind the scenes at a company, e.g. ‘meet the team’. Dyson does this very well.
þþ Close up of products, e.g. different angle, inside shots, things you wouldn’t normally
see in an advert or on the web. Again, Dyson uses this strategy to highlight their design
engineering expertise.
þþ Controversial content (people can’t resist responding and the Fan to Fan engagement
can really soar too).
þþ Polls (although you will now need to use an off-site app to facilitate this since Facebook
withdrew the Polls tool).
þþ Competitions. Do make sure you use an app for any competition in order to comply with
Facebook’s Terms of Service.
3. Lead generation and sales strategy (covered in Conversion section)
How will your content lead to leads and sales, directly and indirectly? For example integration
with new product launches, campaigns, etc.
þþ Drive web traffic.
þþ Showcase products/launches.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
39
2
þþ Support campaigns.
þþ Discount codes.
þþ Reach new customers or make new ones more aware.
þþ Reminder tool to purchase.
þþ How are you tracking this?
4. Frequency/target for updating (covered in Engage section)
For example, once a day, several times a day, once a week?
þþ Status updates – several times a week at intervals.
þþ Timing your status updates to when your Fans are on Facebook and the competition is
quiet.
þþ Spacing out updates throughout the week so as not to bombard at some times while
missing others.
þþ Responding to questions and Comments. Some 95 percent of brands are lagging in this
very basic customer service requirement.
þþ What time of day? Which days of the week?
Dyson regularly introduces members of staff on their Facebook Page.
Sometimes they also include beautiful imagery showcasing unusual product images.
How much time should you dedicate to Facebook?
It is important to dedicate enough time to Facebook. You will need to allow time to add new
posts, Comment on content and find new Fans. This shouldn’t take too long if time is allotted
daily or per week. You can also add administrators in order to Share the workload. Do make

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
40
2
sure that updates are dispersed throughout the week though. No one wants a deluge of
posts from the same company all at once.
Strategy Recommendation 8 Resourcing your Page to keep it active
Ensure there is always a defined person who will post quality content from your site and
other sites onto your Facebook Page and follow up with relevant Comments and links.
Ideally this needs to happen daily or several times a week.
Measurement and tracking
As with all communications, it is important to track and monitor Facebook to ensure the
gains outweigh the effort. Using social media should be of benefit and used correctly you will
see the rewards. Facebook provides one of the best tools amongst the social networks for
reviewing the effectiveness of your communications.
Facebook Insights
Facebook provides an analytics service called Facebook Insights. As well as emailing you
a weekly summary of your Page’s progress, you can access the service and download a
multitude of reports. As always, these are somewhat limited and larger brands often pay for
additional reporting using third-party services such as Social Bakers or Sprout Social.
As an administrator, you will see this whenever you open your Page.
Click on See All in the Insights panel to get further Insights:
Facebook describes the current (July 2013) Insights update this way:
‘Historically, Page Insights has reported on posts’ performance, reach, and engagement
in three distinct places. In the new Page Insights, we aggregate all these metrics into a
post-specific score card, so marketers can evaluate positive and negative metrics together.
This will help Page admins better identify content people interact with, produce more of it,
and enjoy increased reach and impact on Facebook.’
This section is intended as a brief introduction and tutorial to the new Insights including some
of the most useful new data – you can work through it comparing to yours. I’ve used mainly
Musicademy Insights but also some clips from a client for comparison.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
41
2
1. Overview Tab
Firstly you get what Facebook is calling an ‘Overview’. It’s a dashboard of sorts showing key
data from the last seven days (you can, of course, select a different date range for specific
reports and you can click and drag to select as well as inserting dates into the calendar). One
of the first things you’ll notice is how visual it is. A nice combination of tables and graphics
gives you an instant overview:
Facebook defines engagement as including all clicks, not only Comments, Likes and Shares
so you can see from the graphic below that we had 1,005 of our 5,771 audience engaged in
the last week. But note how this additional dashboard data now shows how many clicks you
received that were not Likes, Comments or Shares.
2. Page tab
Now click on the ‘Page’ tab and you get three further options to drill down to – Page Likes,
Post Reach and Page Visits.
Here I’ve screen clipped the data from a client page because I wanted to draw your attention
to the huge impact that Facebook advertising has on Fan numbers. With not a lot of money

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
42
2
(but some cleverly targeted ads) we went from 3,000 to over 7,000 Fans in just two months:
You’ll also see a breakdown of organic and paid Likes together with the crucial ‘Unlike’
numbers. The final graphic shows a breakdown of where Likes come from – look at the
impact of mobile (pale blue), especially in mid June where we were testing mobile ads.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
43
2
Back to the Musicademy Page to look at the Post Reach data. Here you can see the split
between organic and paid Post Reach. Below that the number of Likes, Comments and
Shares:
On my client’s Page you can see the more negative impact that advertising can have (we’ve
been doing a number of News Feed Page Post ads to multiple new target audiences)
with posts being hidden, reported as spam or the Page being Unliked. This is going to be
inevitable with significant ad spend but the numbers here are still relatively low:

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
44
2
Next you’ll come to Page visits. At the top is an analysis of your Tabs activity. Now my client
has a number of apps here (mailing list sign-ups, free downloads, etc) so you get to see how
each are working:
Benchmarks
Another neat addition here is the ability to benchmark your performance over time. Here’s my
client’s benchmark data for Unlikes and Page Likes:
Then other Page activity (you’ll note that I’m changing the time frame in these screen grabs
in order to bring you items of interest). Back in May Musicademy did a Facebook Offer –
that’s the big spike.
Below that is the external referrers to your Facebook Page. No surprise that Musicademy’s
website, our newsletter and Smart Insights (where I write extensively about Facebook) all
figure here:

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
45
2
3. Posts tab
Clicking through further you find data on your Posts. The first option is a drilldown of
individual posts as per the overview page. Here you can further refine to look at types of
engagement and reach.
Click on any one of these posts for a further drilldown of data:

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
46
2
The above is one of the most controversial pieces of content we have posted recently. It’s a
spoof on a worship song and therefore a subject some of our Fans might be rather prickly
about. Certainly amongst the many Likes on both the Page and the Blog we had some critical
feedback but what was the actual impact in terms of Hides? This graphic shows that five
people hid the post and one decided to hide all our posts – I wish people would simply Unlike
the Page – it’s impossible at the moment to tell how many of our so-called Fans have actually
opted out of seeing our content.
So what?
Now we are onto one of my Insights elements partly because I’m asked the question ‘When
is the best time to post?’ all the time. This Insight shows When Your Fans Are Online. You
can see for Musicademy that mid to end of week is best, and that Saturday is also busy.
For my client, their data showed a significant increase in Fans being on Facebook over the
weekend (a time when many companies and agencies fail to post due to the necessity to
monitor responses and reply to Comments).
Over the years I’ve had to figure out the above information for myself via customer survey,
now Facebook tells me the day and time of day our Fans are most online. The above profile
is typical of a Page with Fans in the UK and US. I typically post at about 4pm in order to
maximise my exposure to both audiences, but if I was simply focusing on getting to the
highest number of Fans I would need to be posting at 10pm.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
47
2
Next is the option to look at what types of post perform best. This has always been possible
in Insights but previously it was a case of trudging through a downloadable spreadsheet with
scary quantities of data. (Old style Exports are still available and are currently unchanged.)
Now you can see performance at a glance:
A few things to note here:
There’s no date range given for this analysis – I suspect it is over several months (partly as
we’ve not posted any offers since June – and Facebook has removed that facility now in any
case).
This is HUGELY affected by Edgerank. Different post types don’t enjoy an average playing
field to begin with as nowadays Facebook will more naturally give exposure to plan status
updates over other post types.
I am judicious about my use of photos. They occupy serious real estate, especially on mobile
but given they will get less exposure than status updates they need to work in their own right
so be very engaging, funny, provocative, etc in order to further drive engagement and virality.
The level of information is not as great as it could be. For instance, you can see how many
people have clicked on a link post but not the link itself.
4. People tab
Finally we look at the People Insights.
Let’s compare the Musicademy audience with my client’s:
Musicademy has marginally more male than female Fans but my client has a much bigger
gender divide (it’s a tech client so no major surprise there).

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
48
2
You’ll also see a breakdown of Fans by country, city and language. Unlike Google Analytics,
Facebook can show you the gender, age and country of origin of your Fans thanks to its
huge database of member profiles.
There are further options including an analysis of people reached (as opposed to the Fans
you have – many of these may be dormant, have hidden your Page or simply not seeing your
content due to Edgerank).
I like the Engagement metric. Generally on Facebook women engage more but on the
Musicademy Page the men are disproportionately more active.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
49
2
Best Practice Tip 8 Use Facebook Insights regularly
Take time out regularly, say once a day, week, month according to the scale of your
Facebook efforts to review some of the details in Facebook such as which content is
most Shared and what is determining the growth of Likes. It’s also a good idea to monitor
content which results in ‘Negative Feedback’ such as Unlikes, Hides or spam reporting.
Whilst the top level Insights available are very helpful, it’s also worth downloading the data
into a spreadsheet and doing some detailed analysis. www.jonloomer.com is an excellent
source of advice in this area.
What is it? The Virality metric
The Virality metric is the percentage of people that created a story from the Post out of the
number of unique people who saw it.
You’ll probably find that photos and videos have the most virality. But be aware that (probably
partly due to their popularity), these content types do not enjoy high Egderank. Gone are
the days when including a photo to your text update would bump your Reach. A photo today
needs to work to earn its place. Photos will enjoy far more real estate in the News Feed
(particularly on mobile) but they are compromised due to lower Weight than an image-free
text update.
Using Google Analytics
Although these tools may give you detailed insights about activity within Facebook, it is also
useful to look at the analytics data on your own website to see the visitor volume, quality and
value you derive from traffic referred from Facebook. Google’s new Social Reports accessed
from the ‘Traffic Sources’ menu are most relevant. An example of a brand that views
Facebook as its key social platform is below.
Strategy Recommendation 9 Use Google Analytics to show value of Facebook marketing
The social reports go beyond ‘Last click’ sales reporting to show you the ‘Assists’ where
social media encourages visits which don’t immediately cause a lead or sale, but potentially
influence it since a later visit from another channel directly leads to sales.
Additionally, the Social Reports can also show you the number of Likes from different pages
and types of content on your site if you have implemented Facebook sharing buttons.15
15 Google Analytics: Setting up social interaction reporting.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
50
2
The Google Analytics All Traffic report shows traffic from non-social referrals. You can see
how important Facebook is to Musicademy. If you are running an e-commerce site you will
also be able to see the number and value of sales from the desktop Facebook site (#4) and
the mobile site (#6).
When you create Facebook ads you are asked if you want to create a tracking pixel to
embed on your website. Clearly this is an essential part of monitoring the effectiveness of
ads, particularly for an e-commerce site with a sales goal in mind.
Best Practice Tip 9 Check mobile Facebook referrers too
If you’re reviewing Google’s Traffic reports note that mobile Facebook referrers are from a
separate domain (http://m.facbook.com) so are shown separately.

Section1
Introduction
Section6
ENGAGE
Section7
Resources
Section5
CONVERT
Section4
ACT
Section3
REACH
Section2
PLAN
!
51
3
THREE
REACH: Reaching your audience through Facebook
Facebook is a platform for engaging with customers and potential customers and sharing a
whole variety of content. So, to expand awareness and Reach for your brand, the quality of
your content is the key to success on Facebook. By making sure your content is imaginative,
eye catching, interesting and useful, you will be able to reach out to expand your audience
and keep them interested.
In this section and the next we will talk about developing the type of content to achieve this,
but first we cover some basics of managing integration with other channels and search
engine optimisation (SEO) that we will cover which are the foundation of expanding reach.
How should you integrate Facebook with your website?
Make the most out of your Facebook presence by linking it all up; this will help your followers
find you on other platforms. To best integrate your social presence whether it’s Facebook or
other platforms you should review these basics:
þþ Q. Are social network icons featured on every page of site (run of site)?
þþ Q. Are social network icons featured above the fold (the top part of the page)?
þþ Q. Are there social sharing buttons for product, newsletter or blog content?
þþ Q. Have the benefits of joining a social presence been explained (e.g. type of content or
promotions)?
þþ Q. Have additional visuals been developed to explain benefits?
þþ Q. Is there a social hub linking through to a different social network?
The visual prominence of these ‘signposts’ will vary according to your objectives. This
example of a ‘Fat Footer’ from the Debenhams home page shows that although it may be
ideal to feature social sharing buttons above the fold, it is more natural to group them with
footer information and other marketing messages like promotion, delivery and returns.
Sharing buttons arguably work best above the fold in the context of the individual products
where there is a better reason to Share and this is certainly true of Facebook.
You can also add social media buttons next to content on your blog that include the option to
have a count of times the content has been Shared on social media sites. Adding these will
encourage your visitors to Share your content by showing that you wish them to do so, and
will act as a reminder tool.

Facebook marketing guide

Recommandé

Recommandé

Contenu connexe

Tendances

Tendances (18)

Similaire à Facebook marketing guide

Similaire à Facebook marketing guide (20)

Plus de AdCMO

Plus de AdCMO (20)

Dernier

Dernier (20)

Facebook marketing guide