I have heard people question how Facebook can support 650 million accounts and remain free to users. Some people have even held the absurd notion that Facebook will someday charge users.
Funding Facebook is something that most users don’t give a lot of thought to, as they connect and have fun with their friends. Most people will easily overlook the huge volume of advertisement dollars Facebook generates from their ads. Advertising is a very successful business model on the Internet (REF: Google, YouTube, Facebook, and etcetera). It is how Facebook makes money, and those advertisements facilitate Facebook’s bloated $50 Billion valuation in January 2011.
Internet users are very accustomed to seeing advertisements. Many of us became relatively immune to much of the advertising, years ago. Yesteryear’s ads were not very well targeted, and many still are not, but that is not because of the tools.
As the Internet grew smarter, ad targeting platforms became smarter. Advertising targeting and reporting is vital to a campaign’s success, and so the tools have evolved to meet the challenges. Facebook has done extremely well in this area, and I commend them. Their system provides for excellent demographic, geographic, and psychographic modeling and targeting, and should not be underestimated.
Facebook advertising can be an excellent tool for business. Make no mistake about that! The information you can learn from Facebook’s ad reporting can provide great insight to a marketing campaign. I explained more about the value and usage of Facebook advertising in a previous article titled “Facebook Marketing: Pages, Customer Modeling, Promoting, and Awesomeness“. That article is great reading for anybody who wants to understand the value of Facebook marketing.
Here is my unqualified rant. OK, maybe it is a little bit qualified, but I realize that some people will whine, snivel, and argue that I am wrong. I do that to people. I give them something to talk about.
I know Facebook ads well. I have used the Facebook ad system for client projects of many types, and I have had a mostly great experience with it. Facebook reviews each ad submitted to their system, and either approves or declines it, and they are doing a good job of it. When a friend recently complained of having his ads declined by Facebook, I thought he must be doing something wrong. After all, I never had an ad declined, but now that has changed.
I finally had my first declined Facebook ad a couple days ago. At first, I thought it was no big deal. Then I realized how silly their reason was for declining the ad. I will show you the ad, explain why it was declined, and also why I think it was nit-picking on Facebook’s part.
First, I will explain that this ad was intended to reach a targeted group of people as a part of my campaign to stop providing marketing consulting services. You see, I am not-so-secretly tired of selling what I do. I love doing what I do, but I do not enjoy the short-sightedness and lack of strategy that I witness with so many companies when it comes to their marketing. I said it well when I wrote “When I Go to Hell, They Will Have Me Selling SEO“. That is because selling the kind of marketing services I provide often makes me feel like I am trying to explain quantum physics to third graders. Perhaps more to the point, it feels like explaining the color blue to blind people.
This ad was targeted at headhunters. You know, those executive recruiting folks. It was to lead them to my aWebGuy Facebook page. Specifically, it was to lead them to the “My Tools” tab of the aWebGuy Facebook page.
I am not applying to companies for open jobs, but I am interested in a long-term objective outside of independent consulting. I know, it may sound like a big step backward. I just want to enjoy my work without having to feel like a third grade teacher while talking with new clients.
I moved far beyond the typical marketing job ages ago, and the type of work that I am qualified for is often not advertised on job boards. It takes a slow-burn approach, and so I want to be sure that headhunters recognize my name when they find themselves seeking to place a new Director of Marketing or VP of Marketing.
The image above is my proposed ad, and Facebook’s reason for declining the ad was explained as follows:
“The image included in your ad is not suitable to appear on Facebook. Before resubmitting your ad, please visit our Help Center for additional tips and examples compliant with our Advertising Guidelines.”
At first, I thought “It is just a picture of my birthday cake. How could that be so offensive?” Then I realized that it was declined for a violation of Facebook Advertising Guidelines section 5 d iii. You may wonder, “What is 5 d iii?” Well here you go:
5. Prohibited Content
d. Ads cannot contain, facilitate, promote, or reference the following:
iii. Tobacco products;
Stand Up for Facebook Ad Rebels!
Here comes the silly part. Based on the targeting criteria, and Facebook’s advertising guidelines, I could have used a couple hookers and a bottle of Scotch, but not my birthday cake. I guess I must just be a real life badass if my birthday cake is banned from Facebook ads, but that’s how I roll!
I love marketing for clients, and I serve them very well, but there is a unique challenge to marketing myself and my future. When it comes to marketing myself, the approach is quite long-sighted. That is because I must be selective about the buyer. This is where you come in, and I am asking you to stand up for my rebelion. Do you know any of those headhunters who should be aware of me? Pass my name along, will you?
If you think Facebook was nitpicking, please click my “Like” button and share this to show that even the rebels have a place on Facebook. Otherwise, you can “Lump” it and just keep reading my blog.
One More Thing! Do you find my birthday cake to be offensive? Go to the aWebGuy Facebook page to see the entertaining back story.
Facebook recently made a big move with their latest profile updates, but it seems that a lot of people are slow to accept the change. Without a doubt, Facebook’s new profile design includes some pretty significant changes which will impact businesses. The impact can be very positive, but only for people who are paying attention.
Many people are reluctant to adopt the new Facebook profile, but what they often do not realize is what each of the people who did make the change see when they look at a profile. Whether you have updated yours or not, users of the new profile design will see your profile in a way that you, or your company may regret.
I wrote about changes and things to be aware of in a previous article titled “Facebook Profile Changes: Updates to Make Before Switching!“ with cautions of what users should know. Yes, some people listened, especially about the tagged images displayed at the top of the profile, but there is an even more profound matter at hand for businesses.
If you are unfamiliar with Facebook’s new profile changes, I suggest that you see what Facebook says, and also discover how many of your friends have already updated. To date, only 100 of my Facebook friends have updated their profile, but the only view that I have for all friends is the new version.
New Facebook Profiles Display Employers Prominently
The latest update of our favorite social network comes with significant implications for businesses. I think this was a really smart move for Facebook’s reach into business networking, but it will also come with some “growing pains” for users. Those pains can affect employees and employers, alike.
Whether you have updated to the new profile or not, if you have an employer listed with Facebook, it is likely being misrepresented to users of the new profile design. I see examples of this all day long, so if you care how your employment or your company is being represented, you should really pay attention to this matter. The new profile has been made optional, but we will all use the new profiles very soon. You should also note that once you switch, you cannot change back.
Facebook Employer Display in New Profile
In the new design, Facebook places your employer information just below your name. It also includes a link to that employer, and this is where a problem arises for many users. The link, which is automatically created from the employer name listed in your profile, points to a Facebook page which is generated based on the company name. Since it would be worse if Facebook guessed at whether it is the right company, it cannot just link to the actual Facebook page of a company.
Imagine how bad it could be if they linked all of the people who listed an employer name to a given page, and it was the wrong page. Somebody at First National Bank in Spokane could have their employer’s link point to the Facebook page of First National Bank in New Orleans. That would be really bad, but what happens instead is a page that is inaccurate, rather than the company’s existing Facebook page.
When I noticed that my wife’s employer link listed her cakes and confections work as “Owner / Chef at Mad Eliza’s”, I clicked on it to discover that, although we already have an existing Facebook page, there were a few people who had clicked “Like” on the made-up page created by Facebook. Now wouldn’t it be a shame to not take a moment and fix that?
The best way to fix the employer link is to delete the employer(s) and re-add them. Facebook will then allow you to select your employer’s Facebook page, and link to it accordingly. Here is the link to edit your employers. If you have already updated to the new profile, but you are not quite certain about this, just try clicking on the link listed as your employer. If it does not actually link to your company Facebook page, you should probably change that. It is a common mistake, and I have actually even seen this on a respected Facebook marketer’s profile.
If you are an employer, you would be wise to point this out to employees and encourage them to update their profiles. It may benefit both employee and employer to do so. This is especially true in cases where employer and employee are the same person.
How to Change the Employer Listed on Your Facebook Profile
For people with multiple jobs listed, Facebook does not provide an option to select which employer is displayed below your name, but it can be changed. I will give an example of what I found when I updated to the new profile.
Like a lot of people, I wear multiple hats. Yes, I work a bunch of jobs, and while you sleep, I am here keeping this Internet thing we all love up and running. When I switched to the new Facebook, my profile showed things all wrong. Not only did it reflect one of my “less important” jobs right at the top of my profile, it also linked to a non-existent page that Facebook created to represent the company name I had listed in my profile.
To explain how I encountered it, I will explain my jobs. I am the CEO of a wholesale Internet services corporation (2001-present), I am the co-owner of a cakes and confections company (2009-present), and I independently provide marketing consulting services to people who appreciate my marketing talent enough to pay me for it (2000-present). Before that, I was the bearded lady in a circus, but I didn’t include that.
Facebook looks at the most recent employer that is listed as current, then uses the text entered as the employer’s name and represents it as a link in the new profile view. Since Facebook’s system will use the most recent employer as the one to list just below your name on the main profile page, it may not be what you want. In my case, they are all present employers, but Facebook will use the one which started most recently. This makes perfect sense, in a résumé, but what if you want your favorite job represented on your profile home page?
To get the order the way I wanted it, I actually had to put a more recent starting date on my marketing consulting work, and even delete my cakes and confections company from the list. Yes, I lied by shortening my time on the job and deleting a couple of companies I own or have owned … I feel awful, just awful! The truth is that I really only feel a need to go back a decade, except in my formal résumé.
In my case, the most recent addition was “Mad Eliza’s Cakes and Confections“, which is a company my wife runs, but I am just a co-owner and taste-tester. I don’t want to represent myself as a cake guy … I am a web guy.
It is still important to leave some of the other jobs there, but I don’t want them staring everybody in the face. I just wanted my new Facebook profile to say what it does now: “Marketing Consultant at awebguy”, but it took a little tweaking.
It brings up a few questions for me. Have you had to deal with this, too? If so, what did you do? If you have not already switched to the new Facebook profile, do you know what people are seeing? Let’s discuss this … add your comments and let’s see what others have to say about it.
You Pokin' Me?
When I first saw the new Facebook profile design, the first thought was “Why are they killing us with all the pictures?!” I do not just mean the row of the latest photos you have been tagged in, but photos everywhere. Now there is a long list of photos of friends that stretch far down the left side of the page.
It goes way beyond photos, too. Now all of that stuff you wanted near the top of the page where people are more likely to see it, such as websites, and the little box with your brief message … They are gone! Mine had a nice compilation of my blog addresses and Facebook pages, and my message said “Driving fast is not dangerous … it is the slowing down that can kill you. Drive like death is chasing you and it will all be fine!” Now that stuff is buried under the “Info” link somewhere.
Now I have “Pokes” right there at the top of the right side of the page, just where I needed it. Pokes … seriously? Why in the world would I need pokes near the top of the page? Don’t poke me. This is not MySpace (yet), and I am not sending you a unicorn for your Farmville, either! Fortunately, I found that if you click the “x” beside each of the pokes, it will go away. I never noticed how many people had poked me! Now I feel like a pincushion.
I am listing a few areas where it was even more frustrating than a “poke”.
Something important to note is that even if you are not using the new Facebook profile design, the new version is what other people will see after they switch. If you want to control what they (we) see first, you should take a close look at your settings!
Employer
Something that bothered me even more about my new Facebook profile was the “Employer” part. Fine, maybe that will be more conducive to business networking, but … there is a big but!
If your employer has a Facebook page, and many do, it will try to link to that. However, what I found is that it may order things differently than expected. For example, I wrote three books in 2009. Now, all of the sudden, one of my books came up as the employer listed on the front page of my profile. That was because it was the newest thing in my employment history. Plus, when I went to the “Info” link where all of my work is laid out, it listed each of my employers’ Facebook pages, but the photos were the generic Facebook page placeholder, and it linked to generic pages, and not my established Facebook pages. My solution was to delete and re-add each of them, paying attention to dates, so it would reflect the one I want to show on my profile. Since I have multiple companies, that was just another hassle to deal with.
Employers are also listed first when clicking on the “Info” link on profiles. It seems that Facebook is trying to increase the prominence of “Employers” and make it a hybrid of LinkedIn and Google Profiles. In fact, it is quite interesting how similar it looks in comparison with a Google profile.
Basic Information
If you want to see somebody’s “Basic Information”, or for people to see yours, be ready to scroll a while. You will find it down below their Employers, Education, Philosophy, Favorite Quotes, Sports, Arts and Entertainment, Books, Movies, Television, and Activities and Interests.
I really didn’t need Johnny Cash showing up above my “Basic Information”, did I? It is basic, so shouldn’t we lead with basic info and save some of our more specific information for scrolling?
At first, it seemed that you could clean this up by editing your profile and dragging your “likes” to hide them, but it is not intuitive. There is a tiny little statement “Drag here to hide”, but it does not even appear until you start to drag the image. What I found later was that it showed up anyway, unless you go to each page and “dislike” them.
Drag here to hide is not intuitive!
Tagged Photos
Since Facebook is now displaying a row of the most recent photos you were tagged in right at the top of your profile, it leaves a couple of choices. You can either elect to no longer allow tagging of photos of you, or you can be sure to go tag yourself in something more flattering. There is a little “x” in the corner of each image, but if you are like me, you want to choose the images displayed on your profile. I took a couple minutes to go tag myself and it cleared it up, for now, but only until somebody catches me with a stupid look on my face again.
New Facebook Summary
Clearly, Facebook has a right to do whatever they feel is good for their company. In this case, it probably prompted millions of users to make updates to their information. That was clever on Facebook’s part. It also gave them more room to place advertisements. The bad side of that is all the distraction from the squillion other images scattered around the page.
There surely must be some tension between the social media giants, Twitter and Facebook. After all, social media is a fiercely competitive and also very profitable industry. Once in a while, there is a blaring case of irony to make us laugh.
Irony:“… situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions.” (source: Wikipedia)
Maybe you will not find this as amusing as I do. After all, I laugh at a lot of absurdities that I discover online. Social media is fantastic for a laugh, and I may never get the pictures of people with back-boobs and front-butts out of my head. Yes, that’s right, I said back boobs and front butts. See for yourself at your local Wal Mart store, or follow the humorous links I provided.
NOTE: I know some fine people with back boobs and front butts, but let’s face it Snuggies are cheap, and they could disguise that stuff better than Spandex!
Now back to this social media irony of Facebook and Twitter. We have all heard that we should be using Twitter, right? Anybody in the marketing industry will, at a minimum, recommend reserving your brand name at Twitter.com.
Twitter grew like influenza since 2007, and millions of people flocked to the service to find out what a “tweet” is all about. I must say that it was not without merit, and I have participated quite heartily in the conversation surrounding Twitter.
Long before Twitter … centuries before Twitter (in Internet time, of course) we had Facebook. Facebook really hit the world by storm, and grew to over 500 million users in short order. Do you realize how big 500,000,000 is? It is big … very big!
Obviously, Facebook has a stronghold in the social media industry, but we still cannot overlook Twitter for its complex simplicity. I like Twitter enough that I wrote a book about the service, so this is certainly not a bash on Twitter. It is just an observation.
I also like Facebook, and I can spend hours spying on the lives of nearly everybody I ever knew. Then, of course, there are those many companies who do not even see it coming while I am compiling the information I need in order to crush their business with marketing intelligence that I pick up on Facebook.
A logical and meaningful bash against Facebook is like slapping a hungry grizzly bear with a slab of meat and then hoping I can outrun it. It is one of those things that sounds stupid even when smart people say it. Facebook is a winner in the information age. Knock Facebook if you like, but 500 million kind of speaks for itself.
No, this is not a bashing, but I question how they see each other. What is a good way to open a dialog of speculation on how the two social media giants view the others’ service? Make up your own mind on this (and please share your comments), but to me it seems that a look at each of their usage of the others’ service should say something. What it says could be taken different ways, and I will let you chime in with your thoughts.
Twitter on Facebook
Twitter has a Facebook account with hundreds of thousands of fans. My logical assumption would be that Twitter may actually have something more than 140 characters (the character limit on Twitter) to say to all of those adoring fans. Sure, they have a blog, and of course they have Twitter, but it seems that Facebook is not just “the competition”, and it could serve some great uses for Twitter. It seems that Twitter did not ask for, nor act upon my opinion … or the opinion of the 714,256 people who elected to “Like” them on Facebook. As the image below illustrates, “Twitter has no recent posts.” Surely they have something available if you click on “older posts”, right? No … nothing at all. They signed up for an account and did not use it, just the same way as the overwhelming majority of accounts created on Twitter. Irony? Just wait, because there’s more!
Twitter on Facebook
Facebook on Twitter
I guess I never really pay much attention to Facebook on Twitter, but they are there, and using the service. When I want to know more about Facebook, I either look at Facebook or find it on one of my favorite Facebook-focused blogs. Facebook really does not need Twitter, but they apparently found value in embracing Twitter as another tool. I commend them on the choice to use Twitter, and it just makes good sense to me.
In contrast to Twitter’s blank Facebook page, Facebook sends updates using Twitter. As illustrated in the image below, Facebook is not a huge user of Twitter, but has sent 683 tweets since their account was created in March 2007.
Facebook on Twitter
Does Twitter Really Hate Facebook?
I guess it is a stretch to say that Twitter hates Facebook, but it is pretty clear that they do not have anything to say to the people who chose to “Like” their Facebook page. It seems that they could at least try it out and perhaps come out and say “tweet”.
I find that for a lot of people, Facebook marketing consists of creating a Facebook page (or worse, a Facebook profile) and gathering a few “fans” who will give them just enough inspiration to feel they are being productive. They will put the Facebook “f” on their website in order to appear more modern, and keep their fingers crossed hoping that somehow Facebook will increase their profits.
There is a lot of confusion about Facebook, and especially for small businesses. However, small business is not alone, and unleashing the real value of marketing using Facebook is elusive for many companies. Efforts are often just enough to keep the person signing the checks on board for another 30 days for more trial and error. Poor planning and lack of measurement are commonplace in social media marketing, but that is not an effective way to run a marketing campaign.
Facebook marketing is often looked at with an eye toward “trying it out” and keeping the risk low. It is challenging for many people to accept, but the risk should go down the more you put into it.
Facebook can be a great place to market your business. If performed well, it can also help you to gather a lot of really useful data to help your business outside of the Facebook platform. Let’s unwrap a true sense of how a Facebook marketing campaign could look. This is the dramatically abbreviated version, of course. I will break this down into steps as follows:
Skip around as you like. Some of this is for the novice, while some of it is less novice. In any case, I hope that you will find it to be useful information.
There is a lot that you can do with a Facebook page. Of course, note that I said “page” and not “profile”. There is a huge difference between a Facebook page and a Facebook profile. More companies are figuring this out every day as their profiles are being deleted for breaking Facebook’s policy regarding using profiles for business.
Name your page well, fill out every field in the Facebook page setup, and seed it with enough information that your earliest fans will know why they should “Like” it other than just because you said they should.
Tip: While creating your Facebook page, roll these few words around in your head: inviting, interesting, creative, unique, different, informational, entertaining, humorous … or whatever will be attractive to the audience you seek.
Optional: If you have a good FBML (Facebook Markup Language) programmer and a designer worth a hoot, it will help. This is not critical, but can be very useful.
The step of customer modeling is skipped so often that there should be little wonder why most Facebook marketing fails miserably. Lack of proper customer modeling is a cause for many marketing endeavors to fail, but this is especially true in the current world where “everybody is a marketer” as witnessed in abundance on Facebook. A large segment of Facebook marketing is not performed by a marketing professional, but rather a business owner or somebody with limited marketing experience.
One of the tragic pieces of information missing for the average person trying their hand at Facebook marketing is that marketing does not just mean shotgun blast advertising. To get the most out of marketing, we need to know answers to questions of who, what, where, when, why, and how. We need to reach the right people or we waste credibility.
I don’t care how great your hamster skin purses are, I am not in the market. Marketing those purses to me is a huge waste of time.
Customer modeling involves creativity, analytic thinking, and data. If you do not have the data to tell you who, what, where, when, how, and why people will respond to your marketing, you need to create it. Without knowing how to reach the right people with the right information, you may as well skip all the rest, because your time and money will largely be wasted. Worse yet, it can damage your brand value.
Think of how much you enjoy receiving badly targeted advertising for things you would never purchase and then consider how much people will enjoy it coming from you.
Fortunately, there are reliable ways to get your hands on this data you so badly need. If you are certain that you already have a good handle on customer modeling, move on to the next step. If not, don’t worry, I will get back to this, so move to the next step anyway.
An easy first approach to promoting a Facebook page is to suggest it to all of your Facebook friends. Sure, that makes sense, and if they actually like you, there is a better chance they will “Like” your page. This is fine, and I recommend it, but often not a really good target demographic for your business. Besides, don’t all of your friends already know what you do for a living?
A common hope is that you will have something so brilliant and earth-shaking that some of those friends will buy from you, and when their friends see that they “Like” your Facebook page, that it will spread massively and the whole population of Facebook will come swarming and buy everything you offer for sale. Yes, that sounds awesome, right? Rub a lamp! It does not work this way, and if you tried it, you probably already know this is the case.
Your Facebook friends, although surely a great group of people, are often not as passionate about what you sell as you are.
An effective alternative is to use carefully targeted Facebook advertising to reach a specific audience. I am going to provide an example of how to reach specific people, and also how to use the information you gain from it.
Mark’s Example: Let’s say I am trying to sell Smart Slate interactive whiteboards. No, I do not sell these, and I have no stake in the market. I chose this, because I wrote about it as another example a while back. This is just an example to explain targeting using Facebook advertising to build a better marketing strategy.
What do I know about the Smart Slate market off the top of my head? I know that they are used in a lot of classrooms. I also know that schools have a hard time budgeting for them. I actually know this because my kids’ school has had fundraisers to buy them. So, in this case, I may want to test my Facebook ads with teachers and other school related interests. Why do I want to connect with teachers? I will explain that more in Step Four.
Since I am only going to sell these items in a specific region, I only want to target specific areas. I could choose to target anything from a worldwide audience to only my specific city. For the example, I will use my state of Kansas, and the surrounding states of Nebraska, Missouri, Colorado, Oklahoma. Now, in order to target teachers in my target area, I will go to create an ad on Facebook and see what kind of a target I can come up with. It will look something like this screenshot:
Notice that this brings the selected audience down in size but it is still far from being targeted. It still leaves me with 8,578,280 people age 18 and older who live in Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma or Colorado. That is far too broad, and it could look like selling hamster skin purses at a college fraternity party. I am not out to waste time and money. I want more customers.
Next, I will set some demographic details. In this example, I will target young teachers who may be more interested in technology, so I am using 30-40 year old college graduates who have specified interests in their Facebook profiles as follows: teaching; teacher; elementary teacher; teaching resources; or teachers. Note that Facebook helped me by suggesting interests. Here is what it looks like:
Now I have an estimated reach of 44,480 people who live in Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma or Colorado between the ages of 30 and 40 who graduated from college and like teaching, teacher, elementary teacher, teaching resources or teachers. This is looking better, but there is still a lot of potential for fine-tuning. This simply gives me a starting point for one of several ads I may want to use for testing my audience. In other test ads, I may want to broaden or narrow the age range and condense or expand my target based on demographics.
Once I have run the ads for a couple weeks, I will want to give careful attention to who responded. Facebook will report this information to me, and tell me what other common interests my responding test audience have. Who knows, I may find that a lot of my respondents also love hamster skin purses. If so, you can bet I am going to use that information in my other marketing efforts, as well as how I address my new pals on my Facebook page. I will use this information in my blogging and search engine optimization, as well as other online and offline efforts.
Do you remember that customer modeling that I mentioned? Information like this is what helps you to understand your model customer and stop wasting time and marketing dollars.
Facebook advertising is not where you will make a squillion sales and is not the entire campaign. It is just one tactic within the overall strategy of the campaign (see “Social Media Tactics Without Social Media Strategy Fails“).
Facebook ads are often best used for building brand awareness and bringing in those Facebook fans who will “Like” your page so that you can communicate with them. I said communicate … not just promote your latest special or badger them with flavorless advertisements. Provide them with value in whatever way you can. This is another step, and I will get to it, but mark my words: “Provide them with value!”
Something really great about Facebook advertising is the potential for segmentation. You can target an audience based on very specific interests that they have expressed with their “Likes and Interests”. This is not guesswork, and the segmentation possibilities are quite useful.
This is tricky for a lot of people. What are the keys to making awesomeness? A lot of it comes with experience. Awesomeness requires continual effort, so it should not be seen as just a quick fix. Marketing talent is not just inherited. It takes practice and patience.
In the case of my example in Step Three of reaching teachers with a message about Smart Slates, I want to learn from them. I want them to teach me their challenges, and learn how I can help them to afford my products. I want to learn what they have found useful about the products. I want to hear their success stories of school fundraisers which worked well. I want to help other teachers to find better ways to get my products into their classrooms. If I do this well, and if I am really useful to them, I will have a lot better chance of selling more Smart Slates in their school district. Plus, I will connect with a good number of teachers who may be more willing to relay my brand name to others.
Now, doesn’t this start to look more like a strategy than just advertising? This is what I mean by creating awesomeness. Doing things different from the rest and making a useful impact in some way.
Listen to the people on your Facebook page, and give them reasons to talk to you. Give them what they want. If you have done your customer modeling well, you have the information you need about what they will respond to. Use this information well, and use it for their benefit and not just your own.
If you have restaurant, ask them what their favorite menu item is, and how you could make it even better. Ask them reasons they like you and how you can improve. Have fun with them and post a challenge to see if anybody can eat the whole thing.
If you sell engine blocks, start a Facebook discussion and ask them if they have any engine replacement tips to share with others. Find out if they love auto racing, and what kind. Get them to post photos of the cars they are putting those engine blocks in. Learn if there are other performance auto parts they need.
If you sell Smart Slates, provide helpful tips for teachers or information for running a successful school fundraiser. Learn from the teachers.
If you sell cars … well, don’t get me started about car dealers using Facebook. That is another blog article, and I already wrote it.
I think you get my point. Just don’t act like a stereotypical car salesman!
You can do this all alone, or you may choose to enlist the assistance of an experienced marketer. In either case, it is best to pay attention and keep your eyes wide open to the possibilities. Marketing is a whole lot more than just shouting into a crowd and hoping for results. Applying good principles of marketing to the right people and with a better message can provide measurable benefits to a company.
This is a lot more targeted, measurable, and useful than other marketing tools such as the once-popular television advertising. I mean, just look at what television is doing these days.
