Build a Winning Social Media Strategy Starting NOW

You may know that we have recently begun providing Facebook promotion to some of our clients. We are thrilled that some of you have had the foresight and savvy to be willing to dash into this sometimes scary new land of "social media" and understand that this is not just a passing fad, but truly a defining form of communication for generations of consumers.

For this month's newsletter, we wanted to share with you some of our notes from a seminar that we recently attended and found particularly insightful - as well as some of our own experiences with promoting our clients on Facebook. The seminar was titled "Facebook Community Building Success Stories" and the panelists where three successful online marketing managers who shared their strategies for success on Facebook.

What we learned from the seminar seems to come down to two things:
1. Targeting
2. Active Management

Every business is different, so no two marketing strategies should ever be the same - that includes Facebook! We can not view social media and Web 2.0 as a checklist of buzzwords to be marked off on a list (much the like the 'Go Green Revolution' has been reduced to). Instead, we need to immerse ourselves in social media and understand how people communicate in that world. If you are responsible for your company's marketing, and you don't have a Facebook account, you are behind the curve - you need to get one. Not to amass "friends", but to understand the culture and language that Facebook has, just like any society, as well as sub-cultures and dialects.

What's wonderful about the way that Facebook has harnessed this variety is their powerful advertising features, which allow you target down to very specific demographics. Use what you have learned from your own experiences on Facebook (and ours) to ensure that you are speaking both the language of Facebook and the language of your target audience - and never stop evolving your campaign! This is where active management comes in.

We recently set up a Facebook account for our client, Hollywood Tans NYC, and invited over 500 clients to become friends. What we found is that even though you may be identified as the company, "Hollywood Tans NYC", on Facebook, people still expect you to carry on a two-way conversation with them, not just present information in the traditional PR sense. Within hours, our client's inbox was flooded with messages from clients. This is a wonderful thing! But it needs to be managed carefully and actively.

Don't let this experience fool you into thinking that the conversation starts when you enter the room. To be successful in social media marketing, you must understand that people are talking about your business, whether or not you're part of the conversation. It's much better to be in the room, right? Click here to read our notes on how the three panelists made their entrance and directed the conversation positively.

Cirque du Soleil

how they got fans:

• did advertising to kickstart FB account
• fb ads allow for great targeting by demographic

kind of stuff on wall:

• experience with the show, favorite parts, etc.
• show performers interact with FB users

comes down to content:

• backstage stories
• stories about performance
• make sure to show activity every day
• has a different publicist for each show and each is responsible for the page of each show

had a fan managing a myspace account and decided not to take it over because it was very successful - they now work with him directly. found that he was much more trusted.

how FB affects bottom line:

• comes down to ticket sales
• spent first 6 months in FB just engaging with fans and producing content
• just starting to test FB fans exclusive discounts - going great so far
• cannot yet purchase tix on FB but may be coming soon in form of an application

things to do differently in the next year:

• asking fans what kinds of content they want to see
• building a stronger connection with fans through one-on-one interaction
• more tracking of ticket sales by tailoring apps to correlate directly to sales

other social tools used:

• twitter
• iphone applications

One Day One Job

about ODOJ:

• site for entry level job seekers
• also has One Day One Internship

Facebook strategies:

• targeting college students, so decided to go strong with FB
• used FB ads extensively and successfully
• suggests that individuals create their own FB ads to ad their resumes and goals - was very successful in combo with FB's targeting to expand network into areas that they wouldnt otherwise have access to
• they have a page where FB members can become fans because it gives him a very specific sense of his demographic
• CTRs are very low on FB because there are so many pageviews (photo albums for example)

great success story:

• created two ad variations using FB's powerful targeting capabilities, one targeted Ivy League students, the other targeted grads of the top 40 colleges in the US
• the Ivy League ad said something like "One Day One Job is a website to help find entry-level jobs for Ivy League Grads"
• found that the Ivy League ad CTR (click through rate) was through the roof because of the ability to target Ivy League students and use those specific words in the ad

lessons:

• ID your target group and test test test
• need to accomplish as much as possible within the FB site because users dont want to leave FB to visit another site

different in the next year:

• investing much more money in ads because he now has the ability to track ROI very well

other social tools using:

• twitter
• email newsletters and daily email feeds

123greetings

high level strategy:

• supply ecards online
• focused on human relationships
• saw FB success in community
• put up an application on FB allowing people to send ecards from FB without leaving the site
• has been hugely successful - more so than their off-FB site

difference on FB:

• no difference in cards or users
• FB has just facilitated usage and expanded user-base many times over
• can send a card to friend already in your list, as many as you want at once

strategy:

• trial and error
• constant evolution
• adapt to changes in FB itself

bringing users in:

• must use the networking tools, be an expert on all of the activity feeds and learn how to use them for marketing - for example, when one person sends a card to someone, all of this person's friends can see this activity
• keep your application simple and small and focus on getting the most out of the features that FB already offers

diff in next year:

• going to expand from cards to evites and other forms of communication
• uses FBs very large user base to help his business because they are not doing anything much different than other e-greeting companies
• advertise on FB