Facebook Marketing

Internet technologies & social media have enhanced our online experience. Fueled by the wealth of new online services, apps & a proliferation of websites, consumers moved to the world wide Web stating in 1995.As a result, the Internet advertising business grew tremendously & led the developers to turn their websites into portals. During 2004-08,Facebook(FB)emerged as a rival in dominating the social network industry worldwide.

Social networks / media refers to group of people or communities who share a common interest, perspective or background. E.g: Facebook where we're connected to other people. 

Facebook basics:

a) Account set up - At the home page, Facebook asks users for the basic information necessary to create profile: First & last name, email, gender, password & DOB. This set up help users to find friends on Facebook & build their network. 

b) Friending - People who have the right to see info about you on Facebook. Facebook does - 
1) keeping up with old friends & acquaintances passively. 
2) commenting on friend's opinions, shared links and random thoughts
3) socializing through photos, events, playing games and social media. 

c) The news media - It is indeed the prominent part of Facebook. It includes status updates, photos, links to other sites or articles on the Internet and with that your friends can become your perspective customers. When I say how to use FB for businesses, then they should say something everyday about their brand or company to remind their fans. How'ver don't be so close to your social media that you fail to see when your tactics other the customer. Customer want convenience, knowledge, time saving & assistance with a very important purchasing decision. 

Several components of a successful Facebook strategy plan:

1) Defining the audience - Here you need to translate your audience defining to the appropriate contents on the Facebook as the audience is defined already. Often some companies call for an action of purchase from their clients.

2) Setting configuration options - Facebook provides more setting & configuration options than any other social network. Eg: which tab will be your default landing page? administrative access for editing the page? Will you allow customers to leave comments? 

3) Creating a compelling page - Facebook allows most apps to run as tabs on top of the fan pages by providing extra value to users via event postings & discussion boards. How'ver make sure that you don't share anything that can be embarrassing or potentially offensive to your professional friends. 
Hence:

a) Avoid ongoing political, religious or other controversial commentary. 

b) Remove controversial groups on Facebook & Facebook pages from your profile that can damage your business credibility. 

c) Stay vigilant on your friend's post that can be off-color or potentially embarrassing. 

Facebook advertising is one of the best deals today in Internet marketing, nowhere else you can target users as surgically as you can on Facebook. Facebook ads work differently than banner ads or search engine click-through ads. Success on Facebook advertising requires aggressive monitoring, experimentation, patience & creativity.

Steps necessary to optimize a campaign/ads:
a) Create multiple ads of similar themes
b) Organize them into campaigns
c) Let them run for a week while recording daily outcomes
d) analyze statistics / outcomes
e) Retire under-performing ads & run new tests by creating variations on better ads
f) Go back to step 3 & repeat until you have optimize your members. 


Other ways for advertisement:

1) Master vanity names/usernames : Before vanity names, your profile page would have a cryptic url like www.facebook.com/pages/simplyclassifieds soon who can remember that. As a marketer, your url or online presence should be easier to remember for fans & have Facebook opened up the opportunity for people & organisation to create vanity names like www.facebook.com/simplyclassifieds. 

2) Custom tabs - They are great way to generate the view you want users to have when they visit your page for the first time using URL. You can create customized content, each page can have its own unique tab title. 

3) Facebook connect - It is a bit of grab-bag, you can pick & choose the tools you want. Take the site login system like, if you don't have a good reason for users to login into your site through content, personalization then users will likely not take time to log into your site. 

Facebook interaction through connect is a feature that will make your site more engaging. Facebook connect help marketers to - 
- bring additional traffic
- improved satisfaction 
- Trust via global privacy settings

4) Optimize your fan page with apps - All fan pages come with the default Facebook apps - Links, Photos, videos, notes. To add apps to your fan page - look below your image & click edit page, scroll to the foot of the page, click, browse more under applications & search for an app you want to add. You can also browse the apps directory at www.facebook.com/apps directory. Click the app you want to add to back to your main fan page. Click the Edit page link under your image & you'll see all apps added. 

Social media is the latest big thing in marketing but it's even better when impact can be shown not just with strong opinions but with members to demonstrate successes in customer engagement, satisfaction, increased page views & even return on investment(ROI). Conversation via social media should be encouraged & metrics should track the depth of the conversation. Social media is the means by which you communicate your unique perspective to the world. "People don't make friends with a logo, a product or a bucks-and-mortar building... People make friends with people". 

Finally, although Facebook won't be the final portal on social media network not to Google, it will still offer a highly compelling place for business. Facebook is basically collecting data form users presence when they sign up. It is a company that has brought to realization what people who are driving information management have known for years: the more information you have, the more power you have... and the more money you can make it. It is a different era & the data revolution is just starting.