While the average number of Facebook friends per user is 130, people who click the Like button have an average of 310 friends. Justin Kistner of Webtrends revealed this piece of data during yesterday's Facebook marketing webinar. What does it mean for you?
Facebook fans are more active and engaged that just regular Facebook users: they are consuming more content and clicking on links. As Justin said, they are looking for deals, news and community. Here are five ways in which you can capitalize on that engagement:
1. Website Integration
2. Facebook Pages
Fan pages are the strongest Facebook real estate businesses own. They empower you to reach your fans by merely posting on your wall. But here is a caveat. “Just because you hit ‘publish’ doesn’t mean your news post went to all your fans,” Justin noted. Facebook’s algorithm EdgeRank determines that distribution . That decision is made based on the type of content you share, the number of comments it generated and who posted it in the first place. That is why you want to have at least 1% of your fan base start interacting with your content so that it surfaces in more people's news feeds.
3. Facebook Ads
While Google ads are focused on sales—20% off a product, free shipping, etc—Facebook ads should revolve around content offers. On Facebook, Justin said, you have to think of other lifestyle examples that might help you reach your target market. The goal would be to capture this person within Facebook (as opposed to on an outside page) and continue nurturing her through engagement. The most important element here is image selection—make sure you test how your images perform before making any assumptions.
4. Facebook Apps
How to use tabs and social widgets to drive fans on and off the Facebook page? One of the most important uses of apps is for the creation of landing pages. We
recently covered
how businesses can use iFrames to do that now that the Facebook Markup Language
(FBML) is going away
. Keep in mind that busy tabs make bad landing pages, so your design should be simple and to the point.
5. Facebook Analytics
What is the value of your Facebook fan page? There are many ways in which you can slice and dice the data: you can do demographic analysis, track app measurement and perform geographic split testing. Don't forger you have access to Facebook Insights which will help you better undertand “trends within user growth and demographics, consumption of content, and creation of content. Use that information to revisit your marketing strategies and improve upon them.
Which key tool is your favorite and how do you use it?
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Mary Kerran 9:26 AM on April 27, 2011
I am trying to get a good business going. However, I sometimes don't understand how to do things. Such as getting a Facebook Fan Page. I'm lost. I need all the help I can get.
Tal Baron 9:55 AM on April 27, 2011
Where is the like button on this page? ;) This is a good list, I'm pretty new to Facebook advertising and am getting a CTR of about .01 which I hear is decent. Thanks!
Tracey E Norvell 9:56 AM on April 27, 2011
One of the more useful, well-written article on Facebook I have read.
John Crosby 10:17 AM on April 27, 2011
Great webinar, sorry we ran out of time. One of the later slides seemed to indicate that 95% of FB users are female? Is that accurate?
Drew Wahlin 10:21 AM on April 27, 2011
Meeting/exceeding customer value expections is still the business model. Social media marketing is one tool towards the engagement of the evaluation process.
Secret Diamond 10:30 AM on April 27, 2011
Great Blog and thanks for all of the helpful tips!
Isabelo 10:31 AM on April 27, 2011
@Mary Kerran... I am a facebook fan page maker, if you need help I can show you how. You can sent me an email: iabaojr@gmail.com
@Tal Baron... Only facebook share button on the page where is on the left side bar. You got have a good facebook ad if you are getting 0.01 CTR. Can you share it with me how did you do it. I will appreciate if we share our knowledge to anyone.iabaojr@gmail.com
Brittany - Social Mea 10:32 AM on April 27, 2011
Facebook pages are key. It's surprising to me how many of my new clients show me a Facebook profile for their business and then ask me why they aren't getting the engagement they were hoping for.
Hannah Hill 10:34 AM on April 27, 2011
So is the "like" button better than the FB share button? I make sure the latter is on every page, but really dislike the former. It only shares a link, with no opportunity for commentary from the person "liking" it. I know I personally overlook articles shared that way on FB.
Anyone have any thoughts?
Tanner Christensen 10:59 AM on April 27, 2011
Hannah Hill: You have a good point, but the difference is just what you stated. The "like" button is for users who want quick interaction, they may come back to comment later on, but for the most part they're just browsing (probably at work or school).
Implementing the FB share button, on the other hand, is for audiences that are already really involved, who are commenting on blog posts or manually copying site links into FB.
It begs the question of all marketers and webmasters: how well do you know your audience? How well do you know what would make their job (of sharing) easier?
MaxFooterAd 11:39 AM on April 27, 2011
Hi Magdalena Georgieva.
Thanks so much for sharing your info.
Cindy 11:41 AM on April 27, 2011
The statistics were just startling--I'd no clue about the growth of FB!
Joshua Barnes 11:44 AM on April 27, 2011
Is it just me or does Hubspot seem to have the inside track on facebook? Sweet info!
Kyle Lemmon 11:44 AM on April 27, 2011
Facebook pages are key to driving engagement within your site. The hard part is actually creating an effective page when you don't know how to code, or design, all while being cost effective. There are a few tools in this marketplace now, but the tool that provides agency quality designs for your site, with incredible ease of use would be High Impact Designer for Facebook. www.highimpactdesigner.com
Maria Reyes-McDavis 1:07 PM on April 27, 2011
An integrated approach to Facebook is the only way to go, as with every type of digital marketing. Great, basic tips.
Kate 1:56 PM on April 27, 2011
I understand you don't want to overwhelm fans with too many apps and widgets on your facebook page, but I definitely think it's effective to integrate all your social media platforms via. Youtube, Twitter, Blog apps. Also I recently heard of the application called ShopBuddy which allows fans to shop for your products on your page and then redirects them to your site's checkout page. What is your opinion on this app?
Justin Kistner 2:06 PM on April 27, 2011
@Hannah Hill The Like button also allows you to leave comments if you configure it that way. The Like button also allows you to later target people who clicked like with ads, which is a huge plus over the share button.
@John Crosby not sure which slide you mean, but Facebook is not 95% female. They are more than 50% female, but it's not more than 60%.
John Crosby 2:20 PM on April 27, 2011
Thanks Justin. It was slide 72, and I thought it must have applied to some specific sub-group or circumstance. 60% is more like it.
Justin Kistner 2:24 PM on April 27, 2011
@John Crosby, ahh yes. That's a screenshot of the Facebook Insights dashboard, which has data for a specific fan page. Looks like that fan page has mostly female fans :)
Oliver 2:46 AM on April 28, 2011
The other issue is ensuring your content is social friendly. It's all well and good to have a facebook app, but is it really entertaining or useful? If it can't spread like wild fire, or if you yourself wouldn't want to use it - think again.
Ozio Media 9:15 AM on April 28, 2011
Marketing on Facebook is something that takes time and effort, especially for new users. Getting people to your landing page is only one step in the marketing process. What are people going to do once they get there and how are you going to keep them coming back? These are questions that need to be answered and included in your marketing strategy.
social media cash machine 7:56 PM on April 29, 2011
great article well worth the read and worthy of taking notes.
Jason Peck 1:11 PM on May 02, 2011
These are all great basics people need to know about. The tools are great, but what's most important is how you use them to achieve your goals. It's extremely important to have a plan in places for how you're going to generate more interactions on your page, how you're going to integrate the like button into your site, how you're going to convert FB likers to customers, etc.
server support company nyc 8:51 AM on May 06, 2011
Im also new to this site. great one.Hope I can scan more information on this blog.Facbook has lot of spams and not the safest place to be now. Hope they can have more good security.
Steve Knipschild 2:03 PM on May 24, 2011
Great information on some of the facebook tools that are available to help facebook users. Facebook Insights provides very useful info.