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7 Proven Facebook Marketing Tactics

 

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facebook likeIt’s been quite the year for Facebook. The company is nearing the 600 million user mark. It announced its new email messaging system. And Mark Zuckerberg was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year.

Throughout 2010 companies and organizations of all sizes have taken advantage of all that Facebook has to offer. Most encouraging of all has been the degree to which companies have integrated Facebook – and other social media – into their marketing mix.

I’ve read a number of success stories about companies that have used their brand pages on Facebook as landing pages and as a result have converted thousands of fans.

There are a number of lessons that we can learn from these stories. Here are seven.

7 Proven Facebook Marketing Tactics

  • Be interactive, fun and helpful. When people get on your Facebook page they are looking for some kind of interaction. Don’t disappoint them. A hardware company offered their Facebook links, applications, and engaging information, and within a short time added 26,000 fans.
  • Embed videos on your Facebook page. There is no reason you have to send people to YouTube to watch your videos. Keep 'em on your page.
  • Create a connection between Facebook and the outside world. I read a case study where sales reps worked with local retailers and promoted their events through Facebook updates and photos.
  • Create contests on Facebook. In order to enter one contest, a company made people comment on a thread announcing a giveaway in Facebook.
  • Integrate traditional advertising with Facebook. The Facebook icon/logo is well known and it should appear on more print ads. It’s a great way to promote contests that encourage people to sign up on your fan page.
  • Use Facebook to grow your email list, and visa versa. One company used their email newsletter to boost awareness of their Facebook page. They then promoted their email newsletter to their existing Facebook fans. The end result was growth in their email list and in their fan base.
  • Introduce a new product on Facebook. People who sign up to be fans on your Facebook page are your most loyal customers. Reward them by giving them the information about a new product before everyone else. If you do it right, they will help you promote it to others.

I’ve taken these tactics from MarketingSherpa’s Top 5 Facebook Case Studies from 2010, which is available as a complimentary download.  In it, you can read how five companies from very different industries found creative and practical ways to bring Facebook into their marketing mix.

If any of you have integrated Facebook into your marketing, we’d love to hear about it. 

Free Download: Facebook Marketing Case Studies

Free Download: Facebook Marketing Case Studies

Find real-life examples of how to integrate Facebook into your inbound marketing program.

Download the newest MarketingSherpa ebook, courtesy of HubSpot!

Posted by Jeanne Hopkins on Wed, Dec 29, 2010 @ 12:00 PM

COMMENTS

We have developed a site to help companies interact with their Facebook and Twitter users in an exciting and enthusiastic way. It is a Social Contest site that allows a company to have giveaways targeting their FB and Twitter users with a clicking competition. This method encourages the fans or followers to pay attention to the Facebook posts and tweets put out by the company. 
 
 
 
We have just gone live with a beta version which targets our own First2Click Facebook and Twitter users. We post a contest schedule and prize(s) for the day each morning at 8:00 AM CST. There may be one or more contests each day. The user can pre-register for the contests once they are posted and they receive additional clicks for their effort. A user can also recommend other users to earn additional clicks.  
 
 
 
At the scheduled time we post an active link to Facebook and Twitter announcing the opening of the contest. A user has a better chance at the first click if they are either following First2Click on Twitter, or like the First2Click fan page on Facebook. The first person to click the link and enter their email address in the corresponding box wins the “first click” prize.  
 
 
 
We then have a “lucky number” prize which is the same item as the first click prize. After a user’s first click we show them what number they were and what the lucky number is. They then strategically use their remaining clicks to try to hit that lucky click. There is no charge of any kind even for the shipping of the prizes. We have a Winners page that lists the contest winners from each previous contest. 
 
 
 
We are finding from the small user base that we currently have that it is addicting, exciting, and promotes enthusiastic conversation on the contest chat board. We are currently working with a few companies to pilot the Contest Sponsoring aspect of <a>First2Click.net. The ability to stimulate current fans as well as to encourage those fans to recruit other fans is the selling point of this new contest site. 
 

posted on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 12:30 PM by Mitch Matt


Thanks. Facebook is a must now for any online business.

posted on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 12:53 PM by aleke


I tried downloading the e-book. You sent the link but it is broken. Can you send me the PDF? 
 
 
 
Thanks, 
 
 
 
Angie

posted on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 1:22 PM by Angie


@angie 
 
I tested the ebook link and it works for me. If you want to avoid the form, the link to download the ebook is here: http://bit.ly/hR5r60

posted on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 1:38 PM by Jeanne Hopkins


I really enjoy reading HubSpot articles but the writing and proofreading are abysmal. It is rare that I don't find incorrect usage of words... 
 
email massaging system? 
Really? 
Please hire a copy editor!

posted on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 4:05 PM by jeremy


Thanks for the good ideas. I will certainly promote my Facebook business page to my list and vice versa

posted on Thursday, December 30, 2010 at 6:47 AM by @Rhuarhii


Dear @Jeremy - thanks for the proofing. I fixed it. Actually, I kind of like "email massaging"...after all, we're constantly massaging our inbound email databases to leverage the most leads, aren't we?

posted on Thursday, December 30, 2010 at 11:02 AM by Jeanne Hopkins


@Jeremy - While we try to encourage as many folks as possible to write for the Inbound Marketing Blog, I agree that a little copy editing could be useful. Keep reading, and providing feedback.

posted on Thursday, December 30, 2010 at 11:05 AM by Jeanne Hopkins


B2C businesses should certainly have a presence on facebook.  
 
B2B I think is a different beast. I just don't think your customers for IT services, heavy machinery, chemicals, etc. are looking for you on facebook. I don't think it's a good place for salespeople to be connecting with prospects either. Leave that to Linkedin, I'm sorry but facebook is for connecting with friends, not future business partners.

posted on Thursday, December 30, 2010 at 5:37 PM by Dan MacAdam


Good list of ideas. I'm still fairly new to FB, so this definitely helps me understand how to get more out of it!

posted on Sunday, January 02, 2011 at 9:11 PM by Viqi


These are great tips Jeanne. Another tactic that works well for us as a private company is to put our culture up on Facebook. Pictures, employees, depict the fun environment that embodies your company.

posted on Tuesday, January 04, 2011 at 1:48 PM by Arthur


I love this blog so much, and I really learn pretty much from it. As I come from HK, and couldn't find enough article from the local website. That's why I google and find this useful website. I will sometime translate the article into chinese and let more people who are interested in facebook marketing can learn more.

posted on Sunday, January 09, 2011 at 9:05 PM by andy


Great post, and some really good tips here. I have found that competitions are a good way to go, especially to generate aditional fans and also increase brand awareness. We're currently running a Facebook campaign for one of our clients and have written an analysis of this at http://www.dreamscapedesign.co.uk/Post/fan-tastic-facebook-marketing.aspx. Do you agree that competitions are a good way to go in terms of brand optimization?

posted on Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 10:17 AM by James Brack


Nice article. Wish I could email it to a friend with a convenient little email button. (hint, hint)

posted on Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 8:58 AM by Lindsay


Comments have been closed for this article.