The Benefit of Facebook Fan Pages

Is your business on Facebook? Mine is. As a result, I'm finding Facebook becoming a really interesting environment, given the benefits that Facebook Fan Pages offer.

To put Facebook into perspective, consider a few of the statistics: 400 million active users and growing strong. As of October 2009, women outnumber men on Facebook, and it's no longer just the domain of college age users.

No surprise given how engaging, easy to use and sticky Facebook is. [Check out BJ Fogg's persuasive bathroom epiphany presentation for perspective on that!] In fact, that's what makes Facebook so effective an environment for connecting and interacting. For businesses, that means doing so with potential and existing customes. [Per BrandGlue's Jeff Widman who gave a enlightening presentation about the intricacies of Facebook, Facebook is best for strengthening ties with existing customers.]

Now, though, we have research about the benefits of Facebook Fan pages. More specifically, First-of-its-kind research: Facebook fan pages are effective marketing tool, with more detail in One Cafe Chain's Facebook Experiment. Facebook can increase sales, improve word-of-mouth marketing and strengthen customer loyalty particularly among those customers engaged in social networking sites according to the research. Intriguing, don't you think?

As with all social interactions, transparency and authenticity matter, as do truly offering value relevant to your audience consistently over time. Think meaningful, fresh content shared in a range of formats on a regular basis. Think product as well as promotional information. And don't forget to monitor and be ready to interact, acknowledge, welcome and respond.

Social media for retailers: Focus on Facebook offers additional perspective, including "validation that social media is a viable marketing strategy when we understand what our customers want and know which social media platforms they frequent." Increasingly, that platform is Facebook.

The best way, though, to benefit from Facebook and other social networking platforms is to "find out from your customers what they want... what social media sites they frequent...." and what they want. Then, deliver it to them where they are.

What benefits have you noticed as a result of your Facebook Fan page interactions? Which Facebook Fan page examples have you come across that do the best job interacting and connecting with fans?

PS: Another benefit: Facebook Fan pages are search engine searchable in real time....

Devon Valenti, CoPilot Live North America

Meet Devon Valenti. She is marketing manager for ALK Technologies CoPilot Live North America and manages CoPilot Live North America's social media platforms.

More specifically, the CoPilot Live Blog, the CoPilot Live Facebook fan page and the CoPilot Live US Twitter account.

Yes, Devon keeps busy on the social media marketing front, especially since CoPilot Live fans, followers and readers tend to be quite passionate about the brand.

You see, they really care about this GPS navigation application for iPhones and other mobile devices and feel no compunction about sharing their opinions and suggestions. [To learn more about GPS and smartphones, check out this interview with CoPilot Live's David Quin.]

I invited Devon - with whom I've been working since January 2010 - to share with us perspective on how social media fits in with the CoPilot Live brand.

C.B.: Devon, please tell me about yourself.

I’ve been working in various marketing roles for about 7 years. One of the things I love about being a marketer is it never gets dull. There’s always a new and exciting medium that bursts onto to the scene to keep you on your toes. You need to be ready to take on these new mediums, decide if they’re right for your brand and adapt them into your marketing plans. I’ve always been drawn to the online side of marketing so when social media started becoming more popular I was definitely intrigued.

C.B.: What is your role at CoPilot Live?

As the Marketing Manager for North America my key focus is on growing our customer base here in North America, but I also collaborate with our global teams to integrate our marketing initiatives on a global basis. In North America specifically, CoPilot Live and GPS navigation for smartphones aren't as well known as in some of the other markets so we face some unique challenges.

C.B.: Tell me more about CoPilot Live. What exactly is it? How does it work?

CoPilot Live is an award-winning, full-featured GPS navigation app that runs on the iPhone, Android smartphones and Windows Mobile smartphones. CoPilot Live combines voice-guided, turn-by-turn directions with useful real-time information such as live traffic, live fuel prices and live local search to guide you on your way. All of our detailed street maps are stored on your phone—not downloaded each trip--so users don’t need to worry about getting stranded if they lost network coverage and hit a dead spot. It is a global brand and we’re currently offering version 8 of our product.

C.B.: What role do you see social media playing for CoPilot Live?

Social media has played a huge role in CoPilot Live’s success so far and it’s become a major area of concentration for us in all our plans going forward. Our core social media platforms—a blog, Twitter account and Facebook page— serve as a direct link to our customers and are the main way we communicate with them. One of the great things about joining the CoPilot Live team when I did was all of these social media tools were already started, pretty much everyone was onboard and believed that social media was a vital part of our marketing plans. In my situation I had the tools available; now I just needed to work on fine-tuning them to be effective for our brand. This meant really engaging customers and making sure it wasn’t always a one-sided conversation.

C.B.: What have been your biggest surprises or challenges to date?

I think the biggest surprise for me was to see just how fast the overall tone on our sites could change. All of the sudden all I saw were negative comments & conversations across all our sites and I was worried how this was affecting our overall brand favorability. Not only were current customers unhappy with CoPilot Live, but now when a potential customer looks at our social media sites all they see are unhappy customers, which will affect their buying decision. You quickly realize you don’t control social media!

The challenge for us was to decide how to respond to our customers and address the issues they had. As a team we learned a great deal from this experience and it really pushed us to adopt a set of social media guidelines—both internally and externally. As a team we had to decide how we wanted to respond to the different types of comments, what was a reasonable response time and what was the appropriate level of information to disclose.

And just as the name of this blog implies, there are many simple things you can do. Make sure to respond to every comment—good or bad. And listen to what they’re saying. They probably use your product more than you so they’re really the experts! In our case, once we started listening and responding to customer feedback, we were able to turn some of our biggest critics into are biggest fans!

C.B.: What do you love most about social media?

I love that it gives our customers the opportunity to interact with each other. And it happens a lot more than you think. If someone posts a question to Facebook on how to use a specific feature within CoPilot Live, most of the time another user is happy to provide an answer as well as a helpful tip on how to use it. A lot of times this leads to a conversation involving multiple users. Not only is it great to see our CoPilot Live community helping each other out, it makes our job easier as we don’t have to respond to every inquiry that comes in!

C.B.: What tools do you recommend for planning or measuring social media campaigns?

I have found www.tweeteffect.com to be helpful in showing how people react to the different tweets we send out. It gives me insight into what tweets gained followers and what tweets lost us followers. Also www.twitalyzer.com is a great tool for measuring your Twitter account across various metrics, such as impact, engagement, influence and clout. You can view various timeframes to identify trends and even integrate the stats with your Google Analytics account.

Thank you, Devon, for sharing your experiences.

I particularly love hearing how you turned your biggest critics into your strongest fans - by responding to every comment and listening to your customers - and look forward to hearing how it all progresses!

Press Release: Whittemore Raises Bar in Social Media Marketing Expertise

For immediate release: March 1, 2010

WHITTEMORE RAISES THE BAR IN SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING EXPERTISE
Receives Inbound Marketing University Certification

Kinnelon, NJ – Christine Whittemore, chief simplifier of Simple Marketing Now LLC, has been awarded the Inbound Marketing Certification, part of Inbound Marketing University comprehensive Internet marketing program (http://inboundmarketing.com).

Whittemore, an active practitioner in social media marketing since June 2006 when she established Flooring The Consumer, her first blog, places a premium on expanding knowledge. “Given how complex and confusing the online universe is becoming especially for those just getting immersed, it’s important to be able to offer clients the confidence and confirmation that they are choosing the right partner, one who is at the forefront of cutting edge technology. Certification is one very good way,” she says.

Inbound marketing certification acknowledges proficiency in inbound marketing principles and best practices, which include engaging with visitors and customers rather than pushing information at them, and earning customer attention by providing them with valuable content that truly interests them. “The goal of inbound marketing is to create useful and pertinent content for readers, to make relevant friends by being genuinely helpful, to be attractive to both search engines and readers, all so as to convert visitors into customers. Throughout the process, it’s critical to constantly measure, analyze and improve,” adds Whittemore.

Whittemore, who also received certification from Marketing Experiments’ Landing Page Optimization program in January 2008, explains “inbound marketing goes hand-in-hand with relationship building, earning customer trust and authentically and consistently participating in the online and offline conversations that are relevant to our marketplace.”

The Inbound Marketing Certification covers each facet of inbound marketing [i.e., blogging, search engine optimization, social media, lead conversion, lead nurturing and closed-loop analysis) and a comprehensive certification exam. (View the curriculum.) Only 1,300 individuals have successfully passed the IMU program.

For information about Simple Marketing Now, visit http://SimpleMarketingNow.com or simply contact Whittemore at cbwhittemore@SimpleMarketingNow.com.


# # #

About Simple Marketing Now LLC
Simple Marketing Now is a marketing communications consultancy that provides organizations with the right combination of traditional marketing and social media marketing to improve the customer experience and build brand. Simple Marketing Now issues the Social Flooring Index which monitors the social state of the Flooring Industry. For more information, visit http://SimpleMarketingNow.com.

About InboundMarketing.com
InboundMarketing.com is an online community and certification program for marketers. The site’s content teaches a new style of marketing that emphasizes business uses of social media, content creation and search engine optimization for marketing. InboundMarketing.com is hosted and moderated by HubSpot, Inc. Register for InboundMarketing.com at http://inboundmarketing.com/user/register.

Simple Pleasures: 2/19 - 2/25/10

Diva Marketing Toby Bloomberg dubbed me 'diva of simple pleasures' earlier this week. I was so taken with the notion, and with the marvelous simple pleasures that a Twitter search uncovered, that I decided to share #SimplePleasures on Twitter on a daily basis.

I also thought it would be valuable to capture others' simple pleasures and share them with you here on a weekly basis.

My hope is that you'll find them grounding, inspiring, whimsical and heart-warming. And, perhaps, you'll start thinking about the simple pleasures in your life and consider participating in this celebration.

To take part, simply share your simple pleasure and be sure to include #SimplePleasures in your Tweet. If you have any questions, let me know.

Here, then, is the transcript for #SimplePleasures from 2/19 through 2/25/10.

This photo, by the way, was taken in July 2009 from the top of the clock tower of St. Hubert's Chapel on Lake Kinnelon in Smoke Rise. Normally, the clock face occupies this space. Our friend, Tom Kline, removed the clock face to reveal this delicious view and unexpected perspective of the lake and beach. Definitely, a simple pleasure.

How Do I Craft a Blog Welcome Post?

How would you go about crafting a Welcome post for your blog?

To craft your Welcome post, I'm assuming you've done some preliminary homework and established your social media guidelines. If not, then go to How Do I Start With Social Media Guidelines?

At this point, I try to 'feel' the space I intend to create with my blog. Is it a living room? More of a kitchen table, a backyard BBQ grill? Or, perhaps a cozy fireside chat? Note that these are all places where conversation takes place.

Start, then, with a greeting. If your blog [or other social media marketing platform] is to be a conversational setting or virtual third place for gathering, then how might you greet or welcome visitors? What should newcomers know about? What about those who have been coming for a while? How do you get the two groups to interact?

Describe how the concept for your blog came about. Was it the result of a conversation? An Aha moment? What was the impetus for wanting to create a social media beachhead and commit to it and to the conversation that you hope develops?

Next, offer a 'tour' of your space. Will others be contributing or is this your sole space? What topics will you address? How do they relate to the overall purpose or vision for your blog? Do you anticipate any recurring series ideas? Expect things to evolve over time, but think about how you are adding value to your audience.

You should definitely address the 'fine print' or your social media policy or guidelines and set expectations for behavior. If you prefer not to include this in your Welcome post, definitely make it your second post. It's critically important to address how will you interact, what's on topic and off-topic, whether any topics are confidential, will you moderate comments, would you rather have specific customer issues addressed elsewhere, and how do your social media platforms relate to those existing customer service platforms... For ideas, read through How Do I Start With Social Media Guidelines?

To put you in the right framework for welcoming visitors, readers and future community members, I suggest that you read Jason Falls post titled How To Become Your Customer's Valentine. There, he explores how social media has brought humanity back to marketing - something that your welcome message should convey. He reminds us how important listening, honesty, trust, consistency and freshness are, urging us to:

1. Expect less, get more
2. Give incentives and rewards
3. Have daily briefings
4. Implement change
5. Keep costs low, benefits high

Welcome to the marvelous world that social media marketing has brought back to our customers and us!

What would you add to this post and to your Welcome Post?


Image credit: Wordle How Do I" by C.B. Whittemore

Social Media: Fad or Revolution?

I believe in the Social Media Revolution. If you have any doubts, I recommend that you watch the video below titled "Social Media Revolution" created by the author of Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business, Erik Qualman.

I mention the video for two reasons.

1. We tried to show it during our Surfaces 2010 Marketing In A Recession 101 workshop on 2/1/10. Unfortunately, we lost the connection early on and had to keep moving with our presentation.

2. The data is intensely compelling.

Erik Qualman published Social Media Revolution on 8/11/2009. Keep that in mind when you read through the statistics from the video and watch the video.

Note the change in technology adoption rates. [BTW, Facebook is now up to over 400 million users.]

Think how these tools democratize access to information, enhance communication, facilitate interaction, and support education. [Read through the comments to Statistics Show Social Media Is Bigger Than You Think and you'll witness some of this in action.]

Here is the video: Social Media Revolution: Is social media a fad?
[Subscribers, click on this link to view Social Media Revolution: Is social media a fad? directly on YouTube.]

[Note: There's also a short 2.35 minute version of Social Media Revolution.]


You might want to check out Socialnomics - Social Media Blog and its page full of all kinds of videos and interviews.

Now, how might you be part of the Social Media Revolution?

How Do I Start With Social Media Guidelines?

Social Media Guidelines or Policy: How Do I Start?

You're ready to get started with social media marketing. You've gone through intense soul searching and decided that engaging with existing and potential customers and sharing valuable, relevant content with them on an ongoing basis is the way to go. An important next step, particularly for a corporate or business blog, is developing social media policy or guidelines.

An Overview of Social Media Guidelines & Policies

Why? Because they force you to think about scenarios and let you anticipate responses. They allow you to set expectations for behavior and interaction - not too dissimilar from the rules your parents established when you were a kid.

Social media policy and guidelines fall into two camps:
+ internal guidelines
+ external or comment policy

Internal social media guidelines mean that everyone in your organization will understand what can be discussed in a public forum and what can't, and how to behave in such a forum: transparently, responsibly and consistently.

They are particularly relevant to large organizations where many may engage in industry conversations. In my Solutia days, I had to review and renew the employee code of conduct on a yearly basis. Although social media wasn't specifically mentioned, I understood completely what the communication boundaries consisted of. If I had questions, I knew who to ask and I understood the consequences.

From an external perspective, it's important to let your readers know what to expect on your social media site: what kind of discussion will you encourage, how you handle comments [are they moderated?], what about product complaints or transactional issues, whether your response will be timely...

I equate this to welcoming someone into your home or store or classroom, offering an overview of where things are and explaining a few rules [i.e., please leave your shoes as the door; here is the lay of the land; please don't interact with the students...].

Crafting Social Media Guidelines

What I find helpful at this stage is absorbing how other organizations have approached social media guidelines and policy. Not all of what they include may be relevant to me, but their guidelines may remind me of a point I missed or encourage me to address an area I had glossed over.

Here, then, are resources/ideas relating to internal and external social media policies.

+ Diva Marketing's Toby Bloomberg has assembled a marvelous list of social media policy examples. These are real examples from real companies. Note the variety of approaches, but also the commonalities.

+ I love this Mashable article about 10 Must-Haves for Your Social Media Policy. It includes a video clip of Barry Judge, CMO of Best Buy, explaining how increased transparency and trust provide value to customers. The means to this: the tools of social media. The post also includes a sample internal social media policy.

Some examples of social media comment policies:

+ Nuts About Southwest
+ Intel Blogs
+ Two I have written: Simple Marketing Blog and the Carpetology Blog

What would you add? Are there other examples you've come across? How did your social media guidelines help you anticipate certain scenarios?


Additional Information:
I wrote an article for the MProfs DailyFix titled "Which Comes First: the Policy or the Blog?" which refers to a few more examples.


Image credit: Wordle "How Do I" by C.B. Whittemore