Facebook Bootcamp for PR

transcript

360° Digital Influence

Facebook Bootcamp for PR: How to Use Social Networks in Communications to Build Brand and Buzz for Less

April 2009

Agenda The Facebook Landscape + 5 Reasons to be There

Building Your Strategy

Engaging Your Community

Action!

Adding Scale & Impact

Measuring Success

5 Facebook Trends to Watch

What NOT to Do

How-to Resources

Additional Reading

The Facebook Landscape + 5 Reasons to be There

What is Facebook?

From Facebook’s “About” Page:

“Facebook is a social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers. The company develops technologies that facilitate the sharing of information through the social graph, the digital mapping of people's real-world social connections. Anyone can sign up for Facebook and interact with the people they know in a trusted environment.”

“Most brands tend to want their presence to be all about them - as if Facebook were no different from a billboard or television ad. Smart brands overcome this temptation- providing them something useful that can tie into how they use Facebook to share with friends.”

-Kevin Barenblat, Context Optional

How are People Using Facebook?

•  200 million active users worldwide

•  30% of users are from the US

•  2nd most visited web site in the world

•  850 million photos, 7 million videos, and 28 million pieces of content are uploaded each month

•  More than 95% of Facebook members have used at least one application built on Facebook Platform

•  More than 4 million users become fans of Pages each day

5 Reasons for Your Brand to be on Facebook

1.  Grow a brand community of loyalists and advocates

2.  Extend your brand into the social life of your customers

3.  Extend the relevant reach of your communications

4.  Build reputation and trust via conversations

5.  Build brand preference, loyalty and action through relevant engagement

Building Your Strategy

4 Elements of a Successful Facebook Strategy

ENGAGEMENT

•   Find and engage existing fans

•   Define and engage target communities

•   Host discussions and provide useful resources

•   Invite fans to upload content

•   Provide branded digital goods

SCALE & IMPACT

•   Leverage offline events

•   Advertise through existing media

•   Incorporate targeted advertising

•   Add your social Web links to your brand Web site

•   Use Facebook advertising to promote your application(s)

MEASURING ROI

•   Reach

- Fans

- Mentions

•   Engagement

- Discussions, content, reviews, and posts

•   Action

- Contest entries

- Coupons redeemed

- Purchases driven

- Web traffic driven

-Application users

DRIVING ACTION

•   Provide applications that enlist ambassadors

•   Provide applications that drive purchases or donations

•   Provide coupons to track purchases

•   Hosts contests with opt-ins for further contact

•   Post to drive links to alternative sites

Developing a Strategy

5 ways to a rapid-start strategy in Facebook:

1.  Find existing conversations, fans, groups, and events around your brand.

2.  Search related fan pages, groups, and events for positive mentions of your brand or your competitors.

3.  Find out what your competitors are doing on Facebook.

4.  Test some of the most popular brand pages and applications on your profile and add some of your own interest.

5.  Look into real conversations to define key words relevant to your brand, product category, and target audience.

Your Facebook Strategy Checklist Complete this checklist of questions to build a successful Facebook strategy for your brand before you jump in.

  What is the engagement value: what can you offer people that they will find valuable?

  Are you ready to respond to your customers and encourage them to talk about your brand?

  Are you ready to make a commitment beyond a campaign?

  How will your other marcom strategies integrate with Facebook?

  What assets - tools and content – can you leverage?

  Do you have your company behind you and resources available?

  How will you measure success?

Facebook Strategy: Tool Box Facebook offers an ever-expanding array of tools for brands to connect with fans

•  Brand pages A Facebook Page is a public profile that enables you to share your business and products with Facebook users. Pages are similar to personal profiles and brands accumulate fans instead of friends. Within pages you have the option of posting and collecting content, importing Twitter and blog feeds, collecting user reviews, and hosting discussions.

•  Applications An application is a platform for developers which provides a framework to build tools which Facebook users can add to their profile. Applications range from chat to games to mobile.

•  Events A Facebook event page allows you to organize Facebook users to meet up offline or virtually around your brand’s celebrations or special promotions. This a great way to mobilize fans to action and integrate your traditional events or campaigns into your Facebook presence.

•  Connect/Share Facebook Connect and Facebook Share are additions to your brand’s existing web site or blog which allow you to integrate their Facebook presence with other online media. Facebook Connect is an open identifier which allows users to take their Facebook profile with them when they shop, comment, or browse on other web sites.

•  Advertising Facebook offers banner advertising which can target age, gender, location, relationship status and interest, or music and lifestyle interests.

Tool Box: Brandpages

Where to start:

•   Logo or photo

•   Brand information

•   Contact information

•   Terms of use

•   Customizable tabs

Additional content:

•   Facebook only coupons

•   Blogs and RSS Feeds

•   Twitter feeds

•   Reviews

•   Photos and video

•   Online and offline events

•   Discussion boards

•   Digital goodies

Your brandpage is the foundation of your Facebook presence and the beginning of your connection with fans. Like any relationship it requires prolonged attention, perceived value, and respect for anyone who calls themselves a “fan.”

Tool Box: Brandpage Optimization

1.  Create the perfect profile picture.

2. Optimize your share preview.

3. Display different content for fans and non-fans.

4.  Create your own vanity URL.

5. Define a publish schedule for

your content.

Tool Box: Targeted advertising

Advertising can be targeted based on:

•  Age

•  Sex

•  Hometown

•  Current location

•  Marital status

•  Sexual orientation

•  Employer

•  Job title

•  Education level

•  Key words

•  Groups and interests

Targeted advertising on its own can help you raise awareness of your brand among specific consumer groups, let current fans know you’re out there, and support new events and applications.

Interests, employment

Age, sex

Huh????

Tool Box: Applications

Popular application functions:

•   Games (solo and group)

•   Quiz/trivia

•   Virtual gifts

•   Badges displayed on the profile

•   Embedded content

•   Constantly refreshed data

A branded application provides your fans a new way to interact with your brand and share it with friends. A good application somehow reflects the personality of your brand and it must be engaging to your fans so they want to share it.

Tool Box: Events

Possible events:

•   Product sneak preview

•   Social media blog summits or tweet ups

•   Special sales and promotions

•   Conferences

A Facebook events page allows you to organize Facebook users to meet up offline or virtually around your brand’s celebrations or special programs. This a great way to mobilize fans to action and integrate your traditional events or campaigns into your Facebook presence.

Tool Box: Facebook Connect Add Facebook Connect to:

•   Customers commenting on your blog

•   Customers posting reviews

•   Customers adding or viewing content on your site

•   Customers networks or discussing on your site

Facebook Connect is an OpenID that allows users to take their Facebook presence with them online. Users can connect their profile information with your site, find friends who are also using your site, and publish their activity on your site in their newsfeed.

You’ve built a strategy and a presence. Now what?

“Brands should think of themselves as a guest at a party. Bring something fun, listen, have an interesting opening line and engage in a relevant conversation.”

-Mike Hoefflinger, Director of Brand Product Marketing, Facebook

5 ways to engage your Facebook community:

1.  Reach out to current brand fans.

2.  Define target audiences of existing communities who would be interested in your brand.

3.  Host discussions around your customers’ interests.

4.  Invite fans to upload video and photo content.

5.  Provide fans with branded digital goods.

1. Identify existing communities…

2. Define target audiences

3. Host a discussion

4. Invite Fans to Upload Content

5. Provide Branded Digital Goods

Action!

Action! “There must be a call to action or reason for Facebook users to engage with the brand – there must be something remarkable.”

-Kristin Foster, Ogilvy Digital Strategist

Action! 5 ways to activate your Facebook community:

1.  Provide coupons and special offers driving offline purchases

2.  Offer applications that enlist you as an advocate or ambassador

3.  Offer applications that help fans buy your product or donate funds.

4.  Post wall messages or design applications and contests that drive users to a conversion web site.

5.  Contests with opt-ins for future direct contact

1. Coupons and special offers

Action!

2. Applications that enlist you

3. Purchasing/donating made easy

Action!

4. Driving to conversion web sites

Action!

5. Host a contest with an opt-in

“Brands can simplify their efforts and overcome perceived hurdles of complexity by viewing their Facebook program as an integral part of their marketing communications plan.”

- Mike Hoefflinger, Director of Brand Product Marketing, Facebook

5 ways to increase the scale and impact of your program:

1.  Utilize social ads & targeted advertising within Facebook to reach users in specific locations, interest groups, or age ranges.

2.  Use Facebook advertising to promote your Facebook event, contests, application(s)

3.  Leverage your existing media presence to drive traffic to your Facebook page

4.  Add your social Web links (including Facebook) to your brand Web site

5.  Highlight your Facebook presence at offline events

1. Utilize targeted advertising

2. Use Facebook advertising to promote your Facebook event,

contest, or application(s)

3. Leverage existing media

4. Add your social Web links to your brand Web site

5. Use offline events to drive awareness

Measuring Success

“Successful brands establish success metrics prior to beginning any campaign.” -Kevin Barenblat, Context Optional

•  Number of fans for brandpages •  Number of brand mentions on walls •  Number of news updates x fans •  Ad impressions

Engagement

•  Number of discussion topics •  Number of wall posts on brandpage •  Number of wallposts (measured by Lexicon) •  Number and tone of reviews posted •  Amount of content or offers shared •  Video views

Action

•  Click through rates for advertisements •  Number of contest entries •  Number of applications downloaded •  Offline actions driven by coupons or special offers •  Web traffic generated

Measuring Success

Travel Channel’s Kidnap! Application:

9 million users, 3 million monthly users

Drives 50k-70k users to TravelChannel.com daily

Measuring Success

Ben & Jerry’s Election Day:

Over 250k people responding “yes”

Facebook fans grew to 300k during the event promotion (currently 496k)

Measuring Success

 Lexicon

Election Day, November 4, 2008

Free Cone Day, April 16, 2008

Measuring Success

Chase Bank:

Chase +1 specifically targets the college demographic with a Facebook program for sharing points with

friends and donating to charity

Almost 50k fans, mostly card holders

Measuring Success If you have purchased targeted advertising, your Facebook Insights account will show you the most up-to-date information updated every full hour.

Here are some of the important metrics you can chart about your ad campaign over the past day, week, or month:

•  Responder Demographics- This report will give you more information about the users who are viewing or taking action on your ads.

•  Advertising Performance- This report will give you information about your ads' performance in terms of impressions, clicks, click-through rates, etc.

•  Click-through rates- The CTR for an ad is calculated as the number of clicks the ad received divided by the number of impressions (times the ad was shown on the site) in the given time period.

•  Social click-through rates- The click through rate for ads with social actions attached to them. It is calculated as the number of "social clicks" divided by the total number of "social impressions".

5 Facebook Trends to Watch

5 Trends to Watch: Shifting Demographics

•  Over 4 million more US women 35-44 and nearly 3 million more US men 35-44 used Facebook in March 2009 compared to September 2008.

•  The fastest growing age segment is women over age 55: 142% growth between February and April 2009.

5 Trends to Watch: Facebook Connect

•  Platforms:

–  Your website

–  Your blog

–  Your iPhone application

•  Uses:

–  Seamlessly "connect" their Facebook account and information with your site

–  Connect and find their friends who also use your site

–  Share information and actions on your site with their friends on Facebook

5 Trends to Watch: Mobile Social Networking

•  Facebook had 20 million unique viewers per month accessing Facebook mobile platforms.

•  By 2010 mobile social network users worldwide are expected to reach 369 million.

•  As of March 2009, users can instantly sign up to become brand fans through SMS.

5 Trends to Watch: Gift Monetization

•  November 2008 Facebook switches the cash value of gift for credits. $1.00= 100 credits.

•  April 2009: Facebook begins testing an option to give friends credits as social capital.

•  Currently, brands can sell virtual gifts for 100-200 credits.

•  In the future, people may be able to exchange credits for an expanding array of Facebook items.

5 Trends to Watch: Location, location, location •  As mobile social networks grow along

with the spread of mobile technology, Facebook is beginning to see location-based applications that help friends meet-up offline.

•  Maps are a new and innovative way to connect consumers to your brand and drive purchases.

“Geography is about everything that is (literally) close to consumers, and it's a universally familiar method of organizing, finding and tracking relevant information on objects, events and people… from in-car navigation to iPhones, the sky is the limit.”

- January 2009, TrendWatching.com

What NOT to Do

Facebook Don’ts •  DON’T filter your fans reviews or content simply to protect your messaging.

•  DON’T spam fans with messages or invitations to their inboxes.

•  DON’T violate Facebook’s Terms of Service.

•  DON’T ignore unofficial fan pages or groups.

•  DON’T alienate unofficial fan pages or groups.

•  DON’T abandon your fans.

•  DON’T let your PR agency run your page. Authenticity counts.

•  DON’T be afraid of negative comments.

•  DON’T leave negative or inflamatory comments unresponded to.

•  DON’T engage in practices you would never consider outside of Facebook.

•  DON’T forget about existing content you can repurpose

How To: Resources to Implement Your Strategy

Additional Resources

•  Create a brand page: http://tinyurl.com/create-a-brand-page

•  Optimize your brand page: http://tinyurl.com/optimize-a-brand-page

•  Learn about advertising pricing and FAQ: http://tinyurl.com/Facebook-ad-FAQs

•  Buy targeted advertising: http://tinyurl.com/buy-facebook-ads

•  Create an application: http://tinyurl.com/build-facebook-apps

•  Add Facebook Connect to your blog: http://tinyurl.com/add-facebook-connect

•  Search on Lexicon: http://www.facebook.com/lexicon/

•  Brainstorm keywords using Google’s Keyword Tool: http://tinyurl.com/Googles-key-word-tool

How to…

Facebook Bootcamp for PR

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