Conversion Conference Blog

by Justin Rondeau, Marketing Specialist, Template Zone

Facebook has become the ‘be all and end all’ of the internet. With millions upon millions of users, it isn’t a big surprise that businesses began to use this as a marketing tool. Thus social media marketing was born, which has been met with a surprising amount of resistance. For those who are still against social media marketing, let me assure you that Facebook is a very important tool. I feel that those who do not take social media marketing seriously are those that have not been able to change their traditional marketing approach.

For the rest of us who do believe Facebook is an important tool I have a very important question for you:

Why are we not using it properly?

While I was writing a white paper for my company about Facebook pages, it was my job to find the very best Facebook pages. I thought this task would be very simple, but soon realized that very few companies have a solid understanding of what makes a great Facebook page. I found the top pages: Coca Cola, Starbucks, Red Bull, and other large companies and was impressed with all of their sites. However, there were only a handful of large companies that were able to
create an amazing Facebook page. Even though each company had its own niche, e.g., videos, customer interaction, or amazing visuals, they ALL focused on two very key aspects for creating a successful Facebook page: keeping  Facebook social and casual.

Obviously it helps to have a Facebook page that looks good, so proper understanding of FBML or iFrame as well as how to integrate apps is very important. However, if your page is constantly trying to sell something and is not responding to its follower’s interactions your page will fail regardless of how good it looks. Facebook is a part of social media and is at root social, don’t forget this.

I think what drastically needs to change in the realm of social media is how we think about conversions. When people search on Google for ads they are brought to a landing page where it is hoped the customer will make some type of converting action, e.g., fill out a survey, download an eBook, or purchase a product. THIS IS NOT THE ROLE OF FACEBOOK. Even though social media will garner an increase in revenue, I find that Facebook is not the place to directly sell products.

We must drastically change our approach to social media, if we are the ones who dictate what  a converting action is we must have an understanding of a Social Media Conversion. With traditional landing pages we can define different converting actions and have developed lead generation landing pages and click through landing pages to increase specialized activity. Try to look at Facebook as a ‘social landing page’ where a converting action is first ‘Liking’ the page and the residual revenue comes in the form of wall posts, image uploads, image comments, and mentions.

So how can you create a desirable Facebook Page? It really takes three steps:

First, take advantage of Facebook apps and create a page that people would like to look at. Facebook supports FBML and iFrame and has a whole slew of different apps to choose from.

Second, entice and engage your customers. Give them a reason to ‘like’ your page, have some sort of exclusive deal or fun tool. Ben and Jerry’s used a ‘word flipper’ in conjunction with one of their ice cream flavors. This allowed users to input text into a field and the Ben and Jerry’s app would flip the text for people to post on their page. This was the only place on Facebook to do something like this, and it brought Ben and Jerry’s a lot of Facebook traffic. Also, if a
customer takes the time to write on your wall, comment on a photo/video or upload a photo/video, it is important that you respond to them.

The more people comment on your page the more your page shows up in their individual newsfeed that is seen by their friends. This turns into free advertising, and can link you to prospective visitors, fans, and customers.

Third, monitor your traffic. It is no secret that Facebook doesn’t like to share too much information, but use what they give you. You can monitor new daily likes, new activity, and look at your demographic. One very important aspect of  Facebook is in your settings where you can set what page non-fans land on. This, in my opinion, is the most important part of any setting on a Facebook Page. This allows you to create a page that would entice a new visitor
to ‘like’ your page and become a follower and thus prospective customer for your company.

In closing, rather than turning Facebook into a stringent marketplace we can turn our Facebook page into a casual forum where our customers can engage with our company and with other customers. Facebook has replaced the ‘water bubbler chats’ of old, like it or not Facebook is how word of mouth is generated. Stop trying to sell a product, build a personality!

About the Author

Justin Rondeau graduated Suma Cum Laude from the University of New Hampshire in 2009 with a BA in Philosophy.  Though Justin studied Philosophy he found his niche in marketing while doing the copywriting for TemplateZone and found great success in analyzing social media trends.  Currently, Justin maintains the TemplateZone Facebook Page, their Twitter account, and their Blog. He is also in charge of the email marketing campaigns where he designs each email, writes the copy for each email, and runs the analytics for each email campaign.  On top of these responsibilities Justin has been spending much of his time researching landing pages and Facebook pages.  Justin’s research on landing pages and Facebook page layouts has been extremely important to TemplateZone’s new product release in Q1 of 2011.

Justin will be part of a Social Media Conversions panel discussion at Conversion Conference West 2011