James SpillaneThis is the second instalment of our four part series; Which Social Network Should I Target? If you missed part one, be sure to check it out here – Which Social Network Should I Target? Pt 1 – Twitter.
Today we’re looking at Facebook, the largest network of all. And with reports that the number of Facebook users could soon exceed the population of China, it looks set to stay that way. Is it the best channel for your business though? Here’s what these expert marketers have to say on when targeting Facebook might be a good idea.
When is Facebook suitable?
Facebook is the best social network to focus your attention on in most cases. There are three main reasons for this in my view:
- Audience size
- Advertising options
- Data available
The audience size of 1.15 billion is the biggest in terms of social platforms, meaning that you can always find the audience for you on the platform. Combine this with the best advertising targeting options available and great data mining options in Facebook Insight and Power Editor, and you have a mature platform that is ripe for generating return on investment for your business.
What’s a common mistake you see?
A common mistake marketers make on Facebook is to take a “build it and they will come” mentally. Especially when you are starting off you need to advertise your page to generate new page likes, and boost the reach of your posts to attract new engagement and attention – organic reach is hard to generate in the initial stages of your strategy.
What’s your top tip for Facebook?
My top tip for targeting content for Facebook is to deeply understand your audience. Understand who they are in terms of demographics, what they engage with, and what they are interested in – this allows you to create the best content to generate engagement and ROI.
Which brands do well there?
My favourite brands on Facebook in terms of performance are the likes of Paddy Power, Oreo, and Innocent Drinks. These brands all know their audience and create fun, quirky content to engage them with. Their content always seems to be bang on, and they seem to learn from their successes and failures in equal measure to optimise their strategies.
Any final advice for readers deciding on which network to focus on?
When deciding on which network to focus on, think where your audience are and where the best place to reach them will be. Also consider the paid options – can you control the platform with a little advertising to kick-start your efforts or will you have to rely on organic growth alone.
Dennis Yu – BlitzMetrics
When is Facebook suitable?
Facebook is best when you have eminently shareable content (media/sports/entertainment, as opposed to personal hygiene) and have the ad budget to drive reach. The most overlooked feature of Facebook is the ability to reach audiences by job title and workplace. Use this technique to manipulate the media with only a few dollars a day.
What’s your top tip for Facebook?
Because of changes to the algorithm, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to get reach. Spending ad dollars is a simple answer. But for those who don’t have them, try increasing your post frequency (still keeping the content bar high) and include 2-3 images per post instead of just one. You can thank me later on this!
Ian Betteridge – Dennis Publishing
When is Facebook suitable?
Facebook is an excellent choice for anyone publishing quality content – and the higher-quality your content is, the more you’ll get out of in terms of engagement and traffic.
What’s a common mistake you see?
The worst mistake you can make with Facebook is treating it as if it was solely one-way traffic: you need to engage with users on it rather than treating it as if it were a one-way street. Give as much as you get.
What’s your top tip for Facebook?
The top tip I can give you is to experiment, and pay constant attention to your Insights. Facebook appears to be on a roll with new tweaks to how content is displayed at the moment, which means you have to be constantly experimenting. A kind of content which worked last month might not work this month.
Which brands do well there?
Digital SLR Photography Magazine is a brand that’s cultivated a terrific following very quickly by posting great content (lots and lots of pictures which people love to share) and engaging with its community on Facebook.
Martin Woods – SEO Consultancy
I must admit I prefer other social networks on a personal level these days, but when it comes to audience Facebook still has a lot going for it, depending on the market.
Which brands do well there?
I’ve long been a fan of Marmite on Facebook, they’ve been doing it right for years. Turning someone’s hate of Marmite into positive marketing is pretty impressive!
What’s your top tip for Facebook?
One of my tips when it comes to Facebook is; never rule out media buying if you’re running creative marketing campaigns. With all the noise on Facebook, sometimes a bit of paid coverage, via promoted posts can really help to get campaigns off the ground.
One thing which does amaze me though about social networks in general, is that most people are completely unaware of how easy it is to find their conversations, and endorsements. It’s so easy to research someone using data freely available to Google search. Last year I made a little free tool to help people research their own profiles in order to lock down private information when job hunting. As more and more companies adopt social media policies, I would highly recommend everyone to research and lock down their profiles.
Glen Gilmore – GlenGilmore.com
Facebook and Twitter are seemingly in a competition to be like each other, yet, they remain significantly different. Facebook has a slower tempo and lingering conversations, while Twitter demands a greater frequency of content sharing for effective brand promotion. Focusing on fostering relationships and leadership are the common success paths for both.
What’s your top tip for targeting content to each network?
Linking the two platforms together so that content shared from one, automatically goes to the other makes the task of content sharing easier, but, it overlooks the distinct content sharing styles of each. To address this, make sure you consider how the content will look and sound on each platform and add some non-jointly-shared content to personalize the experience on each.
What’s a common mistake you see?
A common mistake made by marketers on both platforms is a failure to appreciate the importance of community engagement. It is never enough to simply be on social, pushing out content, you must BE SOCIAL! Being social is a lot harder – and far more rewarding – than simply being “on social”.
Any final tips for being effective on social media?
Saying “Hello”, “Thank you”, “How can I help you?”, are common phrases in real social settings, and they deserve a primary place in your social media marketing. Being a good listener is always the key to being a good conversationalist.
How to find the best content for each? Listen carefully to your targeted community and figure out what you can do to make their day better, more interesting, and share the content that accomplishes this. It’s no easy task.
To succeed on either platform, be an incredible listener, an attentive advisor, and a source that can be trusted to consistently share relevant, exceptionally-good content. And finally, don’t be
so darned serious! We want to see your human side!
Jeremy Rivera – BeamUsUp
When is Facebook suitable?
Facebook is about connections and friends more than G+ or Twitter, so customer friendly brands and entertainment oriented can really fare well here. But keep in mind that it really does take a long term plan and a committed community manager to really grow a Facebook audience.
What’s a common mistake you see?
The most common error I see is when people only are using their page as a broadcast medium and do not actually take the time to interat with their audience. It’s just as much about engagement as it is about like or overall reach. While certain types of posts, like text posts of questions may not get shared or liked as much you do get more people commenting which primes them for the next time you do share an article, image or video they may share.
What’s your top tip for targeting content to Facebook?
Images really do fare extremely well, so finding the right image or creating it is a bigger part of the process than on other social media. Picture choice can mean the difference between a mediocre reception and thousands of re-shares.
Which brands do a good job on Facebook?
Two comedians that are doing a good job on Facebook would be Larry the Cable Guy and Jeff Foxworthy because they know their audience, interact reguarly and still work in some advertising of their products and efforts.
Any other advice etc…
It’s hard to find the right balance between posting what earns revenue and what your audience would like to see. Don’t be afraid to mix in more promotional posts, but they certainly should not be the largest number of your posts.
Next up…Linkedin
Hopefully you’ve found this advice helpful, in the next post I’ll be asking several experts for their advice and tips on when to target Linkedin. Be sure to bookmark the blog or subscribe to our feed via RSS or email!
This article was written for Business 2 Community by James Spillane.
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