What you can learn from big companies about Facebook marketing
Major brands are doing an amazing job attracting followers and keeping them coming back for more on Facebook. Sure, they may have big budgets, but money doesn't buy them fan engagement… that only comes from building and sustaining their Facebook communities through real, honest to goodness engagement.
And you can do the same thing.
It all comes down to planning out your Facebook marketing strategy.
According to Joel Price, manager of new media for the San Diego Chargers, who spoke at the recent Social Media Marketing World, a weekly review of each week's Fan page performance, and post planning for the upcoming week is his game plan. The whole goal is to create engagement and drive traffic to the team's website and other online properties.
At Century 21, they do their planning every other week. Their strategy is to focus about 80 percent of their content on developing fan engagement, with the other 20 percent reserved for getting traffic to their website.
A this panelist at the SMMW event, Cameron Partridge, senior social media strategist at Roadtrip Nation, does his planning quarterly, and has his team work off of a monthly social media content calendar. They also subscribe to the 80/20 split for their content.
Finally, Michael Frenech of Western Union, has a more involved process. With a more heavily regulated industry, his team needs to plan well in advance to get their content reviewed and approved by various brand group and the legal department as well.
At Western Union, they cover three general areas in their content:
1. Food
2. Family
3. Culture
Notice that none of these areas have anything to do with transferring money. Instead, they are all about topics of interest to the consumers who they serve. And that may be one of the most important lessons from the big guys.
Roadtrip Nation approaches their content with a similar focus on the consumer, asking the following questions:
1. What value does it have to the user?
2. Does it strike emotion from the user?
3. Does it help connect the user to their brand?
All in all, it's important to have an overarching strategy, develop and stick to a content schedule, be analytical about past performance to better plan for future content, and let the interests of your target audience guide you all along the way.
Got some ideas about what could make your brand more successful on Facebook?
Major brands are doing an amazing job attracting followers and keeping them coming back for more on Facebook. Sure, they may have big budgets, but money doesn't buy them fan engagement… that only comes from building and sustaining their Facebook communities through real, honest to goodness engagement.
And you can do the same thing.
It all comes down to planning out your Facebook marketing strategy.
According to Joel Price, manager of new media for the San Diego Chargers, who spoke at the recent Social Media Marketing World, a weekly review of each week's Fan page performance, and post planning for the upcoming week is his game plan. The whole goal is to create engagement and drive traffic to the team's website and other online properties.
At Century 21, they do their planning every other week. Their strategy is to focus about 80 percent of their content on developing fan engagement, with the other 20 percent reserved for getting traffic to their website.
A this panelist at the SMMW event, Cameron Partridge, senior social media strategist at Roadtrip Nation, does his planning quarterly, and has his team work off of a monthly social media content calendar. They also subscribe to the 80/20 split for their content.
Finally, Michael Frenech of Western Union, has a more involved process. With a more heavily regulated industry, his team needs to plan well in advance to get their content reviewed and approved by various brand group and the legal department as well.
At Western Union, they cover three general areas in their content:
1. Food
2. Family
3. Culture
Notice that none of these areas have anything to do with transferring money. Instead, they are all about topics of interest to the consumers who they serve. And that may be one of the most important lessons from the big guys.
Roadtrip Nation approaches their content with a similar focus on the consumer, asking the following questions:
1. What value does it have to the user?
2. Does it strike emotion from the user?
3. Does it help connect the user to their brand?
All in all, it's important to have an overarching strategy, develop and stick to a content schedule, be analytical about past performance to better plan for future content, and let the interests of your target audience guide you all along the way.
Got some ideas about what could make your brand more successful on Facebook?
And for some great insights into 7 awesome tools to help you improve the way you interact with consumers on Facebook, download a copy of my free guide.
ment… that only comes from building and sustaining their Facebook communities through real, honest to goodness engagement.