May 2010

Should You Have A Facebook Page?

in Facebook

It depends.

Facebook pages are not as easy to grow as Twitter accounts, where you can actively follow people you’re interested in. Because there’s no way to reach out directly to people beyond those already on your network and invite them to join the page, many Facebook pages end up as no more than a place for the company employees to hang out – and even they don’t always show interest in doing so.

It goes without saying that your Facebook page should be interesting, vibrant and add value beyond your website or other social media activities such as Twitter. It’s also important to remember that Facebook is not an appropriate medium for all companies. It is perfect for companies who sell consumer products, but B2B companies should probably focus on LinkedIn and on Twitter instead.

Assuming you do have a Facebook page and would like to grow it, here are a few tips for getting more Facebook fans:

1. Promote your Facebook page in other places. You should have a prominent link to your Facebook page on your website’s homepage, and you should also promote it periodically on Twitter.

2. Create unique content. The content on your Facebook page should be somewhat different than the content on your Twitter page. If all you do is post to Facebook the same links you post on Twitter, people won’t have much of an incentive to join.

3. Hold a contest. A great Facebook-only content can be holding a contest. For example, ask customers to post photos of themselves using your product, and promise a gift card to the winner.

4. Pledge to make a donation for each new Facebook fan you get. Promote the pledge on Twitter and on your website.

5. Be helpful. Kim Woodbridge, for example, a great WordPress and Facebook consultant, has a vibrant Facebook page with lots of fans (close to 1000). Looking at her page, I can see why – it’s not only well designed, but she also uses it to generously answer people’s questions about WordPress and Facebook.

If you can’t be helpful, you might want to be entertaining – people like to be entertained.

6. Promote your Facebook page offline, like this church in rural Minnesota did:

Another example – A recent TV commercial for Marshall’s ends with “Visit us on Facebook for a chance to win a $5000 designer wardrobe.”

By the way, I do realize that Facebook has changed its terminology from “fan” to “like,” but it sounds so much better to say “how to get more Facebook fans” than to say “how to get more people to like your Facebook page.”

Photo credit: VividImageInc

T.J. Maxx: Using Social Media to Change the Brand’s Image

in Marketing

Last week I was invited, with several other bloggers, to attend a T.J. Maxx event at the company’s San Francisco store. The event was part of a complete overhaul of the company’s image, from a ho-hum, off-price retailer who caters to frumpy housewives, to a vibrant, fun store filled with fabulous designer finds. The typical T.J. Maxx shopper is now a Maxxinista, a nice play on the term fashionista – a fashion conscious woman who wants designer clothes but is unwilling to shell out the inflated department store prices.

I like T.J. Maxx’s use of social media, and the way the company incorporates its social media marketing campaign into its general marketing efforts. T.J. Maxx is going for a brand new image, and it is using a combination of traditional advertising (I love their TV ads) and social media marketing, in the form of the blogger outreach I was invited to, and vibrant Facebook and Twitter accounts, to achieve that image change. The company’s website itself has an interactive section where customers are encouraged to post photos of their latest fabulous finds.

The T.J. Maxx campaign is a great example of how a brand can effectively use social media to enhance its general marketing message. Assuming they reach out to 100 bloggers (there were 20 bloggers last week and I assume they’ll be holding similar events in other large cities), and each of those bloggers has on average 1000 regular readers, they’re reaching out to about 100,000 people through a campaign that costs them maybe $30,000 in gift cards to the participating bloggers and in travel accommodations. I’m guessing this is far less than the company’s TV ad budget, and unlike blanket TV advertising, the audience here is more targeted.

The only problem I saw with the T.J. Maxx social media campaign was that I’m not sure if and how they are going to monitor the impact of the campaign. They never gave us a link to include in our reviews – this could have been a no follow link to prevent issues of page rank buying – but such a link to a specific landing page would have enabled them to easily monitor the impact of this campaign. Perhaps they will ask an intern to go over the list of participating bloggers and check that against the company’s website analytics, but this seems like a lot of work.

Why It’s So Difficult To Get Twitter Followers

If you’re not a celebrity, getting people on Twitter to follow you back is notoriously difficult. This is especially true if you look as if you’re trying to sell something, so don’t. It’s funny, really, becuase we all try to sell something on Twitter – if not a product or a service, then we’re trying to sell ourselves, our ideas, our brand. But the unspoken rules of social media say that even though we’re all there to sell, we must pretend as if we’re all there to engage with one another and have conversations.

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So, Do You See Any Results Yet?

“How is Twitter going for us? Do you see any results?” The client asked me. Now, this is a fair question to ask – but we’ve only just started our social media campaign. To be exact, we started it two months ago.

This is a common scenario and it is best addressed at the beginning of the relationship. There are two main issues that need to be addressed with clients.

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