marketing

Get the Most Out of Facebook Insights

This is a great Facebook page resource for small businesses. Bookmark for future reference!

You’re a small business owner and you’ve decided to create a Facebook Page for your company. Or you’re an employee in an organization and, since you are the only one who “gets” social media, you’ve been charged with running a Facebook Page.

You set it up and make it look nice. You put up some photos and videos that you think represent the organization well. You e-mail a bunch of your friends and the page has almost 100 “Likes.” But one day, your boss comes in and asks you the question that you have been dreading: “Is this Facebook Page helping us or just eating away most of your time?”

Enter Facebook Insights, a powerful analytical tool that can help any organization evaluate the effectiveness of its Facebook presence. But, for a small business where time is perhaps the most important (and often rarest) resource, Facebook Insights can help you evaluate whether you’re investing or wasting your time.

The following scenarios are illustrations of how a fictional small business, “Bill’s Tech Company,” can leverage Facebook Insights to evaluate the effectiveness of its new Facebook Business Page. Within each scenario are the different aspects of Facebook Insights that Bill could utilize to answer his questions. Beside each measure (in parentheses) is a note on where to find that specific piece of data in Facebook Insights.

via: Mashable

GMs New Social Media Marketing Agency Is Staffing Up

It looks GM is putting some weight behind their Social Media Marketing.

Big Fuel, the New York-based agency that handles all of General Motors’ social media marketing, is opening a Detroit office to service the account and is on a hiring binge. Avi Savar, the CEO and founder of Big Fuel (pictured), said he has about 15 people on the ground in Detroit right now and is looking to double that number by March. The agency has another 80 people in New York and handles other clients including McDonald’s, Neutrogena and Colgate-Palmolive’s Wisp toothbrush. Savar said he hopes to have a staff of more than 200 by the end of 2011.

Big Fuel was brought on about three months ago. Previously, the agency had been gearing up to work with Hyundai, but when Hyundai’s lead marketer Joel Ewanick moved over to GM (after a short stint at Nissan), Ewanick persuaded Big Fuel to come over. The agency hasn’t executed any campaigns on behalf of GM yet, but Savar said a few are set to launch in January. This includes one for the Chevrolet Cruze called “Cruze-arati” that gives Cruzes to people who have big followings on social media.

GM’s social media marketing had previously been handled in house by, among others, Chris Barger and Mary Henige. The two were behind a program back in March in which eight teams of drivers/bloggers attended South By Southwest on GM’s behalf. GM’s social media marketing, however, has often been overshadowed by rival Ford, whose Scott Monty has more than 48,000 followers on Twitter. Ford also made a splash this summer when it introduced the Ford Explorer on Facebook and, in November, began circulating videos featuring celebrities like Snoop Dogg and Bret Michaels responding to consumers’ questions about the model.

via: Mashable

Social Media Success: 5 Lessons From In-House Corporate Teams

While implementing a successful social media campaign is something to celebrate, longer term, policy-based programs (which may not garner as much immediate publicity) can be even more rewarding.

Here we are highlighting five companies that have enjoyed long term success with their own social media teams and taking a look at some of the measurable returns they have seen as the results of their programs.

Key personnel from within the five companies below (in alphabetical order) have commented on their teams’ successes to offer you an insight into their various processes. Meanwhile, please be sure to let us know in the comments about any other companies that you feel should be recognized for having strong in-house social media teams.

Via: Mashable

Dell Has Some Interesting Twitter Sales Numbers

It looks like Dell is having great success with their @DellOutlet account.

Dell continues to be one of the more visible corporate behemoths actively using social media, and today they’re out with new numbers to demonstrate some of the success they are having.The company tells us that they’ve now generated a total of $6.5 million in revenue from their Twitter presence, where they have nearly 1.5 million followers on their @DellOutlet account (and 3 million “connections” across all social sites).

Via: Mashable

Top 5 Emerging Brand Trends on Facebook

1.) Facebook Exclusives
2.) Facebook Places Experimentation
3.) Facebook Commerce
4.) Facebook Support Centers
5.) Facebook Giving

Field of Dreams may have popularized the notion that, “If you build it, they will come,” but in today’s Facebook  generation, brands are beginning to go where the masses are, instead of relying on the masses to come to them. With 500 million members, Facebook represents real-time access to the online mainstream.

For years, brands have been using their Facebook Pages to connect with customers. As Facebook blossoms, so too does brand ingenuity, and in recent months we’ve seen a surge in campaigns that inspire Facebook giving, incorporate Facebook Places and feature Facebook as a prominent part of product reveals and fan exclusives. Application makers are also building tools that small and big brands alike can use to sell their products and offer Facebook-tailored customer support.

What follows is a deeper look at how and why these five emerging brand trends are bubbling up on the world’s largest social network.

Via: Mashable

HOW TO: Avoid a Social Media Disaster

If there’s one thing that keeps social media marketers up at night, it’s the ever-present threat of a PR disaster. By now, every marketer is well-aware of how quickly dissatisfied consumers can turn to the social airwaves to vent about a brand. Nestle, BP, Domino’s, Southwest Airlines, and many other brands have witnessed the unbridled power of social media as a platform for disgruntled consumers to rally around an anti-brand cause.

1.) Create a Social Media Policy/Community Management Plan
2.) Have an Escalation Plan
3.) Plan for the Worst – Expect the Best
4.) Respond Quickly, Personally and Directly
5.) Don’t Play the Blame Game

Via: Mashable

Marketers are NOT spending their money where users are spending their time

Earlier this week, Nielsen released their latest report on where U.S. Internet users are spending their time online. Social media dominated all other categories at more than twice the time spent on the next closest category. It occurred to me after reading that report that social media is not where marketers spend most of their money. So, I wanted to look further into the difference between where users spend their time online and where marketers spend their budget. Here is what I found.

1.) Marketers are not fishing where the fish are
2.) Search dominates the marketing budget
3.) Email is used a third less than it was last year
4.) Destination not Acquisition

Via: Social Fresh

Barry Diller: “We Spend Every Nickel We Can On Facebook” [Video]

If you need to know how Facebook is performing among large brands, look no further than some of the leading brand marketers who are singing praise about Facebook’s ad platform. In an interview with CNN Money, Barry Diller couldn’t speak highly enough about Facebook’s advertising offering. Diller stated, “Facebook’s great advertising. My company, which spends a huge amount on advertising, we spend every nickel we can on Facebook. They’re effective. The targeting of the audience is precise enough.”

While Diller doesn’t believe that Facebook will be able to replace traditional advertising, he also didn’t believe that Twitter would be able to attract brand advertisers, so it just goes to show that Diller doesn’t know everything. You can view the full interview posted below.

Via: AllFacebook

Advertisers to Spend $1.7 Billion on Social Networks in 2010

The latest numbers from eMarketer project that advertisers will spend nearly $1.7 billion in the U.S. on social networking sites in 2010. Worldwide, spending will hit $3.3 billion according to the report.

The numbers represent a significant bump up from estimates published by the research firm at the end of last year, when it projected $1.3 billion would be spent on the space in the U.S.

Not surprisingly, eMarketer sees about half of that money (in the U.S.) going to Facebook, with MySpace continuing to see a smaller share of the pie. Separately, the firm estimated that Facebook’s 2010 revenue would hit $1.2 billion in a report published last week.

Earlier this month, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said that some of the social network’s biggest advertisers had boosted ad spending by 10x this year; a trend that’s apparent in the eMarketer report.

Via: Mashable

Dominos UK Social Media Initiatives Help Increase Profits by 29%

According to Domino’s UK financial earnings report, the company has increased its pre-tax profit by nearly 29%, which equates to roughly $26 million. The UK pizza retailer attributes social media initiatives and its Foursquare promotion for the gains.

In the earnings statement, CEO Chris Moore points to the rise in online orders — which now account for 32.7% of all orders — as proof that their web and social media efforts are paying off.

Moore reports that when it comes to the web, “Our main Facebook site now has in excess of 36,000 fans In addition, we have led the way with social media initiatives such as affiliate marketing, our superfans programme and the development of a link up with Foursquare.”

Via: Mashable