Social Media isn’t just about how many followers or fans you have. It’s about the community and relationships built with your customers. In this world of community and relationship-building, Facebook is the new black. It is one of the largest Social Media platforms on the Web and its functionality is perfectly geared towards community building and sharing.
Quirk recently ran a teaser campaign for MWEB’s new uncapped Internet offering, called Free the Web South Africa and chose to use Facebook as the main channel to build the community. Everyone involved in the campaign learnt a huge amount about how to use Facebook to build a community, and I thought I would share some of our learnings with you.
Free the Web fan page on Facebook has gathered over 18 000 fans.
It all starts with a plan
It’s important to have some sort of strategy before you start your Facebook fan page. A lot of companies set up their fan page, gain a few fans and then get stuck on the next step. Think about the purpose of the page before you start. Is it to provide customers with another brand touch point, a customer service platform, or just a place to share brand related content and thoughts?
With Free the Web we united the fans through one common goal, freeing the Web in South Africa. We knew who we wanted to target and the experience we wanted to give them and we had a thorough content plan to back it all up. We steered the conversation away from just another ‘I hate Telkom’ forum, towards celebrating what we love about the Web and how we can improve the Internet service delivery in South Africa.
Content is still king
You need to give the user a reason to become a fan, and then to remain a fan. I know it’s an overused saying, but content on Facebook is still king. If you are silent, you fan page will have no clear voice, purpose or point. Content plans are useful as they keep focus on the goal and vision of the page. You can plan content in advance so that you are never stuck with nothing to say. Try make the content as useful and interesting as possible and don’t only punt your brand.
Growing your fan base
There are three ways you can gain fans on Facebook:
1. You can grow them organically.
2. You can buy through advertising.
3. You can amaze them.
Growing them organically requires hard work and most often a strong brand name. If you are an unknown brand, you are going to find it hard to gain fans organically. Buying fans is probably the easiest and fastest way to grow your fan base. You can run Facebook targeted adverts and pay on a Cost Per Click (CPC) basis. The number of fans you will gain is roughly proportionate to the amount of money you are willing to fork out. Amazing your followers is a little bit harder. This requires doing something so amazing that users will naturally talk about it and flock to your page.
With Free the Web we used a mixture of all three. We ran advertising on Facebook and Adwords to kick start the fan base. We also relied heavily on word of mouth, gaining fans organically and created hype through a countdown to the big announcement.
Examples of PPC adverts used on Facebook for the campaign.
Engage Engage Engage
Up until now I have mentioned ways to position your fan page and grow your fan base. Having a large fan base is not the end goal, or though it is a nice added extra. In the end you want a fan base of loyal brand ambassadors who love your brand and don’t care who knows it. You want to foster a community of fans that interact with each other and with your brand. Facebook is a two-way platform and to work optimally you need to respond to comments and posts. Only by engaging back with your fans can you build lasting and meaningful relationships.
Be human
The key to building relationships with your fans is to be human. Try make your posts and response as personal as possible. It’s important that the user knows there is a person behind the posts and responses, instead of an automated bot.
Reward your fans
Reward your fans with special deals for Facebook fans only, or special giveaways to your most loyal and vocal fans. This will make your fans feel special, and will give them a reason to come back.
Don’t ignore the negative feedback
Any type of feedback is useful, be it positive or negative. Positive feedback is always nice to hear and will help you focus your brand on your strengths. Negative feedback is even better as it opens your eyes to what you are doing wrong and gives you the opportunity to make changes. Don’t be scared of a negative post on the wall. Reply back and turn the customer’s opinion around by giving them great customer service. This is how brand ambassadors are fostered. And whatever you do, don’t delete negative comments without contacting the user first or you could have a community backlash on your hands.
It’s not easy, but it works
Whoever said that Social Media was free, lied. It’s not free and it’s not easy. It takes hard work and dedication to build a community of fans on Facebook. Social Media never sleeps or takes a weekend off, so having someone in your company dedicated to it 24/7 is imperative. But if you get it right, the rewards can be golden. If you want to learn more about Social Media, take a look at our latest online course on offer, Applying Social Media to Business Practices.
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I think we're slowly starting to "get there" in terms of figuring out how to do FB properly. You're right, listen, engage, amaze, reward. Sound's like a waiter's job right?
Thing I always mull over is how funny it is to witness real life being brought into the social sphere. That's what social media is after all - real human relationships given a scary amount of scale. So you're going to get wankers. You're going to get the bitching and the moaning.
But you'll also get the good customers. The ones that love ya.
Social media for big business is more about controlling blood temperature than anything else at the mo? :)
Andy
http://www.twitter.com/andyhadfield
Posted by Andy Hadfield on 2010/06/18