Facebook has been on the top of its game when it comes to advertising through the platform. Different brands big and small have leveraged through Facebook and minted through its ever increasing users. Facebook started with a small platform having University students as its users but with time, the popularity if this network increased at an alarming rate. Currently it caters to more than 750 million users and 50% of which are avid Facebook users.

Marketers gradually realized what Facebook offers and how they can benefit through the channel in numerous ways. They started developing social media strategies to make the most of it and to stay ahead of their competitors.

Marketing through Facebook Fan Page

Big brands didn’t fail to notice the importance of a fan page and created their brands profiles on Facebook. The best way to market your brand through Facebook is to give your brand a separate identity through a pan page. A Facebook fan page comes with a lot of features which adds to the fan page benefits.

Attractive brand profile: Facebook allows an attractive profile banner where the photos in which a brand is tagged will be displayed at the top. Brand profile picture can be uploaded to 160 by 540 which means a large attractive image of the brand can easily be uploaded.

Communication: Communication through Facebook has never been better, now marketers are allowed to use their Facebook fan page as a user. This feature allows a brand to interact with other pages and fans as a brand itself. A brand can use the search bar to look for other pages and comment on them as the page itself.

Relevancy: Marketers can utilize the advertisement feature on Facebook and place their page or brand ads which would then be suggested to all the relevant users. This not only brings a brand more fans but quality ones at that!

Fan page applications: Fan page application is another feature through which a brand can run polling applications, sweepstakes or quizzes. Through these applications a brand gets an opportunity to interact with its users and provide them incentives to bring in more followers and suggest the page to their friends.

Videos and Albums: A marketer can upload as many videos and albums regarding the brand as he/she wants. Uploading videos and adding more and more pictures provides an authenticity to the page which attract more fans.

Running a successful marketing campaign through a fan page always proves to be beneficial for the brand. It not only gets more customers but word of mouth raises the brand value as well.

Facebook is now the king of social media. It would not be far from truth to state that Facebook has surpassed all other social networks including Twitter, MySpace and hi5 etc. Ever since Facebook has been launched, the social networking platform has been growing leaps and bounds with unstoppable pace and ever increasing user base and applications.

Facebook which started off in late 2003 as FaceMash has become the preferred social networking platform of marketers in a short time. Social media and social networking are phenomena that has flourished and supported well by Facebook. Being a social platform, the first and foremost emphasis is on developing and strengthening relations with the people involved. As of a marketing plan, Facebook deploys its marketing strategies in a manner where even the audience farthest from the targeted ones is also addressed in parallel. This is the beauty and trademark quality of a dynamic social networking platform such as Facebook. One such means of marketing and viralizing the fans is Facebook Fan Page application.

A lot has been said and done about this Facebook application but I believe there is still a lot of room to explore and tap new aspects of leverage.

Come up with an Element of Uniqueness

If you have decided to use Facebook as part of an overall marketing system, you should keep it in mind that it is a very personal method of presentation. Majority of Facebook users expect authenticity and unique features if not complete openness. Facebook Fan Page is one of the top applications an average user pays attention to. Therefore it is of utmost importance that your page is insanely unique and stands out from the rest.

Promotional Campaigns, Discount Coupons and Virtual Gifts

A lot of brands and agencies have lightened up their Facebook Fan Page with features different from conventional Fan Pages. Additional tabs and labels giving out discount offers on special events along with viral distribution and promotion of brand can attract a decent number of fans to your page. Incentivizing the fans via virtual gifts, sweepstakes, quizzes and gift coupons can help leverage your brand with optimal utilization of social media platform.

Get Positive Feedback for Better Referral of Service

Building a forum for client discussion can have wonderful results for your brand. Often people create a Fan Page and embed exceptional add-ons and leave it to rot. This way a lot of valuable clients are lost even to a lesser competitor. Keeping your Fan Page activity active via fan engagement and essential customer relationship management techniques is pivotal for your Fan Page growth. Satisfied and interested clients can help you cut down your marketing budget by spreading your brands information through word of mouth or word of click even.

Facebook Fan Page is the application meant to control the future of viral marketing via social media platform. If you are a brand and you don’t have a Facebook Fan Page, you are missing out on the future. Contact involvesocial.com today for complete set of social media application development & solutions.

With time Facebook has become an essential part of our lives, noticing its everyday necessity different marketers started leveraging big bucks out of it. The term gold mine best describes Facebook with marketers playing the role of Gold diggers, and those who haven’t yet started to dig deep into Facebook are seriously missing out on a substantial feast.

There are quite a number of conveniences provided by this social network via which different brands can take advantage.
Taking Facebook Fan Pages for example which is by far highest voted by businesses as the best solution to increase their brand awareness, drive traffic and gather loyal consumers.

Creating a Fan Page is not a piece of cake, neither is it an insoluble task. However, it does require patience, time and dedication provided one having some kind of HTML knowledge, design skills, imagination and most importantly originality! To make a Fan Page an outstanding one without having to invest more time than necessary and capital, following specific pointers may kept in mind.

Fan Page profile can be as large as 200 by 600 pixels, the positive aspect of it is that it offers a large picture offers better visibility of the campaign, hence you can upload your company logo. But you wouldn’t want to overwhelm users with an image that would distract them from the content of the Fan Page, so it is wise to plan out the layout of the page first, here you can decide where you want your visitor’s eyes to go, on the image or on the rest of the page’s elements.

You can play with ideas, move them back and forth and preview your page before finalizing to see which approach is best suited to your goals, product and customers making sure to create a long lasting impression on the users who visit your fan page for the first time.

For customizing the Fan Page, your HTML knowledge will come in handy. In order to change the tabs of your Fan Page you need to add FBML application to your Fan Page from where you can edit your tabs, make sure to choose your tabs wisely as Facebook offers up to 6 tabs maximum.

Keep your Fan page active with frequent updates and engaging activities, this helps in search engine optimization of your Fan Page, as search engines usually crawls through where there are recent activities generated. Users want to see recent happening videos or content, not keeping them up to date will be a total turn off for them.

Upload frequent pictures of happenings that are relevant to your brand, post comments, you can even start a competition by asking your fans questions and provide benefits to the winners, this will increase the word of mouth marketing of your Fan Page, more people will visit and ‘like’ your Fan Page and their news feed will catch the attention of more users and this cycle will continue.

Give time to your Facebook Fan Page discussions and engage with your fans by replying to their queries, accept negative feed back and assure your users to solve their problems, this will give an authentic touch to your Fan Page. Last but not the least, successful and thriving Fan Page takes time, it cannot be done over night. One must have patience and determination and it will work wonders.

Involve Social works on all the ideas possible to make your Fan Page highly innovative and gives a professional touch to it keeping in mind the needs of the brand and its consumer’s demographs.

Facebook has incorporated a whole stack of new objects in our lifestyle. Proceedings start off with social networking services such as wall posts, inbox messaging, photo albums and gaming applications to name a few. Fan Page feature is one of those out of the box apps by Facebook team that has by and large gotten every user tilting in its favor. Irrespective of your age, sex, religion, region; you’d still fan at least one page if not more. I personally Like numerous different fan pages and love all the feed and news update that I get from them.

A recent survey report by ExactTarget and CoTweet, revealed that nearly 40% of consumers ‘like’ brands and company pages on Facebook to display their loyalty with a particular product and spread it amongst their circle of friends. Not only brand promotion but discounts and social badging also compelled consumers to Like brands on Facebook.

In order to attract the maximum number of consumer and major media publications to a brands fan page, companies integrate unique features to their pages. 43% of the Facebook users Like or become fans of at least one brand on Facebook. 34% users said the Like brands in order to stay informed about the company activities. 33% stated they became fans in order to know about the future products.

Never before did companies have a golden opportunity like Fan Pages, which helped them engage, entertain and mobilize their fans and get introduced to their fans friends at the same time. 75% of US household use social networking, Facebook alone has over 400million users in US. The target audience for only US is more than any company’s biting share.

Facebook users on average spend 6 hours, accounting for over 54% of world’s internet population visiting brand. Fan pages on Facebook having features such as interactive Q&A sessions, quiz apps, product review, discount offers, coupons and future product knowledge etc are more popular amongst the masses and generate higher traffic and revenues if handled wisely. A company can not only save up on their marketing and advertising budget, but also observe a hike in their sales if these fan pages are managed and updated properly.

Big brands such as Red Bull, Oreo, Coca Cola, Levi’s are already benefiting for this viral media marketing tactics. Make a Facebook Fan Page ASAP and reaps the manifold fruits of unlimited success NOW!

Just because you know that you have to be on social media, you create your Facebook account in a haphazard manner without even knowing its basics. I have seen marketers integrating Social media tools without knowing what tools are appropriate for them and how to use them.

Small businesses need to realize that getting involved in Social media isn’t that easy. Paul Chaney alludes to this in his blog:

“Companies must first inculcate social media’s mindset to experience maximum benefit. It’s the same rationale behind why theory courses are taught in college before practical ones. To do otherwise is to put the proverbial cart before the horse.”

Here are a few steps to start with before you actually dive into the deep Social media ocean:

1. Authentic and Transparent approach:

Authenticity and transparency are the basis and most essential parts of Social media. Gone are the old days in which marketing professionals ruled the online world where they had the authority to publish content of their own choice. In Social media era, authenticity and transparency is the criterion for being social. You have to have a clear mindset to be willing to openly share.

2. Do not try to control and own your content:

The fact is that in Social media, your customers own your content, your brand and your services. Sad and scary, but true! David Meerman Scott, in his book, World Wide Rave, puts it this way:

“For your ideas to spread and rise to the status of a World Wide Rave, you’ve got to give up control. Make your Web content totally free for people to access, with absolutely no virtual strings attached.”

It is even sadder for marketers to know that consumers are no more just consumers. With the advent of innovative web technologies, your clients are now also the creators of the content about you. They can alter what you publish and say unbelievable things about you beyond your imagination.

3. Every participant makes a difference:

Every online person in Social media is contributing in some way. They are making difference to your organization to some extent in a long run. Let’s take the example of Susan Boyle, a tough competitor in a British programme, Britain’s Got Talent. Like me, many other bloggers are talking about her spectacular performance and millions of others are spreading her video on YouTube giving her worldwide fame in no time. That’s the power of Social Media.

These were some of the steps I have mentioned but undoubtedly, there are still many others that I have not mentioned here.

So if you are ready to accept the above bitter or sweet realities about Social media, I would suggest you should go for it but in a proper way.

What other approaches you think marketers need to follow before embracing Social media?

Brands geared up their efforts on Black Friday this year using social media. According to eMarketer stats, 17% of the total consumers are shopping via Social media for their Holiday shopping and brands are being clever with their social media strategies in ways not expected.

Toys R Us

Its time to present gifts to your friends and loved ones and Toys R Us has showed up with interesting deals at the lowest prices. The brand has released a Big Book catalog as a custom application on its fan page that is dedicated for Black Friday. The catalog has a variety of toys on amazingly low prices that only fans can avail.

Thus, to avail exclusive discounts, Becoming a fan is the condition you need to fulfill. The brand’s success story takes a start here as Toys R Us becomes the fastest growing brand on Facebook according to allfacebook.

Intel

Intel rewarded its fans on Black Friday by helping them drive the prices of the displayed laptops even lower. People can view these laptops and their respective prices after they become Intel’s fan. The more the increase in fans, the lower the prices of the laptops get that was available for purchase by Cyber Monday.

JCPenny

JCPenny is driving a charity drive this Christmas. It has come up with a generous deed this holiday season on Facebook. The brand, along with Salvation Army is helping people on Facebook to contribute for underprivileged children and seniors via their Angel Giving Tree campaign.

You can choose your Angel by entering a zip/postal code, age group and gender for whom you want to contribute. The Fan page application then presents the matching children and their holiday gift wishes. After your final selection, JCPenney will contact you through email with additional details.

These were examples of few of the many brands driving their Black Friday campaigns online via Social Media.
What other ways you think are brands using to boost their fan base?

Facebook has always been an attraction for women around the globe. Women from all walks of life are found using Facebook in one way or another. According to checkfacebook latest stats, 56.7% of the total US Facebook population is comprised of females. According to Inside Facebook’s October,09 stats, women from all age groups out-number men on Facebook.

Such demographics present interesting opportunities for brands and products focused on females.
Here is an example of two brands focusing on capturing attentions of Females:

1. Pink Ribbon:

On Facebook, Pink Ribbon is an app by Breastcancersite.com. The noble cause is focused on creating awareness among females about Breast cancer. The brand is finding Facebook conducive targeting the correct demographics in large numbers via Facebook.

To support the cause, the brand is leveraging all Facebook features. With their Facebook app, users can contribute in raising funds in various ways. Even people, who cannot contribute money, can contribute by just clicking everyday and raising funds for free mammograms for uninsured females. Users can join the 1 million fan march to donate $100,000 for the breast cancer research which is another incentive for people to join hands with the brand.

Fans can also fund the cause by shopping from the Pink Ribbon’s Fan page app, Shop the Cause. Also, there is a Contest tab and a Take Action tab for fans to be a part of the cause in one of the various other ways.

2. Victoria’ Secret

Victoria’s Secret has over 2 million fans on Facebook. It’s one of the most successful female products retailers in US. The reason for its popularity among the majority of females is its highly- attractive app, “Model Search” for the brand’s Fashion Show.

A large number of young US females desire to walk on the ramp and Victoria’s secret is where they are given the chance to prove themselves. Daily, fans share their photos on the brand’s fan page, which fans can vote for and get the candidates into the contest.

The fan base of above two paradigms isn’t a matter of fate. The two brands have worked hard on their social media strategy which is obvious from their success on Facebook.

How is your brand leveraging Facebook demographics to its advantage?

Earlier, Facebook applications aimed to increase traffic, gain customers and sales. Now the perception has changed. Facebook applications must be entertaining and informative in order to thrive in the park of social media. Brands that are successful on Facebook have realized this fact.

It has been observed that marketers are not welcomed in social networks. Brands whose sole objective is marketing on Facebook may not be acknowledged and become fail whales. The psychological principal of social proof applies here. A significant number of fans impresses and attracts more fans to connect with your brand. It portrays the impression of an ideal brand they were just looking for.

Here is the latest from few of the competitive brands that are striving to reach the Million benchmark by integrating user-engaging and socializing applications in their fan page.

Papa John’s

Papa John’s is in 2nd place in the top 20 gainers this week chart on Inside Facebook. An increasing shift in its fan base is being observed due to its free medium -sized pizza in exchange of becoming brand’s fan. It is expected that Papa John’s will be reaching the 1 million fan milestone soon.

Outback Steakhouse

A similar strategy similar to Papa John’s is that of Outback Steakhouse, which is also among the Top 20 gainers this week’s chart on InsideFacebook. They are offering free handcrafted Bloomin’ Onion with the purchase of an entree for first 500,000 fans.

Red bull

Red bull is a big brand with already more than 1 million fans on Facebook. I visited its Fan page and came up with this finding of how they have been successful in creating the huge fan base. Though it’s not in the “Top Gainer’s this week’s Chart”, what it is doing to engage their fans with the brand is notable. They have introduced an adventurous application called Red Bull Stash in their fan page.

Here’s how Red Bull is rewarding its fans: Red Bull has hidden thousands of Red Bull energy Shots all over America. Fans have to find the clues on Facebook that lead to these hidden stashes. Those who find them can claim the stash. The winners are even announced on the fan page.

Red Bull has been smart enough to come up with an application that would engage its fans in an entirely new way. They are rewarding their fans for seeking the reward. Red Bull has smartly developed an application that gives its fans what they want.

Key Take Aways:

1. Don’t look at Facebook as an advertising channel. Learn to give away for free and measure the intangible benefits. This way you can better develop brand loyalty and can expect your marketing from your fans via Word-of-mouth.
2. Penetrate deep into your customer’s psychology and see what application ideas can entice them. Innovate but don’t just come up with newer versions of already popular applications. They are most likely to fail.
3. Come up with simple and easy ways to help fans take advantage of the free offers. Keeping them within Facebook is better. If you put a condition of Buy and Get, not many will be attracted to the deal.

After gaining insights into latest activities of brands on Facebook, it has become clear that those that empower their fans to draw in new fans reap the most rewards.

Are you engaging the right people?

Facebook fan pages have now been around for quiet sometime and while there are brand owners that are still unaware of how important Fan pages are, there are many brands that have learnt its importance and have joined Facebook just in time. According to recent studies, which Mark Stutzman has discussed in his blog post in detail, 86% of brands are appearing on Facebook Fan pages.

Facebook Fan pages are used to convert your page visitors to potential customers, thus increasing sales by generating user-engaging content. This is from where comes the twist in your brand marketing success story. Yes, it is your user-engaging content.

Brands have been using contests to engage their fans and entice them to visit again. They are introducing schemes that involve not only their fans but friends of their fans too – a subtle trick that affects the subconscious of the reader.

Here are few of the examples of how brands are optimizing their fan page content.

Mrs. Freshley’s

Let’s take an example of Mrs. Freshley’s, a baked goods manufacturer that has started a contest of “Who is Mrs. Freshley” on their fan page. The brand which is functioning since 1994, is looking for Mrs. Freshley and has asked Facebook users to nominate from their friends and networks who they think is their Mrs. Freshley. I learned this news from Matt Holliday’s blog post on Inside Facebook that kept me marveling at the creativity being demonstrated in this space.

Papa John’s

Papa John’s is a famous Pizza Restaurant around since 1984. Papa John’s came up with an interesting scheme that targets visitors to become their fans. The post says:
“Hey Fans! Tell your friends how to become a PJ’s Fan of the Week. Have them post a pic of themselves supporting Papa John’s in their Halloween costumes & they will be considered to be one of our Fans of the Week! Five lucky winners will be announced this Wednesday, have their photos posted in our status update & amp; win a $50 Papa Card! Photos can be posted until 11/4/09.”

Sprinkles Cupcakes

Here is an example of Sprinkles cupcakes of Beverly Hills, a company that has been opearting since 2004. Sprinkles is not old on Facebook but after reaching an impressive 70,000 fans partially due to their free cupcakes promotion strategy, Sprinkles has come up with a unique user-engaging idea called the “Sprinkles BFF Contest.” The details of the contest are as follows:

Prize details:

“When Sprinkles reaches 100,000 fans on Facebook, we will randomly choose a BFF to win an all-expenses paid trip for two to visit the world’s first cupcake bakery in Beverly Hills! Sprinkles’ BFF will dine and have a bakery tour with Sprinkles Founder and Pastry Chef, Candace Nelson, stay at the Beverly Wilshire, a Four Seasons Hotel, and enjoy free cupcakes each day, including a 4MYBFF message box which has yet to be released in stores! We’ll send you home with 12 Sprinkles Cupcake Mixes – including Spice mix which will debut in Fall 2009 – and a Sprinkles Cupcake Tray so we can be at your special occasions all year just like a BFF should!

Prize includes:

Key Take A ways

The aforementioned case studies show us how brands are becoming smarter in increasing their fan base. They have now introduced a new strategy that is incentive-based to lure in new users. Earlier, only fans were participating in contests but now, brands are targeting fans’ friends and networks. Fans and non fans will have to invite their friends and networks to earn free prizes and in return, both the nominee and the one who nominated will be given the reward.

Recent research has shown that what customers want most from brands are discounts. Probably these brands have realized their customer’s demand and have started adopting more attention grabbing strategies by giving free prizes for joining the fan page. In future, probably these strategies will also become obsolete as these become common on Facebook.

I look forward to learning more about active brands’ tactics for fans engagement.

We keep receiving calls from our clients with deep concern about the social media strategies of their competitors. Just because their competitor has started with a new social media strategy, they also want to move in with the same approach and want to get there, where their competitors are.

Another social media strategy followed by few of the big brands is to create Social network that focuses their target audience. Sean P. Aune wrote about 7 top brands that created a Social Network to engage present fans and convert visitors to fans by getting inspiration from the top social networks like Facebook and MySpace. While their approach was inspiring, it did not succeed as expected. These are:

Disney DXD,

GoRunEasy.com by Reebock,

MarthaStewart.com,

MyStarBucksIdea.com,

Pepsi.Youniverse.com,

Think.MTV.com and Toyota Hybrid.

To your knowledge, these are all big brands that are relatively successful but looks like they jumped onto the social bandwagon without any thought as to how they can engage their users.

Tom created a Facebook page for Popular, The UK’s no.1 hits. Although he knows that he needs to be on Facebook, he doesn’t know what he should use it for.

Here is what he posted:

“I have built a Facebook Page for Popular. I will freely admit that I have not much idea of what I will USE it for. I’m thinking about links to the entries, alerts to particularly interesting discussions developing on older entries, and any other material I happen to find of interest to fans of #1 hits.”

The conclusion that can be drawn from above examples is that to ensure your success, you need to focus on your goals and need to know how your company should respond to the competitor’s decision.

If your competitor has created a new online community, may be because its goal is to research responses or do survey. Your company’s goal may not necessarily be the same as your competitor’s. So imitating your counterparts just because you think their strategy is thriving, is an inappropriate reason for you to follow them.

To develop your own winning social media strategy, you need to identify your objectives and identify the reason for joining Social media. There can be hundred different ways to enter Social media. You need to identify the right way for your company. Following is a list of steps to guide you to develop your strategic goals:

1. Understand the need of your customers. Assess what they demand from you and what social activities and tools can engage them with your brand by analyzing their current activities.

2. Outline your goals. What are your objectives that you want to achieve through social media? Do you want to increase your sales? Or do you want to spread your brand awareness? Or are you interested in tapping into the minds of your customers to know their opinion about your brand.

3. In social media it’s all about relationships, not your brand. Identify what kind of relationship you want to develop with your customers and how you would utilize those relationships to your advantage. Do you want them to promote your brand through word-of-mouth? Or do you want them to stick to your brand for years? Answering to this question will enable you to change customer-brand relationship in an effective way.

4. What applications can get your users activated with your brand? After deciding the demands of your customers, your objectives and relationships, identify the technologies that can help you fulfill your goals while imparting the needs of your customers and building the relationships.

Essentially, the ultimate goal of all brands is to reach out to their customers via Social Media tools. You need to determine what way you can interact with them. This way you can define goals for your company for getting on to Social media.