Make a fan page process for tracking tone
A process for your fan page is probably the most important thing to build if you don’t have one. It becomes even more important when multiple people are supporting a fan page. You want to have some consistency in the way the posts sound to your fans. People tend to type in the same manner in which they talk. If you have more than one person working on your fan page monitor the tone and measure the engagement to see what works best depending on who posts the information.
You may also notice certain fans flock to the tone they associate best with. A tone can be used for only a post with a certain message or to engage a certain fan type.
Promoting Posts to Build Fans
Even when you feel like you have the answers to everything you find out quickly that you don’t. The Facebook fan page is quickly approaching 200 and I learned it may be a little too soon. With the additional fans comes a lot more interaction. In a span of an hour I had a lot more question than I ever had. No complaints from me though, it goes to show that people like good pens.
One way that I got the fans so quickly was through promoting a Facebook post. Under each post you should see a button that says “Promote Post”, click the button and your budget amount and the Facebook will take it from there.
Go Novell!!! Where have you been?
Nothing like a few “Delicate Bits” to get the conversation flowing. Novell used this cool video on the Novell Facebook fan page to get their fans’ minds going. Great tactic and very funny for the computer people out there.
Xbox One takes over Microsofts Fan Page
Good online marketing companies plan their Facebook strategies around a product or event. Microsft is no exception to the rule, this week on the Microsft Facebook fan page they shared many posts supporting the new Xbox. With the announcement of the Xbox One Microsoft took this as an opportunity to display some of the new games that are available only on the Xbox One.
Even though they did a good job on promoting the Xbox One on the fan page I believe they almost went a little overboard. There were multiple posts in a row about the Xbox One. There should have been some other posts to break up that content because Microsoft builds more than just the Xbox.
Oh dear Wichita River Festival Fan Page
I love the city that I live in but when it comes to the Wichita River Festival fan page they fell short. With a little over 15,000 fans for an event that comes once a year that’s not bad. What is bad is when you don’t use any pictures in posts to gain the audiences attention. I understand that the festival was coming to an end but it was like they stopped a little too soon. I’m not sure how you miss taking pictures of a concert and fireworks to show to your fans.
How about a wrap up picture gallery this week that shows some of the events that weren’t posted? Everyone likes fireworks so maybe just one picture behind the scenes would be impressive. Somehow the People of Riverfest fan page had fireworks pictures. Hmmm….
What did Curleys teach me about Facebook?
There’s a place around the corner from my house called “Curleys”. The only reason that I know that it exists is because I was at the ATM yesterday and happened to see a truck parked in front of me with “Curleys” on the side. Right next to the truck there was a little sign in the grass that said “Now Open” with an arrow pointing to Curleys. To give you a better view into the situation Curleys is in a building that sits behind a couple of other buildings. I can tell you the building has been multiple other restaurants prior to Curleys. None of the businesses were successful because of the location. Will Curleys be any different?
The situation that Curleys is using for its promotion is what many online businesses do for Facebook. They sink a lot of time in preparing the physical business but slack on the online Facebook promotion strategy. Even though I saw the sign and truck for Curleys most likely I still won’t go there. So what does this have to do with your Facebook fan page? Facebook fan pages are viewed in the same manner, people won’t go there unless they already have an idea of what it’s about.
Don’t be a Curley, make a Facebook ad and give it a fair amount of time to run. You truly need to promote if you are going to build a fan following.
MAC uses Facebook fan page to teach
The MAC cosmetics Facebook fan page is being used as a teaching platform for ladies. MAC posted a video in May of a woman showing the techniques she uses to put on her make-up. She’s teaching women how to take care of their skin with the make-up. She’s not pitching any of the products in a blunt way but she occasionally mentions the products number. She tries to keep the focus on the consumer in this video. This is a great example of giving a fan a reason to keep coming back to consume the Facebook content.
Game on! 120 Facebook fans and growing
So the strategy is working that I’m using to collect Facebook fans on my page. I haven’t changed anything since I started using the small ad to collect fans. If you remember from my first blog post my budget is $2 a day or basically $60 per month. The key is to have patience and don’t rush and try to get a flood of new fans all at once. The more you rush the quicker you will find yourself in a bloated financial campaign with minimal results.
I wanted to give an update on the offline test that I blogged about a while back. If you don’t remember, I sent two pens out to see if the recipients would talk about the pens on their personal Facebook page. Neither one of them posted anything on their personal pages but I did get some other types of actions. One messaged me in a Facebook private message and asked for me to make a pen as a gift for someone else. The other person gave me a phone call and said they would tell everyone about their pen and they loved it. I call this a fare trade; I handed out a pen in exchange for a personal reference.
I looked back at the fan count during the time I wrote the offline test blog entry and I was at 80 fans. Since that time I picked up 40 new fans to get to 120 today, that’s not bad.
Creating an exclusive journey
This evening is a busy time for me, I need to come up with some items for the Facebook fan page. I haven’t posted for a little bit because I’ve been really busy working on some offline strategies.
One strategy that I thought about is during the actual build process of a customer’s pen is to create a method to help bring the customer along the journey. Provide the customer with an experience that he/she will gladly tell others about. Allow the customer to pick the blank that will become a pen and hold it for the first time. While holding the blank it gives them a vision of what the pen could be like when it’s finished.
How about letting the customer pick out their own accessories to put on the pen? This becomes the point in the pen’s journey where it goes from just a pen to the “customer’s pen”. To help capture these kinds of moments pictures could be emailed to the customer so they know exactly where their pen is in the process. The intent is to build excitement all the way up to the finished product.
Point of Sale Apps like Square
An entrepreneur has to be a visionary to see the future in which he/she is trying to take their company. That’s what makes many entrepreneurs so unique and valuable. I was thinking about my pen store earlier today after having a meeting with a friend who is interested in getting a pen. We met face to face so I didn’t have the ability to say, “You have to wait to purchase a pen online and the website will handle your transaction”. I wasn’t prepared to deal with a customer who is face to face. My solution at the moment is to find something like Square.
My vision is for my company to be completely mobile. I meet with a client, show them some pen choices, get their feedback, go to my studio and build them a pen. Once the pen is complete meet with them in a Starbucks or somewhere, deliver their product and swipe their debit or credit card on my iPhone. Now that’s business of the future and maybe while completing the transaction a stranger will notice and decides to be a new customer right then on the spot.
I found this link with some apps to choose from to begin my research. If you know of anymore let me know.
