By John Foley on January 24th, 2011

Are you "Facebooking" your prospects and customers? With today's technology and the multiple ways you can interact with your prospects and get your message across, it's important to take advantage of the more popular social media sites where your prospects and customers hang out. Did you know that Facebook has over 200 million active users? Don't you think your current and future customers are among them? So stop putting off the inevitable and set up a Facebook business page so you can connect with prospects and customers, promote your products/services, and also the content you put out (articles, videos, audios, etc.) about your products and services.

Personal versus Business

Keep in mind that there is a difference between personal and business accounts on Facebook. Business accounts are limited in the information they are able to access compared to the standard accounts. You can't send or receive friend requests. However, this shouldn't prevent you from creating a business page for your company. In fact, there are benefits to business pages, where you can designate multiple administrators to manage and post to the account. Also, the pages are public and therefore will attain rank in Facebook and search engine results. A business page can garner "fans" and you can still post events, pictures, videos, polls and other interactive ways to promote your business and build the buzz.

So remember: profiles are personal but pages are business in Facebook world. So you'll want to set up a page (not a profile). And remember to only create one account, because Facebook doesn't take kindly to those who create multiple accounts.

After you create your Facebook business page, you want to gain "likes" from your professional network. Here are some ways you can build that fan base:

*Make sure your page is searchable by the general public. This is typically the default setting, but you may want to double-check and look at the Settings on the Edit page. Make sure your page is "Published (publically visible)."

*Announce your new Facebook page on your website / blog with a link to your page and an invitation to become a fan.

*If you have a newsletter, be sure to include the news about your new Facebook page.

*Send out an email to all your existing contacts asking them to check out your Facebook page, become a fan and leave a post.

*Leverage your other social media profiles and invite those connections and followers to check you out on Facebook. For example, if you're active on Twitter, you should tweet the link to your Facebook page and ask your followers to become fans.

*Post a Facebook badge or widget on your website to let your site visitors know about your Facebook page.

*Think about using Facebook ads. Yes, it costs some money, but the advertising will get your business name in front of a lot of eyeballs.

Of course, it will be easier to get more fans as you build your page and add content that is informative and engaging. Add polls, events, links and videos. Invite commentary by posting questions. Pull in the RSS feed of your blog. Post about special discounts or coupons. As you build upon your page, current fans will share the page with their colleagues and friends and your fan base will grow.

Remember, Facebook is not just about information or entertainment. It's also about relationship building. Connect with the people who "like" your page and respond to any posts by prospects and customers. It's important to create a dialogue with your fans, rather than just have a running monologue of business information.

This morning I saw Gary Vaynerchuk speak about the impact of social media.

Gary is a leading social media success story and consultant and so I was lucky enough to find a recent video with many of the messages I heard this morning.

5 things I heard about social that I think are really important.

#1 - Social should be about listening and not talking - If you are going to use social shut up - Most important site is search.twitter.com

#2 - Marketing is about to get really hard - think of marketers as boxers - if you aren't punching with both hands someone will beat you - use traditional media to ping pong into social

#3 - People that understand how to scale "caring" will win - it's why handwritten notes work - social enables this (back to listening vs talking) - it is the humanization of business

#4 - is SM overrated? It isn't overrated it is underrated - and It's a baby

#5 - Mobile is the battleground

Listening to this will be a very valuable 10.31 minutes!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UkiM3OaHxw&feature=player_embedded

facebook.com/gary

by  Tanya Irwin, Wednesday, January 12, 2011, 8:00 AM

Brands that want to stay relevant online have their work cut out for them, according to Millward Brown's Futures Group, which identified a slew of digital trends for 2011.

According to the report, brands will be forced to straddle their presence between the public open Web and semi-walled gardens, as surfing the Web is increasingly replaced by running apps or viewing pages on Facebook.

These application and fan page "gardens" are popular because they allow marketers to control and simplify consumer interactions. However, brands will increasingly need to tend multiple "gardens," often building different applications for specific platforms, to ensure they are both relevant and present everywhere their consumers want to encounter them.

"It may be easier to drive traffic to a fan page than an e-commerce site, so brands need to be increasingly clear about whether their online objective is engagement or sales." says Duncan Southgate, global innovations director, Millward Brown. "They must also decide whether to have different offers on Twitter or Facebook than on the brand Web site. Experience and research will help marketers pull the pieces of the puzzle together."

Another trend is that social graphs will make targeting more relevant. Relevant social integration can delight consumers. A recent Firefly Millward Brown study shows consumers are looking for brands in social media to be more relevant to their needs. Consumers will remain active in the biggest social network (Facebook) because so many contacts are there, but they may increasingly be more engaged in other niche networks that play to their particular interests. Facebook's scale provides excellent targeting opportunities for brands, but to really be effective, sophisticated algorithms are needed to make sense of the complex relationships between people.

Marketers need to consolidate their measurement with consistency in metrics, says Ali Rana, SVP and head scientist of Millward Brown and Dynamic Logic's Emerging Media Lab. "Parts of digital marketing are still considered experimental for brands," Rana tells Marketing Daily. "The case for digital becomes easier when there is consistency in measurement metrics."

However, marketers must take care not to only use audience data as a proxy for success or failure, he adds. "We have seen this time and time again, where audience data only tells one-quarter of the story," Rana says. "The real learning comes from having an integrated measurement system that looks across audience, behavioral and brand data."

Another trend is that marketers will increasingly attempt to deliver immersive and engaging branding messages within ads, using expandable formats and interactive features that often replicate part of the experience of a microsite or social media page.

Viral video is an increasingly important element of digital campaign planning. Viral potential is no longer considered as nice to have, but is becoming a key success criteria for any new communications idea. However, the creative challenge could become ever harder as each new viral hit raises the bar of consumer expectation.

With online video advertising spend in a high growth phase, marketers globally are likely to invest more effort optimizing online video creative in 2011. Dynamic Logic research has shown that repurposed TV ads can effectively generate awareness, but made-for-Web video tends to be better at driving persuasion.

The improved performance capabilities of mobile devices mean that more people are online more of the time. Marketers will seize this opportunity, particularly since newer devices enable better mobile ad experiences, according to Millward Brown. Mobile advertising budgets will increase significantly over 2010, and the brand impact achieved from mobile will continue to outperform online through 2011. 

Brands that want to stay relevant online have their work cut out for them, according to Millward Brown's Futures Group, which identified a slew of digital trends for 2011.

According to the report, brands will be forced to straddle their presence between the public open Web and semi-walled gardens, as surfing the Web is increasingly replaced by running apps or viewing pages on Facebook.

These application and fan page "gardens" are popular because they allow marketers to control and simplify consumer interactions. However, brands will increasingly need to tend multiple "gardens," often building different applications for specific platforms, to ensure they are both relevant and present everywhere their consumers want to encounter them.

"It may be easier to drive traffic to a fan page than an e-commerce site, so brands need to be increasingly clear about whether their online objective is engagement or sales." says Duncan Southgate, global innovations director, Millward Brown. "They must also decide whether to have different offers on Twitter or Facebook than on the brand Web site. Experience and research will help marketers pull the pieces of the puzzle together."

Another trend is that social graphs will make targeting more relevant. Relevant social integration can delight consumers. A recent Firefly Millward Brown study shows consumers are looking for brands in social media to be more relevant to their needs. Consumers will remain active in the biggest social network (Facebook) because so many contacts are there, but they may increasingly be more engaged in other niche networks that play to their particular interests. Facebook's scale provides excellent targeting opportunities for brands, but to really be effective, sophisticated algorithms are needed to make sense of the complex relationships between people.

Marketers need to consolidate their measurement with consistency in metrics, says Ali Rana, SVP and head scientist of Millward Brown and Dynamic Logic's Emerging Media Lab. "Parts of digital marketing are still considered experimental for brands," Rana tells Marketing Daily. "The case for digital becomes easier when there is consistency in measurement metrics."

However, marketers must take care not to only use audience data as a proxy for success or failure, he adds. "We have seen this time and time again, where audience data only tells one-quarter of the story," Rana says. "The real learning comes from having an integrated measurement system that looks across audience, behavioral and brand data."

Another trend is that marketers will increasingly attempt to deliver immersive and engaging branding messages within ads, using expandable formats and interactive features that often replicate part of the experience of a microsite or social media page.

Viral video is an increasingly important element of digital campaign planning. Viral potential is no longer considered as nice to have, but is becoming a key success criteria for any new communications idea. However, the creative challenge could become ever harder as each new viral hit raises the bar of consumer expectation.

With online video advertising spend in a high growth phase, marketers globally are likely to invest more effort optimizing online video creative in 2011. Dynamic Logic research has shown that repurposed TV ads can effectively generate awareness, but made-for-Web video tends to be better at driving persuasion.

The improved performance capabilities of mobile devices mean that more people are online more of the time. Marketers will seize this opportunity, particularly since newer devices enable better mobile ad experiences, according to Millward Brown. Mobile advertising budgets will increase significantly over 2010, and the brand impact achieved from mobile will continue to outperform online through 2011.

Mon, 10 Jan 2011

Mark Thomson, media director at Royal Mail, gazes into his crystal ball and predicts what the major trends for the year ahead will be.

2010 has been a year of contradictions. In many ways it heralded the rise of the digital revolution, with social media in particular taking centre stage. This signified the breaking down of barriers between brand and customer, and the start of a two-way dialogue.

However, the economic downturn has also led to a resurgence of more traditional channels, as consumers look for trust and personalisation in the brands they interact with.

For marketers, the recession has meant one thing - innovation. Faced with increasingly stiff competition, they have been forced to explore more creative routes to customer interaction and engagement.

The past year has also seen a subtle power shift in the customer's favour. Increased competition means that customers are more selective about who they associate with and the messages they will pass on to their peers. This means that marketers need to work harder to be heard above the noise, and also to tailor messaging to an individual rather than a demographic. I believe that this trend will continue to develop during the coming year. Channel selection is equally important as creative messaging here.

According to FastMAP research, direct mail is back, having regained its position as the consumer's favourite direct marketing channel because people love to receive well-targeted, well-crafted messaging.

In my view, 2011 will see the rise of experiential marketing. This doesn't just apply to the traditional 'event' approach either - channels such as direct mail will embrace more interactive approaches, using smell, touch and taste to create an experience for the customer and build word of mouth and deeper brand interaction.

Value exchange will become increasingly important. Gone are the days when customers are happy to hand over their details without receiving something tangible in return. Brands need to provide value such as free events, money off vouchers or exclusive opportunities to make customers feel special and encourage them to share something about themselves in exchange.

Innovations such as this can also provide an opportunity to collect prospect data, which can be used to enhance future campaigns with more personal targeting. 'Individualisation' will be the buzzword of 2011 - it is no longer enough to merely add personalised touches. The market has a long way to go before it recovers to pre-recession levels, and marketers need to be aware of the importance of maintaining interest levels among their customer base and ensuing content remains relevant to prospects.

Digital communications and social media will continue to play a key role in brand communications. However, it is important to remember that an online strategy should not replace an offline one - many of the strengths of offline channels such as direct mail play directly to the weaknesses of online channels such as email marketing. For example, direct mail is a more effective medium through which to communicate detailed information that the consumer may want to keep and refer back to.

It is imperative that brands serious about delivering sales, building their brands, and engendering customer loyalty look beyond online to a more combined online and physical communications strategy.

WPP recently released a set of results showing that traditional media has seen a rise in popularity over the past year. Throughout the coming year, I predict that traditional channels will go from strength to strength. Having proven their mettle during tough economic times, now that green shoots are starting to show, traditional media channels have the opportunity to showcase a truly innovative new approach. As marketers begin to move away from survival mode and look towards growing market share and taking risks, it's time for offline media to spread its wings and break the mould

Below are some interesting results from a study conducted during the summer of 2010.  This study clearly shows that the physical printed piece still plays a significant role in today's fast paced communication environment. In fact the study indicates that the physical printed piece was the most effective means of driving response!

As you read through the summary you will see that it references emails, websites and social media sites and discusses the important part each of these platforms plays in today's marketing world. These are all arms of multi-channel communications. The most successful direct mail campaigns will be ones that combine and take advantage of all of these methods communications as a single campaign.

Personalized printed pieces with a call to action, gift offer or other incentives can be mailed to clients directing them to a personalized URL. Emails can be used to extend the reach of the campaign economically, or to target a certain demographic audience that responds to emails more readily; and social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter can be used to direct the message to a larger more general audience.

Full campaigns, including accurate reporting, like these take a significant amount of planning and co-ordination, but the end results prove to be significant! Even in the example below, 14% responded to print and 6% responded to email. Combining the communication methods into a single campaign gives you a 20% response rate!

It's not about whether print out-performs electronic means of delivery or vice versa…what it's really about is combining all components of multi-channel communication to work together to give the maximum return!

Thought: Although the study is focused on charitable donation direct mail, how transferable do you think the results would be for regular marketing direct mail?

 Direct Mail Drives Online Giving More than Email Appeals

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17ZrK2NryuQ&feature=player_embedded

The marketing world seems to be dominated by process - multi-channel, ROI, measurability - essential themes for marketing success.  But one theme that never goes away is a great idea - and one often spawns another … it is always fun to see the results of great creativity:

http://www.cmo.com/advertising/20-most-hilarious-clever-print-ads-ever?cmpid=NR69

We think that this article does a good job of translating the high level goal of "measuring marketing results or ROI" into very actionable strategies.  When we speak to the marketing leaders in our client organizations, most are focused on addressing the challenge of measuring marketing results and I think that this brief 5-point list is a fantastic roadmap to begin executing this challenge…