Social networking with Facebook

What is Facebook?

• The world’s number 1 online social network – huge numbers

• People profiles

• Business profiles (Pages)

• Groups

• Community Pages (interests)

• Places

• Events

• All linked together

A (very) brief history of Facebook

• Originally launched in Feb 2004 as thefacebook.com

• Started by former Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg

• Became Facebook.com in August 2005

• Completely free, but supported by advertising

Why is Facebook important?

More than…

• 500 million active users (26 million Brits)

• 2.5 billion photos uploaded to the site each month

• 3.5 billion pieces of content (Web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc) shared each week

• 3.5 million events created each month

• 20 million people become fans (Like) business pages each day

• 5.3 billion fans of pages

Why should I use it?

If you are a user…

• It keeps you in touch with friends, brands, groups, interests and loved ones

• Share the lives of others in a voyeuristic and fun way

• Distance no object

• It’s fun

• It fulfils a basic need in all of us

Why should I use it?

If you are a B2C business…

• It can spread word of mouth like wildfire

• The “Like” button – inside and now outside Facebook

• You can listen to and talk with customers and fans

• You can promote your business with images, video and text

• Facebook fans have an 80% higher propensity to buy

• You become part of your fans’ world

• You can advertise with laser-targeted precision

Why should I use it?

If you are a B2B business…

• You might not need to

• Are your customers B2C?

• Recruitment?

• Share the fun side of your business

• Listen to what people are saying

Facebook profile pages

Facebook homepage

The average Facebook user…

• Spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook

• Clicks the Like button on 9 pieces of content each month

• Writes 25 comments on Facebook content each month

• Becomes a fan of 2 pages each month

• Is a member of 12 groups

• Has 130-187 Friends

Ways for businesses to have a Facebook presence

• If your business is B2C

• An individual can have a Facebook profile, but a business must choose:

• Facebook Group or a Facebook Page (or set of pages)

• You need a Facebook personal account to set up the group or the pages

• But what are the differences?

Groups vs Pages

  Groups Pages

Creation Any Facebook user on any topic Only an authorised representative

Privacy Can be closed or secret Are intended for public broadcast

AdminYou appear as your personal profile You appear as the organisation

Limits No more than 5,000 users Unlimited number of fans

Ideal for Local organisations - franchisees? Businesses - franchisors

Groups and Pages

Intergage recently worked with a franchisor which provides music and singing classes for toddlers and pre-school children

• Facebook groups for the franchisees’ local businesses

• One central Facebook page for fans

• Advantage – the national franchisor has a direct relationship with the end users through the brand page

• Facebook groups are great for managing local franchisees’ classes

700,000 businesses have active pages on

Facebook

Facebook Pages

• Businesses typically create “Pages” that allow fans to declare (and share) their brand allegiance

• This provides a great channel to share content (videos, pictures, news and updates)

• This also creates a link between their profile and your page that is visible to any friend that might want to check

• You can engage in very public conversations with your fans

• You can encourage users to share your page with their friends right from your Web site

• Pages can be optimised for search inside and outside Facebook

Measuring Success

• Page “Insights” provides graphical feedback

• “Likes” & Interactions

• Demographics

• What’s popular and where visitors come from

Advertising and promotions on Facebook

• Can be laser focused on demographic profiles

• We can advertise to the friends of our fans – and use their name

• Not the same as search marketing in terms of response rates

• Pay Per Click or Pay Per Impression is available on Facebook

The power of Facebook advertising

• It taps into one of the best features about Facebook - its wealth of user information

• DOB

• Gender

• Relationship status

• Educational level

• Location

Advertising with Facebook

B2C Networking with Facebook

B2C Networking with Facebook

• Facebook “Like”

• When 4 or more of your friends “Like” a web page – say a restaurant – you’ll know about it – on that page and in Facebook

• This is going to be big!

• New suite of social plug-ins that instantly personalise a visitor’s experience – showing them who they know that liked this content on your site

• http://apps.facebook.com/feightlive/

B2C Networking with Facebook

B2C Networking with Facebook

Promoting events on Facebook

Ideal for inviting fans or group members to conferences, meetings and parties

• Post photos of the event (pre and post) and tag them

• When you tag someone, it appears on their wall

• Any friends of someone you tagged can see the photo

• Include details from the event, such as quotes from speakers, video, awards or competition winners

• If you have time, visit the accounts of attendees afterwards and leave specific comments

Facebook applications

Programs written by Facebook or other third parties

• Twitter Updater

• My LinkedIn Profile – Creates a badge from your LinkedIn profile that gets displayed on your Facebook profile.

• SocialFly – Create notes about your online contacts, setup reminders. Great for keeping up with business contacts

• What Amazon is doing

• Pass The Parcel

New! Facebook Places

A mobile application that allows users to:

• Check-in at a location or “Place”

• See friends who are nearby

• Tag friends also at that location

• Watch video

New! Facebook Places

What does this mean for “Venue” businesses:

• Claim your place

• Set up contact details, picture, opening hours etc.

• Merge your Place with your Page

• New advertising opportunities?

To sum up

• Choose Facebook Groups or Pages to engage with your customers

• For most businesses Pages are more appropriate

• Facebook is another medium of engaging with your public

• You need to have a strategy before you start – what are you trying to achieve – what are the goals?

• Get ideas from how the bigger brands are represented

• Recognise and allocate suitable resource to maintaining engagement through Facebook

Useful references 1

Useful references 2

The Help Centre is very informative. And it will be right up to

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