Question: “How often should I post to Facebook?”
Answer:
If the stuff you’re posting has value to your community, then often.
If it has no value to your community, then never.
Have a great weekend!
Category: Digital Marketing and Social Media
Share Images on Facebook, Not Videos
If a picture is worth 1,000 words, a video is worth at least 500.
I recommend including photos and images over video on your brand’s Facebook posts in most cases. An image can let readers take the story in their own direction, while videos are at times too limiting.
More importantly, images with text are easier and quicker for your readers to consume and with which to engage!
How many times have you clicked an article from a news gathering site and were lead to a video that you had to watch? All you really wanted to do was skim down to read the part that interested you. Many readers simply don’t watch the video. Some watch it and may be disappointed.
Videos are fantastic for in-depth explanation and full feature story telling. But for faster interaction and engagement on your Facebook pages, nothing beats an image. Except images with dogs and cats.
4 Tips For Your Franchise’s Facebook Pages
CEOs and all executives in the Franchise industry are preparing to converge on the International Franchise Association 2014 Convention and a key topic again this year will surely be growing our businesses via social media. I thought I would share 4 easy tips that are working well for Franchisors right now.
These tips solve the most basic problem that we at Engage121 hear from all Franchisors: What should we put on our Facebook page and our Franchisees’ Facebook pages?
All of these tips will help improve your standing in the Facebook News Feed Algorithm. More importantly, they will attract and engage new members of your community. Those in your community may include customers, potential customers, and other very important connections.
Your activity on your Facebook page should always be aimed at one of these Goals: 1) Growing Your Community, 2) Increasing Engagement, or 3) Acquiring Leads or Customers. We will look at each tip in relation to one of these goals.
1. Post Regularly
Goal: Build Community
You’ve got to have stock on the shelves to open the doors. You’ve got to have content posted to have a Facebook Page worth Liking. Start today by posting something interesting once per day. Not sure what to post? Tips 2-5 will cover that. Just commit that you, your franchisees, an outside partner, or someone on your team will post regularly. And by regularly, I mean post at least 5 times per week on each page in your system.
Note, this is not for a few weeks, and then you get “too busy to succeed.” And it’s not just to get up and running, then let it drop. In fact, after you see success, you will want to step on the gas and publish multiple times per day!
2. Post Images
Goal: Build Community; Engagement
Who loves it when you post images? Facebook. Who loves it more? Your Fans and potential Fans. The recommended size is 1200 x 1200 pixels.
You should post images taken locally. Post images you’re sharing from other Facebook pages. Post stock images that fit a greeting, holiday, or special occasion. Post images of kittens and puppies. Just post images!
Blogging and marketing thought leader Bob Dunn suggests using “a photo to provoke emotions in your blog posts. Not only will you attract more readers, but they will remember your content longer.” This is also true for Facebook!
3. Post Relevant Content
Goal: Engagement
By relevant, I mean relevant not to you. It must be relevant to your customers. This is lifestyle content that is not about you or your brand. Who is your target demographic? What’s important and interesting to her or him? That’s what you want to post!
Don’t share marketing messages. Share interesting, entertaining, educational, or funny stuff. Here’s the good news: you don’t have to write it. There are millions of articles, blogs, posts, and other content waiting for you to share. Do your potential fans a favor and share something interesting. They will reward you by becoming a fan.
This is the stuff your customers want to read, and even more importantly, want to share with their friends.
4. Post an App that asks for an email address.
Goal: Gets Leads
For many franchisors and franchisees, Likes are nice but emails are gold. It’s the simplest, easiest-to-get lead on the planet. If someone won’t give you their email address, I’ve got bad news: they will never give you their money.
Create a Facebook Tabbed Application with a simple contest, giveaway, survey, or coupon. Make it so that in order to participate, the consumer must a) Like your page and b) enter their email address.
IFA Digital Marketing & Technology Summit Roundtables
One of my favorite parts of each International Franchise Association Convention is participating in the Marketing and Technology Roundtables. Here’s the info for this year’s Summit:
Digital Marketing & Technology Summit
Sunday, February 23
9:00 am – 12:00 noon
The feature presentation, Innovative Lead Generation for Your Entire Franchise System, includes speakers Christine Merritt, Head of Business Development, Google and Lana Khavinson, Group Product Marketing Manager, LinkedIn. Ken Colburn, President/CEO, Data Doctors Franchise Systems, Inc will moderate this discussion.
After the presentation, participants will have the opportunity to share ideas and strategies on a variety of technology-related topics at roundtables led by experts in the field.
Please join me for my Roundtable, Facebook Contests and Coupons. We will discuss promotional offerings on brand and franchisee Facebook pages for contests, coupons, and other tactics for driving customers into your franchisees’ locations.
A Tip for Brands To Not Lose Facebook Fans During the Olympics
Don’t drive away your Facebook fans and community by posting today’s Olympic results on your page.
While only a portion of your fans and followers will truly be unhappy with you for spoiling their evening Olympic viewing, why give anyone a reason to stop following your brand?
Olympic coverage is unique in that it’s sort of news but also sort of a TV drama. It’s different that sharing breaking news or posting the sad news of a famous person’s death. No one would fault you for that because no one is planning to spend his or her evening watching to see how that turns out. And, nearly all other widely viewed sporting events are aired live on TV in the US. It’s okay to comment about and share live football scores but you shouldn’t spoil a Downton Abbey revelation.
While I advise clients to fill their brand’s Facebook page with interesting, fresh information each day, don’t share Olympic results prior the event airing in primetime. It’s a spoiler-filled landmine.
The key is that there is no upside. Are you showing your fans that can read and share nbcolympics.com faster than they can read it? There are plenty of places online, or via apps, texts, and email alerts that fans who want real-time results already know about. We already have one Bob Costas and that’s plenty! In 2012, I recall unliking a few brands (and unfriending a business associate!) that decided to be Johnny-on-the-spot and post every American medal win throughout the day. I never went back to become a fan again!
You have put time and money into growing your community. Don’t lose some fans over something that has no upside or potential to increase engagement.
Don’t Engage Customers on a Global Level
Engaging on a Local Level
You can’t engage customers on a national, global, or brand level. It’s impossible to interact with them from so far up the tower. At best you can publish for them. At worst, you broadcast to them.
Engagement should happen where the transaction happens. Where are you serving that customer?
Put yourself in a customer’s place.
What kind of car do you drive? When you bought it, did you go pick it up at company headquarters in Detroit, Japan, or Germany? Or did you perhaps go to the manufacturing plant in Louisiana, Ohio, or Ontario?
No, you went a dealership in your town or nearby that is licensed to sell that brand’s cars. The transaction happened locally, as do all non-online purchases.
Think of your brand as a great car manufacturer. You can publish exciting promotional content that consumers will see across the world. You can broadcast a message that will create awareness for years to come. But if you want to truly connect with customers – and have them engage with you – do it at the level of the local place. That’s where they will fire up the engine.
Increase Local Share and Customer Engagement
Here’s my early pick as the most interesting panel on the schedule of The 2014 International Franchise Association Convention. This group of franchising and marketing thought leaders will share ideas on local social and other local marketing engagement.
Title: Increase Local Share and Customer Engagement with Less Time and Effort
Date: Monday, February 24, 2013
Time: 10:15 am – 11:45 am
Moderator:
Mary Ann O’Connell, CFE, President, FranWise
Speakers:
Kelly Crompvoets, Marketing Coordinator, Home Franchise Concepts, Inc.
Donnie Robertson, Director of Marketing, Nothing Bundt Franchising, Inc.
Deb Evans, President, Franchise Foundry
- We will explore efficient ways to increase local revenue, save staff time and foster strong and meaningful customer engagement.
- Franchisors and franchisees need local customer contact information to begin two-way engagement and learn operational deficiencies at the local and regional levels.
- Attendees will learn how to use Social Media to create Top Of Mind Awareness, how to effectively use the ad fund to support local branding, automate programs that are easy for franchisees to use and automate the use and distribution of in-store kits.
2014 IFA Tweetup
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Just announced – The IFA Tweetup to kickoff The 2014 International Franchise Association Convention.
Please stop by our 6th Annual IFA Tweetup on Friday. Join us for some informal chats and network with franchise industry leaders.
Date: Friday February 21
Time: 7:30 pm
Place: Spirits Lounge inside Hilton New Orleans Riverside
Social Channels Driving Business for Franchisors
I am excited to share a bit of a preview of one panel at this year’s IFA FranTech. This is the 4th annual event (formerly FranCamp) focusing on Marketing and Technology for Franchises.
I am even more excited to be moderating a panel of Franchisors including Paul Segreto, CEO of Franchise Source Brands International, and Gina Svendsen, Director of Marketing of Scooter’s Coffee.
We will discuss the most successful social media channels that franchisors and franchisees are using to:
- Market their brand to consumers
- Drive traffic to franchisees
- Engage with potential customers
- Acquire leads in these channels
If you’re looking for a conference to hear self-described “experts” drone on and on about how cool they are, then this is not the session for you.
No PowerPoints. No phony stories about how Harvard Business School was holding them back. No sales pitches.
This will be an open discussion with CEOs and CMOs chatting with you about what’s working for them in social media and what’s not.
See you in Denver!
If You Do a Monologue, You’re Screwed!
What is everyone addicted to now? Interaction! Truer words were not spoken in 2013.
A colleague and I were trading some of the best ideas we heard in 2013 and I remembered a great keynote speech from Peter Guber at the 2013 Multi-Unit Franchising show in Las Vegas earlier this year.
Mr. Guber is a Hollywood legend, producing such films as The Color Purple, Rain Man, Batman, and Midnight Express and has conquered the interactive media & multimedia world as well. Oh, and he also owns the LA Dodgers!
But first and foremost, he’s a marketer; a really good marketer who gave us this best advice I heard all year:
“Whatever you’re pitching, if you go in and do a monologue, you’re screwed! People are addicted to interactivity.”
No one wants to see your PowerPoint slides or hear your case studies with charts, graphs, circles, and arrows. Talk to them. Listen to their stories and they just might be interested in yours!
Social Geek Blog 