Posted by matt | Posted in Best Practices | Posted on 23-03-2010
Tags: activity stream, facebook, fans, funnel, marketing, networking, permission marketing, roland smart, social, social graph data, sprout
A few months back, I was going to attend a seminar called “Building Brands on Social Networks” … but I got a cold and couldn’t make it. Sad trombone.
Fortunately, a lot of the conference is up on SlideShare, and I’ve been working my way through the various presentations, chomping on the useful bits. For example! The presentation that Roland Smart at Sprout, which helps big brands like Disney to approach consumers on social media networks.
I’ve embedded the presentation at the end of the post, but here’s all of what I thought were the Interesting Bits in case you don’t want to watch the whole thing:
3:30 – We’re seeing a shift from growth to engagement: user growth is slowing down; twitter users now spending more time developing their profiles. “Early adopters are maturing … they have greater expectations. … It is now possible to meet those expectations” due to data portability with APIs.
5:00 – Marketers are prioritizing Facebook applications
5:15 – FB apps are most effective tool for driving engagement, but underutilized. “This is a big opportunity.”
6:50 – Integrated approach is crucial: Fan pages to engagement apps to display ads.
6:15 – The Integrated Engagement Machine ™ is as follows: Brands + Sprout = Strategy & Creative. The Strategy & Creative is turned into display ads that attract users (hopefully virally, which extends the ad buy), then funnel them to fan pages to identify product, then to apps that engage people with little value-ads, which then generates more attraction through peoples’ networks. Meanwhile it’s all measured and analyzed.
8:05 – Fan pages are “relationship management hubs.” “It’s where you deliver value.” Examples of value: coupons/deals, twitter feeds, contests, video feeds.
8:50 – Fan page best-practices: always make the fan page the default tab, rather than the wall. Incorporate social hooks like twitter & video. Make it consistent with larger strategy. Deliver on clear value proposition.
9:45 – Greater interaction leads to greater in-stream presence. Facebook rewards brands that engage well: you’ll be prioritized in feeds.
10:40 – Best practices: Always include links to your apps. Highlight user-generated content. Have a regular schedule. Don’t oversaturate the stream.
15:10 – Intel gave users a reason to get their friends to join — lower prices as more members join.
16:10 – Dos: start with value, “why are your fans going to be interested?” … include content strategy and user experience up front … make your app viral-ready with social hooks like sharing … aim for the activity stream, since it offers a rate of interaction which exceeds any other opportunity.
17:50 – Don’ts: Contests with network actions, since FB will shut it down … too much moderation … too much complexity (short experiences are OK) … avoid arduous pre-roll and barriers to entry
20:20 – Use metrics!
20:40 – Things to track: unique visitors, visits, page views; time in campaign; actions; posts to wall; shares from stream; total # of referrals to external pages
21:40 – Create engagement funnels
22:00 – Predictions for 2010: Branded content will be more integrated with user-gen content in activity stream. Social networks will create new rules to reward value. There will be innovation with social targeting integrated with social graph data. Increased connectivity with social graph data — porting social data to other apps and sites.
