In social networking, it doesn’t get hotter than Facebook right now. The site boasts more than twice the number of visits than any other social network, and Facebook’s growth continues to outpace that of Twitter, MySpace, and LinkedIn by huge margins.
With all this growth and popularity, there’s no better time to step up your game and take your Facebook campaigns to the next level.
Here are 3 quick and easy tips to improve your Facebook marketing:
1. Post Content on the Weekend
According to DanZarrella.com, content posted on the weekend is shared more often than content posted during the week. By saving a portion of your content for Saturday and Sunday, you’ll increase the number of likes, comments, and views.
2. Develop Facebook-specific Offers
In a recent Performics survey, Facebook users polled said they are most interested in receiving printable coupons (32%) and sale or deal notifications (28%) from companies. Instead of posting recipes or games, try an exclusive coupon or discount. Your fans will love you for it.
3. Think Mobile
Mobile usage continues to soar, and according to Facebook, people who access the site via their mobile device are almost 50% more active than non-mobile users. So keep mobile users in mind when updating your page and mobile-optimize content when you can. They’ll appreciate the good user experience. You’ll improve your response rate. It’s a win-win.
Looking for more concrete ways to improve your Facebook results? Download our latest Pro report, “Research Spotlight: Facebook” and get access to more than 33 charts from 17 sources and learn:
1. Who is using Facebook?
2. What are Facebook members doing?
3. How are businesses using Facebook
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Tags: Social Media
Good tips that most companies don’t think about Megan. Unfortunately, a lot of companies tend to miss your last point quite often… They’ll link to a webpage in their status updates that is not optimized to be read on a mobile device. A user clicks through, can’t figure out what’s going on from their phone, and then forgets about the post never to return. It would be interesting to see a results comparison of engagement with a mobile optimized page vs. non-mobile linked to from a Facebook status update.
I agree with Zack. I live in a rural area that does not have high speed internet. 98% of the time I am online on my blackberry and I can’t tell you how many sites(too many to count) I leave because it is not mobile device friendly; Either that it is to hard to read or that you have to have flash installed to view their content.
Good article! I use Hootsuite to schedule my Tweets, Facebook comments, etc in advance. Also agree with the previous post made by Zack Pike. I use Facebook on my iPhone and share a similar lack of follow-through because of readability.
@Zack: Thanks! When you’re managing social media campaigns from your regular browser, it can be easy to forget about the smaller (mobile) guys. Hopefully we’ll see a wider adoption of mobile-optimized sites over the next year.
@Karen: Hootsuite is great. I’m partial to SocialOomph for scheduling Tweets in advance.
I think I read recently that there are more hits on Facebook than on Google now, so yes, definately going to be an important part of marketing in the future. Thanks for these tips
Megan,
Great information. As the marketing director for Allied Mortgage Group I really didn’t realize the weekends were the best times to market to those on Facebook. Thanks for the wakeup call. As for mobile marketing I developed an app for the iPhone and Android. I realize those that use the smartphones are the ones going to use our web site for information and to apply online. The only bad thing is I cannot convince the branch manager that the best way to market ourselves is through mobile marketing. He is not tech savy as I want to be ahead of the pack.
@Steve: Kudos on the mobile apps. Sounds impressive! There are a lot of mobile marketing resources from MarketingProfs that may help you build the case for mobile marketing. http://www.marketingprofs.com/topic/all/mobile-marketing/ Let me know how it goes!
Excellent post Megan. Companies definitely overlook posting on the weekend but it seems like common sense!
Good to know about weekend posting, Megan. Thanks.
Megan – what EXACTLY do you mean by optimizing your Facebook marketing for mobile? What can you do on your Facebook page that makes it more mobile-friendly? I understand developing your own web site to be mobile-friendly, but what can a business owner or marketer do with the tools Facebook gives them on their Fan Page to be mobile-friendly? Many times, when people access Facebook through mobile devices, they’re reliant on either a Facebook app or they go directly to Facebook on their internet browser. Are marketers not limited by what these apps and browsers will portray, thus limiting marketers with what they can do?
Thanks for the question, Jay!
While you are very limited in the control you have over the structure of the Facebook page, what you do have control over is the content you post and link to. For instance, if you have an offer on widgets, and you link to a page on your website about the widget offer, try to create a mobile-optimized version of the page. If a fan is accessing the page via their mobile device, you can be pretty sure they’re using a mobile App or mobile version of the site. You should continue that good user experience and send any traffic from the Facebook page to a mobile-optimized page, as well.
Good tip. Thanks Megan for some more ‘practical’ input. Lots to get the cortex around in this new 2.0 web marketing world. Anything simple that works in real life and is easy to implement is great. (I learned a lot from the Social Media Success Summit and they are hosting a free workshop next week about 9 companies doing Facebook the right way.) You and your tribe might want to check it out.
Cheers,
Steve
Great basic thinking! It’s just amazing to see the growth of FB and it will be the leader of up and coming ways for SM.
For our industry (tourism) it’s also a marvellous tool to stay in contact with past customers.
I have found that creating groups in Facebook is the easiest way to draw people to your content. Most people ignore this Facebook feature. Just follow these steps:
In the search bar at the top of the screen type groups
Select Groups from the drop down box that shows up on the screen
Click on the button named Create a Group, at the top of the screen
Hope that helps?
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