New research shows potential for Facebook commerce?
Value/Importance: [rating=3]
Recommended link: Ecwid/TNS Research
You will have noticed that in 2011 there was a lot of hype about Facebook commerce with many companies announcing the launch of F-commerce stores.
By 2012 we had moved from the peak of inflated expectations to the trough of disillusionment in the technology hype cycle.
This disillusionment or “F*****d commerce” as Marketing Pilgrim put it, was shown with major US retailers like Gamestop, JC Penney, Nordstrom and The Gap all shutting their Facebook stores.
Does this mean the end for F-commerce? Not necessarily. This new research suggests that F-commerce maybe moving along the slope of enlightenment. The research from TNS, predicts that:
"6.1% of online purchases over the next 3 years will be made via Facebook. Although only 4% of GB consumers have purchased goods from Facebook, the research showed that 40% would be happy to buy goods from Facebook if it…
Bulmers: Facebook fans are worth £3.82 more than non-fans
"What is the value of a Like?" is understandably still a common question. There's some interesting coverage regarding Facebook Fan value at the moment, the 'ROI of social media' is always a hot topic, after all.
Research conducted by TNS and We Are Social, working with Bulmer's Cider, found that brand preference was higher in Facebook fans than the control group - and that fans were more likely to pay more and recommend Bulmers to others. Sounds fairly obvious so far, yet Bulmer's wanted to know the actual ROI, something tangible, which is what makes it interesting. This is an outline of the methodology which aimed to look at the value generated by fans of the brand.
The research, unveiled at…
How does your Facebook engagement compare and how can you improve it?
For Facebook company pages, Tabs or Views have always been one of the most important ways to engage an audience more deeply. This can be through a Gated Like page (example); competitions encouraging Email or loyalty club opt-in (example) or games to name but three.
New data from Facebook analytics company Pagelever has shown the impact of the time line since it was introduced on 30th March this year. It also gives a useful benchmark for the level of engagement you should be getting:
The analysis is based on data across 500+ pages that had over 10,000+ fans.
The key insights from this report are:
Average tab views per visit are relatively low (now 0.06/6%). This gives a benchmark to compare with and a conversion rate within Facebook marketing to work…
Scribblers shows how content marketing can be integrated into the Facebook timeline and website to help generate sales
I think case studies are a great way to learn; to discover techniques to improve marketing. In this example, we look at how online retailer Scribblers blends Facebook, email and web as one part of effective use of social media marketing.
About the case study company
Scribblers is a successful online retailer supplying calligraphers throughout the world with stock and advice ‘to meet all their calligraphy needs’. You can read a more detailed version of this case study also.
Scribblers uses an integrated mix of digital communication channels to reach and engage its niche target market. A combination of Facebook advertising and social marketing, occasional specialist magazine articles and shows, and a continuous presence in search using Google Adwords and SEO, is effective in driving new visitors to its website hub and Facebook…
An introduction to increasing visibility in Google for your Facebook page
Value/Importance: [rating=4]
Recommended link: Free Distilled SEO for Facebook Guide
Our summary of the Distilled advice on Facebook page SEO
We thought we’d flag this new guide on Facebook from Distilled since it gives some good free, basic advice on how to increase the visibility of your Facebook page in Google. It’s NOT a guide for SEOs, rather it’s an introduction for business owners.
You can download a short PDF at the link above which summarises this video:
…
Why are brands killing the Facebook conversation?
June 2012 update - a new service for benchmarking Facebook customer service:
On June 20th at LeWeb, Socialbakers introduced a new service, Socially Devoted, which gives an idea of what are good and bad levels of customer service within Facebook.
Here is the worst from the retail category which shows there is still plenty of room for improvement:
The most responsive show how it can be done:
I originally read this post by Jan Rezab, CEO of Socialbakers, in October 2011 about the lack of interaction of brands have on their own Fan pages. Apparently only 5% of wall questions from consumers on brand pages ever receive follow-up interactions from the brand - shocking really! It's really shooting yourself in the social foot…
Have you considered Facebook Promoted Posts? Examples of results from tests.
Another new feature that Facebook is offering (and yet more evidence of its post IPO drive to monetise) is Promoted Posts.
As I reported here recently, most fans are only seeing 17% of a brand's posts. This data has always been available in the Insights dashboard, but Facebook are now choosing to bring it to brand page admin's attention far more by displaying the percentage to date under each post.
Brand page managers have been less than delighted to discover that they are now having to pay for the privilege of their earned fans seeing their updates. But, even with the best optimised posts on the platform, you will be limited in getting your message out there. Enter Promoted Posts.
It's pretty simple to promote a post. Create your new post and either at that point (or up to three days later) selecte "Promote". Depending…
How to use the new Facebook scheduling feature for weekend engagement
Despite Facebook engagement rates in multiple sectors rocketing at the weekends, on Sunday in particular, reports from organisations such as Buddy Media show that very few brands are in fact posting content at the weekend. Those brands that do post outside of normal business hours enjoy 20% higher engagement rates.
One of the reasons for this tardiness is likely to have been the lack of ability, until recently, to schedule updates on Facebook without using a third party tool such as Tweetdeck or Hootsuite.
Furthermore, using these may not be a great idea. The Facebook Edgerank algorithm appears to favour posts inserted directly into its platform rather than those scheduled via Hootsuite. Eloqua claim that there is 61% less visibility when a third party tool is used rather than manual…
Improving EdgeRank factors for a Facebook company page updates
Last week we looked at how Facebook's EdgeRank alogrithm works for marketing. This week we look more specifically at how to improve a page's Edgerank. So, let's get straight into it... I'll review the three factors of Facebook update affinity, weight and decay that I introduced previously.
Improving Affinity
As I explained in my previous post, affinity refers to how interested a friend is in a brand’s page or how much of an online friend you are. Facebook gathers this data based on the clicks you have made in the past to that page /friend’s feed plus the number of likes, shares and comments you have made.
Affinity can drop off relatively quickly so the challenge is to continually be building affinity with your fans. Think about posts more like a dripping tap than a single big splash.
"If you haven’t had the dripping tap…
An explanation of why Edgerank matters to Facebook marketing - Part 1
So you’ve got a great piece of content all ready to go on your Facebook page. You post and wait expecting the likes and shares to come rushing in. You’ve got several thousand fans but you appear to have generated online tumbleweed moment. Why?
Well, research from allfacebook.com and Edgerank Checker shows that, on average, 83% of your fans may not even be seeing your posts. Facebook suggest as few as 16% of fans are actually reached. That might explain the tumbleweed feel you can get on Facebook.
Data from Pagelever at Inside Facebook suggests the situation is even worse, and the larger the number of fans, the less likelihood of the post being seen.
Whatever the actually figure, getting your…
