Why should you run a Facebook Competition..?

 

As we all know very well, everyone loves to win something, and running a Facebook Competition on your Facebook page is a fantastic way to gain more ‘likes’ for your page and ultimately new customers for your business !!!!

 

Here are our Top Tips to ensure your competition’s success.

1. Ensure the prize is industry relevant

You would be surprised how many businesses give away a free iPad/Iphone or Kindle. This is a great prize to win, everyone wants one and this might lead to huge take up rates, however this is not targeting your “target market”.

An Ipad  is a highy attractive prize and entrants friends & colleagues who are perhaps not local to your business may enter.  If you are a local restaurant for example, you could perhaps have contacts on your list that live thousands of miles away and are not likely to ever pay you a visit.

Give away a lunch or dinner for 2 as your prize. This might attract less people (i.e. only the entrants who are close enough to redeem the prize), but at least this is your target market. Also people who enter your competition will be more likely to visit your restaurant in future, especially if you send them a special offer via email and/or SMS Text once the competition has closed – assuming you have collected their information and got them to opt-in.

2. If you can, think up remarketing strategies you could use as a follow-up

 In our restaurant example, you could tag some photos of your winners when they redeem their prize & post to your Facebook page and inside your establishment for their friends & family to see, and also to generate more publicity. Remember to get your winner’s testimonial and use it.

3. Publicity – let people know about your contest, via multiple channels

You could run both an Online & Offline Press Release with a feature within the local press or you could link your website to your Facebook competition. Anything that assists directing your offline or online traffic to your competition will assist with this. Also don’t forget to  use your wider social network if you have one (highly recommended) i.e. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook Groups etc…

4.    Use Facebook ads

Direct traffic to your competition with Facebook ads – again ensuring correct targeting. You can also use a promoted post from as little as £10 or less (depending on the fan size of your page) to promote a post and ensure all your fans see it. This can be enough to kick-start your competition during the initial stages and by making your competition viral and requiring entrants to share with friends you can ensure maximum exposure.

5.    Give your competition an expiry date

Create a level of urgency and expectation, and ensure you pick a winner at the end of the competition. Tell them how and when the winner will be chosen and how they will be notified.

6. The Money is in the list

This is where a lot of companies make a big mistake in their Facebook contests by asking entrants to like and share on their page [not to mention it is actually breaking Facebook rules].

Ensure you collect entrants e-mail address & mobile number when they enter the competition. You will need this to contact the winner(s), as it is also against Facebook rules to notify the winner directly on your Facebook wall.

More importantly, with a list you can begin further marketing initiatives after your contest is over and continue the dialogue with your contestants - re-marketing to regular & prospective clients by e.g. SMS Text Marketing or Email Marketing campaigns.

7. Inform previous contestants about your latest contest

When you create your next competition, send an email mailshot to your previous contest list and also send an SMS text which offers high immediate open rates  of 97%  plus.

8. Run regular competitions

Running one-off Facebook competitions can make you go viral fast, however to keep your fans engaged & for lasting impact you should run regular competitions - perhaps one per month or every two months. This is a proven strategy for turning Facebook users into customers.

9. Adhere to Facebook rules

Facebook’s promotional guidelines. These include ensuring your Facebook competition is run via an app/tab on your Facebook page. Entrants to your competition must not be conditioned to have to “like” a Wall post, Comment or enter by uploading a photo to a Wall. Running regular competitions is a fab way to gain more ‘likes’ for your Facebook page. It also helps to re-market to your new fans via your Facebook page. The 3 E’s of Social Media Marketing “Educate, Entertain & Engage”. This helps to increase fan engagement, increase brand awareness, promote your business, generate leads, collect email addresses and mobile numbers but most importantly … gain YOU more customers!

We hope this information has been useful and if you think a Facebook competition might be right for your business but maybe aren't sure where to start, why not get in touch and we will help you to decide the best type of competition and give you some advice on what to do next.

Please contact Corrie-Dee Whaite on Tel 01294 559480 or Mob 07411 170758.

Which is better for Google juice and SEO Facebook V Twitter?

Last Thursdays Q & A Session on Facebook ended up creating quite a debate.

 

The question was this - "Which is better for Google juice and SEO Facebook V Twitter?"

 

It became such a hot topic we ran it over 2 weeks, but we thought we'd convert it into an Interactive Presentation/eBrochure for you and tab it into a Facebook App to allow it to be there forever as a point of reference for our fans as a Facebook post only has a shelf life of 2-3 hours and there was a lot of fantastic information.

 

Did you know...? YOU could also have a nifty tab presentation/Ebrochure the same as this, which can also include video & SEO links to landing pages on your website etc...

 

You can read the full Facebook V Twitter document by clicking the following link. Which Is Better for Google juice and SEO Facebook V Twitter

 

Who would like one of these Interactive Ebrochures to promote your business ? If you would like to book any of our services from SEO, Interactive Ebrochure or even a Multi-Tab App as per the Camden Group Facebook Multi-Tab App contact Corrie-Dee Whaite on 01294 559480 or Mob 07411 170758.

 

 

Is your Facebook Competition Legal?

Is your Facebook Competition Compliant?

 Did you know that any competition run through your Facebook wall or timeline is ILLEGAL and might get your page shut down for not being compliant - meaning you need to start from scratch again building a new fan base.

 

Facebook competition rules clearly state: "The only way you can create this type of functionality is by using a third party application.”

 e.g. A Facebook developer can create a separate Facebook app and add it to your page.

 

“Your application must be registered with Facebook and include a disclosure adjacent to any promotion entry field: 'This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administrated by, or associated with, Facebook.”

 

Does your Facebook competition comply..?

 

  If not, the only solution is to create a Facebook Competition Application which is registered with Facebook as detailed above, or get someone to do it for you.

 Here at CDM, we ensure that all our clients are in full compliance with Facebook guidelines, and our view is simple - rules are rules, and must be followed.

 We can build a custom Facebook competition app which ensures you keep within the rules and have maximum impact in your social marketing.

 Our competitions are “custom 3rd party apps”, registered as such with Facebook, and we ensure we have a link on each page to terms & conditions – something else which few companies seem to do, without these you could be breaking Advertising Standards.

 

 You might ask, why are all these other companies ignoring the rules and getting away with it, or my competitor does that so why shouldn’t I..?

 

 Facebook has shut down pages without any notice, so is it really worth the risk…?

 

 We researched this further with other Social Media & Ad Agencies and received the following replies;

 “We understand it is frustrating when we/you see other companies or individuals flaunt Facebook guidelines unchecked. There has been a huge increase in the "like and share this page to win a prize" and "when we reach 5,000 likes - everyone goes into a draw" style of promotion which is completely against Facebook promotion rules.”

“I can confirm though that we have been approached by 5 businesses recently who have run promotions contravening Facebook rules and have been shut down, page removed without recourse. They have come to us in a panic looking for help and are surprised when we tell them that there is nothing that we can do except write an appeal letter / email to Facebook to apologise and plead for their page back (This sometimes works but it's becoming more rare that Facebook even respond).”

“Without naming individual companies - I can confirm that a large retailer in Blanchardstown with 9k+ fans had their page pulled, a bicycle shop in Naas, and numerous restaurants & pubs in various County Dublin locations all got the following from Facebook and had their pages removed/shut down.”

"Facebook’s security systems determined that you were repeatedly using the same feature or engaging in the same behaviors in a short period of time. Because you continued this behavior after receiving multiple warnings, your account was disabled. Facebook cannot provide any specifics on the rate limits that are enforced.”

Despite emailing Facebook daily none of them have received a response.
We've spoken to a few business owners/managers in Ireland this year that have had their pages pulled for flaunting Facebook's competition guidelines.

 There didn't seem to be any recourse and the pages are still down after several months. One of the companies, well known but who shall remain nameless, had around 15,000 fans one day and the next, their page was gone. They were getting people to 'like' and 'share' their competition wall posts in obvious contravention of Facebook's guidelines. Fair enough.

 There are a few other examples including a well-known Dublin Radio Station which had their page pulled for repeatedly flaunting the guidelines.

 So, there you have it, real world examples of what can happen if you continue to ignore or flaunt the Facebook competition rules.

 

 

The bottom line is clear for all

 

 Don’t ignore it simply because your competitors all do, be the first to do it properly and be assured you will not incur the wrath of Facebook and wake up one day minus your hard earned fan base.

 

 

 

You need to do this, or we can do it for you!

 

 Call us today, to arrange a consultation and ensure your next Facebook competition is legal. Contact Corrie-Dee Whaite on Tel 01294 559480 or Mob 07411 170758.

 

Facebook Announces Changes To News Feed from Menlo Park, California HQ

Facebook announced news feed changes on Thursday 8th March 2013, here's a breakdown of some our favourite soundbites from what is happening at Facebook.

Zuckerberg said the Facebook news feed aimed to create a "personalised newspaper" for the site. 

Facebook reported in January that 1.06 billion people were using its service at least once a month.

It also revealed that its profit for the last three months of 2012 was 79% down on the same period the previous year despite a rise in sales because of increased spending on research and development.

The new design brings a more visual look to Facebook, reflecting the fact that photographs now account for 50% of all content on news feed, up from 25% since November 2011.

"The design of your news feed needs to reflect this evolving face of who you're sharing with," Zuckerberg said.

Experts said the overhaul is the most significant in years for Facebook, which has been under pressure to increase revenue growth while keeping users on side since Zuckerberg made the company public on 17 May last year.

Facebook only began showing ads in users' news feeds in 2012, but it quickly proved a vitally important part of the business.

"The news feed advertising is where Facebook is having the success, both on mobile and on the desktop," said Ian Maude, an internet analyst at Enders Analysis.

"The trick is going to be managing the volume of ads people see in the news feed and getting the balance right between maximising revenue but also keeping users happy." 

The Guardian says "Maude said the reception from users to the changes would depend on how many ads appear in their news feed.

"It's not surprising that Facebook is doing a refresh as ads are now an integral part of news feed whether users like it or not," he said.

"But I think Facebook are quite sensitive to overloading people with too many ads. The site has been overdue a shave and a haircut."

The changes will allow marketers to develop more striking ads that will sit alongside videos, photographs and other updates in users' news feeds. Marketers believe the news feed is the most affective way to reach potential customers, attracting a higher click-through rate than sponsored ads on the right-hand side of the site.

According to research firm eMarketer, Facebook earned more US mobile display revenue than any other publisher last year, with an 18.4% share of the entire market, thanks to ads in the news feed. The move helped overall ad revenues rise 36% year-on-year to $4.27bn in 2012, according to the company's most recent full-year results. Says The Guardian.

In addition to the standard news feed, users can select their own unique "alternative" news feed layouts. These include one which shows all updates posted by friends as the ones selected by Facebook's algorithms; One dedicated to organisations & people the user "follows"; A page featuring only posted photos; A music-themed feed containing updates from artists the user likes, concert announcements & details of songs their friends are listening to through Music Apps e.g. Spotify.

The "facebook" logo has been replaced with the iconic "f".  A change already seen by selected group of users given early access to the Graph Search facility.

The social network already knows that engagement with ads in its main news feed is greater than with those that appear on the right-hand side of its web browser. This column of adverts is absent from its mobile apps altogether.

Enlarging the news feed now allows a sponsored post to become by far the biggest element on the screen, taking up roughly a third of the page when viewed on a 13in (33cm) laptop display.

Another business-friendly change is that if a user "likes" an organisation a horizontal banner photo is added to posts reporting the news in addition to the brand's logo, making the update more eye-catching.

The refresh also introduces topic-specific alternatives to its news feed. Adverts will now take up more screen space, making them harder to ignore.

Chris Struhar told the BBC the ahead of the official announcement the "focus had been on stripping back the amount of information being shown on the news feed to make each post more "engaging".

Continue reading the main storyan integral part of news feed whether users like it or not," he said.

"But I think Facebook are quite sensitive to overloading people with too many ads. The site has been overdue a shave and a haircut."

The refresh also introduces topic-specific alternatives to its news feed. Adverts will now take up more screen space, making them harder to ignore.

Chris Struhar told the BBC the ahead of the official announcement the "focus had been on stripping back the amount of information being shown on the news feed to make each post more "engaging".

"We aren't changing where adverts show up or what ads you see. We're just trying to take all the content that you do see and make that bigger and more immersive and more engaging."

He added that further amendments might be made once users had had a chance to provide feedback.

I think the design, which is a lot less cluttered, actually cleans up the whole thing quite a lot," he told the BBC.

"It's really a case of making sure you have high quality advertising content. Facebook will have to make that work because they have to make money. I suspect in the weeks to come they will unveil additional flexibility for advertisers.Hopefully that will bring a lot of new opportunities." Reports the BBC Technology Reporter Leo Kelion.

The changes will allow marketers to develop more striking ads that will sit alongside videos, photographs and other updates in users' news feeds. Marketers believe the news feed is the most affective way to reach potential customers, attracting a higher click-through rate than sponsored ads on the right-hand side of the site.

According to research firm eMarketer, Facebook earned more US mobile display revenue than any other publisher last year, with an 18.4% share of the entire market, thanks to ads in the news feed. The move helped overall ad revenues rise 36% year-on-year to $4.27bn in 2012, according to the company's most recent full-year results. Says The Guardian.

Facebook said the revamp means the social network now looks the same on smartphones, tablet computers and on the web.

The new design gradually be rolled out and made available to everyone, however users can sign up to a waiting list for early access here

We think it will be interesting to see how the alternative news feeds will affect marketers and businesses. What happens when users adopt there own "alternative news feeds" once its been rolled out? We'll split test a number of pages using various  news feed themes and ad campaigns and report our findings on these.

If you would like to discuss this further please contact Corrie-Dee Whaite on Tel 01294 559480 or Mob 07411 170758.

Facebook Launches Beta Version of Graph Search

Exciting times ahead for marketers & page owners as Facebook launches the new Beta version of Graph Search.

Until now, the search bar you saw when you logged in to your Facebook page wasn't very powerful. You could only search for Timelines, your friends' pages, other peoples' public pages and business or product pages.
But now, after close to a year and a half of development, the new "Graph Search" will allow you to search and discover more about your friends and other information that's been put on the world's largest social site. Users will now be allowed to navigate the Internet through the data Facebook owns. For example, users will be able to search across different friends' Timelines without having to visit each individual profile to figure out if they like a specific place.

 

Find people who share your interests.

 

Want to start a book club or find a gym buddy? Connect with friends who like the same activities—and meet new people, too.

 

Now you can find more of what you're looking for through your friends, discover fun connections between people, places and things.

Graph Search is rolling out slowly. Users can sign up for the wait list here: Facebook Graph Search Beta Sign Up.

We've already signed up to the Beta version & using it now & we've got to say, we think it is fab! We only got it yesterday, we're still playing around with it, but didn't want to blog about it until we had tried & tested it! We've been mentioning this a lot recently on our Corrie D Marketing Facebook Page. Hence the blog article with further information on it (for anyone who's interested in more information on the topic).

Facebook wants each journey on the web to begin and end on its site. Its first significant move into search is designed to provide all the answers to users' questions: Which of my friends like Rihanna? How many of my friends speak German? Which TV shows are my colleagues watching?

Graph Search is designed for the the social web, where internet users spend more time on Facebook than they do searching the outside web.
How does it work? Users can search their friends, based on the information they have given Facebook permission to publish. For example, users will be able to quickly find "photos of my friends taken in Paris, France" or "Restaurants liked by friends in London".

Zuckerberg described Graph Search, in typical start-up fashion, as the "beta of version one". But he also described it as the "third pillar" of Facebook, after the news feed and timeline. He later said Graph Search could be a business in its own right – a remark that will prompt anxiety among Google executives.

Nate Elliot, a social-media analyst at Forrester Research, said the graph search announcement was part of Facebook's ambition to keep users coming back to its site.

"Facebook's worst nightmare is a static social graph," he said. "If users aren't adding very many new friends or connections, then their personal network becomes less and less active over time. Terrifyingly for Facebook, that threat is very real. We haven't seen significant growth in the average number of friends per user recently.

"Graph Search seems designed to encourage users to add more friends more quickly. If it means users' personal networks change more frequently, and become more active, then that keeps them coming back to the site – which is vital to Facebook's success. If Facebook and Bing can bring elements of Graph Search to Facebook's web search tool, then that's great. But it's not the point; the point is to keep Facebook users more active within the site."

Graph Search, which essentially helps to surface photographs or other data which before may have been buried. It does not make public any information that was not previously public, so users need not rush to change their privacy settings. But some users may be surprised to be presented with photos that they did not know they had been tagged in.

Getting graph search right first time is hugely important: search makes up the largest portion of digital advertising spending in the US, up from $15.1bn in 2011 to $17.58bn in 2012. And which company commands 74.5% of that $17.58bn ad spend? Google. 
 
Should dating sites be worried about Facebooks Graph Search?
 
Forbes magazine says "Facebooks Graph Search will find you the perfect date". Although Facebook was never set out to be a dating site, the new graph search makes it the most powerful way of locating singles within your area who e.g. "Like" Radiohead. 

Are you ready to sign up for the Beta version yet? You can sign up here. http://www.facebook.com/about/graphsearch We wish you "Good Luck" on those dates, let us know how you get on ;)?

Let us know what you think if you've also got Graph Search? What do you think this means to marketers? How will this affect businesses?

 

Our Top 5 Christmas Advertising & Marketing Tips.

 

1. Facebook turns traditional Christmas advertising rules on its head.  Usually at Christmas, most businesses (unless a retailer with Boxing Day or New Years Day sales to promote, a bar or club, travel agent or have a business within the Travel/Leisure industry). Most types of businesses i.e. Motors, Property, Business, Recruitment etc. Opt out of advertising over the Festive period. Mainly due to most people being off on annual leave or visiting family members and being away during the festive break. 

However, Facebook advertising turns the normal rules of advertising at Christmas on it's head. Mainly due to the fact that when people are off work at Christmas - what do you think they are doing? Correct!  They are being active on Facebook.  We trialled this during Christmas last year and found our Facebook page to receive double if not triple the number of Facebook "likes" we would normally receive within a day. This obviously had a dip on the morning of the 1st of January and again when the country returned to work after the new year break.

If you are in the hotel or leisure industry with Festive Events/Festive Menus to promote - We have a fantastic way to promote these on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/corriedmarketing/app_379922265412301

2.  Think about your Christmas & New Year advertising well in advance as you don't want to cancel or have cancellation fee's for leaving it too late if you don't want to advertise over Christmas. If however, you are looking to advertise over Christmas, most businesses start organising these campaigns after the summer. Make sure you book your ads early to guarantee a position well in advance, especially within local and national press as the newspapers drop in pagination - if you leave it too late to book they might not have space available to accommodate your needs.

3.    Identify your target market and place yourself in their shoes. What will they be doing at Christmas? Target your advertising and marketing campaigns and budgets accordingly.

4.  Use themes i.e. Christmas or New Years Day across your Social Media Network, Marketing &  Advertising campaigns. Be seen as a fun place to be and work.

5.  Send a Christmas Card or even better, a Corporate Gift - as a token of your appreciation i.e. bottle of wine or box of chocolates to clients. (Even if these are to a small minority of your clients). E.g. Top 10 Spending Clients. Let them know that you value and appreciate their business.

What are your top tips for Christmas?

FacebookTimeline Apps/Tabs how to use them to maximise ROI

Facebook Timeline Tips & Tricks from Corrie D Marketing

How to use the tabs/apps on Timeline to promote and showcase your portfolio of products and services! 

We absolutely adore the new changes to Timeline Facebook which came into effect for every business page owner on 30th March 2012.

Facebook now gives you a fantastic opportunity to create customised tabs/apps (running directly along the top of your page under your cover image).

If you think of these tabs/apps as prime advertising positions running along the top of your page (premium position) you have two standard tabs "photos & likes." Each page receives these two tabs on the Facebook Timeline layout.

We trust you will see you have 4 tabs running along the top and a further 8 tabs running below, when you click the arrow total = 12 tabs. You can look at our example Facebook Apps/Tabs you will see our 12 visible tabs however we have 24 tabs in total the remaining 12 are invisible to visitors unless we move them into the top 12.

You can move these tabs.  If you don't know how to move your tabs around, you need to click on the drop down arrow to the right to expand your tabs and then right click on the top right hand corner of the tab - a pencil icon should come up on the top right hand corner, click it and a drop down menu of your other tabs/apps should be showing. Click the name of the tab from the drop down menu you want to swap with. Taaa-Daaaa! You should now have successfully switched your tabs around!

Tabs/apps can be used to as a portfolio of your services. The first tab on every page is the "photos" tab (you cannot switch this tab postition) but you can move your "likes". Our first two tabs are points of reference for our target audience (page owners/page admins) as we want to ensure that our target market to use our page is a useful reference point to keep coming back and paying return visits. WE create customised tabs/apps for companies (please click on the highlighted links) to view our own Facebook page as an example  Facebook Timeline Guide and a Facebook Marketing Live Stream

Example - we carry out 360 Degree Panoramic Virtual Tours ideally suited to the Travel, Tourism and Leisure Industry. We then embed these into customised tabs/apps we create for our clients Facebook and we also embed these into your website.

Customised tabs allow you to showcase your portfolio of services, we call this your marketing collateral, which we create for our clients. We have used our own page to showcase these, as an example of how you can market your company/brand online.

Marketing Collateral 

360 Degree Panoramic Virtual Tours - perfectly suited to the Travel, Tourism and Leisure industries eg. Marinas, Hotels, Property Developers and Holiday Park Owners. We can then embed the VT's within your website & within a customised Facebook App/Tab within your Facebook page. Virtual Tours offer a truly world wide platform once embedded within your Facebook and website. We can even insert speaker icons to make it a virtual guided tour (which is effectively open 24/7.  You can see an example in our Marina VT (Portavadie Marina Virtual Tour)

3D Gallery walls is another of our services we carried out for a number of our clients i.e. Magna Carte Barge and Portavadie Apartments. By using the slider along the bottom you can move the 3D Gallery wall to click on images you want to highlight. We trust you will see the image opens into a larger image on it's own and can then be made full screen size. An ideal way to show 250 images which saves users having to scroll through endless photos'/images which can become tedious and boring.

e-Brochures are a perfect way to get your offline brochure online. You may already have e-Brochures embedded within your website as a Downloadable PDF however we do not recommend this as the more steps/actions you ask visitors to take to your website, the less likely they are to carry it out - due to the distractive nature of internet browsing (incoming emails/Facebook etc).  Therefore it's much easier for visitors to view your brochure online as a 3D interactive page flip e-brochure as opposed to a downloadable PDF. We can even embed your YouTube videos into these. If you see click the link to our Jeuneusse Example https://www.facebook.com/corriedmarketing/app_194234897346125

We also recommend you post to your page with industry relevant content and post often, using the 80/20 rule. 80% sharing content, 20% selling your own product/service. Facebook advise posting approximately 3-4 times per week. You can analyse using your Facebook Insights the best times to post by trying various times to post as we believe the best times to post will be different based on the type of business ie B2B or B2C.

Facebook recommends the best times to post are at weekends when engagement with Facebook is high as Mon-Fri most people are in work however if you're a B2B and targeting owners this might not necessarily be the same result.

You can be as creative as you want to be with the apps/tabs we custom design.  If you have an idea of a customised tab/app for your business let us know what it is and we will create one for you as we can do almost ANYTHING on Facebook Apps within your new Facebook Timeline Fan Page and we mean literally anything !!!  From single promotion apps to a fully fledged website or store (YES you heard that right -  a full website !!! ) or any part thereof, and like gate, invite gate, share gate it, and make your promotion, contest, new product launch, new service or whatever you are marketing or promoting, GO VIRAL and sell on Facebook.

If you would like to book any of our services please call Corrie-Dee Whaite, Corrie D Marketing on Tel 01294 559480 or Mob 07411 170758.