Using Facebook as part of the Company’s Marketing Strategy

Facebook has become the most popular Social Media around the world and the one with the highest levels of engagement from all of the others. Smith and Maeve (2013) indicate that “63% of Facebook users visit the site at least once a day”, but what it really matters to them when logging in in Facebook is what companies need to keep the eye on if they want to reach these people.

Nowadays, not only the younger ones are using this platform, but people from all ages, from all parts of the world, from both genders and also from different social levels use Facebook as their communication tool to the world (Smith, 2013)  and is in this particular element, “communication”,  where companies need to focus when building their marketing strategy because regardless of its size, of its type, of its career in the market, Facebook is a must have within the marketing strategy for all companies (Angelova, 2013), and as mentioned by Randy Duermyer (2013) “Facebook advertising delivers your ads to the most targeted market your money can buy”, so why not use it in the right way.

However, when starting to use Facebook as part of the Marketing Strategy for the company, a couple of things should be on mind so all the time and effort put into it, really pays off:

ü  Understanding the Facebook’s Platform

ü  Create SMART objectives

ü  Evaluating the Results

By understanding how Facebook’s Platform really works from the business perspective, companies should be able to manage it in a proper way to reach their SMART objectives and develop a successfully Business Marketing Strategy using different tactics trough Facebook and finally, evaluating the results will help to analyze what really worked and what it didn’t, especially for companies that are just starting to use this tool.

Understanding the Facebook’s Platform:

Facebook sounds like a very easy tool for everyone, but when it becomes part of the Business Marketing Strategy then the company needs to understand how it really works for the business and not for the regular users (Lachance, 2013).

ü  Who goes into Facebook: Understanding which of the people that use this platform would be targeted by your company is the first thing to do. It's very important to remember that is not about reaching everyone that is on Facebook, but attracting the ones who are worth to your business, meaning, the Buyer Persona. Once you have identify your target market within Facebook, then you can deliver your products and services to them in the way they want to be reached, this means, do not try to sell your product at once, it’s very important to focus that people that go to Facebook do not use it to shop, this is why having clear what they like is very important to build the strategy.

ü  Using right your main images: The cover image and the profile image are the face of your company and it leaves a lasting impression on the visitors so it’s very important that companies use it right and according to the pixels that Facebook allows so the picture have a good quality and might encourage the visitors to look further in the page (Lachance, 2013). The cover image should describe the company; visitors should understand what the company is about just by looking at it.

ü  About Section: A brief description of the company itself is necessary, but do not overload it with too much information. The website should be in this section as well.

ü  Post frequently: If the company is using a Facebook page as one of the marketing tools, is very important to not leave aside after the first month or so, but keep it updated, posting frequently might help to get more engagement from Facebook users. Posting more about your customers interests and not just about the product that you sell, is a great tactic to use to reach the target market.

ü  Content in Facebook: Facebook is a platform in which all sort of content is posted, creating a friendly environment (Kim, 2013) is a good start. Posting interesting videos, images, articles, etc, all of them related to the business in one way or another.

Create SMART Objectives

What is the purpose of using Facebook for the company is there are not objectives attached? It is not just about having a Facebook page because everyone else has it, it's about achieving a goal for your company throughout managing the Facebook page. The goals for the company and for the Facebook page need to be SMART, and they also need to be attached. 

SMART objectives are:

ü  Specific: The objectives for social media need to be well defined and easy to understand, need to be clear and to the point. A very long objective might be confusing.

ü  Measurable: Needs to be manageable and quantifiable.

ü  Attainable: Needs to be obtainable.

ü  Relevant: It has a meaning for the company, it will worth all the effort and time put into it.

ü  Time: It needs to have an end for its compliance  

(Haughey, 2010)

When having SMART objectives, then you can create tactics within the usage of the Facebook's platform and start to evaluate them to see its results.

Evaluating the Results

Finally, evaluating the results of the tactics used for Facebook’s Platform will help to analyze if they are working or if they are not. Facebook provides with valuable information that will help a company to understand what is happening and how to use this tool better (Lachance, 2013).

ü  Timing: Check on the timing in which your target market goes more into Facebook and try to post during this particular time. Facebook gives all these statistics: which week days have more traffic and in which time.

ü  Content: Check on which content was more popular, which one was shared, commented, people that actually had an interaction with that particular post. This will help to understand what kind of content the business should post more in order to engage people. On Facebook platform try to follow the 80/20 rule by publishing 80% of original content and no more than 20% of promotional (Lachance, 2013).

ü  Evaluate the engagement: Keep the eye on the weekly engagement and do not let it down. Keep measuring what people had liked, what was the effect of the post and which content did not have the effect expected.

Keep checking constantly the Facebook Page that a company has created is a must do, engagement do not happened overnight and success take time.

REFERENCES

·         Angelova v. (2013). 7 reasons why social media is an absolute must for Business Branding. [Online] Available at: http://www.likeable.com/blog/2013/09/7-reasons-why-social-media-is-an-absolute-must-for-business-branding (Accessed: 25^th January 2013)

·         Duermyer R. (2013). Social Media Marketing, What every small business owner needs to know about marketing with social media. [Online] Available at: http://homebusiness.about.com/od/socialmediamarketing/a/Social-Media-Marketing.htm. (Accessed: 26^th January 2013)

·         Haughey D. (2010) SMART Goals. [Online] Available at: http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/pdf/smart-goals.pdf. (Accessed: 15^th December 2013)

·         Lachance G. (2013). Top 10 must read tips to run a successful Facebook Business Page. [Online] Available at: http://socialmediatoday.com/genevieve-lachance/1454711/successful-facebook-business-page-top-10-must-read-tips. (Accessed: 25^th January 2013)

·         Smith A. and Maeve D. (2013). 73% of online adults now use social networking sites. [Online] Available at: http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Social-Media-Update/Main-Findings.aspx. (Accessed on: 25^th January 2013)

·         Smith C. (2013). 7 Statistics About Facebook Users That Reveal Why It's Such A Powerful Marketing Platform. [Online] Available at: http://www.businessinsider.com/a-primer-on-facebook-demographics-2013-10. (Accessed: 16^th January 2013) 

Social Media Marketing: Building the Strategy

For a long time companies used to pay lots of money for advertising in order to be noticed by their customers and to have a respectable position in the market (Black, 2013), but the success of this advertising was unknown or it took long time to be recognized. For many decades marketing worked that way and small entrepreneurs did not have many options to use it, but then something changed.

The arrival of what is known as “Social Media Marketing”, has revolutionized the way of doing marketing, these (Social Media), allowed not only direct but also public communication between businesses and their clients, and none or very few money is needed to use it (Kenny, 2013). This has given a complete revolution on the communication’s strategies used by companies (Hlavac and Schaefer 2013). The way a company uses Social Media as a tool of communication with their customers, can benefit the position of that company or on the contrary, damage its reputation completely.

However, using social media as a marketing tool for a company that has just started or that has been in the market for many years is not as easy as many will think it is. When starting to build a Social Media Communication Strategy, Chris Brogan has quoted: “be human first before being the company” (Black, 2013):

ü  Who is your audience?

ü  What is important for them?

ü  How can you reach them?

These types of questions can help to understand the needs and wants of customers and so narrow the company’s audience. In many cases the target audience can be more than just one (Scott, 2013), and then different social media platforms are needed to communicate effectively as well as a specific type of content (Baier, 2011).

Identify the Audience (Who is your audience)

Identifying the audience is very important when building a Social Media Strategy. Understanding who the audience really is will help to develop an effective way to communicate with the customers.  Smith and Taylor (2006) have guided us with four different steps for segmenting the market, each of them will help to identify the real target:

ü  Geographic Segmentation: Understanding where the customers are located: Is it a state in a particular country? Is it a whole continent or specific countries within that continent? Try to be as specific as possible, this will help to build a specific strategy for those particular locations, even the language of communication is a plus when building a communication strategy.

ü  Demographic Segmentation: Things as age, gender, education, occupation and race to name just a few, should be identified (Gunelius, 2013). It is not the same to communicate to young adults in their 30s with a stable job, with high education than to communicate with young adults in their 20s, that are still in college and that still do not have a stable job. The more you narrow your target, the closer you are to find the perfect communication strategy.

ü  Psychographic Segmentation: This is a very important step when identifying the target market. In this part the company can analyze the audience’s lifestyle, things such as their beliefs and perceptions are a key for everyone when getting a specific service or product. This step helps to understand the real attributes of the customers (Gunelius, 2013). In here an analysis of people’s personality, hobbies, motivations and lifestyle (Smith and Taylor, 2006) need to be made.

ü  Behavioral Segmentation: An evaluation of people’s attitude towards a service or product needs to be carefully analyzed. The benefits people see towards the service or product, the usage that they give, the loyalty towards that specific brand, etc. are very important factors to be taken into account (Smith and Taylor, 2006) when identifying your target.

Finally, Li and Bernoff (2008) have come with a very important step when establishing the final communication strategy for Social Media:

ü  Technographic Segmentation: When putting together the communication strategy for the segmented market, is very important to understand how people use internet in order to acquire services or products. Not all people use the same platforms to buy or to research about a product or service. Understanding this, then a business can use one or different social media platforms to communicate with their customers and in addition, can picked what kind of technographic segmentation to choose to develop the communication strategy.

Value Proposition (What is important for them)

It is also very important to understand the significance that customers give to a specific product or service, what value they give to it. The value proposition will lead to customers to buy if they think is important (Laja, 2012) to have it or to experience it.

When developing the value proposition, Laja (2012) recommends having three things in mind:

ü  Relevancy:  Why should people get that product? In this aspect is important to think how is this product or service helping my customer or how is improving his/her lifestyle. 

ü  Quantified Value: Providing particular benefits in the product or service that is being sold to customers.

ü  Unique Differentiation: Letting customers know why this product is different from the rest and why they should buy it instead of going to the competition.

The value proposition should be very clear in the Social Media Platform for all visitors to see it.

The Communication Strategy (How can you reach them?)

After having analyzed the target audience and understand their needs and wants, a communication strategy needs to be built in order to reach the expected audience.

Larry Kim (2013) has given some tips that are helpful when using Social Media Marketing as part of the company strategy:

ü  Content: content is the key for attracting the audience and to keep then interested. It is very important that the information has value and is interesting for the people that are being targeted. The content needs to have variety: videos, images, relevant information for the audience.

ü  Links: Linking to the audience outside sources gives trust and reliability when posting any content, and also can help to get some links in return and reach more people.

ü  Track Competitors: It is very important to see what the competitors are doing with their platform in order to see what is not working or that it seems to work very well.

ü  Measure Success: Measuring the strategies that are being used with the content of the platform, the ones that have worked well, keep implementing them, the one that did not work the way was expected, should be abandoned. Keep monitoring the platform that is being used.

However, the content and the way this is managed vary according to the platform used. Different techniques are different for each (Kim, 2013) so to develop a strategy that goes with each platform, is something businesses needs to have in mind before starting to post.

REFERENCES

• Baier S. (2011). Do you know your customers enough to be a Social Media Hit? [Online] Available at: http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-marketing/do-you-know-your-customers-enough-to-be-a-social-media-hit/. (Accessed: 20^th January 2013)
• Black J. (2013). Social Media has changed everything. [Online] Available at: http://www.blackbeardesign.com/social-media-has-changed-everything/. (Accessed: 19^th January 2013)
• Gunelius S. (2013). Using Market Segmentation for Better Brand Messaging. [Online] Available at: http://aytm.com/blog/research-junction/using-market-segmentation-for-better-brand-messaging-part-2/. (Accessed: 22^nd of January 2013)
• Hlavac R. and Mark S. (2013). The Social Media Revolution as Theorized by “The Cluetrain Manifesto. [Online] Available at: http://jimc.medill.northwestern.edu/currentissue/2013/JIMC_Current_Issue_2013_Article_5.pdf. (Accessed: 20^th January 2013)
• Kenny F. (2013). Saving Money Through Social Media Marketing. [Online] Available at: http://frankjkenny.com/saving-money-through-social-media-marketing/. (Accessed: 19^th January 2013)
• Kim. L (2013). Guide to using Social Media for Marketing. [Online] Available at: http://www.wordstream.com/social-media-marketing. (Accessed: 22^nd January 2013)
• Laja P. (2012) How to create a good value proposition.  [Online] Available at: http://conversionxl.com/value-proposition-examples-how-to-create/. (Accessed:  15^th December 2013)
• Li C. and Bernoff J. (2008). Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies. USA: Harvard Business School
• Scott, D. (2011). The new rules of Marketing and PR. How to use social media.  3^rd Edition. USA: John Wiley and Sons. 
• Smith P. and Taylor J. (2004). Marketing Communications: An integrated approach. 4^th edition. London :Kogan Page