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Facebook is big.

Facebook is the largest social network in the world. It has more than 500 million active users, half of whom log in on a daily basis. There are an estimated 4 Million South Africans registered on Facebook. Worldwide people share more than 30 billion pieces of content every month, including links, news stories, blog posts, photo albums and notes.

Ignoring Facebook isn’t an option anymore!

As great as Facebook is, it can be confusing and a real challenge generating tangible marketing results from Facebook. The following guide is aimed at the beginner. If you want to take things to the next level, have a look at our Facebook marketing services.

Who’s On Facebook?

Let’s get one common misconception out of the way right off: Facebook is no longer the place where school & university kids hang out. Facebook started out dominated by younger people but has grown to include almost all social demographics. Worldwide the largest segment of Facebook users is actually between the ages of 35-54. While the fastest-growing segment is over 55!

How Can You Market on Facebook?

Facebook has three tools that can be used by anyone. Each of these options has its own purpose and can be combined for greater impact.

1. Pages

Facebook Pages are similar to profiles, but are used for businesses, organizations and public figures. Pages can be ‘liked’ by anyone, without a requirement for the page creator to accept a fan. Pages don’t have the same restriction as normal profiles in terms of the number of friends/fans they can have. (Normal profiles are limited to 5,000 friends).

Advantages:
• They’re free and easy to set up
• Functionality can be extended with apps and custom tabs

Disadvantages:
• Can be hard to get a foothold and build a fan base

2. Ads

Facebook offers an advertising platform whose strength lies in its ability to precisely target a specific demographic. You can create ads to target specific geographic areas, age groups, and even things like education level. Facebook also allows you to advertise to friends of people who have liked your Page or Group.

Advantages:
• Powerful targeting parameters
• Option to only pay when someone clicks on your ad
• Control your budget with daily maximum spend limits

Disadvantages:
• Can get expensive, depending on your goals

Groups

Facebook Groups are similar to discussion forums but they have additional features similar to those found on Pages and Profiles (like a Wall, for example). You can create Groups related to your industry or product offerings as a way to connect with existing and potential customers.

Advantages:
• Free to setup with high levels of user engagement

Disadvantages:
• Can be very time consuming to maintain

How to Market with Pages

Facebook Pages are the simplest, easiest way to get started marketing with Facebook. They’re free, relatively easy to set up (at least in their default format), and incredibly flexible. There’s not much of a downside, either. Unfortunately, many companies don’t use Facebook Pages to their full potential – or worse, they use the platform badly.

These guidelines will help you make the most of your Facebook Page:

Don’t Ignore Your Information Tab

Think of the information tab on your Facebook Page as the equivalent to the “About Us” page on your website. It’s where people go if they want to know who you are and what your company does.
Make sure you put relevant and accurate information here. Include your contact details and website address. A good shortcut is to use an edited version of the text from your “about us” page of your website. Just remember to keep it short, conversational and informative. “An informal / casual tone usually works best on Facebook.”

Post Useful Information to Your Wall

What you post to your wall will show up in your fans news feeds, just like when you post something to your personal profile.
So, make sure what you’re posting is useful and interesting to your fans. Don’t post endless updates about the same thing, or post too many updates overloading your fans with too much information.

Here are some ideas for the kinds of things you could post on your wall:

• Links to interesting articles related to your product or industry
• Discount codes for fans to save on your products
• New product announcements

Again, make sure that your posts are useful. Also, don’t post more than a few times each day unless there’s some special event going on.

Ask Your Fans Questions:

Getting your fans involved with your page is a great way to inspire loyalty and improve your interaction rate. Asking questions in your updates gets people involved, but on their own terms. What to ask depends largely on your product or service, but asking simple questions usually garners the best responses. Asking opinions on a new product idea or project can also be a good way to show your customers that your company cares about what they want.

Run Competitions

Competitions can be very effective in attracting new fans and generating hype around your products. Use Facebook ads to get more people interested in your competition. Ads can be very cost effective if implemented correctly.

Some guidelines for your competition:
• Get people involved – try to make the competition about the experience as well as the prize
• Encourage people to share the competition details with their friends
• If possible, make the prize something decent. Nobody’s going to put that much effort in for a R20 prize
• Run the competition over a two to three week period. This will give people a chance to get involved without becoming bored
• Make it fun!
• Make sure you don’t contravene Facebook’s policies

Don’t Spam

Spam is one of the quickest ways to lose fans. If you do nothing but send out promotional blurbs about your company, without ever adding anything of value, then you’re going to have a hard time getting and keeping fans.

Before posting an update, ask yourself – “is this honestly adding value to your fans”. If not, don’t post it.

Study Your Statistics and Results

Facebook offers some really great insights for Pages. Pay attention to them – you don’t want to post about the latest eye liner on the market when your audience is 95% male.

Targeted Advertising

Facebook gathers a vast amount of demographic information about its users which is made available to marketers through the Facebook advertising portal. You can target potential customers based on virtually anything you might find in their profile, as well as track your success within each of your target market segments.
Ads can be run on a per-impression or per-click basis. You can set daily limits so there’s no risk of blowing your budget.

Types of Facebook Ads

There are a number of ad subtypes you can choose from, each with their own pros and cons. It’s important to know that you can use ads to send people to either your Facebook Page, or to a specific page on your external website (i.e. not on Facebook). However, some of the ad types are only available if you’re sending people to your Facebook Page. You can also create ads to promote a Facebook event, complete with an RSVP link.

Targeting Options

As already mentioned, Facebook has some of the most powerful targeting tools of any online advertising program.
Lets give an example: You have a line of t-shirts made for woman who like surfing and outdoor sports.
You can create an ad that will target, woman between the ages 18 and 30 who live near the coast, are single and enjoy sports, fitness, surfing and outdoor activities.
 The potential uses are limitless.

Don’t have time to create you own highly-targeted ads – Use our Facebook Ads Service

Facebook Groups

Facebook Groups are a great way to foster a community around your company and products. While groups are generally much less commercial than Pages, there’s still room to use them for marketing. The major advantage of a Group is that they can often encourage discussion and participation better than a Page would.
Don’t create a Group based on your company. Instead, create a Group based on your industry or the niche your company serves. For example, if you sell extreme sports equipment make a Group that discusses the latest trends or the best place to practice the sport in your local area.

Fostering Interaction

A successful Group is one with an active discussion tab. This is just like a forum – the more people voice their opinion, the more successful the Group will be.
Discussions do require some moderation and care. Make sure you include a clear set of content policies prior to starting your Group – post the policies where all your members can see them. You’ll also want to moderate the discussion boards to make sure you’re not being spammed.

Facebook in South Africa

Facebook is the most widely used social media platform in South Africa with 4 Million active users.
• There are more woman than men on Facebook in South Africa
• The fastest growing segment of Facbeook users in South Africa is over 55 years old
• With many smart phones having dedicated Facebook Apps, marketers can interact with those South African’s without internet at home.

Conclusion

No matter what type of company you run or products you sell there is a marketing option to fit your brand, your budget, and your time constraints.
Facebook is still evolving at a rapid pace, and making the most of its marketing tools will require time, but its quickly becoming a must-have marketing tool.

1. Do the Math!

A good business is built on strong numbers. Math is unemotional and will give you the best insight into the potential success of the campaign.

So your opportunity cost per customer is R31. (R54,250 / 1700). In essence you are spending R31 in advertising to get an additional customer. The big question to ask is if there are any other advertising models that could deliver better results for the same real cost or would spending that R31 on improving your service or product work better in the long run?

Side Note:
If you change the numbers a little you could end up making a lot of money. It comes down to the type of business you are and how prepared you are for the influx of new customers.

2. Take account of additional expenses

You will have increased expenses in handling the additional work load and customers.

3. Give yourself the best chance of generating repeat business

You need take advantage of all the new Groupon traffic. I’ve listed a few potential ideas for doing that:

• Ask customers to join your mailing list so that you can offer deals directly at better margins.
• Talk to the new customers to gain insight into what would make them a return customer.
• Make the experience memorable for the GroupOn customer.
• Make sure you maintain a decent level of service.

4. Be emotionally prepared

As business owners you work very hard to build your brand. Running a GroupOn deal can be very emotionally draining. You’re selling your product or service at a very low margin – potentially even a loss. This will affect you emotionally – be prepared.

This got me thinking –
When is group buying worth it for the business owner?

Group Buying – is it worth it for the retailer?

There has been an explosion of group buying websites in South Africa with a lot of positive and negative feedback from retailers and consumers alike.

For those of you not familiar with Groupon or similar group buying websites, the websites partner with local businesses to send a daily coupon e-blast to its members. The members who buy the coupon get 50 to 70 percent off on a product or service, and Groupon splits the proceeds with the retailer — usually leaving the retailer with a low percentage of the normal retail value.

Group buying can propel your business to new heights or destroy it. The key factors are the type of business you run and how you will handle the influx of customers.

The Risks of Group Buying for Business:

1. Traffic is not necessarily profitable traffic

Groupon can clearly deliver customers. But in order to know if it makes financial sense as a customer acquisition tool, retailers need a bit more insight. Some questions to ask yourself:

• How many Groupon customers are already normal customers?
• Are Groupon customers the right demographic for my business?
• How often will new (Groupon) customers come back?

2. You could devalue your product or service

As business owners we work hard to build value for our brands and products. Offering a cut price deal on that same service or product can hurt your long term success and be emotionally draining.

3. Your business is unprepared for an influx of new customers

Be warned: Group buying has the potential to attract high volumes of customers. Groupon sales may generate demand that you may not be able to meet. This can lead to poor customer service, sub standard products which in turn leave customers with a poor experience of your business.

4. Don’t forget that your regular customers will be affected too

You will have to service a whole new set of customers which will take your concentration off your regulars.

5. Your product /service doesn’t generate repeat sales

The sales you generate from Groupon will be a lot less valuable if you cannot use the new relationships you create to drive additional business. There are some products and services that have a low turn around on repeats so be wary of heavy discounts.

The potential positives of Group Buying

1. Clearing of excess stock

If you have a lot of product sitting around, Groupon could be your ticket to clearing your storeroom, especially if it is costing you a lot to hold that stock. It can be worth it to flog the stock at lower profit margins.

2. New customers

Group Buying websites like GroupOn and MyCity Deal are doing the e-commerce world in South Africa a big favour by getting customers used to buying products and services online.  A GroupOn sale could also bring in a new set of customers you never thought would be interested in your product.

3. Additional sales

Even if customers don’t return, for some products they might be tempted to buy more at the time of the Groupon redemption. – which I actually did last night by buying a couple bottles of good South African wine to go with my GroupOn meal ticket.

4. You have excess capacity to fill

For example, a Cape Town day tour. The tour is going to run with 5 or 10 people. Any unfilled capacity is money you’ve potentially lost out on.

5. You need to attract a young demographic

Most Groupon users are young (Between 18 and 35). Groupon is ideal for products and services targeting this demographic.

6. Generating hype

If your business is new or has moved, Groupon can be a great way to familiarize a large group of customers with your location.

A lot of hard work and creative thinking has gone into our new home and we can’t wait to explore it. So this Friday (30th September) our new creative space will be revealed, look out for pics, videos and updates during the week.