October 2009 - Inner Architect

What Marketers Need to Know About the Facebook News Feed

October 27, 2009 by Susan Hanshaw Leave a Comment

Over the past few days, Facebook has unleashed an overhaul of their news feed that I believe has implications for marketers that go deeper than the surface. With hundreds of thousands of Facebook users revolting, only time will tell how long this particular feature will remain in its current design. In any event, one trend does seem clear. Like the sidebar Highlights that proceeded this particular redesign, Facebook seems to be in favor of delivering content that is based on a user’s prior engagement history.

What has changed?

Prior to this redesign, users would log on and see their home page streaming the most recent updates from all their friends and all the pages they are fans of in reverse chronological order. Now Facebook has changed this landing page to include only the stories they believe the user will be most interested in based on an algorithm that looks at the user’s prior engagement history.

A number of my Facebook friends today were passing on tips on how to configure their settings to see all their updates on their home page proves that there are users who dislike the filtering enough to learn how to disable it. Yet these types of users are not the majority, so any business using Facebook as a channel for delivering marketing messages to customers must understand the implications of the new feed.

Marketing implications of the new feed

The bottom line is that Facebook’s algorithm is determining what level of importance your message is to your fan. Facebook decides whether your message should be included in the landing page News Feed, or whether your fan will need to click on the Live Feed option to find your message with all the others from their friends and pages which didn’t make the cut of importance.

In order for your Facebook messages to be effective, they first need to be seen. You can increase the chances of your messages getting seen by increasing your chances of getting them picked by the Facebook algorithm as important or relevant stories.

Clues to what Facebook deems important or relevant

I will not pretend to be an expert on Facebook algorithms, but observations I have made from studying the updates selected for my own News Feed give me some insight about how updates get chosen.

Criteria I have observed:

Updates from people I have sent direct messages to recently
Updates from people I have commented on the most
Exact keyword match with another status update I commented on

How to use this information

Once you understand a bit about what Facebook looks at, you can then begin to incorporate this knowledge into your messaging strategy.

Do you have more observations to add from your experience? I’d love to learn and pass them along here.

Filed Under: facebook Tagged With: Dean Guadagni, direct marketing social media, facebook marketing strategies, facebook page, inner architect, napa social media, San Rafael social media, social media, social media marketing, social media strategies, Susan Hanshaw, web 2.0, wine club marketing, wine marketing, winery social media, winery social media marketing

3 Basic Keys to Direct Marketing on Facebook

October 20, 2009 by Susan Hanshaw 2 Comments

Those of us who have been marketing directly to consumers since the 1980′s or before have experienced the evolution of channels from mailbox to internet and email. My work now involves encouraging clients to begin to look at Facebook as another prime environment for managing communications with customers and prospects.

While thousands of companies have hopped on board Facebook from pure instinct that they need to be there, few really understand Facebook well enough to be able to design a contact strategy that is effective.

What follows is a primer meant to help you to relate the old ways to the new.

Key #1: Think of Facebook as a public online environment for building your “house” lists. In days past, we’ve referred to this process as acquiring names and addresses. We can thank Facebook for adding a human element by introducing the term “fan”.

Your fans will include:

Current or past customers
People who are becoming familiar with your company

Key #2: Think of Facebook as a public online environment for broadcasting messages to your fans and visitors to your page who are not fans.

These messages are:

Broadcast on your page wall
Streamed into your fans’ news feed

Key #3: Think of Facebook as a private online environment for sending messages to your fans.

Messages are delivered to your fans’ inbox as status updates
Updates can be sent to all fans
Updates can be targeted

Questions? I’m happy to answer them.

Filed Under: facebook Tagged With: Dean Guadagni, direct marketing social media, direct to consumer marketing, facebook business strategies, facebook marketing strategies, facebook page, inner architect, social media marketing, social media strategies, Susan Hanshaw, web 2.0, wine club marketing, wine marketing, winery social media

Becoming a Holistic Social Media Marketer: Understanding The Whole Network

October 16, 2009 by Dean Guadagni Leave a Comment

Courtesy The Beatles Wiki

“Holism is the idea that all the properties of a given system (physical, biological, chemical, social, economic, mental, linguistic, etc.) cannot be determined or explained by its component parts alone. Instead, the system as a whole determines in an important way how the parts behave” Holism-Wikipedia

In part 1 of our series “Becoming a Holistic Social Media Marketer” we will outline how to approach your marketing efforts with a top down, whole environment strategy. Although many people begin by integrating social networks into their marketing plans, they often ignore how the pieces relate and can be used together.

Holistic Social Media Strategy

The definition of the word holistic is a great example of how a social media marketer could begin to plan strategies: “relating to or concerned with wholes or with complete systems rather than with the analysis of, treatment of, or dissection into parts. . . ”

3 Holistic Social Media Steps

Before you begin to plan and execute your social media marketing efforts, you must understand the whole playing field. Without an understanding of the “big picture”, you cannot effectively break down the parts and extract relevant analysis:

Choosing Social Networks: which social network(s) will be utilized in your plan? The answer to this question comes from the goals being set by your organization.
- Is this a marketing campaign designed to change public perception?
- Is it focused on new sales growth? Retention?
- Is it meant to drive networking and new partnerships?
Social “Big Picture”: how do the social networks you have chosen to utilize fit together and collaborate in a “whole” strategy?
- Widgets: interconnecting your social networks, so people know where to find you, by providing a “portal” aka widget that with one click can take them to your blog, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn profiles or pages
- Synergy: connecting your blog messaging to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn by embedding links to articles-messages on each social network you are utilizing
- Uniformity: consistent articles-messages delivered to each social network providing your audience with a clear perception of your company
Identification: identify the role(s) each social network will play in the marketing plan.
- Facebook: can function as the relationship builder, CRM mechanism, and customer service spot for your company
- Twitter: often takes on the role as the prospect-lead generation tool feeding your Facebook profile, page, or company blog
- Blog: this is the ultimate publishing platform for your company’s messages. It is the best hub and centerpiece from which to launch
- LinkedIn: this is your networking portal and due diligence mechanism. If people want to know key individuals running a company this is where they will land. This is also a fantastic place to create real time update messaging as well as demonstrate and establish company expertise within a niche

Filed Under: social media and resources Tagged With: Dean Guadagni, Holistic social media, how to plan your social media, inner architect, marketing plans social media, social media marketing strategies, Susan Hanshaw

#FollowFriday: Twitter Strategy To Identify & Attract New Followers

October 12, 2009 by Dean Guadagni 4 Comments

Courtesy Webpronews.com

One of the best Twitter strategies is to participate in what is called #FollowFriday. Although there are a vast array of Twitter strategies, participating in #FollowFriday is one of the best methods to identify and attract new followers. Susan and I participate in #FollowFriday to identify and recognize followers for our innerarchitect, napavalleynews, susanhanshaw, and deansguide Twitter accounts.

#FollowFriday: A History

#FollowFriday is a hashtag group event that happens every Friday. It was created in January 2009 by Micah Baldwin as a means for Twitter users to find other users–a networking event beginning every Friday morning. Today, It is not only a social event but it is also a strategic tool with many benefits

#FollowFriday Benefits

Testimonials: by asking people to follow your follower(s) you are providing them with a testimonial
Value: you add value to your network by making people aware of valuable resources (other Twitterers)
Networking: by providing #FollowFriday recognition for someone you are opening the lines of communication for others to thank you, contact you for information, or ask you a question
Targeting: #FollowFriday allows you to target followers you wish to attract
Differentiate & Stand Apart: by customizing your messages, using descriptive adjectives

#FollowFriday #1 Strategy

Tip #1: If you want to stand apart and differentiate yourself, provide the best value for your network, and create a new stream of followers for you then write very specific “recommendations” that describe the person recommended and their niche. Like minded people (often) want to follow others in the same niche with expertise. Below are two examples- what everyone does now and how to differentiate yourself.

What everyone does now- “.@deansguide .@susanhanshaw .@innerarchitect #Followfriday.” This does not provide a reason to follow these people, it does not describe them, it does not identify their business niche
How to differentiate yourself: “If u want great soc media info #Followfriday .@deansguide .@susanhanshaw .@innerarchitect” This short description identifies the niche as social media and describes these people as valuable sources of information. The added benefit is the fact that people can see you are providing custom “copy” and truly taking the time to give a valuable recommendation

#FollowFriday Example for One: you can create messages for multiple people but with very important resources, write something like this:

Filed Under: twitter Tagged With: Dean Guadagni, identifying followers, Inner Architect social media marketing, networking on twitter, rcommending Twitterers, Susan Hanshaw, Twitter #Followfriday strategies, Twitter strategies

Is Social Media Just a Passing Trend?

October 6, 2009 by Susan Hanshaw Leave a Comment

Every week Dean and I meet with a number of companies who are at various levels of exploring social media as a serious marketing channel. More often than not, there is one person in the group that is a bit skeptical about the longevity of this revolution.

Erick Qualman, author of Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business, is behind this eye-opening video that details how social media has changed the world. This kind of development reminds me of the music and cultural revolution of the 1960′s—a transformation that will likely have a long-term impact. Are you ready now to take social media seriously?

Filed Under: social media and resources Tagged With: Dean Guadagni, Erik Qualman, lawyer social media, Napa Valley social media, San Rafael social media, social media marketing, Social media transforms business, Socialnomics, Susan Hanshaw, wine marketing, winery social media

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