Social Media Marketing Tactics to Use on
Facebook
Do not confuse strategy
and tactics!!!
Most of the tips and
tricks described in the guides are "tactical.” To get many fans on a Facebook page, maintain
their attention through effective leadership or create a viral contest, is not
a strategy, nor an end in itself.
What good are the tactics
you can implement on Facebook and what good are their results if these tactics
are not implemented to achieve a clear strategic goal? They are likely to be a stab in the water
(and a big waste of time and money).
Social media in general
(and Facebook in particular) are just one additional way to achieve your
goals. We must therefore first determine
what those purposes are.
You may say that the
strategy is simple; it aims to have more customers, more sales, an average
basket increase and more importantly more loyal customers, etc. All this is not a strategy; they are targets
(the end result of strategy). These are
precisely the goals that your strategy should help you achieve.
Your Facebook strategy
must be part of an overall business strategy, making it much more effective.
For example:
If your target goal is to increase the
turnover of your subscribers and customers, then your strategy to achieve it is to improve communications with your
subscribers. A tactic to achieve that is to listen to them, regardless of their
neg/pos returns or time involved, etc.
Facebook can be an
effective component of the overall system, not the ACTUAL system. This device should also be on your website
and in all communications that you address to your subscribers (email, paper
mail, invoices, etc.) Facebook alone
will not suffice (or not enough).
One case study in this
area is that of the company Zappos, the leading website selling shoes in the
U.S., recently acquired by Amazon. Zappos is probably one of the most
successful e-commerce in the United States and many experts attribute this
success to the way Zappos has used social media. While it is true that social media (Facebook
and Twitter in their case) have played a role, it is mostly because they were
part of a line with their overall business strategy working well. In this case, the business strategy was to
offer the best customer service it is possible to offer.
Zappos is into
e-commerce, and sells (mostly) shoes.
The barrier to purchase is made by the stress of knowing if we will be
able to make shoes that are too small or too large. The fact that they provide a service to
address this is an outstanding strategic point.
All the energy of the company has therefore focused on this service, and
all employees are heavily involved in the improvement of this process. Social media has been one of the main
channels of this effort, and the company encouraged its employees to be on
Twitter and Facebook to meet and interact with customers. The telephone platform was probably the heart
of the system, but social media has been important for the success of this
strategy.
If Facebook were to be a
component of your overall strategy, what is this strategy? The subject of Facebook marketing interests
you?
YOUR MOST VALUABLE ASSETS FOR FINDING FACEBOOK MARKETING TACTICS ARE YOUR OWN
IDEAS AND IMAGINATION.
The tactics below are
simply MY imagination and ideas, but to get you started, here they are:
Facebook followers are informed that they get
10% off their purchase if they find your hidden cuddly toy in your store. Every week let them know that “teddy” has
moved again, can they find him, and post a pic of where “teddy was last week”.
One week only, your Facebook friends get x%
off a product in your store. Every day
you publish how many people have taken you up on your offer.
Every person who comments on this month’s item
(a picture for example) gets a discount voucher.
Have a Facebook competition on who can come up
with the funniest tag line for a funny pic you published. The top 10 winners get a discount voucher for
your products.
