Facebook Places – bigger is definitely better

Location based services leapt onto the South African centre stage in a big way last week when Facebook announced the local availability of Facebook Places. The application is designed to help people share information about where they are, connect with friends who may be nearby and find special offers from their favourite retailers, restaurants and entertainment venues.

Facebook's new Places feature lets you share your current location by "checking in" from your smartphone. For businesses, claiming and managing a Place page is a must. Plain and simple, it is a promising new way to connect with customers, prospects and partners.

But what makes this announcement so significant?

It is about sheer volume. Compared to Foursquare with almost 8 Million users globally, Facebook with more than 600 million people already using the platform and close to 4 million in South Africa alone is set to become THE location based service provider of choice.

How does this add to the services that Popimedia already offer?

From a marketing point of view, the sky is the limit and in this instance bigger is definitely better. It now becomes easy for big and small businesses and consumer products in South Africa to leverage Facebook Places for any number of marketing initiatives from loyalty and rewards programmes to creating awareness about new products and special offers. Competitors like Groupon and Google Latitude have a lot of catching up to do as Facebook becomes more ubiquitous.

So is the Facebook Places announcement a big deal? Absolutely.

What are the options for small business owners without a budget for afull scale marketing campaign

via multimedia.avusa.co.za

See Ryan Silberman, Chief Operating Officer at Popimedia, speak to Summit TV.

Facebook keeps innovating

Facebook is constantly innovating and introducing new services that have an impact on the social media environment at large. Most notably marketers and brand managers can look forward to Facebook Places and Facebook Deals - innovations that make an even stronger case for social media in the mobile arena. Already launched in the UK and US, local companies can look forward to having access to these services in the next couple of months . Used independently or together these services are simply powerful stuff. Facebook Places, a location based service, gives brands the capability to set-up their "place" on Facebook. Users can then check into a place with their mobile phone, telling their Facebook friends where they are and connecting with friends nearby. From a business point of view, this will open up marketing opportunities to wider or brand new target markets. Through Facebook Deals, retailers and other merchants can offer special deals to the users who check into their "place". Users who take on the deal then tell their friends via the news feed that they "got R50 off a pair of jeans" or "a free muffin with their cappuccino". This gives the brand a great advantage as their customers are now punting their brand through word of mouth - the most effective form of marketing. Social media marketing opportunities Using the inherent features of Facebook and the constantly evolving platform, there are some incredible marketing opportunities available on Facebook: Socially activated crowdsourcing: send out a call to action to your community to become intimately involved with your product or brand. This can be applied to the full development life cycle of a product - from branding, naming, copy and even sales. You know that your product will be successful because your customers are the ones who designed it and land up selling it for you. This can be achieved through a series of campaigns on your fan page, supporting functional and interactive tabs and a well planned content strategy, each with social sharing features which allow the fan to market the brand for you by word of mouth. See an example of what Vitamin Water did here. Social e-Commerce: You can even go as far as selling your product on your Facebook Fanpage by adding an e-Commerce tab. The added benefit here is that, when somebody buys one of your items, it is possible to post that action to their profile page - instant word-of-mouth circulation. Have a look at how Delta Airlines offers ticket Sales on their Facebook page here. Social philanthropy: for brands such as banks or insurance companies, a good idea is to support a cause to which users may be familiar with. The incredible thing with the Facebook platform and its range of features and facilities is that you can allow your fans to be involved in your philanthropy giving them power to have a say on how and where your philanthropy should be applied, making your fans feel good about their actions and your brand, and of course marketing the cause by word of mouth. Content strategy Tools aside, a solid content strategy for your social media campaign is a must. How often have we seen communication debacles on Facebook Fanpages where a situation could have been dealt with more strategically. Examples of this include the Nestle catastrophe where Greenpeace created a parody video of the company's KitKat candy bar and the resulting fallout. A strong content strategy is invaluable and you should keep in mind that this strategy is not about a daily post on how wonderful your product is. As with any social media activity, your comments and posts must always be relevant and need to resonate with your community. Social media is becoming ever more relevant in our country and we are even seeing newspapers like Business Day talking about the possibility of replacing email with these new platforms. We bet that Facebook will be leading the way.

Facebook brings Sponsored Stories to the marketing mix

Johannesburg, 27 January 2011 - Hot off the press. Popimedia sources from Facebook last night confirmed the availability of Sponsored Stories, an online version of the traditional word-of-mouth referral for products, services and brands

In positioning the benefits of Sponsored Stories, Facebook stated that: “The best form of recommendation is one you get from a friend. Sponsored Stories allow you to surface word-of-mouth recommendations about your brand that exist organically in the Facebook News Feed. Sponsored Stories are different from ads and including them in your Facebook Premium Ad campaign amplifies the actions your target audience takes with your Premium Ads”

But how does it work? 
Before Sponsored Stories, when your friend liked your page, interacted with your application or checked-in at a location, an update dynamically displayed in your friends’  News Feed which they may or may not see.  By including Sponsored Stories with your Facebook Ads campaign, this user’s friends can now see the story appear in the right-hand side.  Just like Premium Ads, Premium Sponsored Stories are served on a targeted user’s Home Page and Profile pages with 100% share of voice. 
Available immediately from Popimedia,  with Sponsored Stories, brands have the ability to promote these user experiences by leveraging trusted referrals.
Says Daniel Levy, CEO of Popimedia Innovations, “the Sponsored Stories feature amplifies a traditional Facebook Premium Ad campaign.  We are excited and ready to work with local and international brands, to grow their audience reach and extend the user experience they aim to create through their social media campaigns.”

Making a case for social media in small(er) businesses

Few small business owners and entrepreneurs have the bandwidth or the budget to launch a full scale marketing campaign. Combine this with a lack of the critical mass in terms of audience so frequently associated with the medium to large organisations / brands, and it almost seems hopeless to try and compete.

However, with the dawn of the digital age and the rise of social media platforms and opportunities, the sky has quite literally become the limit. It is no longer just about having the traditional above-the-line campaigns spanning across radio, TV and print, but about creating an online brand presence, about having a conversation, about listening and responding in real time to customers, potential customers and even potential detractors.

We believe that a truly successful social media strategy is one that is not based on talking to every man, but developing a specific and personal customer and audience experience.

There is no doubt that the current platform of choice for a two way, tailored communications experience online, is Facebook. And more specifically, the Facebook Fan Page as the first line of communication for an organisation.

Using Starbucks, as an example of a brand with one of the most successful Fan Pages, we have created a set of top tips and considerations, for maximising impact and delivering value, for a company of any size.

1. Know your brand personality – who are you, how do you engage, what is the ‘language’ and tone that you use when interacting and ensure that this resonates across all your audience interactions
2. Know your audience – who are you talking to, what makes them tick, what kind of information do they use and re-use, who do they talk to and about what
3. Don’t SPAM – instead of putting out marketing collateral, share content that is industry, topic and of audience interest and relevance
4. Make time – to post relevant information, to respond to comments and queries posted to your Fan Page and to really get under the skin of your audience
5. Listen – to the conversations not only on your Fan Page, but on other blogs, newsfeeds and Facebook Fan Pages and ensure that when you do respond, it isn’t mid-stream or out of context

Once you have these five elements buttoned down, Facebook has made it ridiculously easy to set up a Fan Page. Go to the Facebook login page, click on ‘Create a page for a celebrity, band or business’ and follow the step-by-step guide to setting up your page and gaining access to more than 500 million people around the world.

Your challenge – to sift through these more than 500 million people and make sure the right people become your ‘fans’.

And unlike traditional above-the-line advertising, which can sometimes feel like a bit of a hit and miss approach to reaching your target audience, Facebook advertising is audience customisable. By deploying a customised advertising campaign, you are able to eliminate what marketing and advertising folks call ‘wastage’, resulting in a more cost effective and tangible campaign.

Engage, interact and enjoy!