It’s a guy thing, a girl thing, a techno thing, brand thing, your thing, my thing, our thing. True but Facebook is becoming more than just a ‘Thing’ in the world after the Facebook Marketing Conference (fMC) held on 29 February 2012 at a packed Museum of Natural History in New York.
For Africa, which is home to some of the world’s fastest growing economies, it’s a winning scenario for brands to truly make themselves heard.
Facebook transforming Marketing – Colour up digital
Coming out of fMC, a couple of new elements to the platform will assist brands in social media to yield positive returns. With the goal to connect brands and humans, the Time line concept is introduced. This rich and customisable canvas allows brands to customise cover images, avatars (or ‘profilics’), integrate applications, gestures, as well as pin and star content at the top of the time line to intrigue and keep potential new fans as companies express their identities.
Sheryl Sandberg, COO Facebook: “It enables brands to find their voices and have genuine potential relationships with their customers”.
Part of the users experience starts with the primary sense of sight, so give them eye candy. Pages using the new timeline, set to come in on 30 Mach 2012, will need to create a Gestalt and make the elements work together as an enticing whole and give fans pure sugar, pure sweetness and make it Roar with Flavour.
1. Premium Offers – Drive it
Advertising models are out with the static and it is in with a breath of fresh air. Everyone on Facebook is accustomed to those Market Place ads sitting on the right hand side of the newsfeed, measuring user’s interaction with brands via click throughs.
With new Premium Offers, You always get something out as brands are brought to life and into stories, filtered into target audience’s newsfeeds, even if users or their friends are not fans of the page. Here a brand’s content is the ad, whether a status update, image or video.
2. Reach Generator – Touch the impossible!
Moving toward a broadcasting model, Premium ads can be re-run in the newsfeed of the target audience. As the elements of Timeline and Premium offers work together, fans start becoming brand ambassadors of the page. It is the Reach Generator Product that helps brands interact with a fan or potential fan and have us all working Today, Tomorrow, Together.
In comparison to a page’s reach of only 16% today, Reach Generator will ensure that up to 75% of fans see a page’s content every month and therefore increase ROI. Now we can truly target your friends and their friends, and their friends.
3. Facebook Mobile – Where ever you go!
In 2010 Africa, with its population of 1 Billion and 500 million cellphones, mobile is the number one way to access the internet. It came as sigh of relief for South Africa, as well as other top mobile users like Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt and Ghana, Facebook now caters for people on the move with premium ads filtering into the mobile version of the network. Globally Facebook says it will have access to 845 million users across all internet spheres. For South Africa we can say we have reached the possible.
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Africa’s mobile use in context (source: praekeltfoundation)
4. New Offers- So Much More
What’s novel in the house of Facebook is that stories will appear to users as they log out, ensuring they don’t leave home without it. Additionally, Brands will be able to engage in private discourse with fans. The personal touch of 'helping you', the fan, will lead to less distraction on the wall and increased customer satisfaction.
5. Content- The power is now in your hands
“Brands on Facebook are the best content creators”, revealed Facebook VP of Product, Chris Cox a fMC . Content is still king, even more so now that it will become part of the advertising exposure. Coca Cola has plotted their entire history in Timeline and Kia has turned their timeline into a virtual show room.
Coupled with real time analytics, the ORM team must work closely with the Community Managers to understand what content should be promoted, starred and pinned. More than ever it is time to innovate!
Ultimately the true indicator of these changes will be judged by the fans. When they feel over exposed and invaded they may jump to Twitter, where there are only Promoted Tweets, or take to Google Plus, to spend time in video based ‘Hang Outs’. It will now come down to content being interesting on Facebook to keep the fan. Despite the changes, the rule will still be the same- don’t just keep the fan, ENGAGE!
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More about Popimedia Innovations
Popimedia Innovations is a Specialist Social Media Marketing Company providing bespoke social media marketing solutions with a unique focus on interactive and viral marketing.
With extensive experience in Social Media strategy development and campaign creation across many industries, Popimedia Innovations' brand of social media marketing is recognisable by its leverage of social media networks like Facebook delivering results for marketers initiating social media activities.
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