7 Ways to Fuel Fandom on Facebook – a Report from 360i

360i Point of View

7 Ways to Fuel Fandom
Insights, Tactics & Strategy for
Building your Fan Base on Facebook

© 360i – June 2011

Why This Matters
Four years ago, official brand pages on Facebook were a bit of a rarity.
Today, not only are most major brands on Facebook, but over the last
two years, their total fan numbers have skyrocketed.

During the first quarter of 2011, fan growth for many large brand pages
leveled off – or in some cases, receded. Over-couponing, non-strategic
advertising and dated management tactics have caught up with many
of these shooting stars. Recent platform and algorithm changes, as well
as more stringent Facebook policies, have also contributed to the
slowed organic growth.

So how does a brand grow its fan base in this new Facebook
environment, and how should you evolve your strategy to keep up? The
answer lies in understanding how the acquisition – engagement
– advocacy process works and implementing balanced, creative
content that drives engagement.

This POV provides seven steps for growing your Facebook fan base.

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Table of Contents: 7 Ways to Fuel Fandom

1. Expand your reach with content 4
2. Make the most of media buys 12
3. Respond and engage 17
4. Create incentives 21
5. Utilize Facebook tools 27
6. Optimize mobile & offline 30
7. Activate through Inside Pages 36
Recap 39


1. Expand your reach with content
Engaging content sparks
conversations. Fans interact by
commenting, liking or writing on your
wall, and those interactions foster the
organic spread of brand content and
experiences throughout Facebook.

More Interaction = Greater Reach

Engaged Likes Page Not Engaged

Served Content

Yes – Fans entered the No – Fans did not enter into the
conversation and activated the Engagement? conversation and thus, content
next tier of engagement. reach was limited.

Amplified Reach Limited Reach


Information: Deliver valuable on-brand information that your community will
both appreciate and share with their friends.

Why this works: Well above average fan growth can be correlated to
the days when the page posts its best performing content.

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Conversation: If you want to really inspire your fans to participate, ask
them! Make your ‘Call to Action’ as direct as possible.

Why this works: This type of interaction drives organic growth
through impressions and reach -- and by its very nature,
conversational activity is communal.


Photos, videos and links: If your fans enjoy your content, give them more of
it within each post. Posts with photos or videos attached to them are more likely
to appear in the News Feed of your fans.

Featuring two or more photos in your post will increase engagement and
impressions. One example of a compelling way to incorporate multiple images is
by setting up photo quizzes or basic polls. Using this tactic, a CPG brand recently
saw a 60% increase in fan growth above its previous monthly average.


Questions: The new Facebook Questions tool can be an excellent messaging
tactic while also benefiting your brand as a valuable consumer/fan insight tool.
The feature is designed so that anyone on Facebook can participate, which has
both pros and cons. Since non-fans can answer, more people can see and
engage with your message; however, this also means that you no longer require
that people Like your page to engage.

Although fans can engage with the post without being fans, 360i has
observed that a “Questions” post can in fact attract new fans.

Brand Advocacy

Insights


Tagging: Being tagged by a promotional partner raises the exposure of your
content by making it visible on the tagged brand’s page. It also adds value to
your fans’ experience by exposing them to other pages they may enjoy.

Tag your brand in photos

Tag another brand

Cross-Talk: Brands can now interact with other brand pages the way individuals
interact with each other. Cross-Talk gives us two new capabilities:
• Pushing certain actions into the News Feeds of shared fans
• Writing on another brand’s wall or commenting on their pages


Curate messaging: Ask your community for their opinion and then act on it.
Championing fan messaging in your branded status posts is an easy and
earnest that shows your appreciation for the community.

Fans who feel they are being listened to are more likely to engage on your page
when they’re posed a question. Asking the community to write some of your
content can also offer you valuable consumer insight.

Ask – The best way to find out what
your community wants to talk about is to
ask them.

And Deliver – The best reward you can
offer to your fans is to show them that
you’re listening.


2. Make the most of media buys
Media buys are your only sure-fire
way to acquire a specific number of
fans. There are a number of different
ad buy options on Facebook, but the
most successful of these tie back to a
larger content or event strategy.

After all, it’s not only how you get fans
to your page, but how you keep them
there.

Engagement Ads: These ads see a greater number of impressions and can
include exciting and visual elements like Polls and Video. They work well to build
broad awareness and brands can also utilize the size of the buy to execute tests
(A/B creative testing, target testing, etc.).

The most effective media campaigns typically combine
Front Page Engagement Ads with Run of Site Like Ads.

• Premium placement
• Multiple ad unit options
• Pay on CPM
• Recommended for campaigns with:
• Awareness objectives
• High budgets ($50K+)
• Engaging creative assets


Marketplace Run of Site Like ads – If you have the resources, Run of Site and
Marketplace ads can efficiently drive fan acquisitions. The most effective CPCs
(Cost per Click/Fan) are attained when the ads are managed and optimized daily.


Sponsored Stories & Events – Sponsored stories and events leverage the
power of social context. Nielsen reports that 90% of people trust
recommendations from people they know.

Although there are three types of
sponsored stories, only two effectively
drive fan growth: Page Like Story &
Page Post Like Story. These both
target friends of current page fans.

Fans cannot directly like your page
from an sponsored event, but using
engaging and exciting content can
draw users to your brand event
and increase fan growth on your page.


Gaming Ads – Paid media within games on platforms such as Farmville,
Rockyou and Social Vibe can be a powerful tool for targeting users engaged in
social gaming. Gaming ads drive significant brand awareness and they have
proven to be extremely successful when tied to an incentive.
Below: A toy brand’s Likes increased by more than 1,000% during the
flight of a Facebook campaign that utilized Gaming Ads.


3. Respond and engage
Driving engagement on your page
requires both interactivity and
proactive communication. A responsive
messaging strategy sparks and rewards
conversation – and encourages even
more fan interactions.

More interaction means greater
relevancy, greater reach & more
fans.

Commenting: Focused and strategic responses help to create “super fans,”
who develop a personal relationship with your brand and become top
supporters. Identify opportunities to respond more frequently within status
updates, as this notifies everyone who commented on the post instead of just
the single person who posted on the Wall.

If engagement slows on your
page, fan growth can be extremely
difficult to retain.

Facebook will stop recognizing
content as relevant if no one is
engaging. As such, the content will
not surface in your fans’ News
Feeds.


Like User-Generated Content: If you’ve asked your community to share UGC
and they do so, reward them with acknowledgement and praise. Curating
content means bringing the best UGC to the surface on your page by “Liking”
comments and Wall posts according to their influence level. Liking UGC can also
kick start conversations from your wall, which results in more relevancy to your
fans’ friends.


Customer Service: Brands are increasingly using Facebook as a means to field
customer inquiries and concerns – and new platforms are making it easier than
ever for brands to respond and resolve problems in a timely manner.

In some cases brands are using their Facebook page as a customer service
destination, which accounts for almost all of their fan growth. RosettaStone and
AT&T are two brands that utilize Facebook primarily for customer service.


4. Create incentives
Contests, sweepstakes and fan-
championing are excellent ways to
create big buzz while also offering an
exclusive reward for your fans. The
bigger and more custom-designed the
contest, the more incentive someone
will have to join your community.

Creative Contesting: A retail company recently launched a sweepstakes in
which fans of the page could enter for a chance to win a trip and a shopping
spree. The sweeps on Facebook resulted in a spike in new fans 3,900%
greater than the previous month’s average daily fan growth.

Be wary of over-couponing and dependence
upon sweepstakes for your fan growth. If
you create a community of fans who only
arrive at your page for a sweepstakes, that’s
all they’ll ever be.

Engage your fans, then reward with coupons
if you want to retain fan growth.


Fan of the Week: One of the best ways a brand can celebrate its fans on
Facebook is through fan recognition. Fan of the Week works best when the fans
“earn it” by fulfilling an action or request. For example, Oreo fans are eligible for
FOTW if they share a photo of themselves with an Oreo cookie.


Coupons: Coupons are always a fan favorite, though they should be deployed
strategically. Offering coupons to the community is a great reward for their
loyalty and advocacy. However, using a coupon only to draw fans to the page
will most likely result in acquiring fans interested only in those coupons. Finding
ways to sustain engagement beyond the coupon/offer is critical to fan retention.

How this works: A coupon program
recently helped to deliver fan growth
108% above the monthly average.


Gamification: Invite people to play with your brand and spread the word
through gamification. Applications can allow you to incorporate games,
contests, sweeps and promotions directly from your Facebook Wall.


Group Deals: Group deals like Groupon and Healthy Choice’s Progressive
Coupon can also incentivize fans to spread the word on your behalf. Walmart’s
CrowdSaver Facebook application invites shoppers to join together – from within
the brand’s Facebook Page – to “unlock” a special deal.


5. Utilize Facebook tools

You’ve spent years building out your
brand’s website, so the very least you
can do now is take a few minutes to
add social components to connect your
digital assets in a meaningful way.

Like Buttons: The Like Button lets brands promote and share from the
company website back to their Facebook profile with just one click.


Activity Feed: The Activity Feed plug-in shows users what their friends are
doing on your site through likes and comments.

Like Box: The Like Box enables users to like your Facebook Page and view
its stream directly from your website.


6. Optimize your mobile & offline
Growing your Facebook community
shouldn’t be limited to only online
channels. You can make the most of
your offline investments by tying
messaging and creative back to your
Facebook community.

Television: Use your programming and commercials to incentivize or announce
your Facebook promotions. Below, TV spots for Panda Express, Oreo, Toyota &
Golden Corral promote their respective Facebook communities (photos via Teach
to Fish Digital).


Events: Are you speaking somewhere, hosting a golf tournament or sponsoring
a concert or a fundraiser? One great way to reach the masses is tell people
about your page and give them a reason to visit.

A recent product promotion
directly correlated to a 586%
above average daily fan growth
for one brand.


Point of Sale: If you have the opportunity to be face-to-face or put your
product in fans’ hands, put a little reminder in their hands too, via stickers,
signs, cards, magnets and prints. Some brands, like Heinz and Cold-Eeze, have
also promoted their Facebook communities on their product packaging.


Print: Through QR Codes and promotions, the old print world is still in play, and
can drive to your digital properties.

Print + mobile combine to
drive fans for American
Eagle Outfitters, Toyota and
other brands.


Facebook Places, Events and Deals: It’s difficult to directly correlate fan
growth to mobile acquisition tactics. However, you would be remiss in excluding
mobile from your fan acquisition strategy.

Mobile elements add both reach and innovation to your existing tactics. For
instance, Gap created an event to promote its Free Jeans Giveaway.


7. Activate through ‘Inside Pages’
Although Inside Pages (formerly Tabs)
are more hidden in the new Facebook
layout, they can still add significant
value to your page.

Create good content, drive consumers
there, and then activate them to
participate, share and advocate for you.

Inspire advocacy: Build a destination
for participation. This can be a home
for your brand to inspire and showcase
your fans’ love of your brand.

Engagement and sharing are the goals
here. Ideate on how what you offer on
your inside page directly ties back to
your strategic goals.

Smirnoff invites its fans to “Be the Face of
Smirnoff” and be featured on the brand’s
Facebook page.


Value comes in the form of emotional connections or functional
activity. Identify value exchange opportunities to encourage communal
activity.

Oscar Mayer’s Good Mood
Mission page connects fans
to each others’ good deeds
and incentivizes them to
share the good feeling and
“Good Mood.”

Philly’s Cooking Creme tab
incentivizes users to Like
the page in order to unlock
additional exclusive content


Recap
1. Content: Rich, engaging content inspires an emotional connection and taps
into new Facebook features that help ignite optimal reach.
2. Paid Media: No fan acquisition strategy is complete without a smart, focused
paid media plan.
3. Converse: A responsive messaging strategy demonstrates your brand’s
commitment to its fans and capitalizes on your most influential advocates.
4. Incentivize: Exciting, brand-appropriate incentives strategically reward
engagement, participation and advocacy – not just a visit to the page.
5. Facebook Tools: Analyze your digital architecture and find opportunities to
utilize Facebook plug-ins and other social tools.
6. Offline and Mobile: Connect your fans across your assets. Add more entry
points to your page from all of your available media outlets (including Word of
Mouth).
7. Inside Pages: Combine your goals, your assets and your brand voice to
create a new experience on Facebook that welcomes, engages, rewards and
delivers a unique and exclusive experience for your fans.


If you only remember three things…

• Fan acquisition is vital to the health, perception and reach of
your brand on Facebook. Ultimately, total fan numbers are
only as important as the percentage of active users who
engage with you.

• Understand what it is that your fans and consumers perceive
as valuable. Then give it to them.

• The decisions that you make should not be selected at
random. The most successful growth on Facebook comes as a
result of blending a number of tactics together and tailoring
them to meet your objectives.


http://blog.360i.com twitter.com/360i facebook.com/360iagency

360i is an award-winning digital marketing agency that drives
results for Fortune 500 marketers through insights, ideas and
technologies. 360i helps its clients think differently about their
online presence and evolve their strategies to take advantage of
the new world of marketing communications – one where brands
and consumers engage in interactive and multi-directional
conversations. In 2011, 360i was named to Ad Age’s Agency A-List
and to Fast Company’s list of the “World’s Most Innovative
Companies.” Current clients include Oreo, jcpenney, Coca-Cola,
Bravo, and Smirnoff, among others. For more information, please
visit blog.360i.com or follow us on Twitter @360i.

7 Ways to Fuel Fandom on Facebook – a Report from 360i

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7 Ways to Fuel Fandom on Facebook – a Report from 360i