Yesterday in New York, Facebook hosted the first annual fMC gathering, hosted by their global marketing solutions team.
Our experts have posted about some of the major changes, including Timeline For Brands and Reach Generator, Premium, and Offers.
As a strategist, the session I appreciated most was led by Mike Fox called “Driving maximum value from your social marketing strategy.” Yes, you need a Facebook strategy. Here’s Mike’s framework for thinking through Facebook opportunities, which every brand should understand before diving into the functional changes and new advertising opportunities.
Connect (quality not just quantity)
- Everything begins with a connection
- Avoid gimmicks and incentives that cause non-customers to dilute your connection base
- Use targeted ads to get your customers to become your fans.
Engage (create experiential value for your connections)
- Create compelling page experience
- Make it unique: avoid repurposing content
- Put experienced marketers at the helm
- Many lightweight interactions over time bold relationships and loyalty
Influence (word of mouth at scale)
- When your connections engage, tell their friends
- Influencers drive more connections and customers
- Focus on frequent, high-quality publishing
Integrate (social by design)
- Leverage the social graph to make your business better
- Create synergy between your social marketing and a core business process
- Custom apps are successful with engaged, influential audiences
I love that the phrase “social by design” was used frequently during the event. Success in social business requires planning and deliberation; Dion Hinchcliffe and I expand on this in our upcoming book Social Business By Design.