Facebook: The Next Generation
A look at best social media practices for eyecare professionals
By Joe Dysart
While social networking has been around for awhile (it was done on discussion forums long before Mark Zuckerberg got his first tricycle), Facebook makes networking so effortless, so fun, and so multifaceted for individuals and businesses.
For example, once someone signs up for your business page on Facebook, they immediately begin getting info about your practice in their News Feed, can instantly share your offers to others in their social networks, and can effortlessly engage in discussions on your Facebook page. They can also give their opinion about your products or services and can shop on your Facebook page—all without even thinking about how to do these things.
GET CREATIVE WITH FACEBOOK
Design options for Facebook are also expanding for ease of use for businesspeople. For years, Web designers have bemoaned the fact that they were forced to use Facebook's propriety programming for much of the designing they did on the Facebook site. No more. The service offers Web designers complete creative design freedom within specified framed areas of pages on Facebook.
“I for one am thrilled with this long-awaited news,” says Janet Driscoll Miller, CEO of SearchMojo, a Web marketing firm. Essentially, any content that appears within these specially designed frames, iFrames, is no longer subject to the limitations of Facebook's design language. Instead, the content can be easily designed with more robust Web design programs like DreamWeaver or Microsoft Expression.
“This is a huge time-saver when you're trying to program pages to match your corporate brand,” Miller observes.
FACEBOOK'S INTEGRATION WITH GOOGLE ANALYTICS
Tracking your data has also been simplified. “Facebook removed some features that allowed you to track your page views in Facebook via Google Analytics,” Miller says. That's no longer a problem, she adds, now that Google allows company Web content to be displayed within the new iFrames model. Essentially, any content showcased within the frame can be tracked, sliced, and diced in Google Analytics (google.com/analytics/), a free program that analyzes user behavior on sites. Other analytics programs will also work.
The expanding options for tracking sales and other conversions is also helping businesses.
“Seriously, this one deserves about 15 exclamation points,” Miller says. “iFrames make tracking conversions from Facebook—and keeping ad respondents within the Facebook application—much easier.”
PAGE BUILDERS
There are a variety of plugins to build connections between your practice website and Facebook. These include ‘Recommendations,” which gives users personalized suggestions for pages on your site that they might like and ‘Comments,' which allows visitors to comment on content on your Facebook site.
Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of Facebook, has grown the social network/Web marketing gem to 750 million+ registered users
Meanwhile, the ‘Like Box,' enables users to ‘like' your Facebook page and view its stream directly from your site. ‘Facepile' shows profile pictures of a user's friends who have already signed up for your site. And ‘Live Stream' allows users to exchange comments and engage in other shared activity in real-time as they interact during a live event on your Facebook page.
POSTING POTENTIAL
Other page-building options include a wide range of offerings.
■ ADD A ‘LIKE BUTTON'. The ability to ‘Like' a business confers an instant recommendation of your eyecare business to everyone within a Facebook user's circle, be it 12 people or 1,200 people. You can add a ‘Like' button to your Facebook (developers. facebook.com/docs/plugins/).
■ POST OFTEN, POST WELL. Make the most of Facebook by providing constant updates to your page and judiciously posting to the walls of other pages.
Generally speaking, Facebook users won't consider this annoying. After all, those who ‘friend' you are clearly saying they are interested in what you have to say.
Just be sure it's interesting and includes images or video often.
Philip Harrington, practice administrator at Baltimore Washington Eye Center, subcontracted development and maintenance for Facebook pages to an outside design and consulting firm to provide quality content.
There are a number of free Facebook social plugins for business
“We knew that we had to start building a presence for our practice in the social media like Facebook, but we just kept getting stuck and didn't seem to quite get it together,” Harrington says. “We were pleased to have the guidance, development resources, and execution support to get this going.”
Adds Clement Berry, chief executive officer at Eyecare Medical Group, who also outsourced design and maintenance: “At Eyecare Medical Group, we had set up a Facebook page that looked just like everyone else's and thought we were getting somewhere. Then we watched as our pages got transformed and how it projected our brand and identity.”
Baltimore Washington Eye Center had better luck with its Facebook presence by outsourcing the design and maintenance
■ CREATE A CONVERSATION. Businesses that use traditional methods to ‘broadcast' their brands on Facebook are generally received with a collective yawn, and sometimes worse, from Facebook users protective of the social network's culture. Facebook users expect a conversation from the businesses they befriend. And they expect it to be authentic. EB
Joe Dysart is an Internet speaker and business consultant based in Manhattan. INFO: 646-233-4089; joedysart.com
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Social Media DataHarkening back to the power of the Yellow Pages in years gone by, social media is now taking a dominant role in small business marketing.According to a recent survey from Constant Contact, Inc.: 73% of small businesses report using social media to market their business, what is called a growing trend by Constant Contact. 62% of those who are not currently using social media marketing expect to begin using it in the coming year. Further, 81 percent of those currently using social media marketing expect to increase their efforts this year. 82% of those doing social media marketing reported increasing their use in the past year, Constant Contact reports. Among social media tools, Facebook is the tool of choice for small businesses. 95% of those using social media marketing reported using the Facebook and 82% of those found it to be effective. Of note, in Constant Contact's October 2010 survey, only 63 percent reported that Facebook was an important business marketing tool; and in April 2010, that opinion garnered only a 51 percent response. OTHER MEDIAAccording to the same study, small businesses found varying degrees of success with other social media marketing tools.47% of those using Twitter found it effective. 47% of those using LinkedIn found it effective, and 73% of those using video sharing tools, like YouTube or Vimeo, found them effective. |
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| When getting up to speed, tap into Facebook's own information sources to discover the path to social media greatness. “Building Your Business with Facebook Pages” is a downloadable document with pointers on how to get started and maximize your Facebook relationships with clients and potential clients. The basic getting-started-with-your-Facebook-page document can be downloaded from ads.ak.facebook.com/ads/FacebookAds/FB_PagesGuide_MediaKit_051611.pdf OTHER LINKS:* Manage your existing ads: facebook.com/ads/manage* Advertising guidelines & policies: facebook.com/ads_guidelines.php * Guide to Facebook Ads: facebook.com/adsmarketing * Receive ongoing tips: facebook.com/facebookads * Create a Facebook Page: facebook.com/pages/create.php * Use social plug-ins: developers.facebook.com/plugins * Advertising help center: facebook.com/adshelp * Facebook page promotion guidelines: facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php |
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