Guest Post
Social Media: It’s Time Marketers Start 6 Facebook Marketing Strategy

Introduction:
After years of aimlessly chasing fans, it’s time marketers start driving real business results from Facebook. This requires building a Facebook page that has a clear focus and offers value to customers, leveraging the entire Facebook tool kit, and integrating Facebook into a broader marketing strategy. To accomplish this, interactive marketers must be both an “oracle” who teaches their organization about Facebook and a “gatekeeper” who manages access to the platform. As marketers mature with the social network and Facebook increases its commitment to brands, together they will revolutionize the advertising industry.
Marketers haven’t cracked the Facebook code:
From toppling governments to inspiring award-winning films to bring long-lost family members together, Facebook is often the center of attention. And marketers are swarming to it like moths to a flame: 96 of the top 100 advertisers now use the site. Yet while millions of people have “liked” brand pages, most marketers fail to derive value from those relationships. In fact, engagement rates on brand pages are declining rather than increasing. The result? Believe it or not, most marketers don’t even see Facebook as their best option to drive audience engagement (see Figure 1). Marketers are failing to use the platform to its full potential because:
- They lack focus. In their race to start a Facebook page, many marketers forgot an integral step: setting clear objectives. Now they’re left with Facebook pages that have no purpose other than collecting “likes.” This lack of objectives not only hurts from a business perspective but also means that fans don’t get any real value from liking the brand.
- They don’t understand the platform. Facebook is unlike any platform marketers have ever seen — it’s like a miniature Internet with its own set of rules. EdgeRank, Facebook’s system for deciding which content appears in the newsfeed, is similar to search engine optimization (SEO) but requires a different kind of optimization. Facebook Ads are a cross between banners and paid search — and don’t quite follow the conventions of either. Marketers struggle not only to understand each of these pieces individually but also how they work together and how they’re evolving.
- They don’t have the right resources in place. Facebook doesn’t cost as much in money as it does in manpower — but many marketing organizations don’t have appropriate manpower in place — the dedicated people or the content development and sharing processes needed to be successful.
- They seek the wrong measurements. Marketers say that measuring return on investment (ROI) is their biggest challenge in social media, and measuring Facebook is no exception. Too many marketers ask “What is the value of a fan?” and not enough marketers understand their fans’ value in terms of loyalty and influence or Facebook’s impact on their business. Marketers won’t be able to prove value until they begin to ask the right questions.
Facebook Hasn’t Made Brands a Priority
Just as marketers have struggled to use Facebook properly, Facebook has struggled to help them succeed. In fact, for a company that relies on advertising revenues, Facebook hasn’t done much to make life easier for advertisers:
- It does not make content management easy. Marketing on Facebook requires a constant flow of content. Yet marketers aren’t set up to be publishers — and Facebook offers only limited options for managing multiple pages or handling multiple languages. Coca-Cola experienced this downside when Portuguese-language content accidentally appeared on its US page, inciting some users to respond with hate speech on a page that promotes happiness.
- It constantly changes the rules without warning. Facebook’s frequent and unilateral policy changes make it difficult for marketers to trust and invest in the platform. Just ask any pharmaceutical company: When Facebook recently removed the ability to disable user comments, it put the pharma companies at direct risk of violating government regulations and ultimately forced many to shutter their Facebook pages.
- It offers marketers limited data. Facebook is one of the only major websites that doesn’t allow third-party ad tags. Not only does that force marketers to rely on Facebook-provided data that one social analytics executive described as “lightweight,” but it means marketers can’t compare Facebook campaigns with other channels like search and banners or include them in attribution analysis. Without reliable, comparable data, brands can’t determine how important Facebook really is to their marketing mix.
Follow 4 Steps to Make Your Facebook Marketing Work:
Collecting fans without purpose isn’t enough; marketers must get serious about driving business results from Facebook. To do so, take four steps that will help you squeeze all of the possible value out of your Facebook program:
- Set clear objectives. If you don’t know what you want to achieve, you probably won’t achieve much at all. Define objectives that provide real value to your business.
- Build a page that provides value for your fans. Bring focus to your Facebook marketing by building a brand page that not only accomplishes your business objectives but also gives fans a reason to continually engage the brand.
- Use the full Facebook tool kit to increase reach and engagement. A brand page shouldn’t sit on its own. It’s imperative that you combine features such as ads, events, and apps along with your brand page to get the most out of the network.
- Integrate Facebook into your marketing mix. Facebook is not an island. It’s as important to integrate it with the rest of your marketing as with any other medium.
Set Clear Objectives
Start by rethinking what your Facebook page is going to accomplish for your business. Facebook’s versatility lets you choose from objectives that span almost every part of the marketing mix, including:
- Generating word of mouth. Facebook’s mission is to “give people the power to share” — and it has succeeded spectacularly. Over 4 billion “things” are shared every day, often related to products and brands. Facebook is the No. 1 site where consumers see social content about products and services, well ahead of any other social network. And according to Forrester’s Tech Marketing Navigator, the word of mouth generated on social networks plays a growing role in the purchase path for consumer technology products (see Figure 2).
- Driving people down the sales funnel. While it’s unlikely to replace dedicated direct marketing channels like Google AdWords, Facebook can drive some forms of direct response. John Deere uses Facebook content to tempt its half-million fans into a lead-generation site and reports that Facebook drives leads at a rate comparable to direct mail.
- Increasing loyalty. Facebook offers marketers a new way to engage their most loyal customers — and to get them to spread marketing messages. For instance, Tasti D-Lite allows fans to link their TastiRewards accounts to Facebook. Then every time they make a purchase, a customizable message is posted on their Facebook page.
- Helping your peers in product development or eBusiness. Savvy consumer product professionals are tapping Facebook for new ideas and to create new functionality. Starbucks created an application that allowed people to create their own Frappuccino online and then share with friends on Facebook. And Facebook has the potential to drive shared purchases. For instance, LiveNation’s Ticketmaster has integrated Facebook’s social graph into its interactive seating chart, allowing people to see where their friends are sitting and buy seats nearby.
Build a Page That Provides Value for Your Fans
Today’s brand pages are littered with a random mix of company news, promotions, advertising, and other content focused on what marketers want rather than what fans want. Carolyn Everson, VP of global marketing solutions at Facebook, says that the brands that succeed on Facebook are “the ones that give people a reason to be fans.” To provide value to the fans you should:
- Learn who your fans are and what they want. Facebook doesn’t provide much data on your fans, but there are ways of getting more information through opt-ins. EMI worked with campaign management platform Neolane to develop a Facebook app that collected opt-in customer information and then integrated it back into EMI’s customer database. Knowing who your fans are can help you determine not only how valuable they are as customers and influentials, but also what kind of content and engagement they’re looking for.
- Use Facebook data to dynamically optimize your content plan. While Facebook data is limited, dig through what’s available to learn how your community is responding to your posts. PageLever — an analytics tool that specializes in optimizing brand pages based on available Facebook data — pulls near real-time data from Facebook’s application
- programming interface (API) to help companies learn what content types are performing the best, which demographics are responding, and what time of day is optimal for posting. This data can then be used to create a dynamic content plan that gets the best response out of the community at any given point in time.
- Use apps to create a richer experience. A “like” allows fans to read and comment on your posts, but to create deeper engagement like games and contests you’ll need an application. For Valentine’s Day 2011, Target ran a contest called “The Super Love Sender” that let people vote on which charity would receive $1 million from the brand. Target’s Facebook app allowed fans to send friends personalized valentines and get real-time updates on which charity was in the lead.
- Keep your community active — even in down cycles. Your Facebook page is not a campaign, it’s a community of people who have raised their hands as brand advocates. As Scott Weisbrod, VP of strategy at Blast Radius told us, “Facebook allows for a more meaningful relationship than search or email. It’s important to build a content plan and calendar not only for your big campaign pushes but also during the down cycles when you’re not doing campaigns.”
Integrate Facebook into Your Marketing Mix
Facebook is too often treated as an isolated asset rather than an integrated part of the marketing mix — creating inconsistency in both the marketing plan and with the end-user. To integrate it interactive marketers should:
- Incorporate Facebook’s social graph into your existing web properties. Facebook makes it easy for you to bring its massive sharing network to your website, creating additional reach and interaction with your content and experiences. Toymaker Step2 built a Facebook Connect login into its site so customers could repost their product reviews on Facebook as well. The results: The amount of traffic it got from Facebook grew 135%, and the revenue from that traffic grew 300%.
- Make Facebook promotions the foundation of broader campaigns. Chances are that your broader campaigns will create at least some conversation on Facebook; by making Facebook the center of that campaign you can incite both conversation and participation. Corona’s “the most liked beer in America” campaign featured the faces of its Facebook fans on a billboard in Times Square — both creating reach (signs in Times Square typically get 1.5 million impressions per day) and driving 200,000 new “likes” for the brand.
- Use Facebook data to make other marketing programs more effective. While Facebook makes it hard to learn who your users are, it’s relatively easy to track their actions — and use that information to improve the rest of your marketing programs. For instance, customer relationship management (CRM) vendor Merkle can connect Facebook fans to existing CRM data. And marketers should work with vendors like DataXu, a demand-side media buying company, which now includes data from Facebook campaigns in its display media optimization algorithms.
The leading performance media platform for agencies, Social Media Marketing Services helps agency marketers buy, track, manage, optimize, retarget, and report on media across all channels—including search, display, and social media.
Dynamic Buzz provides the social media management for agencies buying ads on any online channel, helping them handle all tasks associated with performance advertising within an integrated platform.
Guest Post
Lost? Since You Can’t Trust Apple Maps, Check Out These 3 Apps Instead

Maybe you have the new software on your Apple device that has made headlines as not being reliable, or perhaps you’re just tired of the rivalry between Apple and Android. Either way, if you have a smartphone or tablet, you may want to invest in some apps that can get you from Point A to Point B without any hiccups. If map apps are what you want, these three are good places to start.
1. MapQuest
Well, before Google Maps was popular, you probably looked directions up on your computer through a bit of website known as MapQuest. Well, MapQuest now has an app, and if you have a dedication to the web version, you’ll undoubtedly want to download the app.
MapQuest is not only free to use, but it will also provide you with voice-guided directions, which can help you from having to look at your screen while driving. You’ll also receive turn-by-turn directions, so there’s no need to try and guess where the map is trying to take you or how to get from one street to another. You can also use the app to check current traffic or look for restaurants or other establishments in your area.
2. Waze
With over 30 million users, you can rest assured that Waze will help you get to your location. Not only does the Waze app serve as a GPS, but it will also provide you with real-time traffic information and give you route options to take. In addition, the directions are voice-guided, so you’ll never have to look at your phone for directions. And if you end up in a traffic jam, Waze will help you find the best way to get out of the jam and get to your location.
Waze uses the information from its users to determine roadblocks, traffic jams, and times, so if you’re using Waze, you’ll be helping others in the area learn the best routes. And to make Waze even better, you can also use the app to find the cheapest gas in your area.
3. Motionx GPS Drive
If the first two don’t sound appealing to you, you still have Motionx GPS Drive. This app will provide you with real-time and predicted times for your trip. You can view the app in both landscape or portrait mode, and you can also see the designated speed limit for the road you’re traveling on the right on your screen.
This app also has voice-guided directions, and you can choose the voice you want to hear. They will also give you detailed maps to ensure that you stay on track when coming to complex intersections. You also have the option to integrate the app with both Facebook and Twitter, and if you’re not traveling by car, Motionx GPS Drive will also give you walking directions.
Nobody likes getting lost, and sometimes you want something different than Google Maps or a non-functioning Apple Maps. If you’re headed out, make sure to have these apps on hand to keep you on track.
Jacob Smith works for Nissan auto in the sales department. He is an avid blogger and enjoys writing about his favorite car models and the dangers of drunk driving.
Guest Post
An Overview Of Business Models

Knowing Where To Start
There are a number of conceptual business models that are used throughout the professional world in order to enable business to have direction and a clear set of achievable objectives. One of the most beneficial aspects of the ISO 27001 standard is that it is defined with an organization’s business plan in mind. It is the intention of the standard to fit into an already decided set of principles and liberate a business in its information security procedures.
What Should A Business Model Encompass?
Businesses can thrive or fail on their business model and planning, so knowing what should be in your plan is critical in every sense. An effective business model should be aligned with the goals and objectives, both short and long-term, of the organization. To this end, every single individual element of planning or task should be undertaken with the business model firmly in mind.
ISO 27001 is in fact a great way to discipline a business model. The ISO 27001 standard calls for the continuous evolution of information security and of high levels of governance. Applying similar principles to your business model will ensure your business remains operating at a healthy level and continues to be ahead of the competition. If the business model of an organization does not work within the objective framework then it is more likely to prove to be unsuccessful.
Types Of Business Model
There are four main types of business models that are used throughout the world. Understanding which one fits best with your business could give you the key to profit and success. Understanding how an information security management system, such as ISO 27001, fits into these models in relation to your business, could also prove critical.
The most common in use today is the business model canvas. This is such a straightforward and productive method as it has many positive outcomes. At a glance, a potential investor can look at an overview of the business as a whole and decide whether or not they see investment potential in the organization. On a larger scale, it enables consortiums to bring together ideas and formulate a plan in a simple manner.
This is by far the most well-rounded business model and also allows for the most consideration of information security, as it allows many aspects of a business to be viewed at once.
Other popular ideas include the business reference model and the component business model, although both of these focus specifically on business areas rather than an overview, meaning ISO 27001 implementation may not be as simple to integrate into the business plan.
Bough SEO is a London SEO agency that specializes in all forms of digital marketing.
Guest Post
Google’s New Tool For Bad Links

Google recently announced it has launched its Disavow Tool which allows webmasters to alert Google of any backlinks they think may be harming their website. When Google rolled out their Penguin algorithm update, many webmasters saw their search engine rankings plummet as Google was penalizing their website because of the types of links pointing at their website. This algorithm update created a lot of stress for webmasters as they were not entirely sure which links were causing their rankings to decline.
Now, thanks to the Disavow Tool, webmasters can tell Google which links to ignore when assessing their backlink profile in an effort to improve their rankings.
Why you Should Use the Google Disavow Tool
If you were one of the many webmasters who was hit hard by the Penguin update, you will want to use the Disavow Tool to help your website recover. This tool is sort of a way for webmasters to wipe the slate clean if they happened to build backlinks for their website using automated tools or link-building services.
By providing Google with a link of links to ignore when deciding where your website should rank for a specific keyword, you should be able to clean up your backlink profile and only be left with high-quality links from relevant websites. When your backlink profile is cleaned up, you should see your rankings improve. Your rankings may not rebound to the levels they once were before the Penguin update, but they should be higher than what they currently are.
How to Use the Disavow Tool
Using the Disavow Tool can be a cumbersome task at first, but once you use it for the first time it should be easy for you to use it again for another domain that you own. The first thing you need to do in order to use the Disavow Tool is to gather a list of URLs that contain a link pointing to the website that you believe is hurting your website’s rankings. These URLs can be gathered using a backlink profile tool.
Once you have a list of low-quality URLs that contain a backlink for your website, you will want to open up a text file and paste those URLs in that file using the following format: http://www.domain.com/pageA.html where the entire URL is the location of the page where your backlink resides. If you want to disavow all links from an entire domain, you can do so by including a line in your text file that reads domain:TheDomainYouWantToDisavow.com. At the top of your text file, you can create comments for yourself and set those aside by placing a hashtag (#) before the line that contains the comment. In the end, your file will look something like this:
# Comment goes here
# Tried removing links from www.domainD.com but the owner was unresponsive
Domain: TheDomainYouWantToDisavow.com
http://www.domain.com/pageA.html
http://www.domain.com/pageB.html
http://www.domain.com/pageC.html
Once you have saved your text file with all of the URLs where you believe there is a backlink that is harming your site’s search engine ranking, you will then need to open up the Disavow Tool while signing into your Google account. After you navigate to the Disavow Tool, you will then go through all of the prompts and warnings and upload your text file for the appropriate domain that you own.
It is important to remember that it can take up to several weeks for the Disavow Tool to take effect, so you will not see an immediate increase in your website’s rankings. Just keep a watchful eye on your rankings to see if they improve in the next couple of weeks. If your rankings do not improve, you can try disavowing more links.
Richard H. blogger, writer, hobby photographer. He enjoys life as much as he can, the biggest happiness for him is when he helps others. Currently working for Samuelson Hause & Samuelson as a content contributor.
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