Attention: Make sure your Facebook app is mobile enabled!

We spend a lot of time talking with marketers and to marketing/creative/digital agencies about social media. The conversations generally revolves around developing an engaging app that capture valuable data on each users and then extracting the insights.

We find (with nearly 900 million users it isn’t a shock) Facebook is where they focus their time, budget and energy. They are using TV ads, online advertising, email marketing campaigns, etc to drive their audience through to their Facebook page.

Fantastic use of social media and a brilliant avenue to acquire great data on your audience.

However, in our discussions we keeping coming across the same issue. They don’t realise their app needs to be mobile enabled.

With over 425 million users accessing Facebook each month through a mobile device this is crucial. Why? Well it means if your app isn’t mobile enabled over half your audience can’t access it through their smartphone and/or iPad.

Our advise is next time you are talking to a Facebook develop please ask them is the app mobile enabled! Please don’t assume it is, as most Facebook apps aren’t.

For more information our mobile enabled Facebook apps, please contact Carolyn Harrington on + 61 3 9415 2502 or via email carolyn.harrington@mocomedia.net

Facebook Analytics – There’s a whole lot more than ‘Likes’ to report on!

There aren’t that many marketing campaigns these days that don’t include social media and Facebook in particular. When companies like VicRoads has a Twitter account to keep us up to date on road rules, you know that it has gone mainstream!

Understandably CEOs are asking their staff “What reports/results are we getting from Facebook?” Sadly the average Facebook marketing to do list looks like this:

From talking to our clients and marketers we have found in terms of Facebook, companies report on the number of ‘Likes’. ‘Likes’ are great but are meaningless if you know anything about the people who ‘liked’ you and/or if they don’t back to your Facebook page!

So what should you be reporting on? Facebook recently started providing analytics to the corporate user. The reports are useful but are still ‘light on’ and aren’t giving you the full picture. So what do you need to do?

You need to use a Facebook analytics software program to capture the information and generate reports. It is a must have item in any marketer’s tool kit. It is as necessary as your email marketing reporting program.

The table below outlines the types of information you can report on per Facebook campaign (for this exercise I have shamelessly used our Facebook reporting software!!!):

As you can see there is a lot meaningful information a marketer should be reporting. The ability to track when a specific Facebook redeem a voucher is not only extremely powerful but ensures a voucher is used only once (would have saved Target a fortune! http://t.co/p6bGy0iP).

So now you know what results you can track in Facebook, we hope ‘Likes’ is just one of many things listed in your report to the CEO.

For more information on Facebook analytics please contact Carolyn Harrington on +61 3 9415 2502 or via email Carolyn.Harrington@mocomedia.net.

The difference between a Facebook page & app

I have noticed over the last couple of months there is confusion around what a Facebook app is and how it differs from a Facebook page. It is extremely important that you as a marketers and CEOs understand the difference as the opportunities they offer your company are poles apart!

Before I explain the difference between a Facebook page and app I must introduce you to the Facebook database.  All that information you enter about yourself when creating a Facebook page is captured in a Facebook database. The type of information it stores is:

• Date of birth/Age
• Email address
• Where you live
• Where you were born
• Relationship status
• Your friends names

The individual details contained in the Facebook database is a marketer’s Holy Grail.  Companies out there charge big money to sell customer information on and by no means is it as comprehensive or as up to date as the information contained in the Facebook database.

Now what is the difference between a Facebook page and app?

Facebook Page

A Facebook page is where a company creates a profile in pretty much the same way an individual does. Marketers use their page to promote upcoming events, new product launches and try to build a dialogue with customers.

A customer can engage with a company on their Facebook page by posting a comment and/or clicking the ‘like’ button. The customer however does not give permission for a company to access their information. It all stays firmly locked away in the Facebook database.

Facebook App

Facebook apps are custom built and are hosted on a company’s Facebook page. They come in all shapes and sizes, including a:

Competition

• Survey
• Voucher/Discount
• Locked off content

A Facebook app is designed so a customer must give a company permission to access their information from the Facebook database before they can enter the competition or download the voucher etc. The information is downloaded and given to the company as soon as an individual clicks allow.

A Facebook app is designed to create reports which enable a marketer to gain valuable insight on their customer base. For example, it can tell which demographic is interested in a particular product range.

In simple terms the biggest difference between a Facebook page and a Facebook App is indirect, versus direct marketing opportunities. The advantage of a Facebook App is that the customer has provided permission to be contacted via their e-mail address. Access to a customer’s details such as their e-mail address would not be available on a standard Facebook page.

As a marketer and a business owner I know what my social media strategy would contain – a Facebook app!

For more information on a Facebook app feel free to contact me on +61 (3) 9415 2502 or via email Carolyn.Harrington@mocomedia.net

Further reading:

The 5 golden rules to creating a Facebook app http://www.mocomedia.net/index.php/archives/2936

Example Facebook apps:

http://www.facebook.com/Hotelcomau?sk=app_264953873518234

www.lindtcompetitions.com.au

https://www.facebook.com/burberry?sk=app_197184447010295 (click on The Sample)

The 5 Golden rules to creating a successful Facebook App

It is the must have social media accessory that everyone is talking about. They come in all shapes, sizes and colours. That’s right I am referring to Facebook app.

So what should yours look like, and will it be appealing enough to attract the audience it is supposed to? Below are MoCo’s five golden rules to developing a Facebook app:

1. Make A Plan

Facebook should be treated like all marketing activities; write a marketing plan. Old school rules apply to social media as well!

The plan should cover:
• Who is your target audience?
• What is the objective of the app?
• How are you going to measure your return on investment?
• Which stakeholders will it impact and how?

All these questions and more need to be considered before your Facebook app can be developed.

2. Permission Is King

The Facebook “social graph” is a goldmine of information. To access this data your apps must ask permission first (http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/permissions/). Permissions are a trade off, the more you ask for, the likelihood of someone engaging with your Facebook app decreases.

MoCo recommends testing the number of permissions to ascertain the drop-off rate. Our experience found Gen Y users aren’t too concerned about the information they give up. It is the older audience who tend to be more protective of their privacy.

3. Build It And They Won’t Necessarily Come

Just because you have built an app it doesn’t mean your audience are going to engage. I don’t want to break your creative spirit but Angry Birds is an anomaly.

You will need to incentivise people to download your Facebook app. Examples would include:

• Exclusive Facebook discount vouchers
• Group deals (eg. three of your friends buy a ticket and the fourth one is free)
• 10% discount if you post a purchase on your wall
• Pick your favourite diamond necklace and go into a prize draw to win it

Once again Gen Y users aren’t too fussed about the incentive. It is the other million odd discerning users who require a worthy incentive to give up their information.

4. Don’t Forget Your Reports

The brilliance of Facebook is the volume of information you can gather on your customers and each campaign. No other third party sales channel can provide a marketer such granular insight.

We suggest writing a shopping list of useful reports and handing them over to your developer to build into your app. At MoCo we would ask for this shopping list up front, as the reports requested may impact on the Facebook app design.

5. Don’t Go Overboard

Facebook is a wonderful engagement tool as long as you have something to say. Ensure that your content up-to-date, relevant and engaging – in short, don’t spam!

Best of luck with your new Facebook app. Feel free to call 03 9415 2502 or email me on Carolyn.Harrington@mocomedia.net if you have any questions.

I (along with everyone I suspect) am so over hearing about the GFC.  At the end of the day we stuffed up and are all responsible.

We can point the finger at politicians and CEOs of invest banks all but we all benefited to a degree. We all loved the cheap interest rates, the amount of money we could borrow for our dream home as well as how much our customer spent with us.

The ability to make money from a business idea hadn’t been so easy. As Marketers we had fantastic budgets to build new websites, digital marketing campaigns and create the next kick arse iPhone app to revival Angry Birds. The only problem is we broke a cardinal rule. We forgot to stay close to the customer and listen to what they wanted.

Now I am going to be controversial here and sound like Paul Keating! I think this is a recession the world had to have. It needed a reality check to bring business back to basics. It was time to put the customer centre stage of everything a business does again.

Right now businesses need to focus on understanding their customer, their needs and preferred communications channel.  So my advise is get yourself really comfortable, blow the dust of your databases, excel sheets, website log files etc and read up on your customers.  You will be amazed at what they are telling you about themselves.

Of course if you are having problems making heads or tail of your customer data you could always call MoCo as we are more than happy to help!

That’s what we do at mo.  This blog will be about enabling retailers to increase profits by getting their customers back to their stores more frequently and spending more money.

It will cover topics such as the power of segmenting, how tailored communication is the only option if you want your customers to talk to you and about you, and why you must embrace social media to engage your customers.

This blog will allow me to explore issues our retail clients are facing, trends and new ideas, as well as brainstorming about how to get a deeper relationship with your customers.

Participation by way of comments and open discussion is encouraged, and I will try to respond as best as I can to your feedback.
I look forward to our journey together.
Robyn

“You give them a glass of champagne and they’ll buy an extra dress”
— Bernie Brooks, circa September 2009. Bravo