Are you curious what other companies are doing to achieve success with Facebook marketing? You’ve come to the right place.
This article highlights nine companies (big and small) that have transformed their Facebook presence by implementing innovative Facebook marketing practices.
You’re guaranteed to find inspiration for your Facebook marketing efforts here.
These tactics will work for just about any business—large or small, B2B or B2C. So let’s dig in!
#1: Cheese & Burger Society
The Cheese & Burger Society is sponsored by the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board. This page is an innovative way to promote Wisconsin cheese by talking about something many people love—burgers and grilling.
One savvy practice introduced here is fan gating. Fan gating, also known as “like gating,” is where you require visitors to become a fan of your page to gain access to special content, discounts or contests.
If you use a contest for fan gating, make sure you abide by Facebook’s terms of service. These articles can help: Mari Smith (compliance) and Sara Hawkins (legal promotions).
This contest brought 1000s of new fans for The Cheese & Burger Society
To increase engagement, Cheese & Burger Society created a Send to a Friend app, allowing fans to send a cheeseburger to their friends. This is fun, easy and promotes viral visibility.
The Send to a Friend app makes it easy to connect with a friend in a fun way
The Cheese & Burger Society also encourages fans to post pictures. Photos and videos get a better EdgeRank (Facebook’s algorithm for determining what shows up on your fans’ news feeds) and people love to share photos.
In fact, approximately 6 billion photos are shared on Facebook each month according to Pixable. For some tips on how to take full advantage of photos on your page, see this article by Debbie Hemley.
Fans love posting pictures of themselves
Key Takeaways:
- Elevate the conversation to topics larger than your specific brand or niche.
- Find creative ways to engage your audience with photos and contests.
- If appropriate, develop an app to encourage fans to share your content (e.g., Send to a Friend).
#2: IdeaPaint
IdeaPaint is a B2B company that sells a specialty paint that converts walls and other spaces into a dry-erase writing surface, eliminating the need for hanging white boards and opening up creative space.
In keeping with their creative purpose and mission, IdeaPaint makes innovative use of their welcome tab by creating hot spots with links to their social sites. This promotes interactivity. The exploratory user will also find a link for a coupon.
Idea Paint's welcome page is loaded with discreet hotspots
Find the "Download" button and find this clever coupon.
A key to building long-term customer loyalty is to give your customers a good first experience with your product or service. IdeaPaint does this by providing detailed videos on their Facebook page on how to install and use their product.
Idea Paint provides a variety of instructional and inspirational videos.
IdeaPaint integrates several social components in their Facebook videos. In addition to the Like button, they use the Send button, which enables you to directly send the link to your friends. The Facebook comment section allows people to make comments that will show up on their wall.
Look at the smart social integration on this video.
Another smart tactic employed by IdeaPaint is their use of NetworkedBlogs to automatically pull their blog posts to a dedicated tab. Additionally, they manually add their posts to their wall. As explained by Mari Smith, this will enhance your news feed. (Get a free class here from Mari on Facebook News Feed Optimization. See the yellow box.)
Key Takeaways:
- Use hot spots on your welcome page to integrate your other online sites.
- Use videos to instruct and inspire, taking advantage of comments.
- Integrate your blog manually and automatically with your Facebook page.
#3: American Express Open Forum
American Express has created a forum just for small business owners and leaders. Through a strategic partnership with Facebook, they created a massive contest for small businesses that generated lots of interest and increased their fan base. Note the importance of having a valuable prize ($20,000).
This contest brought lots of new small business fans to Amex.
A key to creating ongoing engagement on your wall is to use variety in your posts. Notice how Amex uses questions, quotes and articles to engage their fans. It’s also important to use shorter posts. Buddy Media found that posts with 80 characters or fewer get 27% greater engagement than longer posts.
Notice the variety in these 3 posts.
American Express also cleverly integrated their rewards program so people can redeem points for Facebook ads. Maybe you can’t leverage a deal with Facebook, but perhaps this kind of rewards incentive might get you thinking about partnership opportunities you’ve been overlooking.
This partnership with Facebook helps small business owners.
Amex features their authors and articles through some savvy Facebook integration. This requires special programming, but gives contributors the notoriety they deserve.
Amex features their experts and ads variety with polls and video clips.
Key takeaways:
- Integrate your blog with your Facebook page.
- Create variety in your posts.
- Form strategic partnerships that benefit your fans.
#4: Banez Insurance Agency
Banez Insurance Agency is a local Farmers Insurance agency in Stockton, California. This small business is doing a number of things smart marketers should study.
Ron Banez is the owner of this insurance agency. He makes an immediate impression on his welcome page by doing two things: 1) Making a charitable donation for every Like and 2) using a video.
Notice Ron's disclaimer.
A few things to notice on his wall: First, observe how Ron has taken advantage of the photo strip by creating 5 interchangeable photos that reinforce his core messaging. Here’s a helpful article on optimizing your photo strip.
Banez insurance makes good use of their photo strip.
Next, observe how Ron incorporated his photo in his profile image, enabling him to use his headshot as his avatar when interacting on his Facebook wall. In a relationship-based business like insurance, it’s important for people to see you’re a person.
Additionally, see how the profile image points you toward the links below it. This subtle guidance will keep visitors on your page longer, increasing the likelihood they will engage with you as a fan.
Finally, this page makes a great use of the tabs. Through the tabs you can get a quote, learn about insurance products and enter a contest.
Key Takeaways:
- Take advantage of the photo strip for messaging.
- Draw attention to your tabs.
#5: PETCO
PETCO is a national pet supply store. They have masterfully integrated their store on Facebook, allowing greater social engagement. See how it allows fans to tell their friends which products they like, even as they shop.
NOTE: Mari Smith recommends TabJuice as a great service for small businesses wanting to set up a store on Facebook.
PETCO makes it easy to share your favorite products with your Facebook friends.
Everyone wants fan engagement, but few companies tell their audience the rules of engagement. PETCO does it in a friendly, but direct, manner.
PETCO's engagement guidelines are clear and lighthearted.
As an example of fan gating, PETCO shows you the benefits of becoming a fan: access to coupons, news and Facebook-only contests.
PETCO makes it easy to see the benefits of liking their page.
Key Takeaways:
- Integrate your store with Facebook.
- Tell fans the rules of engagement on your page.
- Make clear the benefits of liking your page.
#6: Red Bull
Red Bull is a popular energy drink that has built a very strong fan base. Let’s study some of their smart practices.
Upon your first visit to their page, you can’t avoid their strong, but fun, call to action. If their power of suggestion isn’t enough, they also provide a subtle hint as to what’s waiting for you when you become a fan (notice the grayed-out videos). This is a powerful alternative to PETCO’s approach of listing the benefits. Determine which approach makes more sense for your business.
The grayed out area shows you what you're missing until you like Red Bull.
The more you can get fans returning to your page and lingering, the greater the likelihood they’ll tell their friends about you and eventually choose your products and services.
Red Bull developed a series of games and a TV channel for this very reason. While you may not have the budget to hire game developers or start your own TV channel, this might inspire some creative thinking on how to keep fans returning to your page.
Red Bull has created games to keep fans returning to their page.
Red Bull also has their own TV channel.
Depending on your brand, it might be valuable to find ways to meet your fans in person. The Events tab can be a powerful way to let your fans know where to find you. Red Bull makes a great use of this.
Some of the places Red Bull fans can gather.
Look at a couple of things about Red Bull’s tabs. They have creatively integrated their logo on their iFrame tabs. However, the Events tab gets lost due to the number of tabs they have. This highlights an important lesson: think carefully about the order of your tabs.
Key Takeaways:
- Don’t be afraid to be bold and creative when asking for a Like.
- Find innovative ways to keep fans on your page through games, TV, apps, videos, photos, etc.
- Use the Events tab to allow fans to find you face-to-face./li>
#7: Toll Booth Saddle Shop
Toll Booth Saddle Shop is a local horse supply shop in Mt. Holly, NJ (suburb of Philadelphia). This small business has built a loyal following by utilizing several smart Facebook strategies.
On their welcome page, they provide a clear overview of why a fan would want to Like their page and keep returning. Make sure to put your URL in the About section. As a physical business, you can create a Facebook Places page by merely including your address in your profile, thus allowing for check-ins.
The design of Toll Booth's welcome page is fitting for horse lovers.
Toll Booth’s store experience is highly social, allowing customers to tell their friends about their favorite items. Additionally, they provide an added benefit for following their page: a 10% discount automatically deducted when you shop in their Facebook store. That’s some easy money!
See how they've made their shopping social.
On Toll Booth’s welcome page they also encourage you to sign up for their mailing list, telling you why you might want to do that. They have made it easy by using an iFrame app that links their list with Constant Contact.
Integration with your mailing list can be easy with an app.
Toll Booth Saddle Shop keeps their page fun by incorporating a humorous series of horse videos each week. This is a great strategy to keep the interest of young and old customers alike. Many parents prefer shopping in places where their children enjoy themselves.
Fun videos increase engagement.
Toll Booth announces the fun video.
Key Takeaways:
- Utilize Facebook Places.
- Integrate social proof into your store—and give discounts to your fans.
- Have fun with your videos.
#8: Threadless
Threadless is a community-based online t-shirt company. They invite artists to create t-shirt designs and then sell the ones selected by fans. As you can imagine, their fans are very engaged (as noted by every post having comments).
A design-based company should utilize their graphic capabilities to keep their site interesting. Threadless does this by regularly changing their photo strip images and rotating various profile images.
Great graphics make your page stand out.
Threadless has found ways to segment their audience by interest and location. To differentiate interest groupings, they have developed separate pages for things like Kids and Design. Threadless has done an amazing job of taking their community off the Internet to communities around the globe through meetups.
Targeting different interests.
Targeting fans by location.
Threadless sells most of their products online, so it’s vital to have compelling photos. But they establish their brand as “by the people for the people” by using real people as their models and having fun.
Threadless uses everyday people to sell their products.
More examples of how Threadless uses everyday people.
One of Threadless’ trademarks is their customer involvement in the design and selection process of their business.
Many businesses could benefit from these principles by running contests or challenges where you invite your customers to develop a new product, process or concept. Then have your fans vote on their favorites.
T-shirt challenges provide ways to engage the creative powers of the Threadless community.
The leaderboard encourages community participation.
Key takeaways:
- Allow your fans to help define your business by letting them design and vote on your products.
- Use pictures to enhance the online shopping experience.
- Build and deepen your community through cross-promoting related pages and meetups.
#9: Skittles
Skittles is a colorful candy company that uses Facebook to reinforce their fun-loving, wacky culture.
On their welcome page they provide several opportunities to further engage their brand. They offer social buttons, links to memorable ads and the chance to “Experience the Rainbow” (a link back to their website). Additionally, they have a rotating “fan of the week,” who happens to be a comedian showing up in a variety of fun settings.
Skittles provides integration with their other media on their welcome page.
Skittles also has a set of guidelines that are short, clear and fun.
The Skittles rules of engagement are fun, but clear.
Finally, Skittles has developed a unique voice for their wall posts. They always speak in the first person. The posts are personal, playful and creative. Fans are encouraged to engage with each other directly.
Key takeaways:
- Integrate social buttons on your welcome tab.
- Make your guidelines fun and friendly.
- Keep your posts personal, playful and creative.
Want to Learn More About Facebook Marketing?
If you’re not taking full advantage of Facebook’s marketing power, don’t worry. You’re not alone. Many businesses are still just getting started with Facebook marketing.
There’s one simple way to take your Facebook marketing efforts to the next level. By attending the web’s largest online Facebook marketing conference, Facebook Success Summit 2011, you’ll become empowered to use Facebook to increase your fan base, better engage your customers and improve your sales.
You’ll be learning from 19 Facebook marketing experts. Join Guy Kawasaki, Mari Smith, Dave Kerpen, Robert Scoble, Michael Stelzner and experts from Intel, Applebee’s, PETCO and Intuit as they reveal proven Facebook marketing tactics at Facebook Success Summit 2011.
It’s the web’s largest online Facebook marketing conference. Go here for a sample class and to learn more.
What do you think about these Facebook pages? Have you tried any of these techniques? How did it go? Let us know! Please leave your comments in the box below.
Gmail 2.0 for iOS Brings New Look, Support for Multiple Accounts (AllThingsD)
Six Ways To Effectively Promote Events on Facebook – Case Study
Any time you offer an event – live or virtual – there are several ways you can capitalize on Facebook’s tools to increase your event registrations. Thing is, many Facebook users create all manner of events and insist on inviting all their friends… only to upset those friends with the constant barrage of invitations and emails about events of no interest or relevancy. So, let’s take a look at what does work in terms of promoting events on Facebook!
First, I recommend you always have your own event sales/registration page outside of Facebook. The only exceptions might be if a) your event is coming up quickly, b) it’s free and/or c) it’s for a relatively small group. (For small group events, I recommend never, ever revealing the event location to the public. There have been many wild stories of flash mobs for private parties, including a fourteen-year-old gal in the UK with 21,000 RSVP’s for her birthday party. Yikes!)
So, once you have your own web page set up with details of your event and a way to purchase tickets, apply these six tips to generate more buzz, visibility and ticket sales:
1. Add social share buttons to your event registration page
There’s no doubt about it, numbers mean social proof. The more Facebook Likes, retweets, LinkedIn shares etc. on your blog posts and web pages the more visitors will perceive your content as being popular and will also want to share. The best place to position your social share buttons is at the top right “above the fold” (visible without scrolling). See this screenshot below of the Social Media Success Summit 2011 registration page:
Social Share Buttons on Social Media Success Summit page
At minimum, add the following social share buttons to your event registration page:
*Note the Facebook Like Button now functions (almost) the same as the Facebook Share Button. The big difference is there isn’t an obvious place to write your own narrative before posting to Facebook, plus you cannot select the thumbnail. Clicking the Facebook Like Button automatically pushes the full story into your personal Profile stream. So, you may wish to add the Facebook Share Button with Counter to your registration page instead.
Facebook Comments Plugin
I also highly recommend adding the newly upgraded Facebook Comments Plugin to your event page. I love the way the plugin now syncs with users’ Profiles or fan Pages – what that means is anytime someone writes a comment (and the button for posting to Facebook remains checked – see screenshot below), you get additional visibility for your event page!
I recently offered a couple of free Facebook marketing webinars and had my web team add the Facebook Comments Plugin to the registration page, the thank you page, and the replay page. The same plugin (and social share buttons) are on all three pages so the same numbers and comments appeared in all three places, *but* the link that gets posted on Facebook through comments – and shared through the social buttons – is the registration page. Gotta love that! Test the comments plugin live here.
Facebook Comments Plugin
You can find the new Facebook Comments Plugin here.
See also the post on Social Media Examiner with the TV show I did on 8 Ways to Use Social Share Buttons on Your Blog for additional ideas on what to add to your registration page!
2. Add a blurb to your Facebook Page banner
The image on your fan Page is prime real estate. The maximum dimensions are now 180px by 540px – I recommend taking up all that space. (Though, now that we have a list of links down the left instead of the lovely row of tabs across the top, you might want to make your fan Page image height less than 540px so more of the navigation links can be seen “above the fold.”)
Social Media Examiner do a great job of utilizing this space on their Page. As you can see, their Facebook Page image has been made to look like two banners in one. Plus, note that the call to action offers a “free sample class” which is more appealing than selling tickets directly on the banner.
Social Media Examiner Facebook Page image
You could also add images about the event to your fan Page to go across the five-photo strip with calls to action. See this post for ideas: How To Use The New Facebook Photo Viewer As A Marketing Tool.
3. Promote your registration page on your fan Page wall
So long as you consistently provide enough valuable content on your fan Page wall, you can certainly periodically promote the direct link to your event. I like to start with a question – something like “Have you got your ticket yet to this exciting event?” or “Hands up who’s attending this event?!”
You could mix up sharing the link to your registration page and the link to your Facebook Event (see next tip). The screenshot below shows a recent post by Mike revealing that over 1000 participants are already registered for this mega event – again, there’s that social proof!
Social Media Examiner Wall Post
4. Create a Facebook Event
Notice this is tip #4, not #1!
Facebook Events is one of the most mis-used and misunderstood features. There are basically two ways to create an Event on Facebook: 1) via your personal Profile and 2) via your fan Page.
If you create an Event from your personal Profile, you will have the ability to message all invitees directly into their inbox. This one feature alone makes the Events created by your Profile the most attractive. (In essence, it’s a “loophole” to “spam” all your friends! Uhoh! Also, it used to be you could select all friends at once with the use of a javascript snippet in your browser’s address bar; however, as of recently that trick no longer works. Probably a good thing too!) UPDATE 4.4.11: Thank you to Courtney Parham for pointing out that the javascript code does still work; it changed to this one.
With the new Messages product many Event emails are now bypassing the Inbox and go straight to the “Other” folder.
HOT TIP: If you’d rather not receive Event invitations/emails from certain friends but you don’t want to unfriend him/her, help is at hand! There’s a little-known feature on Facebook that allows you to block Event invitations from specific friends. Just go to Account > Privacy > Block Lists > scroll to Block event invites and type in the friend’s name. Voila. Your friend will be none the wiser.
I strongly suggest you create a Facebook Event via your fan Page for any business-related events and keep the personal/social events for your Profile. Just click the Events link on the left of your fan Page, then click the “Create an Event” button.
The downside with Page-created Events is you cannot message all invitees – you can only send an “Update” and it goes to all fans, just as if you are sending a regular Update from your fan Page. However, if you think of your Facebook Event as an outpost for additional engagement between potential attendees, attendees and yourself as the host, you’ll get more traction.
Once your Facebook Event is set up, you can always ask your invitees (via the Event wall and via periodic Updates) and ask your fans (via your Page wall) to invite their friends and/or to post the Event on their Profile. This gives you extra viral visibility around Facebook. See screenshot below – the Share feature is now a link at the top just under the event title.
Social Media Success Summit 2011 - Facebook Event
One thing to note about Facebook Events, you’ll want to make it really clear there is a link that Facebook users need to click in order to register. Some people might think that by clicking the “I’m Attending” button they have signed up for your event. Write periodic updates and messages on the Event wall to encourage everyone to go get their ticket if they haven’t already.
Also, the Event photo/graphic is one of the most important features – when users share the Event around Facebook, the thumbnail of the image goes with it.
5. Offer live micro events on your fan Page
A regular feature that Social Media Examiner does really well on their Facebook Page is “Expert Fridays” where a subject matter expert spends one hour answering questions directly on the fan Page wall. In the midst of a Summit promotion, Mike makes a point of featuring instructors from the upcoming Summit as guest experts. This helps to introduce the faculty to Mike’s community, provides tremendous value, and helps to further build social equity.
Example Expert Friday - Guest from previous Summit
Mike says:
I have often hosted micro events myself, such as a “flash chat” using an app like Clobby. Or an impromptu webinar using livestreaming apps like Vpype or the new Linqto (coming out of beta next month). Bottom line, many of your fans are on Facebook throughout the day and just love to interact with you LIVE! Use this engagement as an opportunity to add value and to seed your upcoming event.
6. Encourage attendees to engage and share
Once participants have signed up for your event, encourage them to come write on your Facebook Event wall and engage through other social channels. For the Social Media Success Summit 2011, Mike has a whole section for attendees called “Social Networking” which includes an invitation to join the private LinkedIn Group, interact on the Facebook Event page, tweet about the Summit, add an Attendee Badge to their website. Plus, a widget displays the livestream of #smss11 tweets, and all Summit instructors photos and Twitter IDs are displayed too.
Attendee Social Networking
And, here’s a bonus tip:
Include a “Share on Facebook” badge in all your promotional emails!
I created this badge, which you’re welcome to use:
Click the badge above to give it a try! The badge shares this blog post and you’ll have a chance to add your own comment and select a thumbnail.
To make your own link code for sharing your content on Facebook, use this: http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=XXX (replace XXX with your event URL including the http://).
Join the web’s largest Social Media event!
These Summits are among my favorite events each year. I’m honored to be a presenter and I also make a point of attending all the other sessions and join in the live tweeting – the content is second to none. Unlike events where the content is light and the pitching is heavy, the Social Media Success Summit is heavy on content and has zero pitching! By attending this Summit you’ll be able to apply practical social media marketing methods right away that will help you to create more visibility, reach more customers and take your business to the next level.
I’m leading two all-new sessions on Facebook marketing at the Summit this year:
Come join me and 21 other subject-matter experts at this year’s Social Media Success Summit!
The Social Media Success Summit 2011 expert instructors include many of my favorite thought leaders in the new media space: Jeremiah Owyang (Altimeter Group), Brian Solis (author, Engage), Frank Eliason (Citigroup), Erik Qualman (author, Socialnomics), Michael Stelzner (founder, Social Media Examiner), Dan Zarrella (author, The Social Media Marketing Book), Andy Sernovitz (author,Word of Mouth Marketing), and David Meerman Scott (author, Real-Time Marketing & PR). Plus, experts from Verizon, Boeing, Intel, and Cisco will be sharing their proven social media tactics and strategies.
I trust you found some valuable tips for increasing your event registration in this post! What did I miss? Have you successfully used Facebook Ads to sell more event tickets? What other social media event promotion ideas have you seen that work well? Let me know in the comments below!