Facebook has seen phenomenal growth in 2010. The Social Networking of 500 million users has revolutionized all aspects of Internet and is set to play an increasing invaluable role in future sales and marketing campaigns.
The principle advantage of Facebook as a marketing tool is “time”. People spend more time on Facebook than on any other website/or online forum. This offers businesses and organizations the opportunity to better understand and channel their messages across to potential customers. Indeed the efficiency of Facebook as a targeting and engaging medium is unique and even allows small businesses the chance to compete with larger rivals on equal footing. This is the main reason why, a growing number of businesses and organizations are diverting their annual sales/promotion budgets to social media marketing – especially for Facebook.
However for small business Facebook marketing has its own set of unique challenges. The main concern is to determine whether a Facebook page is actually helping an organization or is a waste of time. In this Facebook Insights can be of immense assistance. This useful tool is perhaps the single most important device helping individuals, companies & organizations to evaluate the effectiveness of their Facebook page/marketing campaign.
Facebook Insight is activated once a page gets 30 “Likes”, and enables the company to get both “user” and “interactive” insights. These insights includes details on monthly active users, daily new “likes,” total “likes,” sources, demographics, page views, external referrers, media consumption, along with feedback and daily page activity.
As a web consultant, I understand that Facebook Insight is a tool of incalculable importance, especially for small business owners, who are running their own social media campaigns. For instance, by using Facebook Insights a company can optimize its resources and target the most relevant users. It is important for a business to focus on “daily active users”: people who actually come to a company’s page on a given day. By focusing on “daily active users” a company can build on its customer equity and avoid distractions of passive followers: people who “like” the page and never come back. In other words a correct use of this feature enables a company to separate the chaff from the grain.
Secondly, a company can track the number of mentions its page receives. “Likes” are nothing if they are not followed by word of mouth publicity. When a page gets a mention, it is basically being promoted. Mentions can help a business reach a whole new audience and can even result in leads. Businesses should aim to convince its “daily active users” to spread the word.
Thirdly, the company should use “daily story feedback” feature of Facebook Insights to monitor what its customers are thinking and saying. This feature, if evaluated properly, by examining particular days of a week/month can help company target release of contents and schemes, thus enticing responses. The ability to see if a particular day has a spike in “likes” or comments also enables a company to consistently create “good” contents and enhance customer retention.
Fourthly, by evaluating its Facebook audience, a company can better position its product and learn about its customer base. Armed with this information a company can use Facebook Insights to effectively reach its target audience.
Lastly, the external referral feature enables a company the gauge the top external domains from which visitors are finding its Facebook Page. The company can than focus on sites that are driving traffic to its Facebook Page and curb investing on less thriving platforms.
All in all, Facebook Insight which includes other features like age views, tab views, media consumption, most recent posts etc can help a small organization evaluate and streamline its online marketing strategy, which in turn can pay dividend by increasing customer retention and enhancing market penetration.
Danish Mahtab, Director of Web Production, Traffic Online JLT
