Facebook’s Guide to Small Business Marketing Gives Opportunity to Marketers as a Whole

Posted by Beverly Crandon on 7/22/10 • Categorized as Advertising,Business,Social Media,Web 2.0

Wiley Publishing and Facebook are teaming up together to produce Facebook Guides.  Now normally this type of news is not something we would blog about, we may tweet about it, but not blog about it.  However, what sparked our interest is one of the book titles expected to be released later this year.

The three books planned for release are:

1. The Facebook Guide for People Over 50
2. The Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing
3. The Facebook Guide for Parents

So, it’s the Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing that interests us, because we see opportunity here.

Firstly, we’ll say, good on Facebook for using their popularity to get at SMB’s thinking about taking the social advertising plunge.  To a small business owner, Facebook has the three R’s they are looking for; Reach, Recognition, and Relevance.  If an advertising platform can deliver the above three in droves, SMB’s will usually come to the party, expecting their experience there to turn in to high level conversions.

Let’s take a minute to also talk about the level of conversion.  Social media marketing we know is best used to create brand recognition and a sense of buzz around a brands service or products. If a business owner is going into social media marketing thinking that it means immediate conversion to sales, they are going about it in the wrong way.  But it is in this way that Facebook’s small business guide can actually help advertisers who aid SMB’s in their social advertising footprints.   Regardless of who writes the book, real-world examples are needed and ‘coles note’s versions appreciated.  It will be our role to further educate the client on content strategies, branding strategies, bridging the gap between their online social advertising programs and their offline brick and mortar set up.  Having a recognized platform like Facebook write the book, just provides more relevance to the area of social media advertising for SMB’s.

The Social Convergence Cycle

In our minds there are three distinct steps in the customer life cycle, when exposed to a brands social media advertising initiatives.

Reach: a brand creates a wide sweeping campaign that introduces their target audience to who they are, related to a users day to day activity.  At this stage it is important to have laid out a clear content strategy.  Definitely one that does not spam others in the social space, discussing the companies bio.  Instead, the goal should be to communicate relevant interest points that others would find either useful or witty, given the tone of the world.  The key here is to keep what you socially share relevant to the brand, but yet applicable and relevant to the rest of the world.

Acquisition: from an upkeep of brand presence on social platforms, and using a clear content strategy as described above, a brand should start to gain followers who in essence become people who believe in the companies messaging, products and services, given the brands down to earth transparency in communication.  At this stage the brand has now acquired brand ambassadors or at least loyal followers.

Conversion: at some point in the brand followers life cycle, a need may come up that suits the companies product offerings and or services.  It is at this point of the social cycle that those the brand had first Reached, and then Acquired, convert into business.

Continued service of that client will then make them a repeat user (Retention); great service leaves little room for them to think about jumping ship (Loyalty; and as others, even if they haven’t been touched by the brand, are looking for similar services and or products, this users recommendation will be ring out like gold (Word of Mouth).