A restaurant which receives more store traffic on a weekly basis than another has an advantage. It means it can tap into a larger base of influencers and evangelists who can spread the word should it wish to implement a proper social media campaign. The business with a bigger social media army has a better chance of winning.

For example, a fast casual restaurant concept has more customers on a weekly basis than the high end restaurant. The fast casual concept sells a meal that averages $10. This, versus the high end concept who is focused more on the ‘experience’ whereby the average meal per customer is $75. As such, you would think this gives the fast casual restaurant an advantage if it were to create a social media campaign because its playing the ‘numbers game’. Continued…

Broadcast marketing is the concept of promoting or putting something out there without encouraging a response. It’s the opposite of engagement marketing. Despite the availability of robust social media tools, most users of social media are still engaged in broadcasting rather than engaging with their users.

Here are a few examples of broadcasting:

1. Advertising an article you wrote to a Linkedin forum and hoping people will read it.
2. Tweeting a promotion you are running.
3. Updating your Facebook status that promotes your latest blog entry.

All of these are examples where the marketer is not engaged with his audience. He is simply putting it out there without the intention of soliciting an action by the audience. He may hope that he gets a reaction from the audience but he did not put enough forethought into how he crafted message to improve the odds of a reaction.

So why, despite all the powerful social media tools available, are most business, organizations, and do-it-yourselfers still engaged in broadcast marketing?  For most of us, it’s what we have always been used to. The medium to which we communicate maybe different, but it’s the same old boring messages. For many others, there is a lack of education on the strategic principles involved in getting past broadcasting and into engagement. And then for others, it’s considered cheap. It doesn’t cost you a lot to simply post to a forum or open a Twitter account and promote the heck out of your latest ventures.

If you engage in broadcast marketing, then you may as well just take out an ad in your local newspaper while you’re at it.

Not putting enough effort into creating a strategy can costs you alot.  You can lose out on opportunities to strengthen your brand, spread your message, and boost your bottom line.

Always ask yourself two things;

1. Will others spread the message I’m giving?
2. Will others engage with my message?

If there was ever an audience that should consider social media as part of their marketing efforts, then it should be restaurants. Given the rushed nature of our society, restaurants have always been the glue that have kept us together. They are central to the social proclivities that we have as human beings.

Here are just a few social activities that we typically accomplish at a restaurant:

• Dating
• Socializing with friends
• Business meetings
• Developing family time
• Celebrate special occasions such as birthdays and anniversaries

Restaurants are the defacto destination when it comes to these social activities. They allow us to sustain these real-world offline relationships despite the fact that we are spending more time online. They play an important role in our social experience.

By patronizing a restaurant, consumers develop a vested interest in wanting a restaurant to succeed. It is only natural that consumers would gravitate towards any online presence that a restaurant has. They want to interact with the owners of a restaurant. They want to offer feedback on the food. They want to reminisce about their last experience there. This is all part of the social experience that we have as human beings.

Coincidentally, social media allows us to tap into the same basic needs that we all have as human beings. It satisfies our need to be heard, to express ourselves, and to form connections with others.

Given the similarities, it is only natural for any restaurant to consider social media as an important marketing tool because we are helping consumers to reinforce the social needs – online.

Consider how the following social needs are translated online:

• Our need to be heard (to tweet or share a restaurant’s grand opening)
• Our need to express ourselves (to comment on the restaurant’s page about your last visit, to post a Yelp review about a negative experience)
• To connect with others (to follow the Restaurant’s Twitter profile, to befriend other foodie bloggers with the same passion)

Convinced?

Continued growth in Asian countries using Facebook with Indonesia leading with a 14% gain

Facebook adds ‘become a fan’ as an upsell to existing event and polling engagement ads- Basically, users have the ability to become a fan of the associated Facebook page once they’ve interacted with the existing event or engagement ad. This allows advertisers to maximize value and increase their fanbase.

Facebook nearing 1 billion dollars in revenue. While impressive unto itself, the article explains the 3 important contributers to its growth. Not surprisingly, it’s Facebooks;

1. Self-serve ads
2. Emerging virtual goods store
3. Branded ad campaign services for agencies and marketers

Facebook introduces their Preferred Developer Program. Initially, 14 companies are listed as preferred vendors that you can choose to hire should you need a custom Facebook page, Connect integration, or application development. A great lead generation possibility for those specializing in Facebook development.

I just released the newest whitepaper entitled, “The Future of Marketing With Facebook Pages.” You can obtain a copy here by either opting via email or using your Twitter account to download the copy.

This is a 12 page whitepaper. The first part of this paper articulates how 3 stakeholders within the community will play a role in shaping Facebook pages as a strong emerging social marketing tool. We will then explore 4 mission critical elements that a successful marketer will need to have in order to succeed with Facebook pages. The final part will include a summary of 7 key takeaways. Below is an excerpt from each part of the paper.

In future additions to the paper, I will explore how Facebook Ads and Facebook Connect can round out the suite of Facebook marketing solutions. The only way to be notified is to opt into the Smart Social Media Tip of the Week. I welcome comments and feedback.

You can learn more about how our Facebook engagement marketing solutions can help your business here.

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Stakeholder #2—Consultants and Vendors

The second stakeholders include vendors such as social media consultants and web designers who will start to offer services catered around Facebook pages.

The services will be categorized into several areas:

1. Setup and Implementation of Applications: Vendors such as web designers will go beyond simple set-up of pages. They will offer customized page designs that enable embedding of flash, multi-media, and static html designs. They will also offer implementation of applications that are relevant to the client’s business, as many do not have the time to search for relevant applications.

1. Engagement Marketing Services: Vendors will provide engagement-marketing services that will assist fan page owners to learn to engage and interact with fans more productively. The marketing strategies that consultants offer will revolve around:
   1. How to best integrate the fan page into the overall marketing mix
   2. What types of content to produce to facilitate word of mouth
   3. How to use Facebook ads as part of the overall marketing campaign

1. Customized Applications: Geared more towards established brands and enterprise-level businesses that have sizable marketing budgets, vendors such as agencies and application developers will create customized Facebook applications to help these brands achieve the goals of their Facebook marketing campaigns.

Mission Critical Elements to Master For Facebook Pages

Anyone interested in successfully marketing Facebook pages will have to understand the mission critical elements.  Most page owners can grasp mastering 1 or 2 of the elements below. However, true success will come to the marketer who can simultaneously master all four elements of the following elements:

1. Analytics
2. Applications
3. Integrated Marketing
4. Engagement Marketing

Mission Critical Element #1– Analytics

When Facebook rolled out the analytics tool Insights, it indicated how determined the company was about pages becoming a viable social marketing tool. They know that a robust social marketing platform isn’t simply about the features but also about the ability to track and measure activities. Although measuring website traffic with tools such as Google Analytics has been around for sometime, offering data about the interaction with a social network is relatively new. Facebook is one of the few major social networking sites to offer this type of data.

The metrics that Insight offers are in-depth and measure every imaginable type of interaction. Some key data that Insights offers about fans are:

• Breakdown by sex and age
• Top countries and cities represented
• Interactions per post
• Media consumption – what type of media fans are viewing (photos, audio, and video)

While more businesses and marketers are starting to accept social media, very few have deciphered how to exactly measure success or lack thereof. As a result, Insights is a key stepping stone for Facebook to persuade marketers and brands to use the platform by providing measurable data that can track activities.

Why Master It?

Understanding key data about an audience allows a marketer to create a customized engagement strategy. Insights will help in two areas:

Review Existing Engagement: Existing analytics allows a marketer to review existing engagement strategies to determine why they are succeeding or failing. Let’s say the goal of a page is to market and attract a certain age bracket. Through Insights, you realize that the age bracket is not heavily represented; you can then perform an audit of your strategy and make corrections.

Customize Future Engagement: Based on the existing makeup of audience and their interaction, messages that are tailored toward them can be crafted, thus resulting in a sustainable base. Performance measured is performance improved.

Going forward, it would not be surprising if future enhancements to Insights offered data on interests, activities, and other information that we include on our profile. This would be rich data for any marketer to use. Imagine a future where brands can send out tailored messages to their fan base that revolve around a specific interest and the only people who receive that message are the ones who list that interest in their profile.

Key Takeaways With Facebook Page Marketing

1. Have a customized landing page: Avoid using the wall as the landing page and consider a customized landing page created with simple html markup. The Static FBML app is a great application that allows embedding html, CSS, and images. The application makes it easier for page owners to define and implement calls to action such as simply downloading a coupon or opting into an email newsletter.
2. Leverage applications: These are the tools that help power your interaction and amplify your voice.
3. Social media Integration: Integrate other social media tools such as blogs and Twitter onto your page. This will help increase exposure to other platforms you are using. Conversely, integrate Facebook Fan Box widget, badges, and share buttons onto your website, email newsletters, and blog in order maximize touch points.

Here are some articles and resources that we’ve written on Facebook. Feel free to share and retweet if these are helpful.

1. Facebook Fan Pages for Book Authors — A 7 page eGuide on how book authors can market with Facebook pages. Though, some of the principles can apply to businesses in general.  [link]

2. Yet Another Fanpage – The 4 mistakes that most page owners make when marketing their fan page. We offer tips on how to avoid them. [article] [pdf]

3. “Future of Marketing With Facebook Pages” Whitepaper — A 14 page whitepaper that we wrote that prognosticates why Facebook pages will become a great platform for brands. We also talk about how to be more productive on Facebook and what mission critical skillsets are needed to succeed on this platform. [article]

4. Three Tips to Optimize Your Facebook Ad Campaign– [newsletter tip]

It seems like every week, I get an invite from a friend on Facebook suggesting that I become a fan of their company’s fan page. In addition to the countless event and group invites and watching my status feed, I just find my attention span shrinking by the moment for Facebook and social media in general.

Why? That’s the question that I find myself asking when people suggest I become a fan of their page. That’s the question every fan page owner should ask before they promote their page. Why should anyone devote his or her attention to your page? Why should we add your page to the countless other pages, friends, and information that we are already following on Facebook? Continued…