Marketing to Them Strategically
Here’s the trick with marketing on Facebook as well as all other social media platforms: do so sparingly and with as much transparency as possible. That’s not to say that you can’t ever post a message saying, “Check out our latest products,” but you should use these types of messages sparingly as a last resort, and only after you’ve started developing relationships with people.
 | FEEDBACK |
Marketing transparency is when a business gives customers an incentive to buy without actually having to use the word “sell.” The business is offering something so useful to the customer that it doesn’t have to do the hard sell. Often what the business offers includes free goods or services in exchange for a bigger commitment.
Transparency is talking about the topic of a product or service with the intent to educate without saying “buy now.” Consider how you react when you read a great article or blog describing a product or service versus looking at an advertisement. Most people prefer being informed of products of services through the blog or article rather than through an ad, and this approach is the best way to market on Facebook.
People join your Fan page because they’re interested in your brand and how your brand addresses other topics that appeal to them. When you bombard them with a lot of ads or overt sales pitches, they feel like you’re selling a used car to them.
People like to buy things, but they don’t like to be “sold to” in the traditional sense. So use some tact in your marketing approach, and never say, “Oh boy, do I have a deal for you. But wait, that’s not all ….”
Here’s what you should do to market your products or services:
• Share relevant information from your website.
• Educate them on the product topics, but don’t overtly sell to them.
• Share fun things like recipes, music videos, and photos of children (try to keep it relevant to your brand as much as you can).
• Use videos and images to enhance your content.
Mimicking Their Voice
When you think about your audience, do certain adjectives come to mind? Do you think of them as forward-thinking, passionate, technology hungry, total geeks? Or maybe you’d describe them as old school, aloof, and quiet?
People in the same niche generally talk similarly. In order to connect with them, you need to replicate their voice in your communications.
Consider a business that caters to engineers. Engineers are very precise individuals who generally use very logical language. If you were to use a lot of slang in a very casual tone, you might turn them off. Instead, engineers might prefer a more direct, professional approach—one that follows a logical progression and that lays out what the problem, potential solutions, and potential challenges are, as well as all the resources available to solve the problem.
If your audience is a group of new moms, you might address them in this manner:
• Use smart, calming language that focuses on the well-being and education of their children.
• Share research or stories from other moms on why they should not serve certain foods to their children. The key point here is that you’re using their voice to drive content.
• Ask your fans to review toys, cribs, strollers, and even mom-care products like breast pumps and food mills.
• Use video to show—not just tell—moms how to soothe a crying baby with swaddling techniques and sounds.
We explore voice in detail in Chapter 5.
Let’s say you have a tattoo shop, skateboard park, or bar. Your marketing approach should be different for each. It’s possible that the audience of a tattoo shop will love it if you are too brash and rude on Facebook. If that’s their thing, go for it. Use the approach that reaches your audience. Just be careful how far you take this voice in your marketing messaging. It may be the audience’s voice, but the best way to cater to them might be to provide a forum for them to interact in but not to actually mirror their voice yourself.
Generating a Positive Response
The techniques for generating a positive response from your audience depend on the audience and their preferences. Choose a path based upon your knowledge of your audience, and test it out. If the audience likes it, keep it up. If they don’t like it, try something else.
Here are some ideas to start with to get some positive energy on your Facebook pages:
• Share success stories and ask fans what they think.
• Ask fans to share their success stories.
• Ask fans what their favorite parts about your products/services are and assure them that their responses will help you make them better.
• Praise them for being the best fans ever.
• Occasionally give away prizes to fans.
• Highlight a fan of the month based on how much he or she interacted with your site.
Think about what sorts of things elicit positive and negative reactions as you go about your day. These same things will probably elicit similar responses from your fans on Facebook.
Identifying Their Needs and Wants
Facebook is a great place to conduct market research for your business. You can use it to come up with ideas for new products/services, or to revamp existing products/services.
For example, if you run a business that sells imported olive oils and balsamic vinegars, and you want to start selling new flavors, you can ask your fans for their opinions. You can do this by using the free Question tool on your Wall.
Here’s what you do:
1. On your Fan page, click Question (see Figure 2.4).
2. Type your question in the box that appears.
3. Add as many answers as you like.
4. If you want to enable fans to add their own answers to the list of answers you provide, click Allow anyone to add options.
5. Click Ask Question.
Figure 2.4: A question on Facebook.
• Take the time to define who you are marketing to.
• Divide your target market into different market segments for easier communication.
• Avoid grouping too many people with different interests into one area on Facebook.
• Market on Facebook with as much transparency as possible.
• When communicating, pay attention to how people in a specific segment and niche talk, and then mimic that way of communicating when you interact with them as appropriate.