Desember 2011

Facebook to Place Sponsored Stories Ads into Users' Newsfeeds

A big change was announced for Facebook advertisers today: starting in January, Facebook will be featuring “Sponsored Story” ads in users’ news feeds. Until now, all advertising on Facebook was limited to display only within the right panel of the interface. This change will greatly increase the marketing presence of brands advertising Facebook, expanding the exposure of these “organic interactions” ad units (as Facebook refers to Sponsored Stories).

In case you’re not aware, Sponsored Stories are a Facebook advertising format—Facebook defines them as stories that are “eligible to appear in your News Feed.” Sponsored Stories show up, like traditional ads, on the right column of pages on Facebook. Companies can choose different user actions — such as posts, likes, check-ins or actions within Facebook apps — and feature them in their ad campaign. Facebook says that unlike traditional ads, “Sponsored Stories help to drive authentic and scalable word of mouth,” because the ads stem from real user interactions and are shown to all of that user’s friends. Here are some examples of Sponsored Stories you’ve probably already seen in your Facebook account:

“App Share” Stories are created when a user starts using a Facebook app

“Page Post Like” Stories are created when a user “Likes” one of the posts made by your page

Sponsored stories in the news feed will be the same size as other items that feature on it and will be displayed with a link that reads "Sponsored" underneath the post. Users who mouse over the link will see the text: "This was already shared with you. A sponsor paid to feature it here."

This is great news for marketers, and for Wildfire. Earlier this year, we announced the Wildfire Storyteller application, a utility available to all Wildfire Social Marketing Suite clients which allows page administrators to create a place on the page for branded interactions that easily create and encourage feed stories. Using the Wildfire Storyteller app, you can create a tab in your Facebook Page to ask your users fun and engaging questions about your brand. You can then set up an entire customized Facebook Feed Story that gets published alongside that user’s generated response. This feed story is especially powerful in that you can included a branded video or image with the story and you can also customize the feed story title, URL and description. So, for example, a movie brand could use our Storyteller app to ask fans “What was your favorite scene from the Hangover II movie trailer?” and the ad generated from a user’s response could include the movie trailer, a link to buy tickets for the movie, and a description of the movie. As long as you’ve created a Sponsored Stories ad campaign, all of these newsfeed posts create ads targeted to your users’ friends.

Since 27% of all users’ time on Facebook is spent looking through the newsfeed, Wildfire is excited about this new opportunity for marketers to further leverage the viral power of Sponsored Stories.

What do you think of the news that Sponsored Stories will be displayed in user news feeds? Tell us in the comments, we’re excited to hear your opinions!

HOW TO: Strengthen Your Twitter Brand Strategy in time for the New Twitter Pages

On December 8th, Twitter announced a new version of the network that was designed to make it easier for users to “discover what’s happening now”. You’ve probably already read about the introduction of special pages for brands. The new features are exciting, and promise heightened engagement between brands and their followers. The new design is about growth and keeping users on the site longer, encouraging more interaction, and making Twitter more accessible to the masses who may start as consumers of tweets rather than big tweeters themselves.Twitter’s new enhanced profile pages for brands won’t be widely available right away. At this time, there are a handful of major advertising brand partners who are piloting the pages during the launch period. Here’s what you can do in the meantime to continue developing your follower audience on Twitter:1. Drive branded conversations with the new Twitter buttons.
Sprinkle the new Tweet buttons throughout appropriate places on your corporate website, such as on product pages or in the customer support forums, which allow people to press “Tweet @ourbrand” and leave a comment mentioning your brand name, creating network conversations tied to branded content.

2. Use embeddable tweets within the content planned for your editorial calendar.

When planning items for your editorial calendar, like product updates or blog posts, consider including embedded tweets in the articles you publish, allowing readers to interact not just with the blog while they’re reading it, but with your brand on Twitter, all from one place.

3. Run a promotion, like a sweepstakes, on Twitter to drive activity around your brand.
Running a promotion where users interact with your brand on Twitter to win a cool prize is one way to spur conversations, mentions, tweets, and re-tweets. Maximizing the reach of your Twitter content is key in growing a strong follower base, one that will be especially engaged in time for the roll-out of the new Twitter pages format for all brands.

Here at Wildfire we’re incredibly excited about the changes Twitter is making across their site (and many of these changes will affect Twitter mobile users as well). Twitter users may prove to be especially valuable to brands because of the unique dynamics of the Twitter community. The accounts a typical Twitter user follows don’t always represent their real-world social connections, but rather their brand affinities, aspirational interests, and also their favorite celebrities! This means that your opportunity to build a community around your brand, both with the new tools available now as well as the forthcoming brand pages, may be one of the most valuable social marketing investments that you can make in 2012!

Which of the new Twitter features are you planning on implementing for your brand? Share with us in the comments; we’re curious to hear what you think!

3 Ways to Boost Interaction With Your Facebook Fans

Are you looking for fresh ideas to engage your Facebook fans?

Do you have a pretty nice fan base, but you’re struggling to come up with ideas to engage them on a daily basis?

One proven approach is to help your fans.

Here are 3 techniques used by some of the most successful Facebook pages. Try them on your page to see how your fans respond!

This post was originally published for the Social Media Examiner blog.

#1: Become a resource

Despite the level of connection you think you have with your fans on Facebook, many still express pleasant surprise when you respond to them personally on the social network.

Use fan names when you can, and respond one-on-one to the comments they make. This proves to fans you are listening and are receptive to their commentary and feedback, making it more likely that they will post in the future.

Moreover, invite conversation by asking your fans’ opinions on topics, or asking them to tell you what sorts of content they’d appreciate.

Everybody likes being asked, and fans feel extra-appreciated when you fulfill these desires—so don’t ask them for input you never intend to use or incorporate.

In the example below, Time Warner Cable demonstrates an inconsistent response strategy toward different users. While “Sharon” got her request attended to by the page administrator, “Regina” reports frustration that her posts are being removed instead of replied to, indicating that she had posted additional comments earlier than the final post visible in the thread.

If your brand strategy is to be a resource to all fans, it is important that you treat all fan comments in the same way by responding to all of them, no matter the sentiment.

One example of this kind of open interaction strategy working very successfully is our own continued initiative to build out a Facebook fan page community of marketers, business owners and social media managers interested in sharing knowledge about social media (as well as Wildfire!).

We have found over time that our most engaging posts, which get the most feedback from our users, are consistently the ones where we invite people to post any question they have about social media or invite them to have their pages reviewed by social media professionals.

The key is to follow up (even for just an hour) with all of the questions and actually answer them. Because the promise to answer any question is not an empty promise, the users become confident that their questions can be answered and trust the brand for it.

An excellent example of a smaller business getting engagement right with great messaging strategies comes from the Pennsylvania Macaroni Company, an imported foods store in Pittsburgh.

As of this writing, the store had just under 1,100 fans. Their social media manager told me they regularly get over 1% engagement on their posts, a great figure for their size.

#2: Offer your services, free

What is your brand known for? What would you like it to be known for? If you provide a product or a particular service like consulting or advisement, consider offering your fans a taste of it every once in a while for free!

According to eMarketer, the #1 reason users become fans of a brand on Facebook is to gain access to exclusive content, events or sales. Your brand can capitalize on this desire while leveraging the brand’s capabilities by giving users an occasional exclusive pass to experience the business, free.

Here are several examples of companies doing this on Facebook, to the delight of their users:

Rue La La, an online boutique of designer merchandise and clothing, knows many of its fans are in tune with fashion trends and enjoy thinking about design, clothing and style. As such, one of their most popular fan page “events” is a weekly invitation for fans to join a stylist on the page for an hour of live interaction.

Because typically most people don’t have access to a personal stylist or advice from one, Rue La La creates an environment where fans can happily expect this recurring event.

We use this technique at Wildfire as well.

Every week, these invitations to post are the most consistently popular updates! Even the users who don’t get their pages reviewed that week leave feedback that they enjoy watching the advice for other fan pages, and that the learning experience is valuable.

#3: Make your fan page a complete knowledge hub

When brainstorming how to entice users to join and interact with your brand, the challenge is to come up with ways to encourage them to interact with the page continuously over time and prevent disengagement.

For brands that have a rich background or require a fair amount of user education, creating a fan page containing valuable resources and information that benefit the user is essential. The goal is to capture users with an initial promotion, and to keep them returning to your page for information even after the promotion is over.

An example of a page that achieved this goal is Webroot, a software company that distributes security applications and programs.

The initial user pull is the promotion Webroot has set up on its landing page. Users visit the Facebook page for a chance to win high-value prizes such as airline tickets, electronics and kitchen appliances.

Recognizing that its promotion would drive considerable traffic to its page, Webroot created a powerful, resource-rich page about its products and services, including a tab with educational slide decks, a full customer support portal (“Ask Webroot”), an explanatory splash page about their mobile security products, and even a collection of YouTube videos about the software.

As a result, users who visited Webroot’s page to participate in the promotion were also exposed to the page’s valuable content, which gave them a reason to return. In turn, Webroot created a full-service, user-friendly community through its Facebook page, a place where fans go to access information about the company.

Now that you’ve seen several examples of companies helping their fans help themselves, what’s the first approach you are planning to take with your fan page? Putting together a library of resources? Testing the waters by giving away some free services? I’d love to hear from you! Leave your questions and comments in the box below.