I listened to the Hubspot webinar today called The Science of Facebook Marketing by established inbound marketer & “social media scientist,” Dan Zarella (@DanZarella). Below is a recap of the webinar including some key business takeaways. Dan broke the webinar into three sections (Profiles, Pages and Sharing) which I have done as well in this recap.
Main point discussed in the webinar: Facilitate existing relationships on Facebook and make these current relationships better.
PROFILES:
People have Profiles, Brands have Pages. You want to make sure your brand is associated with a page and not a profile.
A large aspect of Facebook is entirely performance based. Since that is the case, marketers should help their users look “cool.” If you can, create an app that will allow your users to “perform” and share information based on their affinity for your brand.
FB Profiles statistics:
Men and women have an average of 130 friends on Facebook.
Women have 55% more posts on their walls
Teens/20′s – This demographic has a lot of friends and wall posts. They mainly focus on the social aspect of Facebook.
Older crowd – Larger focus on “interests listed.”
*Business takeaway: Know your audience. Dan mentioned a site called Quantcast which is free and helps you get a breakdown of your audience. It is a great tool that I have used in the past and would recommend as well.
PAGES:
The process of getting people to like your page is a funnel that includes: Exposure, Awareness and then Motivation. Fans must first be exposed and aware of your page and then be motivated to “like” it.
*Business takeaway: Stay away from buzz words such as Optimization, SEO, Consulting, Productivity, Leverage, Branding, etc..You wouldn’t talk to your friends using these buzzwords so don’t use them when marketing to your target audience.
There are certain topics Facebook users will talk about with their friends. Most “liked” page types include movies, tv shows, books, musicians/bands, television, athletes, actors and comedians (at the top). Least “liked” page types discussed include religious organizations, pets, nonprofits, education, restaurants, websites and services in general. I was surprised to see nonprofits on the list and believe that many nonprofits have done an excellent job gaining exposure on Facebook and promoting events. Here are two that I support:
SHARING
Dan brought up the question of what is the best way to share your content on Facebook. It all came down to social proof – the more people share your content, the more people will trust in what you say and further share it.
*Business takeaway: Emphasize social proof as much as you can. Put your recommend/like buttons prominent locations (your homepage is a great location to place it). Do not put your recommend/like button at the bottom of an article/blog post.
Video Sharing: Statistics from Hubspot show that videos do better on Facebook than on Twitter and is a great way to communicate with your fans.
Digits: Articles that have digits tend to be shared more often and lead to higher conversion rates. People like specificity. For example, if you are writing a financial blog, you should include specific numbers in your blog post title and be to the point.
Facebook Sharing by Week: Saturday is the highest weekend sharing day and Tuesday is the highest weekday sharing day. Weekends are much more sharing friendly. Marketers should revise their strategies and post more often on weekends when users have time to look at your page.
*Business takeaway: Think mainstream when marketing to Facebook users and “talk normal.” The more complex the content, the less it well get shared.
