Study: 90% B2C marketers use Facebook
From 2013 B2C Content Marketing Research: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends @ contentmarketinginstitute.com:
On average, B2C marketers use four social media networks to distribute their content, compared to five for B2B. The channel they use most often, by far, is Facebook (90%). The majority of B2C marketers also use Twitter (69%), YouTube (65%) and LinkedIn (51%). B2C marketers use LinkedIn much less frequently than their B2B peers (83%).
More in the slide deck below.
Why should CEOs be interested in social media?
According to a recent survey of employees by Brandfog, there are 6 main reasons:
Screenshot is taken from Infographic: Which CEOs Are More Social?.
The accompanying video is interesting too. Even with the presence that many Fortune 500 CEOs have, they have barely updated or engaged at all.
Facebook’s Timeline for Pages: how does it affect your FB strategy?
The roll-out last week of the new Timeline for Facebook Pages call for a revived approach to how brands use Facebook.
To recap, a quick overview of the most important changes.
What's gone:
Left-side menu with Tabs
Tabs no longer appear in a left-side menu. Applications and tabs appear as “favorites” beneath cover photo as thumbnails. You select four to display.
Deal with reduced tab visibility by using fewer but better Facebook apps focusing on the 2-3 apps that can be visible ‘above the fold’ on your page.
Default landing tabs
Overcome the inability to set default landing tabs for apps (such as a splash page app) with more Facebook advertising to guide people to your Facebook apps.
What's changed:
New sizes for visuals
- Branded cover photo: 851x315 pixels
- profile pic: 125X125 pixels
- Tab apps and content: 810 pixel width
- App icons: 111×74 pixels
What's new:
Cover photo
The branded cover photo allows for maximum creativity. Rethink how you present yourself on Facebook. Be careful not to break Facebook's terms: cover photos cannot contain price or promotional information, contact info, calls to action or references to any Facebook features like ‘Like’ or ‘Share’.
Private messages from your fans
Fans and non-fans alike can send a direct, private message to the Page. This feature can be disabled.
Use private messages between brand and user to deal with any support enquiries. It could de-clutter your Timeline from support inquiries, but be careful not to frustrate your Fans by not answering their requests in time.
Pinned and starred posts
Feature priority content by using the new ‘pin’ feature that allows a post to remain at the top of your page for 7 days.
Pinned posts keep important stories at the top of the highlights feed for up to 7 days.
Page posts can also be ‘starred’. Starring makes a post go full width across the highlights feed to prominently feature the story.
Timeline
Timeline, not only adds the date but also automatically inserts geo-targeted posts for fans in that country/city. Publish the life story of your business of your through milestone events in a timeline.
According to Social@Ogilvy, the brand world will soon be divided into those who fully "adopt" Timeline, and those who simply "migrate" their old strategy and ways of working to the new feature set. Brands looking to adopt must consider and prepare for the hidden implications of Timeline - reallocation of resources, increased creative involvement, a reset of content process, the new profile of community managers and more.
Check out their most recent Slideshare presentation for a summary of the Pages changes and the hidden implications of Facebook Timeline for brands.
How can businesses benefit from Pinterest?
Pinterest.com is a social photo sharing website where users can create and manage theme-based image collections that look a lot like mood boards or digital scrapbooks. Many of the images refer to Etsy classifieds for handmade or vintage items, or are Instagram pictures (taken with a smartphone app that allows you to apply a vintage effect to the pictures you take).
The site's mission statement is to "connect everyone in the world through the 'things' they find interesting."
Techcrunch.com recently reported that an estimated 97% of Pinterest users are women.
From All You Wanted To Know About Pinterest @ pagetrafficbuzz.com:
As a business owner/webmaster you can get a lot of traffic to your site from the social platform. [...] You must add your website to your Pinterest profile. Additionally, you must link your site to Pinterest too. There is a Pinterest-provided code that you can paste on to your website to create a “follow me on Pinterest” button leading straight to your Pinterest profile and your boards. There is also a code offered by Pinterest where you can add a little ‘Pin It’ button next to all your product images, making it easier for people to share them. The more mentions you get, the more traffic to your site.
One last tip: the Pinterest Gifts section is, particularly on a day like today, very popular with people looking for last-minute gift inspiration. To have your pin included, you include the price (in U.S. dollars) in your tags and your product will be pulled into the gifts section.
5 Belgian Facebook Pages worth looking at
Sometimes it's hard to distinguish whether a Fan Page is linked to a Belgian company, product or service. But based on our own metrics, these are the Top Pop charts for today.
Most liked Belgian page: Tomorrowland
Tomorrowland is a Belgian outdoor dancing event (festival) organised every year in the Flemish town of Boom since 2005. This year's edition was from 22nd to 24 July. Over two months later after the event, Tomorrowland's Facebook Page is relatively speaking the most lively page of this moment with a daily change of over 1,000 new Likes and an impressive total of 273,240 fans. It's Tickets iFrame tab, however, is no longer accessible for most Facebook users because it's using a http connection instead, which got depreciated by Facebook recently over (safer) https connection.
It will be interesting to see how an event like Tomorrowland will keep its Fans' attention up until the next edition in July 2012, but so far they're doing a really good job.
Belgian page with the least growth: Van Vlees En Bloed
Van Vlees en Bloed was a Flemish television series, broadcasted at één between 1 January and 12 February 2009. The last Wall Post at the Van Vlees En Bloed's Facebook Page (a picture from the cast) was posted during that period, at 23 January 2009. Although the Page still has a whopping 118,462 fans, the amount of daily likes for this Page has dropped significantly over the past few weeks and months.
If a TV series becomes popular, unofficial Facebook Pages will pop up and force the TV Channel to either start their own or take over the grassroots one. But even for Van Vlees En Bloed, the "long tail" of a tv series clashes with Facebook's EdgeRank algorhythm. If a Facebook Page doesn't keep updating, it falls off the radar of its fans.
Belgian breakthrough page: BASE Belgium
BASE is a telephony services and broadband internet brand operated by KPN Group Belgium. Although in sheer numbers BASE Belgium's Facebook Page's posts does not receive a lot of likes, it does see a consistent 1% daily growth in its amount of "likes". BASE Belgium's Facebook Page got launched in April 2011 and currently has 6,834 fans.
Most popular non-branded Belgian Facebook Page: Shoppen
The Facebook Page Shoppen (the Dutch verb for "shopping") is one of Belgium's most popular Facebook Pages that is not linked to a brand (whether it's a personal brand, or a product/service). It is linked to fashion, beauty and lifestyle site/blog http://www.shoppingville.be and offers a mix of Dutch and English spoken pointers to its partners' content outside Facebook - mostly e-commerce sites that sell fashion brands.
And the most engaged fans belong to... JCVD
Although the "Muscles From Brussels" does have an international fan base, Jean-Claude Van Damme's Facebook Page still holds the number one spot in the Belgian Fan Page hitparade. Not only does he have the largest fan base (865,928 fans and counting!) they're among the most active ones, too. His most recent post against animal cruelty got over 3,000 Likes.
Business journalists mostly active on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter
According to the 2011 Arketi Web Watch Survey, 64% of B2B journalists said they spent more than 20 hours a week online and 21% spent over 40 - mostly to read news and search for story ideas.
This infograph from the survey shows where they get their story ideas.
As far as their own presence, the journalists from the survey 92% said they had a LinkedIn account, more than any other social network. Facebook and Twitter landed at 85% and 84% respectively.
Further reading:
- LinkedIn Most Popular SocNet for Journalists @ marketingcharts
Social presence is becoming a critical aspect of job search
From HOW TO: Spruce Up a Boring Resume [INFOGRAPHIC] @ mashable.com:
Social networks can help or hinder your chances of getting a job or getting into the college or education program best suited for your career. The wrong image in social media can torpedo an otherwise stellar resume.
7 suggestions to keep your Facebook Fans happy
Recently eMarkter updated their charts about the top reasons people became fans of brands on Facebook. Ignitesocialmedia.com points out that the results show a shift from the rather opportunistic "to receive discounts and promotions" to "to get the latest news about the brand".
So what does this mean for Facebook Page administrators? Here are some tips from the Fans in the research - in order of importance:
- Advance information and previews of future products, future offers
- Ability to take part in games, competitions
- Access to exclusive information
- Invitations to events related to the brand beyond Facebook
- Involvement in the development of new products, new offers
- Ability to order products online from the page
- Discussions with brand representatives
Coupons case: Nestle’s lean pockets Facebook Page
From Meet “Heidi,” Nestle’s Social Media Spokesmodel [VIDEO] @ mashable.com, this fine example of coupons for like baiting at Nestlé's lean pockets Facebook Page:
More about like baiting: