6 Daily Habits for Facebook Marketing Success

By Amy Porterfield Published July 26, 2011 Tweet

Do you feel overwhelmed by Facebook? Wouldnt it be nice to know specific daily actions you can take to get real results on your Facebook page? Youve come to the right place. Facebook marketing, when done right, is an extremely powerful tool. It can increase your leads, attract highly targeted prospects and position you as a sought-after industry leader. To reap these business-building benefits, the key is to develop daily habits. The following list of six daily habits will keep you focused on what really matters when it comes to Facebook marketing: real fan engagement. Refer back to these habits often to keep yourself on track as you work to create a vibrant community of raving fans wholl happily spread the word about you and your products and services.

#1: Become addicted to solving problems

When you regularly solve problems and answer questions for your fans, you not only foster trust, but you also set yourself up as the go-to expert in your niche. A surefire way to create engagement on your Facebook page is to regularly offer your expertise and insight. One great example of a master problem-solver is Facebook expert Mari Smith. Mari encourages her fans to ask questions on her Facebook page. Because she is quick to respond with valuable responses, shes turned many Facebook fans into loyal followers and customers.

But she doesnt stop there. Mari takes her support a step further by providing a resource center directly on her Facebook page. She continually keeps this resource link up to date and full of valuable information. As you can see in the image below, Mari has set up multiple info tabs including Changes, How To and Rules & Safety, all related to Facebook marketing.

By providing a resource center for her fans, Mari Smith is seen as the Facebook go-to source by tens of thousands of fans. Take Action: Make it your mission to be the go-to source for your Facebook fans. What information related to your niche do your fans, prospects and clients want to know? To set yourself apart from your competition and keep your fans coming back for more, create a resource page as a custom link on your Facebook page. By doing so, you can provide updated, useful content to your growing audience on an ongoing basis.

#2: Talk to individual fans daily

I make it a habit to comment on other peoples posts 3-5 times each day. I do this because these comments are the real conversations that build relationships. Taking a minute to comment on a fans vacation photos or adding my two cents to a peers recently posted video is my way of letting my fans and peers know that I genuinely am interested in what they are talking about online. To check out what your fans are posting on their own pages or profiles, first check out which fans are posting on your page. When fans post on your page, you can click on their avatars and you will be taken to either their pages or profiles, depending on how your fans have posted on your page. You can then post on their pages (or if you are also a friend via their profiles, you can post on their profiles as well).

Heres an example of me posting on a fans page, Life In Motion Chiropractic:

When you post on your fans' Facebook pages, it shows that you have a genuine interest in them. Here are a few tips when commenting on fans posts:

Use first names. When your fans know you are paying attention to them, they are much more likely to speak up and tell you whats on their mind. Knowing what your fans are thinking is invaluable! Be yourself. Talk to others in the same style you would talk to a friend over dinner. Before you click send, read your post and make sure it really sounds like you. Be brief. If your post is too long, it will be overlooked easily. To get more people reading your post, get to the point faster.

Take Action: Make it a habit to spend at least 10 minutes a day reading posts from your fans and peers and leaving insightful comments on their profiles and pages. By stepping outside of your own Facebook page, and spending time on other pages and profiles, you let your fans and peers know that you truly do care about them.

#3: Track your Facebook activity

Although it may not be the most exciting task of your day, taking the time to check your Facebook activity is essential to growing your fan base and keeping your momentum going. If youre just starting out with tracking your activity and looking for a quick list of key metrics to track, consider tracking the following metrics on a weekly basis:

# of total fans # of new Fans

Fan growth from prior week # of unlikes # of weekly Actives Actives growth from prior week

You can find these metrics by checking out your Facebook Insights on your page. To get to your Insights, just go to your Facebook page and click Edit Page in the upper-right corner. From there you will see a list of links in the left column. You can click on Insights to get your page metrics.

Here's a snapshot from Facebook Insights of my page's metrics. One other tracking tool that is extremely useful is EdgeRankChecker. This is an online tool that scores your overall page engagement activity. I use this tool to help me identify what score Facebook is likely giving my page in terms of EdgeRank. (Note: No-one knows the exact formula Facebook uses to assign an EdgeRank score; however, this tool is useful.)

The higher your EdgeRank score, the more likely it is to be visible on a fan's Top News Feed. As seen in the screenshot below (for Outside the Cubicle), the tool also identifies the days of the week when you get the most engagement and the days when you have the least activity on your page. This is valuable information as you decide when to launch new promotions and post valuable content.

In the screenshot above, you can see the Facebook page received a high engagement score of 15. Take Action: Create a Google Doc and track your Facebook activity on a weekly basis. By tracking your weekly metrics, you will soon see whats working and what you might need to tweak, depending on the high and low metrics in your tracking document.

#4: Change whats not working and move on

When it comes to tracking your social media marketing activity, theres a fine line between having patience and making changes when youre not getting the results youre after. The key is to set a realistic goal and clearly identify its benchmarks and the length of time you are going to allow to get the desired results. If the time comes that you dont reach your desired outcome, tweak your activity right away. The longer you wait, the more damage youll do. For example, lets say that for the past 30 days youve been asking questions a few times a week on your Facebook page and only two or three fans are leaving responses each time you post a new question. There could be a few different reasons for your low response rate. You might be asking questions that are not of interest to your fans. To fix this, you really want to pay attention to what grabs their attention and what topics your fans talk about the most. Or perhaps your questions are too difficult or too time-consuming to answer. People move fast on Facebook and tend not to spend too much time in one place. Theres actually an art to asking questions on Facebook. The key is to ask questions that require little effort to answer. Questions that require just one-word responses tend to get the most engagement.

Watch this short video (http://www.amyporterfield.com/2011/05/are-you-asking-thewrong-questions-on-facebook/) to learn more about the art of asking questions on Facebook. Overall, the important thing to remember is that when something isnt working, dont dwell on it. Change it and move on! Take Action: Have you been procrastinating on making some necessary changes to your Facebook marketing strategy? Take the time to make the changes to ensure your page continues to grow and increase its engagement activity.

#5: Post fresh content

To get the most reach from your content, make sure that your content educates, entertains and empowers your fans. This will pique their interest and keep them coming back for more. Also, publish everything you have in as many places as possible. What this means is that you want to get your content online, and you want it to be seen by as many potential prospects as possible. While Facebook is extremely powerful, dont forget to spread your content out and use Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and of course, your blog. You can also monitor what others are publishing. If you see something that would be valuable to your audience, publish that content (and make sure to give them credit for it!). Third-party publishing is a great way to continue to add value for your fans without having to create all the content. To help you consistently publish content, I suggest that you create an editorial calendar. It might sound daunting, but its actually very simple. Heres how you do it: 1. Create a six-month digital calendar. You can do this in Word or you can find digital calendars online. 2. Decide how often you want to create content and in what form. Consider creating blog posts, video posts, articles, reports, podcasts or any other form of media you know your audience will like. Mix it up and deliver your content in many different formats to attract a wider reach of ideal clients. 3. Brainstorm content ideas related to your brand or niche. Again, think of what interests your clients the most. (Hint: Check out your competitions content. This will help you decide what might be best for your audience.) 4. Create a calendar of content. Choose the specific dates you plan to post and list the topic of the content and the type of delivery. For example, in my own content calendar months ago, I added the following for a day in July: Blog post and Facebook update on 6 Daily Habits for Facebook Marketing Success. Its as easy as that!

Take Action: Stay diligent with your content calendar. After you create it, stick with it. The more disciplined you are in sticking to your content calendar, the more traction you will see with your audience.

#6: Spread the love

The old saying, Give and you shall receive is one of social medias golden rules. By sharing other peoples valuable blog posts, useful articles, entertaining videos and other content, your audience will repay you tenfold. Make sure to share the content from the influencers in your industry. This will help you build relationships with them and possibly create partnerships with them in the future. But remember to also acknowledge your fans who consistently produce great blog posts. They may not be well-known experts (yet!), but its important to share their great content as well. You can create a fan for life if you take the time to share their great work with others. Mike Stelzner says it best in his recent book, Launch. He writes, Every time you share a great link to some relevant content, youre giving two gifts: one to your base and the other to the person or company that created the content.

Social Media Examiner is well-known for spreading the love on their Facebook page. Here they promote a great blog post from the popular site, Social Media Explorer. Take Action: On a weekly basis, take the time to identify great third-party content and share it with your Facebook community. This goodwill gesture will go a long way with your fans and peers.

Now its your turn!

What do you think? Are there other habits that have brought you Facebook success? Share your thoughts and comments in the box below!

Youtube: History

The Social Ad Series is supported by LoopFuse, which provides forever-free marketing automation software that closes the loop between sales and marketing with smarter lead capture, scoring, and nurturing plus Salesforce.com integration. See how lead management with LoopFuse increases revenue. YouTube, the worlds most popular video-viewing platform, sees 2 billion hits per day. Fortunately, the Google-owned company has figured out a few ways to monetize all of those video views. From pre-roll which Google CEO Eric Schmidt was originally not a big fan of to promoted videos and its 10,000 brand partners, YouTubes growth has helped Google shares soar. The site is monetizing more than 2 billion video views per week, and 70% of its traffic comes from outside the U.S. Now that mobile is exploding, so too is YouTube mobile its the most-trafficked video-viewing mobile website, garnering 7.1 million unique visitors each month. Take a look at the infographic below to see how the site and its advertising strategy has evolved since its founding in 2005.

Infographic design by Emily Caufield.

LEADERSHIP
Guest Article: Sanjeev Agrawal: Demonstrating leadership away from limelight: The MS Dhoni way!

By Sanjeev Agrawal, Future Value Retail, Mumbai, April 06, 2011

True leaders only create limelight - and need not necessarily bathe in it.
I read a tweet on Sunday that the Hindustan Times lead picture did not have M S Dhoni in the frame. I then noticed that it was difficult to spot him even in the picture of The Times of India. On news channels, too, the pictures of the players with the cup did not have Dhoni in them. Where was Dhoni? I was aghast! This set me thinking.

Dhoni has won the Twenty20 World Cup, got India to the No. 1 position in test cricket ranking, won the IPL and CL, and finally, after 28 years - THE World Cup. But, who is taken around the stadium on the players' shoulders? Sachin. Who is the stadium rooting for? Sachin. What is the mystery? You can turn around and say that Dhoni was lucky to have been the captain at the right time. He had great senior players and talented youngsters in the team. However, the fact is that he has had very different teams in all the championships that he has won, whether in Twenty20, test matches, IPL/CL or ODIs (one-day internationals). He has been the glue to put the teams together, not the other way round. The fact is that leaders are often considered to be lucky when the times are going good, but does someone really take note of the invisible efforts being put in by the individual? Keeping the team together and excited is one of the most important, albeit undermined, jobs done by a successful leader - didn't Dhoni just demonstrate that? Look at Dhoni's statements over a period of time, which are honest, to say the very least: "We are not a good fielding side", "I took some wrong decisions", "reading the pitch wrong and playing three seamers". He has taken on his teammates publicly. He has also backed team members and taken tough decisions at the same time. Backing Piyush Chawla to the hilt, or dropping Yuvraj or Raina are tough decisions taken by him. I am yet to notice bias in his decision-making. He has dropped Ashwin from ODIs, despite him being a worthy team mate in CSK. More often than not, leaders with a WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) style of working are the most criticised lot, even if it helps to keep the team aware of their strengths and weaknesses promptly. When this leader takes the blame, he is criticised for not carrying out things properly. However, when the same leader blames it on his team, it is seen as a 'Blame Game'. Aren't we a bit too critical of leaders - including Dhoni?

Since becoming the captain in ODIs, he transformed himself from a dasher to an accumulator. With enough dashers around, he changed his role in the team for the sake of the team. As a captain, his average is 52.7 runs as against 44.2 runs as a non-captain, though his strike rate has dropped from 96.3 to 82.4. The number of sixes hit by him per innings has gone down to 0.56, from 0.95. A number of times, a leader puts his individual performance at the back seat and adapts himself according to the team's requirement. I can go on about Dhoni's professional achievements as a captain and his humility as an individual (pictures of him sharing a birthday cake with my colleague, or pictures with my sons are some examples). Any comparisons with Ganguly and Afridi are misplaced. He definitely doesn't wear his emotions on his sleeve. He is the real man - taking 'criticism' and 'failures' squarely in the face and letting the entire credit of the 'achievements' go to his individual team members. To me, all this and more make Dhoni a true leader! Then, suddenly, the realisation dawns on me! This is about where the limelight lies - or where it does not! So, "Do leaders shy away when it comes to being in the limelight?" We should not pity him for missing being in the frame of the Hindustan Times lead picture on the day the nation went crazy. We should give him due credit. It is about stepping back and letting your colleagues savour the moment! It is about having confidence and absence of insecurity - a situation in which you let your team steal the limelight, while you smile at the back - content with yourself as much as your team's performance. It is this confidence that makes him appreciate the past. Examples are of co-sharing the trophy with Kumble, or letting Ganguly lead the last few overs of his test career. It is this confidence that still makes him thank all his seniors for the victory of his team! I can say that true leaders only create limelight and not necessarily be in it - the M S Dhoni way! (The author is joint chief executive officer, Future Value Retail Ltd.)

COnsumert Insight
As far as consumer insights and research prior to creating the TVCs go, the creative team drew on specific 'pain points', that is, barriers to adopting the 3D TV experience. These include discomfort while using conventional 3D glasses, poor image quality/flickering, hassle of re-charging the battery of conventional 3D glasses and brightness-related issues, amongst others. These 'pain points' were analysed and the communication was designed to convey how the product overcomes each one of these barriers. Another consumer insight used was that there is inadequate 3D content available for consumers to enjoy. Thus, this product makes it possible for TV viewers to watch regular

broadcast content in 3D. The TG (target group) continues to be the discerning, uncompromising consumer - the affluent city dweller who refuses to compromise on facets such as quality, technology and style when it comes to buying TVs. Gupta highlights how the age of the TG stretches from the youth to those beyond their 40s because the former are informed about the advanced technology offered by the brand in the TV category and the latter possesses the funds and desire to purchase it.

BTL for AAmsutra

Mudra Max has rolled out a below the line (BTL) activity for Slice, a mango-based beverage from the PepsiCo stable. The agency has created Slice mango lounges made from four buses at various locations of the cities, on various busy roads.
The activation has already started in various department stores in Kolkata and Mumbai and will be followed by Delhi and Pune. The target audience for this activation happens to be all who walk into the store, since the products are impulsive buys.

The locations used for primary placements of the products are gondolas, aisles, end caps and lobby displays. Even the pillars are being used for branding, after being identified as an opportunity for display and dispensing. Pillars are being used for dispensing the entire PepsiCo range of beverages, ready for consumption, both at room temperature as well as chilled. PepsiCo wanted customers to have all choices available in the portfolio.

Hence, PepsiCo with the support of Percept OOH, has created retail verticals for disruptive in-store displays at various places mainly pillar and aisle display. Commenting on the activity, Alka Saxena, business director, new initiatives (retail), Percept Out-ofHome, says, "We have created creative and innovative concepts at various touch points like the gondola, end cap, perimeter, lobby, pillar, vending machines, and food courts. Of these, gondolas, end caps and lobbies are the most preferred locations. Pillars and vending machines get second preference as at times, it depends on getting the traders' permission. Generally, pillars are used only for high impact graphics mounted on sun board and to get the maximum branding effect." Talking about the responses received from the customers, she added, "We have received a very good response from the customers. Since pillars are the tallest elements in the stores, they are the most visible of the lot, thus attracting the attention of most of the shoppers."

The visitors are welcomed into these buses which are air-conditioned. They are then offered wet-wipes to refresh themselves, after which they settle down into seats which are mainly bean bags, bar stools and recliners. There's the aroma of mangoes all around. They are then served with mocktails, laced with Slice. The visitors can also sit and watch Katrina Kaif's message, on the huge plasma screens installed inside the lounge. On their way out, the customers are presented with mango-flavoured chocolates and discount coupons.

Speaking about the aim of the activation, Sanjay Kacker, senior vice-president, Celsius, Mudra Max, says, "The zones were created to reach out to the masses and classes without any discrimination across the country. The whole idea behind this outdoor activity is to make the target audience consume Slice to get the experience of 'Aamsutra'." Kacker adds, "The objective was to bring the product to life', and we were successful in doing so, thus allowing the end-consumers to actually sense and feel the brand closely. Consumer sampling will not only give the consumer a taste of the product, but will also help drive consumption via repeat purchase." This activation, which is happening in 65 cities, aims to reach out to over 1.5 million mango lovers by the end of the campaign. The activity which started last month will continue till June.

Piller Branding
Percept deploys pillar branding for PepsiCo
By afaqs! news bureau, afaqs!, New Delhi, March 31, 2011 Section: News Category: OOH News

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The activation has already started in various department stores in Kolkata and Mumbai, and will be followed by Delhi and Pune.

PepsiCo has partnered with Percept Out-of-Home (OOH) retail vertical for a trade initiative, to research, design, fabricate and deploy the secondary placement solutions at modern trade chains like department stores across India. The activation, which started recently, will continue throughout the year. The products on display are PepsiCo beverages and Frito-Lay products, with special focus on the branding of Slice.