The following is an excerpt from "Facebook Marketing - An Hour A Day." I am writing it with Chris Treadaway for Wiley. The release date is February 26, 2010. You can reserve your copy now if you like.
Let’s take a moment to focus on marketing strategies by highlighting some of the key features of the Facebook fan page, using as an example the Threadless site/fan page, which has over 75,000 fans. Threadless.com releases new graphic t-shirts weekly which are designed, submitted and rated by their own community. Since Threadless is so dependent upon its customers/community for its product and for the content created around its products, it’s easy to understand why they view Facebook as a critical element in their over all marketing strategy.
Threadless provides us with several examples of the components of a successful Facebook marketing plan.
Who Loves You, Baby?
As with any successful marketing campaign, it’s critical that you accurately define the audience you’re focusing your efforts on. Threadless is obviously focused on tech-savvy kids and young adults.However, It’s not as though Threadless had to start from scratch with this first component of their Facebook campaign strategy. Their product planning and management already took this into account. The only thing most companies will have to do here is translate their audience definitions to the appropriate content on the Facebook platform. The content on the Threadless fan page demonstrates have a good handle on this element. Moreover, having a look at their profile on Quantcast (http://www.quantcast.com/Threadless.com) affirms it.
What Have You Done For Me Lately?
Your next step is to determine what the goals and objectives are for your Facebook presence. Is it simply a means to enhance customer service or do you expect to see an increase in sales? Do you expect to see a direct correlation between your activities on Facebook and conversions on your ecommerce website? Knowing what your goals are is only half the challenge here. It’s also important to have a grasp on how to measuring your efforts. Make sure that you know what “success” looks like. Put metrics into place that allow you to gauge success or failure on Facebook as relates to your efforts.
One way Threadless is using Facebook is as a direct marketing channel. However, they haven’t lost site of what the platform’s original intent was: socializing and communication between friends. But as you review their profile, you’ll find several elements that have strong calls to action with the clear intention being a conversion or purchase. In this situation it would be easy for Threadless to use a basic website analytics application such as Google Analytics to track referrals from Facebook to their primary ecommerce website. They can then follow the user’s breadcrumb to derive the percentage of conversions that originate from Facebook.com. Reviewing their source code shows that there’s a high likelihood that they are doing just that:
<script type=”text/javascript”>
var gaJsHost = ((“https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://ssl.” : “http://www.”);
document.write(unescape(”%3Cscript src=’” + gaJsHost + “google-analytics.com/ga.js’ type=’text/javascript’%3E%3C/script%3E”));
</script>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
try {
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(“UA-3478547-1”);
pageTracker._trackPageview();
} catch(err) {}</script>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
pageTracker._trackEvent(‘sale_homepage’, ‘ab_test’, ‘A’); </script>
Not only do we see that thay are using Google Analytics as their website tracking tool, but they have defined a “sale_homepage” on this landing page for the site.
Look Under The Hood & Kick The Tires
Facebook provides more settings and configuration options than any other major social network in use today. It is critical that you understand what these settings do and the flexibility Facebook gives you. For instance, which tab will be your default landing page? The default landing page is the first page that a use sees when they come to your Facebook fan page. How many people do you want to give administrative access to for editing your page? Will you allow customers and users to leave comments and posts on your wall? To their credit, Threadless does allow visitors to their fan page to comment on the different t-shirt designs that they post on the Threadless fan page. This brings us to my next point: is your page compelling?
Content, Content, Content!
After people find your fan page, your marketing strategy is only achieved part of what it should. Threadless encourages interaction by encouraging people to comment on the designs of their newest T-shirts and by allowing them to post pictures and videos wearing Threadless merchandise. Threadless posts information about sales that they currently have going on and markets contests that they are running. This provides the user with a great combination of social interaction with people who have similar interests and provides Threadless with a vehicle where they can directly market to a captive audience.
Facebook allows most applications to run as tabs on the top of the fan pages. Threadless takes advantage of this feature by providing a rich user experience and extra value for users through event postings and discussion boards. On the events tab users find postings of events that are of interest to consumers of Threadless T-shirts. In the discussion board area, people discuss issues that they have with customer service, pop culture, getting designs featured, and a myriad of other topics that may or may not directly involve the Threadless brand directly. As it turns out, the majority of discussion threads do have some relationship the Threadless and its products. The benefit for the brand? Threadless is nurturing its own audience within the virtual walls of its Facebook fan page.
Threadless has created a destination point that allows people to come in, feel comfortable, and socialize. All the while, over 75,000 Facebook users are being exposed to the Threadless brand which keeps it top-of-mind in the consumer’s psyche.
