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goals (8)
This is part 4 of 4 in an ADM series about setting Facebook goals:
- Define Your Facebook Goals Before Determining a Strategy
- Facebook Marketing Goals: The Safe Approach
- Facebook Marketing Goals: The Aggressive Approach
- Facebook Marketing Goals: More Aggressive Approaches
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Every strategy needs a goal or else it’s just an aimless plan. We’ve covered the need to set Facebook marketing goals and described both the safe approach as well as some of the more aggressive approaches to these goals. Now it’s time to bring it home (in hopefully less than 1000 words) with a couple more aggressive Facebook goals that you can set for your marketing.
As I said before, it’s extremely important to realize that playing it safe is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s not that I want to encourage businesses to take that approach, but being aggressive means taking a bigger risk that the effort you put in will not yield the appropriate return on investment. I know that it can, but that’s no guaranty that it will even if you do everything right.
Thankfully, there’s always an abort button. If your aggressive techniques don’t seem to be paying off, you can always revert back to the safer goals.
Goal: Create a Communication Hub for Your Business
When you ask business owners about the risks of social media, most will latch on to the potential for negative press. I’ve even been told by a very prominent business owner that they don’t have a Facebook page because they don’t want people to have the ability to talk badly about them on Facebook. I was waiting for the punchline. There was none.
As you know, sticking your head in the sand is not the right approach, but sticking it way out there for others to attack is risky. It can, however, be extremely rewarding as companies like Domino’s Pizza have demonstrated. Are there risks of getting bitten by being extra communicative on social media? Sure. You have to know that going in if you want that to be your primary goal.
The benefits can be tremendous. When you turn Facebook into a communication hub that is active with feedback from former, current, and prospective customers, you have the ability to be eloquent, sincere, and transparent, three traits that most would see as admirable. It means that you stand behind your product and your company and you’re willing to accept the good with the bad.
The bad news is that if you’re doing it right, the bad will come. The good news is that the “bad” types of communication where customers and former customers complain can almost always be turned around into an opportunity to impress future customers. Bad reviews aren’t bad unless you let them be bad. By applying empathy, professionalism, and a true desire to improve your business, even the most scathing reviews and communications can be turned into a major win for your business.
Setting this type of goal requires constant attention. You have to set your smartphone to alert you the moment that anyone communicates with you because time is of the essence. It’s not just about not letting things linger without a response. Perhaps more importantly, it lets others see that you’re extremely attentive to your Facebook communication hub; this encourages them to want to talk to you through there as well. The more that people are talking to you on Facebook, the greater the opportunity to shine through the constraints of EdgeRank and let your messages be seen.
This is one of those situations where Facebook sponsored posts might happen well after the post goes live. Let’s say you ask a question like this:
“What should we serve at next Saturday’s big tent sale: hot dogs, hamburgers, barbeque, all of the above, something else? Let us know in the comments, please. We’re planning on making a decisions based on your input by this Wednesday.”
In that scenario, you’ll want to get the word out. It’s not just about giving people the choice on food. It’s about letting as many people as possible know about your sale. Once you have a couple of responses, now is the time to promote the post. Then again, if you’ve had success with previous promoted posts, it’s okay to launch the ads the moment you publish the post.
Be creative. Setting a goal of communication is fruitful when done right and embarrassing when done wrong. Do it right or don’t do it at all.
Goal: Drive Foot Traffic to Your Store
This is the big daddy of the goals, particularly for local businesses. It takes an abundance of creativity, a willingness to not give up when something doesn’t work, and the ability to make things happen in the real world as well as on social media.
If you’re an internet manager who has no access to setting specials or running promotions, this is a tough one to pull off. To bring real world traffic, you need real world incentives. If you haven’t the budget or authority to affect the real world aspect of your business, you should not go for this goal. It’s not that you can’t drive foot traffic with intangibles, but it’s infinitely easier when you have “the goods” in the form of reality rather than just virtual.
For example, the Dodge dealer that we used as the example in the previous post could set an event or create an offer that they run through the Facebook system for $14.99 oil changes available to Facebook fans only. They have to claim the offer or announce that they’ll attend the event and this can help you let your fans spread the word for you.
Another Dodge dealer example would be to set an event around a sale. Announcing the sale itself won’t do much, but giving something away such as free sunglasses can help you to get people to like your event on Facebook, again exposing the sale through their channels.
The hardest part about driving foot traffic through Facebook isn’t in getting the traffic. It’s in proving that the traffic came as a result of Facebook. When you’re working with budgets and you have to report to the boss, you’ll need to prove the effects. This is where events and offers come into play, but that’s not enough. You have to give the people who come to the store a reason to let someone know they came because of Facebook. Otherwise, they simply won’t tell you. If you can’t track it, then it didn’t really happen.
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Regardless of which goal you set, remember that Facebook is a marathon of sprints. By that, I mean that it’s not always steady and constant but it’s also not something where you can expect to sustain the sprints of success over and over again. You have to know what you want and then set out to make it happen. Otherwise, you’ll be like everyone else who is flailing around on their Facebook pages trying to find reasons that they can use to demonstrate it’s working.
This is part 3 of 4 in an ADM series about setting Facebook goals:
- Define Your Facebook Goals Before Determining a Strategy
- Facebook Marketing Goals: The Safe Approach
- Facebook Marketing Goals: The Aggressive Approach
- Facebook Marketing Goals: More Aggressive Approaches
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We’ve taken a look at the safe approach to setting Facebook goals. Now, it’s time to discuss letting the tiger out. Let’s sharpen our claws, stretch our muscles, and prepare for battle. Getting aggressive on Facebook is about going to social media war.
Keep in mind that the majority of businesses should stay with the safe goals rather than getting aggressive. They can be extremely effective for maintaining a viable Facebook presence without spending too much time on strategy, planning posts, and creating dialogues on Facebook. If you are going to set aggressive goals, your strategies are going to take time and money to make them happen.
It’s not for everyone but it might be for you. Here are some examples of aggressive Facebook goals.
Goal: Drive Traffic to the Website
This is one of the first things that come to mind when thinking of goals for Facebook. Most realize that it is known as a good traffic generation tool in general and they believe they’ll be able to do the same for their site.
Unfortunately, the standard practices used to drive traffic “in general” do not apply to most business websites. “In general”, Facebook is good at driving traffic to viral content. People do not go to Facebook to find links to inventory items. They go there to see pictures of little Timmy sliding into third base. They can get swayed into clicking on links with controversial titles or intriguing thumbnails, but again that’s not normally something associated with sites that are designed to generate leads or sales.
The only way to drive traffic to your website is by starting with strong content on the website itself. We’ve discussed using your website as your content hub and why it’s so important to have the type of content on your website for both social and search purposes that resonates with your overall target audience. Now, you’ll have to really apply these principles to make this Facebook goal achievable.
The starting point with a goal like this is to sculpt the appropriate fans. This cannot be stressed enough. If you have too few total fans or too many low-quality fans, you’ll want to fix that first before trying to drive traffic to you website. In many ways, driving traffic to your website from Facebook is about establishing trust within your community by posting only the absolute best content possible. Anything short of amazing simply won’t do.
Once you have that trust established by posting images and text that resonate and generate interactions, you can start posting quality content from your website directly to Facebook. If you’re a Dodge dealer, you could post a story like “The 5 Most Searched Dodge Chargers in History“. Assuming that your fans are strong, this will be the type of content that exceeds their expectations when they liked your page in the first place.
It’s supremely important to remember that this type of content must be promoted through Facebook ads. Even the most prolific Facebook pages by the most loved brands are not getting the type of traffic they could get from Facebook when they don’t advertise. Thankfully, if your fans are high-quality and you have a history of posting high value content on your pages, you won’t have to spend a ton to get a good amount of traffic. It’s not targeted traffic – visitors to the site may or may not be looking for a Dodge Charger at the time – so this strategy is best applied if you have retargeting campaigns working or if you’re using Facebook to help drive traffic for social signals purposes to help with SEO.
This is not, however, a way to generate a ton of leads or sales. We’ll discuss that goal shortly.
Goal: Dramatically Improve the Brand Footprint
Facebook may be a challenging venue through which to drive leads and sales via website traffic, but it’s the ultimate venue through which to improve your brand footprint. This goal is arguably the easiest to achieve of the aggressive goals but there’s a very time-consuming set of strategies behind it to make it truly successful.
With this goal, you’re trying to get your name and logo in front of as many prospect eyeballs as possible and as often as possible. To do this, you can employ a handful of different strategies. One strategy that you should never, ever employ is to take other people’s images and slap your logo on top of it. If you do this, you’re risking a brand disaster. I’m not going to dwell on the reasons behind it. I’ll just implore you to stop immediately if you’re doing it.
What you should be doing is taking pictures at your store. Every picture should be interesting and ever picture should include your logo as part of the image, not added after the fact. If you’re a Dodge dealer, you should be taking great pics of amazing Chrysler vehicles with your logo either in the background on a sign or on the license plate clearly visible.
That’s a very small strategy component if your goal is branding. The bigger and more time-consuming component is to go out into the Facebook world and start interacting where your potential customers are. That means getting chatty on the local newspaper Facebook page, offering help and support on local charity Facebook pages, talking about how great the BBQ is at Stan’s Restaurant around the corner, etc.
One thing to keep at the top of your mind when doing this – stay sincere and transparent. It isn’t just about getting your company name on the comment or share list. It’s about making an impact with your comments. It’s about helping others because you want to help others and not just to get your company name listed.
People are smart. They can tell when you’re not being sincere. This is why this goal is one of the most time-consuming. It requires a massive amount of genuine activity. It can’t be faked. You can’t skip a few days. If you go this route and your goal is to make your brand stand out ahead of the competition, you must be willing to commit.* * *I’ve been told to try to limit my 1000-word posts and I only made it through the first two aggressive goals before hitting the mark, so tomorrow I’ll discuss the next two aggressive goals: communication hub and foot traffic. Until then, think about what you really want to do with your Facebook page. Stay focused. Stay diligent. Facebook can be a wonderful marketing tool if used properly.
This is part 2 of 4 in an ADM series about setting Facebook goals:
- Define Your Facebook Goals Before Determining a Strategy
- Facebook Marketing Goals: The Safe Approach
- Facebook Marketing Goals: The Aggressive Approach
- Facebook Marketing Goals: More Aggressive Approaches
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Setting goals on Facebook is extremely important. As I wrote last night, it’s the root cause of one of the biggest challenges businesses are facing in Facebook marketing: a lack of a proper strategy. If you don’t know where you want to go, you won’t be able to get there very easily.
There are two primary approaches to setting a Facebook strategy that I’ve put in the boring categories of “safe” and “aggressive”. Here, we’re going to go over some of the safe approaches to Facebook that businesses can employ if they want to be truly successful in their goal-oriented strategy. These aren’t my favorites; I’m an aggressive goal-setter. Still, they may be the best way for your business to operate on Facebook.
Goal: PR-Only
Social media has the potential to be an amazing communication tool when done right. It is the best way to have a two-way public relations presence. You can get your messages out and mold the perception of your company’s personality the way you see fit while having an open method through which people can reach you. PR should always be a portion of every Facebook strategy.
There is an option of using it strictly for public relations. This is the easiest way to go. It’s the least productive goal to set, but it’s by far the safest approach and easiest to implement. If your company either does not believe in the value of using Facebook to reach more customers or you don’t have the time to implement an aggressive strategy, the PR-only approach is ideal.
In essence, this goal is to use Facebook sparingly. You aren’t going for visibility. You’re using it for defense only. Growth in the local market isn’t important. You aren’t playing the EdgeRank game nor are you advertising on Facebook at all. With this approach, the only audience that concerns you come from two sources: your website and the search engines.
With the PR-only approach, you play it very safe. You can post sparingly – once or twice a week is plenty (no less than that, though) – and finding content is easy because it doesn’t have to be viral. It technically doesn’t even have to be interesting. It’s an expression of your company’s personality to a limited audience. You can post links to your blog, pictures from the office, industry news, congratulations to employees, customer testimonials, etc.
Because you’re not worried about exposure, you don’t have to worry about getting into your fans’ news feeds. Those who want to get a feel for your company will be able to find it in searches for your name on Google or Bing as well as by clicking on the link that you post on your website and blog. You’re painting a picture with no fears of hurting your affinity and limited worries about getting negative feedback on your posts. Very few people will see it, but those who do have the opportunity to get a good feeling about your company because you’re not taking risks.
Again, and I cannot stress this enough, you will not be reaching people with this strategy. You will have a presence for those who want to find you, but there will be no growth, no additional leads or sales, no engagement, and you won’t be popping up in news feeds. The PR-only approach is a way to hide from all of the potential negatives in social media while still maintaining a presence that isn’t embarrassing. It’s as safe as it gets.
Goal: Basic Presence
This is similar to the PR-only approach, but there’s a chance that it can expose the brand to some additional people. Not many. You won’t be saying a lot but you will be interesting enough to get a little love.
If your goal is to have a basic presence, there are several strategies that can work. One of the easiest is to go with the daily industry picture. This strategy is extremely easy and maintains your presence without much effort. You simply schedule an image that’s relevant to your industry once a day, every day. That’s it. A Jeep dealer would post an image of a Jeep once a day. You can’t mess it up.
This goal is not one that will allow for much growth, but the chances of it ever hurting you are limited. Much like the PR-only approach, having a basic presence is designed mostly for those who find you on search or get directed to the Facebook page from you website. Because it’s likely going to be images that are of interest to your visitors, there’s a chance they might like some of them and get you an EdgeRank boost that can push your posts into news feeds.
This is the most common goal for local businesses today. Ironically, it’s the one that many wrongly classify as aggressive since they’re stepping outside of the bounds of pure business needs and trying to entertain their audience. The reason that this classification is wrong is because it’s still much safer than posting messages. Being fun isn’t necessarily aggressive. It can be, but we’ll discuss that type of goal in the next post.
Goal: Be the Industry Resource
Of all the safe goals, this is the one that requires the most effort. You’re trying to share your knowledge within your industry to your fans. Using the Jeep dealer example, they would be posting tips to maintain a 4WD when it’s not used very often, for example.
This goal can be ramped up more than other safe goals because you’re trying to bring value to the table. Facebook ads can work and this goal can help with branding and public perception if you stay consistent with it. In fact, you can get very active and appreciative fans as the industry resource. There’s a chance that you can build some decent EdgeRank and get shared amongst your target audience.
It takes work. Those who are conservative with their goals but want to be aggressive with the implementation of the strategy will be constantly researching to find more resources to either create or share from other sources. It’s an excellent approach if you have a matching blog with tips and best practices.
Those setting this as their goal do not have to post every day. In fact, once or twice a week can work just as it can with the PR-only approach, but never let your page go dormant for longer than a week. If you have to repost something with a slightly different spin in the description, that’s better than missing a week of posts.
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There are other safe goals out there, but for local businesses if you want to play defense and maintain a presence without spending too much effort keeping it up, these are the best ways that we’ve found to work. The social media game is all about ROI, so if your investment is low, the expected returns can be low as well. When playing it safe, you don’t have to be loved or even liked that much. You just have to be present.
Tomorrow, I’ll go over the aggressive goals that are (to me) much more fun but that also encompass more risk. Playing with Facebook from an aggressive posture takes time and effort and there’s a risk that the returns won’t justify the expenditures. However, there’s also a tremendous opportunity to move the needle.
This is part 1 of 4 in an ADM series about setting Facebook goals:
- Define Your Facebook Goals Before Determining a Strategy
- Facebook Marketing Goals: The Safe Approach
- Facebook Marketing Goals: The Aggressive Approach
- Facebook Marketing Goals: More Aggressive Approaches
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About a month ago I was asked when speaking before a group about what I thought the biggest mistake was that businesses were making on Facebook. I replied, “lack of coherent strategy” and went on about how too many business pages seemed like they were posting for the sake of posting, that they didn’t appear to moving in any particular direction, and that they were managing their social media presence on a day to day basis. If I could take back the answer (or better yet, elaborate further), I would.
I was wrong.
The actual biggest mistake that businesses are making starts a step before the strategy phase and would, in most cases, cure the ills that businesses are suffering with their strategy (or lack thereof). It really comes down to goals and the fact that most businesses are not defining their goals from the beginning nor are they adjusting them as their Facebook presence expands. THIS is the actual biggest mistake that they’re making. To those who heard me speak last month about this, I’m sorry to not give the most appropriate answer.
Every Facebook page should have a goal or set of goals that they want to achieve. Many will give the quick answer and say that their goal is to reach as many prospective customers and clients as possible, but this isn’t a real goal. Even in reach, it’s important to establish why you want to reach them and what messages you want them to receive. Are you wanting to reach them with your sales and marketing messages? Are you wanting them to see your logo and expand your branding? Are you wanting them to see that you’re involved in the various local and industry-specific conversations that happen on social media?
Keep in mind – “all of the above” is not a valid answer. That doesn’t mean that you cannot have a robust and diverse presence on Facebook that tackles multiple opportunities, but from a strategy perspective you’re message will get lost if you aren’t reinforcing it regularly. On average, only 16% of your fans are seeing your message at all and that’s if you’re doing a pretty good job at keeping your EdgeRank strong. While diversifying your message is important, keeping focused on a singular strategy should overrule the desire to be eclectic.
Over the next couple of days I will be diving into a wider range of specific strategies that you can employ. In the meantime, do you have any strategies that you’ve considered? Is there a technique that you’ve found to be effective or one that you think would work? I’m classifying the various strategy types into two categories: safe and aggressive. As with setting goals, determining strategies should be focused. Don’t try to bite off more than you can chew. You’ll end up spitting it all out on the table and embarrassing yourself.
Setting correct goals is key to achieving success. It is good to set small, short term goals. This allows you to feel a sense of accomplishment when you reach them. It is even more pivotal to set larger, long term goals. This gives our lives direction. It gives purpose. Without setting the proper goals, the tasks and challenges we face on a daily basis seem meaningless.
BIG Idea of the Week: You can't quit on your dreams now... Why? Because you're close.
You're REAL close. One small shift - one small change - one small letting-go-of-what's-not-working. We're always so quick to ADD - add a new product, add a new service, add some more marketing, add a new sales rep, add more and more and more. Sometimes the secret to success is to let go. My pal Kathy Dempsey likes to say "Shed or You're Dead." What do you need to shed in order to grow the business of your dreams? Think about it.
- David Newman
As you go through this life you will fight many battles, circumstances, people, feelings, emotions, physical barriers, pain, fear and exhaustion just to become you. Just to be heard. Just to do what interests you. Just to reach your dreams. Just to achieve your sales goals. Just to accomplish your God given purpose. If you ever want to succeed in anything in life you will have to fight to succeed. If you want to be a failure, do nothing. Always do what is easy and what doesn’t challenge you at all. Never stand up for what’s right. Never go against the crowd. Blend in to fit in and be accepted but don’t say what you really think. Only say what people want to hear and what they want you to say. Do this and you will without fail, be a successful failure! When you want something bad enough, you’ll fight for it. When you love someone enough you’ll fight to protect him or her. When you know it’s the right thing to do, you’ll fight for that cause.
The truth is we’re all fighters. A fighter is a person with the will, courage, determination, ability, or disposition to fight, struggle and resist something for a specific cause. Everyday we fight for others to hear us, accept us, love us and notice us. We fight for our ideas. We fight for our beliefs. We fight for our families and we fight for our friends. We fight to hit our goals and sales objectives everyday, every month and every year. In the midst of life, work and all that is happening outside of us; there is an unending war; a continuing battle that is taking place from within. This is a fight that only you can fight. You will have outside influence from people and circumstances but the decisions you choose and the choices you make will be the result of this fight. This is the fight for your will!
What is your will? It is the driving force of what you ultimately think, say and do. It is the combined makeup of your values, (what you like and don’t like), your thoughts, opinions, belief system, desires and pleasures. It is the mental faculty by which you deliberately choose a course of action. It is the power to arrive at one’s own choice and decision and to then act upon it independently in spite of anything that opposes you. It is the thing that causes you to lean towards that which creates joy in your life. Your will is that magnetic force that pulls you towards doing that which you like and want to do. Your will is also used to do what you don’t want to do. Your will is the final vote that allows the course of action to either take place or not. Your will has power. It is known as will power. Your will power is the strength and energy that is used to carry through your choices in life. Your will power is the ability to carry out one’s decisions, wishes and plans. Your will power is also known as discipline and self-control. When people break habits they try to do it with will power”. When people try to accomplish success in any area they do it through the exercising of will power. As you exercise your will power you are strengthening the ability of your will to make a choice. This will power is what you use to ultimately become you. Everything you are today is the result of your exercised will power.
George Allen
Nothing worth having in life is ever gained easily. If we want to achieve anything in this life we have to proactively fight for it. Too many people have fallen into the reactive fight stance in life. We’ve allowed ourselves to wait for something to come against us and than we fight back to make sure we don’t lose and get defeated. Now don’t misunderstand me. We will have to still do that at times. However, we should also put together attack plans to proactively go after our dreams, purposes and goals. We should fight on purpose, not just defensively.
Each one of us has been designed to live our life in this world for a specific purpose. There is no such thing as a worthless person. There is no such thing as a meaningless life. God handcrafted and fashioned each and every one of us. We are all unique and special for this world and His plan. No one else has the same finger print! No one else has the same DNA. Out of all the billions of people who have lived, are living and ever will live, you are “One of a Kind!” There is no one who is exactly like you. Even identical twins are not identical. You are “One of a Kind!” Don’t lose YOU! “One of a Kind” things are more valuable than copies. If everyone has it than the rarity and short supply holds no value.
For example: The Treskilling Yellow stamp from Sweden is the only one of its kind. It has a current value of more than $2 million (or $87 billion per kilogram, according to the site). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treskilling_Yellow) The rarity and only one of its kind demands an extremely high value. The same is true with the Gutenberg Bible. Around the world there is an enormous amount of vintage books, but perhaps the rarest is the famous Gutenberg Bible: First appeared in a book printed in 1456. There are several hundred copies of the Bible itself, but the very first copy of the two-volume book will cost a collector of antique books around 20-25 million dollars. What to say if one page of the book goes under the hammer for 25 thousand dollars, but sold last year, a two-volume - not the first edition – to someone at 5.5 million dollars! Incredible!
This truth is not only consistent with these two items but also with you! Everybody is born an original, “One of a Kind” but sadly many end up dying a copy. Why is this? Because too many people have allowed others to shape, create, mold and fashion them into what they want them to be rather then fight to be who they really are.
It’s a fight to be you, but it’s a fight that’s worth fighting. Fight to be you! Fight to reach your purpose! Don’t settle to live someone else’s plans, purposes and life instead of yours! You’re an original. Be you to the best of your ability. Be who God created you to be in life, at work and in everything you do. Never stop fighting to preserve the individuality and uniqueness you are and you have to change this world for good!
