Are Your Facebook Fans Truly Engaged?

 

There are five ways to keep your Facebook pages working for you - and your fans - without running into cycles or idle chit chat, says Italian digital media agency Frozen Frogs. They did some work to figure out fan engagement rate and found that:

(1.) New product releases

Let's face it, our brains are wired for novelty. Hence the love for shiny new objects.

What if you don't have a lot of new product releases? What would constitute new? How about new uses for a product? Maybe suggested by your fans somewhere else - in forums or at your blogs - that you can work with them to repost there, after vetting as necessary to make you feel comfortable.

Run a video interview via Skype of your customer talking about the new or innovative use for it, then post it. This would also pay off the fifth way listed here.

(2.) Promotions and discounts

Putting cash back into people's pockets is still a great way to get traction.

Things may be tight for many businesses at the moment. Points towards a purchase, or a way to create a community bartering system for certain parts of the service might be an interesting option.

Another idea here is to allow customers and fans to earn points towards a charity and then profile them talking about the reason why they picked that charity - there's the story again.

(3.) Eco-friendly initiatives

For real though, not green washing. Eco-friendly can be minimizing your company's footprint, supporting causes the community cares about, building a tangible and concrete story around responsible care.

Car companies have a good angle here.

(4.) Something remarkable

Think about something special and unexpected you could do for your fans. If you're a very popular brand, think in terms of access - giving them access to a unique experience they cannot get elsewhere. Make sure it ties into your brand.

Surprise fans every now and then with something unexpected. You can combine this with special promotions.

(5.) Video narrative

Telling a story visually is very powerful. There are so many ways to involve the community with video - company-driven promotions, special community profile stories, new product uses, guest evangelists. I'm sure you can come up with very creative ideas.

All of these provide higher levels of engagement. Here's the full deck from Frozen Frogs.

Thoughts? Questions? Reactions? We've got to get the Ducati people or someone working on the Ducati digital initiatives in here, don't you agree?

[engagement levels for Wired and Ducati]

© 2006-2009 Valeria Maltoni. All rights reserved.

Comments

[Bruce Christensen]

Valeria,
Great suggestions...
I will do a couple of them today!

[Mike Brewer]

I think engagement is a much deeper concept than people give it credit for and is often misused in marketing and branding circles. Engagement is more appropriate in the context of war and marriage. Read: deeper and more powerful relationship kind of stuff.

That said, it does not mean a consumer can not become engaged with a product or service but the meaning is much deeper.

I think what Frozen Frogs have described above is participation - courting, flirting or getting to know someone a little better. It's just not engagement in my opinion.

I think the person that catches the true nature of engagement as it relates to the deep and moving emotions steeped by love and war - will have created lovers or dare I say - haters - forever. And that moves way beyond participation...

Love your stuff - have a compelling day.

[Jason Peck]

Great ideas here. I also might add charity/feel good initiatives. I've seen these work well for a few brands.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Bruce - I like it when something I write is useful right away. You'll let me know how it goes.

@Mike - language is a tricky thing, isn't it? Something seeps into the public consciousness and we all adopt it without questioning its roots. Actually, the term engaged also means involved in an activity, so it is proper English. However, in the US, people are more used to thinking about it in the meaning of romantic involvement, greatly interested. Good discussion.

@Jason - taking notes for non profits. There is so much opportunity to put a face and story to those organizations in social networks! Thank you.

[Denis]

@valeria thank you for sharing! :)

@bruce I hope you will find it useful! I work for FrozenFrogs, please let me know if it works! (@denisr)

@mike I know what you mean... and thanks god this is not real engagement. It would be awfully expensive to send rings to each fan. :)
But, seriously... interaction with a company in such a distracting place could not be considered, perhaps, a little bit more than participation? please, let me know your thoughts

@jason absolutely spot on! I will dig more on this

[Kacie]

I work with many nonprofits. It's great to have a Facebook page to share their message and drive traffic to their Web sites, but we don't have promotions, coupons or a sneak-peak of products to share. Any good case studies you could share with me of nonprofits that have been successful with social media campaigns and what they have done to engage more fans?

[Liam @ Partnerpedia.com]

Five solid suggestions. Under the subheading of "Something Remarkable" I'd suggest injecting a little personality into the mix. Use humor to 'humanize' the interaction, for instance.

[Anna Woodlock]

Great ideas.
I've seen discounts become a good attraction too to Facebook pages.

i.e. Staples & Toys R' Us during Black Friday.
Thanks for the ideas!

[Mike Spear]

Just to pick up on the non-profits who have little to share, sneak peak, or products to give away.
We are a non-for-profit genetics research organization and were looking for ways to engage, interact, and find people online to promote awareness of who we are and what genetics is all about. While attending a social media conference a couple of years ago I was commiserating with friends over that great inspirational tool, beer, when someone said too bad you can't give away genes.
That was the eureka moment.
We created a Facebook application to do exactly that - give your friends a virtual gene. In the first year we gave away almost 14,000 of them through a unique interface that had a strong educational component.
When Facebook changed its interface so did we and as of this past September it is a GenOmics news aggregator complete with a send-a-gene function, comments, ideas, and answers tab.
So when you think discounts, give-aways, promotions, etc, think about what your organization has to offer in knowledge and information and how you can package it in a way that pulls people in.
And btw check out the app at http://facebook.genomealberta.ca

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Kacie - it looks like Mike provided a great example in the comment here for you to take a look at.

@Liam - personality as in sharing about yourself does help in getting to know others.

@Anna - good examples, thank you.

@Mike - thank your for providing such a concrete example for an unusual topic. And especially thank you for drawing the parallel between what you found out and content as give-away. I'm a believer that knowledge and valuable content can be the most powerful form of gratification when executed well.

[Sarge]

I think with facebook (and a lot of things really) you need to do something that stands out and is remarkable as you say to get some true engagement.

You may have a consistent posting method but would be good all of a sudden to pop something out there a little unexpected but your readers will enjoy and engage in.

Having facebook specific discounts/promotions will get a lot more viewers paying attention to your page. At the moment I sort of have my messages spread across twitter and facebook but the messages that appear on facebook you can find on twitter. I am going to work on making some parts of facebook truely unique so it's worthwhile readers to hang out on my facebook page.

Sarge | BeginnerBlogger.com

[Valeria Maltoni]

Differentiation is key, as you already know. You don't have the very same fans on Facebook than you do followers on Twitter.

Publishers have known that for a long time. Add something to the paperback edition and you will still have people who owned the hardback buy it.

[Denis]

@Sarge @Liam that's why we've added in Ducati on the above slides. It has to be something remarkable for your audience, not just for the mkt dept and/or the agency.

marketingprof has some excellent food for brain about this point

[Carolyn Ann]

Huh, well I never! I didn't know Ducati had a Facebook page. Just goes to show! I wonder how long it's been up? I'm a big fan of Ducati... :-) (I need new tires on mine. The last back tire did about 2,800 miles, which is a bit of record. Normally I get about 2,500 out of the rear, and close to 4,000 out of the front. Considering the rear tires average about $380 to $390 per (fitted), I'm not a fan of Ducati repair bills...)

I'm not sure that offering discounts on a Facebook page helps interest! I want "you" to send me the discount, I don't want to remember to go looking for it. Borders emails me coupons, and if they're good, I'll go to the store and at least purchase a cup of coffee. I might not buy a book with every "% off" coupon, but I will make the trip, and I will buy that coffee. And a cookie to go with it! I might also buy a magazine, even though they aren't included in the discount offers. But if I had to remember to go looking on their Facebook page for the same coupon - I'd not go as often. Mostly because Facebook is not within my "daily habits"; email is.

And yes: let's get someone from Ducati on here! :-)

I'd love to hear their about how they view their market.

Carolyn Ann