Social Media Communication Strategy

Facebook has grown over the years to become a new tool for the modern age of communication. I recently administrated pages for Facebook-based companies, specifically promoters, so I wanted to get into how to effectively communicate via this medium and the techniques to use, many from personal experience and some from research. People have decided that traditional advertisements are cliché, kitschy and otherwise obsolete; the enjoyable are typically only enjoyed for the humor, and does little to explain or further interest in the product. I wanted to basically get into how communication has evolved in the internet age, and how marketing has become a key aspect in all of these things, as with my last post about sneaky marketing and the new terminology.

When the internet age began, pop up ads became the norm, and soon afterwards, they became the bane of any internet users existence; not only were they annoying, but they soon bred the pandemic known as "spyware" or "adware," which could be used to install malicious software onto a person's computer, or could be used as a keylogger, which would track keystrokes and thus be able to route a user's browsing history, e-mail accounts, usernames, passwords, and credit card account information to another computer, which could then be used for a number of scams and identity thefts. While this was soon regulated, they became a total annoyance and one would be hard pressed to find any successful pop up ads in today's age. Advertising was at a standstill.

Then came Facebook and social networking, along with the realization that people are more apt to trust the product recommendations of trusted friends, family and even acquaintances, over the impersonal nature of preconceived ads that target a wide demographic. This has become a total game changer, and has altered the face of marketing for the future; however, the problem still remains as to how a business can successfully gain new fans and consumers. Since it is a new marketing landscape, new information is created every second, quite literally, as the instantly updating nature of internet marketing feeds into this concept; yet, it is still possible to weed out effective techniques from these constant updates.

What would appear to be the most obvious choice to gain fans for a new Facebook entrepreneur is also a choice that would almost certainly fail; that is, to invite every single friend from their existing personal page to become fans of their new business page. Facebook users are supposed to only be allowed to like 500 pages, barring system glitches and workarounds, and suggestions tend to accumulate on a person's account, blending into an unintelligible mess of invites to events, fan pages and businesses. People use social networking to locate pages that they like, and do not like to be harassed by continuous invites to pages that they don't enjoy; therefore, a business needs to find methods that lead them to the site, rather than spamming them directly. A tactic like posting the link on your own page is acceptable, such as in your information box, as it does not aggressively bombard your friends with advertisements, nor is it bad to share links from your business every chance you get, as this does not directly target a specific person. These, coupled with using @tags to directly link the page, are the most basic, yet effective means of advertisement.

As stated before, people like the recommendations of other people, as opposed to aggressive marketing by the actual business; such popular plugins as the 'Livestream' app have allowed consumer feedback to be posted on Facebook and shown on actual business website in a live streaming format within a box on the side of the page. However, as of October 3rd, 2012, this app is to be discontinued and replaced with a 'Comment Box' app instead, which offers the same box format, but instead of a constantly updating live comments, it orders comment by relevance to your actual profile, preferring to show comments from friends, friends of friends, and the most liked comments. This is extremely useful, as it displays comments from people that are relevant to the user, as well as those that are well liked among the whole fan community overall, while also allowing for moderation of unsavory and vulgar remarks that may appear if someone reads deep into the comments.

For people that have started on with an actual website, it's not uncommon for fans of the site to not think to also like the Facebook page, and it's obvious that the more likes on a Facebook page leads to greater popularity and exposure; thus, sending an invite to the Facebook page via e-mail and e-zine will round up those that haven't made their support public and increase fan count. Now, once people see their friend's support for the page, it's key to make a good welcome video or message on the page; with cover photos and link tabs at the top where you browse photos, this is easier than ever before. With the allure of the page being ready, not the trick is to gather new fans, and this requires the indirect actions of your existing fans.

Such concepts as taking lots of pictures at live events, and then asking fans to tag themselves will indirectly post these updates on their profile walls, which then subsequently appears on the news feed. Now that comments on pages can be set to appear on friends' newsfeeds, their comments and tags will be spread to each of their friends accordingly. As mentioned in the beginning, the pop up ad market all but folded; however, Facebook's integrated ads sidebar is cost effective and streamlined, not popping out at people in an annoying manner, but appearing in a conservative manner on their sidebar, while still being easy to access and like with a simple click. If the company has a physical store, advertisements in the store should clearly list the Facebook fan page, and with the advent of modern technologies that have been made public, like QR codes, a person can use their smartphone barcode scanner to scan a physical bar code-like symbol on physical advertisements which brings them directly to your fan page; flyers in public places (like schools) can accomplish the same thing.

With these strategies, a person's page should have a solid foundation, and thus can only build up from there.


external links: 11 Reasons Your Company Needs Facebook

Facebook Comments Box App

21 Creative Ways to Increase Your Facebook Fanbase

Future of Mass Media

My last post made me think that most of the things I’ve been writing about are typically negative. In truth, that’s something that I struggle with a lot, since I typically don’t have much to talk about in relation to things that I enjoy; I simply enjoy them and don’t talk about it too much. Talking about my interest in the state of communications and why I decided to switch over from a different career got me thinking about my career-specific reasons for entering this industry, rather than the mental reasons I decided on it. While I’ve made it clear that I’m none-too-pleased with the state of the media, there are some aspects that I really do like about it. Particularly, I’ve had a lot of interest in radio for a long time, specifically talk radio. I’ve talked about how the FCC and lawyers have been steadily ruining AM and FM for a long time now, and I feel that the last bastion of hope lays in satellite radio, like SiriusXM.

Uncensored, unfiltered radio on XM is the only place where freedom of speech exists on a mass scale, barring the jumbled internet. XM is to radio communications what premium channels are to cable, but even premium TV has some limits and people do crack down hard on them at times. Even XM has faced some backlash over the past 10 years for mostly harmless things, and it has started to slowly go the way of FM in its early stages of regulation; however, I like the concept of all these excellent radio personalities combining in one place, most of them in the same building actually, and they work together to help each other’s shows out.

An example of this are my favorite guys on the radio, Opie & Anthony, who are just guys that speak unfiltered and say what they think without having to filter it and dumb it down, regardless of how politically incorrect it is. My first exposure to them was back in the mid-late 90s in Boston, when they were on the local radio in the city. They had just started, so they had some hacky bits at times, but compared to the other, extremely filtered radio at the time, they were many times better. That is, until they made a joke about Mayor Menino dying in a car crash, albeit on APRIL FOOLS, thus obviously being a joke. However, they were kicked off of the air for this obvious joke, because of overreacting FCC censors and immature people. They stuck to their guns, moved down to WNEW in New York, and even got syndicated in Boston again after a while, before a stunt committed by a viewer calling in, not spurred on by the hosts, where the viewer had sex with his wife in a church and got them kicked off again, even though you obviously couldn’t see it on the radio, and it was the callers’ own choice in a weird, misguided attempt to be funny. XM recognized their talent for humor and unfiltered opinions and immediately signed them upon their contract with Clear Channel running up, and they essentially lead the way for big names to join XM.

People like them, despite the restrictions they have to follow from XM bosses after the Sirius merger, give me some hope for the future of communication. Regardless of whether people like them or find them tasteless, freedom of speech has just been under attack for so long that it’s hard for supporters of that freedom to not also support people like them. XM shares a lot of similarities with another form of new media in the social networking age, particularly Podcasting. A lot of great comedians and hosts have started podcasts, and the quality has been surprisingly good in terms of entertainment and production, much better than YouTube channels and vlogs. Both XM and podcasting are created specifically to reach large audiences without the hassle of syndication contracts, and the same thing has essentially happened ever since the switch to digital TV, and from this I started to notice a trend; everything is moving toward mass communication.

TV OnDemand services, Netflix, Podcasts, XM, even video game systems and their online communities; all of them have been moving toward an epoch with similar communication models, and eventually, the lower grade technology is going to switch to these upgraded systems as they become obsolete. It’s becoming ever-closer, and it’s something that I aim to be a part of, much like the Dot-Com bubble in the 90s; not only will it be an excellent financial opportunity, but I predict that it will be the next step in mass communication. What use are weak FM and AM frequencies going to be soon, when everybody has a handheld device connected to the internet and the ability to access things? As wireless signals get stronger every year and internet servers get cheaper, why wouldn’t cars have an internet connection and subscription model right from their car with hundreds of nationwide channels, which has already occurred on satellite radio systems? People hate advertisements, and XM channels have very few to none, with most of the commercials being on the more expensive premium subscriptions, as opposed to FM which has tons of commercials. The only niche they would need to fill is local news, but even that is starting to disappear with social networking causing people to focus more on mass communication.

The last few innovations started with internet, then cell phones, followed by wireless internet, satellite radio, social networking, smart phones, and now podcasting, which has been around for almost 10 years when iPods came out, has finally started to really catch on, and I feel that future is finally on the horizon, as different types of media started to combine into one fluid system.