It has been a while but in previous Blog posts I have talked about using Social Media to promote your business and the impact that this has on your website's search engine optimization. To quickly recap: social media markers such as the number of "Likes" that you have on your business Facebook page positively impact the overall optimization and ranking of your business website to which it is linked. As the popularity of social media websites grows, search engines such as Google and Bing continue to more heavily weight these markers as it pertains to the ranking of the website. One of the most difficult tasks in social media marketing is engaging the user to the point that they will "follow" or "like" your page. This user interaction is what will ultimately lead to a sale, not necessarily from that particular user, but perhaps from someone who follows THEM on social media. I'm going to coin this as "second-hand marketing" not to be confused with the marketing of second-hand goods. You could consider this what is generally known as "referral marketing" but social media platforms have taken this to a new level so I'm going to humbly give it a new name.
The questions now becomes: how do we accomplish successful second-hand marketing using social media? Software and application developers are getting more creative when it comes to more interactivity and promoting users to take action to claim deals and offers, specifically with Facebook. There are many third-party developers designing custom applications with specific attributes to encourage second-hand marketing. One that has been recommended to me and I currently use for my page and my client's pages is Tabsite. Tabsite has a great platform that offers a WYSIWYG tab designer complete with multiple widgets as well as Engagement Apps that do exactly that: engage the user. Incorporating these engagement apps on your page can help drive second-hand marketing.
Some of the Tabsite features include the ability to run a Sweepstakes and Contests for users to enter for a chance to win a prize. This is a way to entice users to give you their contact information for future marketing campaigns. You also have the option to add a "Buy Now" button to sell products from your Facebook page. As for second-hand marketing, Tabsite offers a Coupon App, Group Deal App, Share Deal App, and Friend Share App. The Coupon App allows page admins to design a coupon that users can print and redeem at a retail location. You can adjust the permissions to require users to "Like" your page before gaining access to the coupon. Once the user "Likes" your page and accesses a coupon, a message will appear on their Facebook timeline informing all of their friends that they have "Liked" your page and that they have claimed a coupon. The Group Deal App requires a specific number of users to redeem the coupon before the a deal is activated, similar to other group deal providers. Something to note is that Tabsite does not take a percentage of the Group Deal sales as do other providers. This app also promotes second-hand marketing in that once the user redeems the group deal, a message will appear on their Facebook timeline for all of their friends to see. The Share Deal App and the Friend Share App are similar whereas the Share Deal requires the user to share the deal on their Wall in order to access the deal and the Friend Share lets the user choose someone from their friend list and share the deal on their friend's wall. Additionally, Tabsite allows for full graphic design freedom allowing admins to upload image graphics to the program and use them along with the Engagements Apps and Tab Designer.
The use of Tabsite for Facebook is particularly inexpensive and they offer multiple pricing plans. To gain access to the most engaging promotions to maximize your page's second-hand marketing, I would recommend the Platinum Plan. It does take some time to create these promotions and monitor their success so you might consider hiring a social media marketing firm for management of your page.
Remember: Facebook does have rules for providing promotions and contests. These are available through Facebook's policies. If you have any questions, please contact me via our website at Web Crawl Consulting. To learn more, please read more at Social Media Marketing.
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