May 12, 2012 by Majestic Media by Majestic Media

Including Social Logos On TV Works

It has become commonplace to see social logos like the Facebook “F” and the twitter “T” on television, both on programs and ads. The question many advertisers had is whether this was an effective method. According to a new survey performed by Accenture this is an extremely important method for increasing exposure of your brand on Facebook. The study found that approximately one third of American viewers have liked a brand’s page or tweeted about it after viewing social logos on TV.

The most common form of interaction after viewing one of these pages is to like a TV show or brand’s Facebook pages (20%). About 7% of viewers stated that they Tweeted or searched a hash tag after viewing the Twitter logo. The study also showed that 11% of viewers scanned a QR code while watching TV.

We at Majestic Media have found that having a multi faceted campaign yields the best results. Having your campaign have a presence over a variety of mediums such as TV Facebook and Direct Mail, increases exposure and the overall effectiveness of your brand or campaign. The best practice for advertisers to take, when including a logo on TV ads is by giving users the actual URL: facebook.com/majesticmedia OR @majesticmedia That then results in a clear call to action.

April 15, 2012 by Majestic Media by Majestic Media

Facebook Lists 6 Steps To Create A Social Brand

With the release of timeline for pages and reach generator, Facebook clearly wants to encourage brands to utilize their site as a key marketing tool. However a recent study commissioned by Facebook showed that while many brands want to be more social they’re having a tough time accomplishing that. In response to this issue Facebook issued a series of blueprints and now has released a 6 step process to accomplish a connected brand.

Articulate: Define the brand’s social identity so you communicate in a unique, compelling, and authentic voice.
Connect: Find you best and most likely customers and give them a reason to like or follow you in social channels.
Engage: Interact with people by making brand communications and content more personally relevant and participative.
Influence: Inspire and enable people to share stories and messages about your brand.
Integrate: Build social into the brand and product experience to make it more cohesive and useful.
Rejuvenate: Use insights from social channels to continuously monitor your brand’s health and improve the brand experience.

A Facebook spokesperson released the following statement:

“People are increasingly relying on their friends to learn about brands, make purchase decisions and engage with brands in social situations. These conversations about brands are happening in social channels all the time. To make sure your brand is guiding that conversation and taking advantage of the opportunity to deepen relationships with your customers, you must build a connected brand.”

February 17, 2012 by Majestic Media by Majestic Media

Optimize Your Link Using Facebook Tags

Facebook has long been the leading source of referral traffic on the internet. Despite this fact, many companies have not optimized their links. How many times have you clicked a link only to see irrelevant information in both the text and picture displayed. Under the assumption that this irrelevant information discourages users from clicking through the link, means that brands are wasting a valuable opportunity.

Facebook is fairly efficient at determining the title and body that should appear when displaying a link. The most common issue that brands encounter is that the image is either missing or incorrect. By utilizing Facebook’s open graph meta tags, brands can prevent this from occurring. By adding the following three tags to your HTML header you can optimize your link and in theory it’s CTR:

A quick note on the preferred icon, all images should be square, also the maximum pixels allowed are 250 x 250.

Once you’ve added the tags it is essential that you visit http://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug . There you will be able to enter the link for your website at which point Facebook will refresh its cache. This will ensure that users are seeing what you want them to.

It is important for brands to recognize that their fans sharing their link is a vote of confidence and one of the most credible sources of advertising they will receive. It is essential for brands not to squander that opportunity and following these steps will help ensure that brands are optimizing their fans support.

February 17, 2012 by Majestic Media by Majestic Media

Facebook Black Hat Tactics For News Feed Optimization Revealed

For years, brands have been using Black Hat tactics to optimize SEO. Its now been revealed that certain brands are using similar tactics to optimize their news feed visibility on Facebook.

On average brands fans see only between 20% and 30% of posts. Facebook’s algorithm, Edgerank, determines what posts are displayed in users newsfeed based on the amount of engagement a post receives. Essentially, setting up a cycle where more users see highly engaging posts, causing more engagement again, causing more users to see the post.

The conventional or “white hat” method of accomplishing edgerank sucsess is to post content that is both relevant and engaging to your clients. However some brands are taking a less ethical approach to optimizing their newsfeed presence. The Black Hat method consists of creating fake user accounts that like and comment repeatedly on your posted content. This then “tricks” Facebook into thinking that the content is relevant and engaging causing, it appear in more users newsfeeds. According to a community manager using this technique, said that he gained 250 000 fans with no media buy.

This technique is clearly effective in the short term however there are long term considerations brands should consider before implementing Black Hat tactics. One consideration is that if Facebook discovers you are employing this technique they will most likely ban your page.

It is certainly not out of Facebook’s areas of expertise to create an algorithm that would be effective in detecting fake accounts that are associated with your brand. It also may become apparent to your actual fans that you are employing this technique. A small set of users consistently being overactive may raise flags. Look at our article describing Delta’s less than ethical use of Fan page management. Fans discovering that your brands behaviour is unethical can cause a large backlash and hurt your brand in the long term.

Probably the biggest factor that should discourage brands from using black hat tactics is that brands dont get to test what is actually relevant to their fans. One of the most valuable features of Facebook fan pages is that you can see what your fans are interacting with and adjust your marketing accordingly.

So are Black Hat tactics effective in growing your fan base? Absolutely. Is it beneficial for your brand to employ this tactic? Not in the long run.

February 14, 2012 by Majestic Media by Majestic Media

Do Likes Equal Brand Loyalty?

According to eMarketer having fans like your brand does not necessarily result in brand loyalty. This comes after they reviewed the data collected in a study performed by Evoc Insights.

The main findings that were analyzed were: 59% of Facebook users have liked a page of either a brand of a company over the last six months. Of those users 54% stated that they were more likely to make a purchase from a company that they have “liked” .

Although it seems that this would be indicative of brand loyalty eMarketer released the following statement in regards to the findings:

The link between likes and loyalty remains unclear. Although consumers respond favorably about their likelihood to purchase from a brand they follow on Facebook, that’s not overly evident from their Facebook timelines. Marketers should keep in mind that for consumers, Facebook remains primarily a place to interact with peers and share experiences. Although many consumers have opened up to brands that are present on Facebook, brand marketers should not expect that they’ve earned consumer loyalty simply because a consumer has clicked the like button.

Although this statement may be correct, it seems that it is not taking in to account the benefit of the exposure that brands receive through likes. Although likes may not lead directly to brand loyalty it certainly provides an organic method in which to display your brand and products to a broad audience. So does having a lot of likes lead directly to brand loyalty? That remains to be seen.

But is having a lot of likes beneficial to your brand? Absolutely.