Session Description

Speaker: Collin Searle, Intermountain Health Care Social Media 

Facebook is changing again and this time the change appears to be for the better…If you know what you’re doing.  

Explore how you can make the most of the Facebook timelines updated app feature to drive site traffic. Also covered: deciding between free vs paid apps, how do get a strategy behind your app to increase visibility, running giveaways, and help create value for ad partners. 

Session Recap

Facebook has changed for the better. There is a lot of potential for view growth and interaction through Timeline formatting.

Timeline

One of the greatest improvements is the cover photo.  It’s a massive billboard for your brand.  If you construct your cover photo or billboard right, everyone will know what you are about at first glance. Don’t necessarily use brand logo or photo of yourself on cover photo, use something that will draw traffic.

The new formatting gets rid of the old constant stream and gives a box for your fans to send you direct messages and interact with other fans.  It confines that stream to one box within the site.

It has the capability to highlight “Featured Posts” for up to seven days. It’s a powerful tool to draw readers to particular posts or promotions on your blog.

It offers custom Apps on the bottom of cover photo billboard are displayed in a high visibility area allowing you to do anything you want the site to do or direct your traffic anywhere you want it. You can make it what you want it to be.

It’s no longer just a facebook page; it’s like a micro-site within facebook offering a convenient location for fan activity.

Facebook Apps

One of the greatest capabilities is the usage of apps.  You can use any apps that help you show your content and directs people where ever you want them to go i.e. to buy your product, read your content, see your product, or enter your sweepstakes.  You can do all of that within your facebook site now.  OR you can direct them off your facebook site to where ever you want them to be.

New facebook brings your worlds together. Allows your community to come together and interact on your page.  Allows you to rally you audience where ever they are. It can keeps people coming back to interact.

It also enables you to reach your “fans” friends who are not fans of yours (yet).

Here is a short list of popular and useful apps for bloggers: Tabfusion, North Social, Wildfire, Offerpop, Shortstack, Customizer, Rafflecopter, Involver.

Try them out and play around with site.  If you like what you create you can add it to your facebook apps.

ShortStack.com  is a free app that allows you to click on widget icon, whatever you want readers to see, and allows you to drag and drop them where you want them on your facebook layout.

Things to consider

The new Timeline gives prime real estate to draw attention and drive traffic to where you want it.

BLOGGERS BE WARE:  Facebook has rules, so play nice with provided guidelines.  Be familiar with the rules.  It’s not worth gaining a fan if you LOSE YOUR SITE.

You can’t sell something on your cover photo or billboard. But you can use liner cues such as lines or other design elements to draw your reader’s eyes to where you want them to go which is to your apps.   Good examples of this are the livestrong.com fan page or intermountain.org fan page.

Giveaways: Use your apps to support your blogging and partnership giveaways.  DO NOT USE FACEBOOK to do anything other than send traffic to your site.  You CAN’T use facebook to qualify someone to win a sweepstakes or giveaway in any way.  You can announce the opportunity to win, but must redirect to another site to qualify to win. You may also NOT use facebook to announce the winner.

SNAP has a post that list rules and guidelines for appropriate use facebook.

Co-Branding app campaigns and partner programs are a good way to allow you and a brand to partner and take advantage of each other’s networks.  i.e. Offerpop.com

Measure your blogging statistics.  Anything worth doing needs to be measured.  There are several ways to measure.  Build in Google Analytics into your site.  It will help you validate what you are doing when you offer your blog to brands.

Get the most out of your networks by linking them all together.

Pinterest Integration

Pinterest boards: shuffle the boards and give the highest priority placements to the boards that are most important to you.

Where to get started with facebook apps:

  1. Determine your campaign priorities
  2. Determine your needs and budget
  3. Pick an app source that fits your needs
  4. Build it.  It’s easy to do.  Just try it.  You don’t have to use it.  Just become familiar with it, and then decide if it is a useful tool for your blog.  You’ll never know if it will work for you unless you sit down and try it out.