Colorado GOP Race Prompts Facebook Attack Page | ClickZ
Intersting use of Facebook for an ‘attack’ site here. I guess a couple of advantages of Facebook for this type of activitiy are that it’s quick, cheap and highly targeted.
Could this be the first Facebook “hit” page? Political attack sites – sometimes called “hit” sites – are flooding the Web as the 2010 elections edge closer, but a new form of hit site has surfaced in Colorado’s contentious Republican Senate primary race. The centerpiece? Pink stilettos.
GOP primary hopeful Ken Buck has borne the brunt of a backlash against a comment he made during a campaign stop after a voter asked why people should choose him. “Because I do not wear high heels,” Buck responded, adding that his cowboy boots are caked with genuine “bullst.” Buck is running against Jane Norton in the primary, and her campaign is taking advantage of Buck’s gender-themed gaffe in TV ads, an attack website, search advertising, and on Facebook.
via Colorado GOP Race Prompts Facebook Attack Page | ClickZ.
How Weekly World News Got 40,310 Facebook Fans In 4 Days
From How We Got To 40,310 Facebook Fans In 4 Days:
When we took over the Facebook Fan page for Weekly World News , they had 3,244 fans. 4 days later, we had 40,310 fans– 10 times larger. We’re going explain exactly how we did it in this exclusive article for AllFacebook.com. In the coming days, we’ll demonstrate how fans translate into trackable revenue, how to perform analytics, integrating social widgets (Open Graph Protocol) with your site, and other aspects of effective Facebook marketing. But today we’re looking only at growing your fan base quickly.
The Background
A few weeks ago, Facebook made some massive changes– more of your personal data as publicly available, you could like something from a website (as opposed to only from Facebook), community pages launched to challenge Wikipedia, and so forth. But the biggest change in our mind was that “become a fan ” was changed to just “like”. The user doesn’t know what they’re liking– the cute saying, the underlying page, the website they’re on, or their friend’s remark.
It used to be that you could tell when clicking on an ad would take you to a fan page or to a website. The fan page would have the “become a fan” button, creating an in-line fan– meaning that they can become a fan without ever having to go to your page. At first we thought this was terrible, since we felt that users wouldn’t want to be yanked outside of Facebook. Therefore, the ads that send users to Facebook pages would have a higher CTR– and this, we reasoned, would be something Facebook would “like” (pun intended), too.
But it’s a funny thing how data often proves you wrong. The highest click-to-fan conversion rate we had achieved prior to the F8 change was 55%– that’s for an in-line fanning of the ad. After the switch to like, we saw conversion rates consistently in the 50-90% range. We tried a range of ads– here are a couple…
Read their 8 tips here.
Social Media Strategies – Influencer Outreach in 10 steps | 123 Social Media
Wondering how to reach out to the online influencers? 123 Social Media boils it down:
Step One: review the following six social media sources. In all cases, do a preliminary overview of your industry, of any keywords that are top of mind, as well as the names of any industry or association groups. This gives you a good starting point to detail where you want to go.
* Facebook Groups
* Linkedin Groups
* Alltop
* Technorati
* Postrank
Step Two: identify local or topical clusters. Once you have an overview, go back and cross compare items you found in step one. Key areas to look for are detailing top blogs (Postrank and Technorati both provide general scores) and identifying groups of users that spread across several services (high ranked blogs typically provide links to Facebook/Linkedin/Twitter groups.)
Step Three: break down apparent clusters that make sense for your business. Define geographic, topical, market, and demographic silos that are applicable. For each cluster you establish, detail five to ten top individuals to interact with.
Step Four: establish your workload and labor commitment. Be realistic. If you have fifty individuals to interact with, realize personal outreach is going to take thirty to sixty minutes per person. For an extremely large outreach, this time adds up very quickly. If you don’t want to commit the time, reduce the number of people you are reaching out to. You should also consider investing more time up-front for your own learning curve.
Step Five: research and personalize. Go into every site and review the “about” page and the past three to five articles, along with the last 30 days worth of information on Google (search for the persons name using the “advanced search” function to view only recent information.) If they have a Twitter account, spend a few minutes reading recent activity.
Step Six: Review your strategy. One of the most important steps of the process is to go back and re-think your strategy based on all the information you have just gathered. In most cases basic tactics and goals stated at the beginning may be proven to be inherently flawed.
Step Seven: outreach. Remember to try two or three options. The best way to earn an honorable mention in someone’s rolodex is to offer something of value to them. This “offer” doesn’t have to be cash (although a lot of people love this…) and could revolve around some common benefits. Think outside of the box when doing outreach and do not be scared to pick up the phone! (also remember to have effective follow-up.)
Step Eight: build the relationship. Once you have taken the effort of outreach, continue working on continuing communication. If you have a web only relationship make a schedule to communicate through blog comments, twitter, and other web services. If you have the ability to meet in person, attend or coordinate regular events to build stronger personal connections.
Step Nine: pay it forward. During the course of research, outreach, and relationship building: attempt to detail three to five basic objectives for each contact. Your assistance in reaching small personal goals for each contact is a quick method for solidifying a memorable and positive relationship.
Step Ten: collect some good faith karma. After you have contributed to the conversation, begin to seed your communication with your own professional wants and needs. Continue to review your own contributions vs the requests you make, and be careful to maintain a balanced two-way relationship.
BONUS:
Ask around. In many cases, professional peers may have already done some of the work above. If they have, ask to share notes and compare objectives to leverage any synergies you may have. If they have not, ask them if they would find value in your research and get them to commit some support to the effort.
Read the entire post here: Social Media Strategies – Influencer Outreach in 10 steps | 123 Social Media
3 Ways to Use Facebook Insights to Your Advantage
Here’s some often overlooked tips from Nathan at Social Media Examiner on how to make better use of Facebook fan pages and the all-important Insights:
Tip #1: Take Advantage of Facebook Insights
If you have a page and aren’t checking your stats, then you’re missing out on a lot of useful information.
Facebook Insights are located in the sidebar on your Facebook Page and they can only be seen by the admins of your Facebook Pages. Click through “See All” to view the stats.
On most web properties, I’m interested in users’ time spent on the site and unique page views, but in this case I’m looking for something different.
People on Facebook move around quickly, and ordinary stats aren’t going to provide the whole picture. Initially, what we’re looking for are audience statistics, such as age, gender and country of residence.
Using these numbers, you can decide which content works best, the audience you’re reaching, and where you can improve. What a great way to test content before it goes live elsewhere!
Tip #2: Target Your Messaging
As crazy as it sounds, most page owners I talk to don’t realize that you not only can message users (for free), but you can target your messaging too. It doesn’t help that Facebook hides this feature behind the ‘Edit Page’ settings, but it’s there nonetheless (find it under your avatar on your fan page wall).
Here’s the navigation process: Facebook Home Page -> Ads and Pages -> Pages -> Edit Page -> Send Update to Fans.
Let’s say that I own a small boutique in Tampa that sells gifts perfect for Mother’s Day. Heck, maybe I own a huge corporation that has a branch in Tampa.
I can use this feature to send a message to each target audience without bugging the people who wouldn’t benefit from my message. Men age 25-55 in and around the Tampa area would get this message. Beautiful.
This is useful in so many ways beyond just simple geographic targeting. I could send individual messages that target different age groups… the kind of messages that I know they like because I’ve paid attention to my Facebook Insights.
Are you starting to see how useful this is?
Tip #3: Use Facebook Ads
A lot of people miss the point with Facebook ads. Unlike most PPC campaigns where you’re trying to negotiate the lowest possible price per click through to your website, Facebook ads work just as well, if not better, as a branding tool.
For instance, as a blogger, I have a very small niche (when compared to other niches on Facebook). If, using my Facebook Insights, I find my most responsive audience is females, I can then target that group specifically.
By adding keywords such as social media and blogging, I can further refine that group. Add in a few more characteristics (using my Insights) such as live in the U.S., speak English and are college graduates, I wind up with a list of 11,600 Facebook users.
Now this is where it gets good. I can hit these people with 12,000 views per day (using CPM), for only $5 per day. Even if they don’t buy, like or act on the ad, by the end of this campaign, they’ll sure as heck know who I am.
Read the entire post here: 3 Ways to Use Facebook Insights to Your Advantage | Social Media Examiner
