8 Strategies Used by Pampers and Kohl's for Facebook Marketing

I was reading an article recently on "The 8 Success Criteria for Facebook Page Marketing" that Jeremiah Owyang from the Altimeter Group published based upon large corporate companies use of Facebook for business (such as Pampers and Kohl's).  It was interesting to see the results of their research.  The 8 success criteria are the basis for creating a business model that translate to doing business authentically.  Here is my take on the eight points they reported on.

• Set Community Expectations

While normally the word expectation is not one that I prescribe to in my life, in this instance it is most definitely an authentic criteria.  Just as in a blog, website, or any marketing program, if you do not know who you are trying to reach, you will not reach them.  In social media it is no different and is a requirement for a successful page.  The visitors to your page need to know exactly what they are going to get by visiting - their expectation.

I would take it one step further than the report, it is not only necessary for a business to indicate what the visitor is going to get in the about text, but even more important is the title of the page.  That is how they will find you.  Are you targeting sneaker wearing teens?  Then you do not want to have a title of your page that is about kite flying.  Even if you can make the connection, your visitors may not.

• Provide Cohesive Branding

If you are a business that is linking your website, your blog, and your Facebook page, ensure that they will recognize you from the branding you do.

If you are a small business like I am, my brand is simply my picture.  The public figure picture is on my blog, my Facebook page and my books.  It is vastly different for a business than an author, but the authentic idea is there.  Give people something to remember.

• Be Up To Date

This is vital.  The content must be updated consistently.  No one wants to visit a page that is not posting on a consistent basis.  For my own page (which has been growing at a rate of 400 new fans each month), the fan's there no what time of day I am doing to post even.  I do this to create a following.  This idea of posting only a certain number of posts and doing it at a certain time of day allows for your fans pages not to be 'spammed' with posts non stop in their feed.

I also believe that it is vital to tie in Twitter.  Each time I post on my page, it is feed out to twitter and other locations keeping all my social media pages up to date with fresh content.  Content is always going to be the number one factor in creating an engaging page.

• Live Authenticity

Building trust with your 'fans' is the second most important aspect in my opinion as to whether a page will be successful or not.  If your 'fans' do not trust you they will not keep coming back, refer you to others, or transform into the 'customer'.

How do you do this?  First and foremost, fans want to know the person behind the page.  Tell them about you the person not just about what you want to 'sell' them.  Tell them authentically who you are, why you do what you do, and how you do what you do.

• Participate in Dialog

This ties in with letting them know the person behind the page.  Engage with your fans, elicit comments and conversation with those who are visiting.  This can be through questions or directly asking for a comment.  It is important to reply to every single person who take the time to make a comment.  Dialog is a two way street.

• Enable Peer to Peer Interactions

They say in the report to allow fans to communicate with other fans.  While this can be difficult it is not impossible and the topic of another post.  There are tools that can be used in order to create a community of fans rather than individual fans.  Depending upon what your purpose of the page is, from live gatherings at your place of business to virtual chat events can create this environment.

I have found that easiest way to facilitate this particular point made in the report is to repost comments made by the fans.  When a fan makes a wonderful statement, I will post it as the admin of the page in order to highlight them.  One page that I administer, we focus upon one of our distributors each week.  Highlighting them and their customers with pictures and comments on our page.  Not only does it create good will and trust between us (the manufacturer) and the distributor, it creates the concept of community between the distributors of our product.

• Foster Advocacy

This is really the age old "word of mouth" advertising key.  The biggest advertisement for your business, your page, or your product is when one person says to a friend of their's that they love your page/business/product.  It is priceless advertisement.

We often (on my business page) highlight customer testimonials on the page itself.  We highlight community activities whether we are involved in them or not and host many community activities.  This fosters the authentic trust in building community that is another one of the success points made.

We have also done word of mouth contest that have resulted in a surge of new 'fans' and orders.  Simply by asking our customer's to refer the page to their friends and offering a gift for whomever refers the most friends.  Proceeds from different events are donated to local charities which our customers suggest and vote on.  This again creates the word of mouth signature.  When a customer wants their favorite charity to win they convince their friends to go 'like' and vote.

• Solicit a Call to Action

The strategies mentioned above are examples of setting a call to action.  Other ways we engage and ignite our 'fans' to a call to action is by simply asking.  We ask them to post pictures of themselves with our product, to share which of our products is their favorite, and ask them to suggest a new color for example.  By giving them a voice, calling them to comment, what we are really doing is setting ourselves up for generating new customers.

These are the eight suggestions from a paid research study for major corporations.  While they seem basic in nature it is amazing to see how many business pages do not seem to follow them.  Do you?