Brands beware! Facebook has changed…again.

From the 30th of March 2012 Facebook Timeline has become compulsory for all brands.

What does this mean?

The main thing to be aware of is that Facebook is now much more visually active for companies. This is most prevalent with the new installation of the cover photo. The cover photo sits at the top of the Timeline above the profile picture and if used right, can be a very impactful brand image/message. Unfortunately it cannot be used to promote competitions, special offers or contain any information/links about the company.

There is a dedicated information area where organisations can put a little blurb about themselves including a link to their website/Twitter/LinkedIn. This sits on the top left hand corner underneath the cover photo. The description can only be up to 150-170 characters long but has SEO value, so it is important to make sure your copy counts and that keywords are included.

The profile pic is the best place for a simple company logo. It is important ensure that the page doesn’t become too cluttered.

There are four navigation tabs next to the information area that sit near the top of the page. One of the tabs will automatically be set by Facebook as your photos tab while the second, third and fourth tabs can be titled to anything that suits your company’s preference, such as; home, competitions, events, videos or your stories.

Timeline also offers the opportunity for your brand to showcase the company history with milestones. Down the right hand side of the Facebook page sits a timeline with specific dates that visitors can click on. This means users can see what happened all the way back in 1879 adding a whole new element to the brand experience! For example, the timeline could include old photographs from the company’s foundation to the addition of new directors or new products. By making these milestones, these posts will take up the full width of the page.

Another great aspect of Facebook’s new setup is the option to ‘pin’ a post at the top of your timeline (even with regular updates). This comes in handy when your company is running a competition or promotion as this content will be the first post visitors will see for 7 days.

You can also highlight chosen updates that are important to the company. Highlighting a chosen update will make it appear across the entire width of your Facebook page. While the highlight feature keeps all posts in chronological order, it puts emphasis on the post by making is much bigger.

Timeline in general is a VERY VISUAL medium, so it is important to keep it updated with posts of interesting and compelling photos and videos. Remember you want to engage all visitors instantly!

However, as social media becomes increasingly more entrenched in peoples’ lives, being aware of your business or brand’s impact on the online world is essential. While you may not be talking on social media, doesn’t mean that no one else is. Whether you like it or not, conversations are taking place, so it is extremely important that you are watching and are aware of what is being said.

Sentiment tracking ultimately allows you to listen and learn about how consumers perceive you brand; what they like and don’t like. You are able to track the topics of interest to the target audience, review competitors and most importantly confront any criticism immediately.

The important thing to realise is that criticism is inevitable in the online world. And the only way to have any level of control over this criticism is to be aware of the conversation so that you can then find a way to turn the negative perception into a positive awareness.

It is often helpful to implement sentiment tracking before building your social media strategy as it allows you to first see what the climate out there is like, what your audiences are talking about, who your competitors are and what they are doing right. From there, you can then build an accurate and effective strategy. However, it is never too late to start.

First, you need to know what to measure:

• Noise – how much is being said about you and when it is being said?
• Volume of noise – calculate the number of comments, fan pages, videos blogs and pictures associated with the brand
• Share of Conversation – how much noise is about you vs your competitors?
• Currency of noise – This is all about timing. Are people talking about you now or are you just so last two weeks ago? So, for example, whilst there might be a torrent of comments about you in social media channels, if it is relatively old, then its impact is reduced

Once you know what to measure, you then need to know what tools to use. There are some great tools out there that clients can use to track online conversations about their brand. Some of these tools include; Google Alerts, TweetBeep, Blogpulse, Social Mention, How Sociable, Twitter Search etc.

Simply listening for social media 10 minutes a day is enough to give you a general sense of what the atmosphere is like online. Being aware of your business on the web is essential. With sentiment tracking you are ultimately setting yourself up with the most invaluable tool to collect all feedback from your target consumers.

Currently, more than 16% of homes in New Zealand have a MYSKY. Combined with homes that have PVRs (personal video recorders) the number of homes that have the ability to time shift is estimated at just over 20%.

One of the biggest concerns with Time Shifted Viewing is what happens in the advertising break. The new monitoring of time shifted viewing doesn’t answer all of these questions, much like how many cups of tea are made or toilet runs are taken within ad breaks. But it does give valuable insights into what programmes are more likely to be TSV and how big the audiences are.

The vast majority of programmes are still viewed live and ratings are still available 9.30am the day following broadcast. These ratings are called overnights. Overnights ratings will also include viewing that is time shifted within the same broadcast day (2am – 2am). Programmes viewed between 1 and 7 days after the original broadcast will have their ratings made available on day 8 following the day of broadcast and will be referred to as consolidated.

Some genres remain unaffected by TSV. Programmes in news, sport, movie and current affairs genres are more likely to be viewed live or on the same day. Drama has the highest level of TSV and then to a lesser extent comedy, documentary, variety, reality and soaps. Where immediacy of reach is required, for example a weekend sale, sports and news programmes are important on the schedule. At this stage the difference between overnight and consolidated is relatively small. 97.4% of ratings are delivered overnight and 99.4% within 3 days.

The real difference is the composition of homes that have a PVR. They tend to be upper socio, higher income, be full time workers, early adopters and skew towards owning their own homes. You can start to see the picture here. These people with discretionary and higher spending are now choosing when to watch. An upside to this new choice is that people with TSV capability watch significantly more television. Average peak viewing has increased by 17% and off peak by 9%.

The new technology to monitor TSV will go a long way to rebalancing the panel and recognising viewing that has been lost to non-live viewing. It still won’t answer what is happening in ad breaks. If the old protaganists are right they will be either busting for a loo break or will be as dry as a chip from a lack of tea.

It will mean that the creative execution is just as critical and needs to evolve. The retail screamer may need a static banner at the bottom of the screen that can be viewed at 30x or the brand needs to be able to be loved enough for someone to hit the rewind button.

2011 research by US inbound marketing firm HubSpot highlighted the importance of choosing the right social media platforms and approaching them in the right order if you expect to get business returns from your social media efforts.

The biggest mistake businesses make using social media is failing to develop a company blog  - instead opting first for a Facebook or Twitter account.

A blog actually offers a lot more than improving your ranking in search engines, generating more traffic and leads; it is also the key to turning other social media channels into business tools that provide tangible business results.

That’s because every article you write can be repurposed for Facebook updates, tweets, LinkedIn discussions, used in your email marketing and much more. It’s your blog that gives you the content to repurpose for the other channels, and it offers you vastly higher potential for traffic generation in comparison to other social media sites.

The good news for many companies is you probably have all the content you need ready to turn into blog articles without creating anything from scratch:

• In emails you’ve sent answering FAQs
• In marketing materials you’ve created,
• In past email marketing or hard copy newsletters and more.

More welcome news to those with limited internal resources (although we can help you with our copywriting services if needed), is that a blog articles only need to be 2 to 3 paragraphs (250 to 300 words) minimum to get you attention from search engines. There’s no need to write a small novel.

Your blog should become your social media hub, bringing your fans, followers and connections one step closer to your website, increasing your chances of them joining your email database for direct marketing and persuading them to become new customers or repeat buyers.

Further research by HubSpot found that companies who blog achieve…

• 126% increase in leads
• 55% increase in traffic
• 79% more Twitter followers (102% more Twitter followers for SMEs)

… than companies who don’t – and that’s just a few of the many benefits.

Having a professional blog designed and developed for you, including training and upskilling for you and your team, is one of the services we provide.

If you’d like assistance with your organisation’s social media strategy, including social media promotions and training to upskill your team on using Facebook and Twitter for business returns, or if you’d like to find out more about getting a blog for your organisation, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us