Kpa / Hasai
How Branding Posts Set Up Power Posts on Facebook
There are several different ways that dealers go about using Facebook for marketing. Some use it for branding only. Others use it for business communications only. Sometimes, the best way to go about it is to do both. They compliment each other nicely when it’s done right.
It’s important to understand that you shouldn’t post irrelevant content even if it’s for branding purposes. That always has to be stated because all too often dealers are posting content that has nothing to do with them just to try to fit in and get a lot of likes for their page. This is a bad strategy.
The good news is that there’s plenty of interesting content available that is relevant. There are a few different ways to go about doing that, but one thing that everyone has is their own surroundings. It’s an easy thing to use because every businesses has something interesting, unique, funny, or beautiful in their local area that can be used to highlight the community nature of their social media page. Here’s an example:
This post is an image from the local area by a Honda dealer. There are a couple of things that people might say negatively about this type of post. First, it has nothing to do with business, in this case the business of selling more Hondas. Second, it’s not “branded” properly because there’s no watermark on the image.
Local businesses are part of the local area, which is why this might not have anything to do with selling cars but the people who would care about it (including the 85 who liked the post and the 21 who shared it) are likely locals who appreciate content from their community being shared on social media. As far as the branding complaint, it is branding, not by using a watermark (which can hurt the effectiveness of the post) but because the page itself gets to spread across the local news feeds.
Those who want to use Facebook for more than branding still need posts like this because it sets up the business-relevant posts to perform better. You need content that is universally enjoyed in order to get a boost in Facebook’s news feed algorithm, PageRank. These types of branding posts that are popular can help posts that go up later, such as this review post:
It was able to get some decent traction in a few hours without the use of Facebook advertising because of the quality of posts before it. If this type of content is all that is going up, then the 381 people who saw it would have dropped down to a couple of dozen people. It’s through working with the algorithm that business-relevant posts like this one have an opportunity to be seen. Once we boost it through advertising, it will get even more exposure.
All-branding or all-business are the wrong strategies for most. It’s a cool combination of the two that yields the best results. When done properly, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Kpa / Hasai
How Branding Posts Set Up Power Posts on Facebook
There are several different ways that dealers go about using Facebook for marketing. Some use it for branding only. Others use it for business communications only. Sometimes, the best way to go about it is to do both. They compliment each other nicely when it’s done right.
It’s important to understand that you shouldn’t post irrelevant content even if it’s for branding purposes. That always has to be stated because all too often dealers are posting content that has nothing to do with them just to try to fit in and get a lot of likes for their page. This is a bad strategy.
The good news is that there’s plenty of interesting content available that is relevant. There are a few different ways to go about doing that, but one thing that everyone has is their own surroundings. It’s an easy thing to use because every businesses has something interesting, unique, funny, or beautiful in their local area that can be used to highlight the community nature of their social media page. Here’s an example:
This post is an image from the local area by a Honda dealer. There are a couple of things that people might say negatively about this type of post. First, it has nothing to do with business, in this case the business of selling more Hondas. Second, it’s not “branded” properly because there’s no watermark on the image.
Local businesses are part of the local area, which is why this might not have anything to do with selling cars but the people who would care about it (including the 85 who liked the post and the 21 who shared it) are likely locals who appreciate content from their community being shared on social media. As far as the branding complaint, it is branding, not by using a watermark (which can hurt the effectiveness of the post) but because the page itself gets to spread across the local news feeds.
Those who want to use Facebook for more than branding still need posts like this because it sets up the business-relevant posts to perform better. You need content that is universally enjoyed in order to get a boost in Facebook’s news feed algorithm, PageRank. These types of branding posts that are popular can help posts that go up later, such as this review post:
It was able to get some decent traction in a few hours without the use of Facebook advertising because of the quality of posts before it. If this type of content is all that is going up, then the 381 people who saw it would have dropped down to a couple of dozen people. It’s through working with the algorithm that business-relevant posts like this one have an opportunity to be seen. Once we boost it through advertising, it will get even more exposure.
All-branding or all-business are the wrong strategies for most. It’s a cool combination of the two that yields the best results. When done properly, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
No Comments
Wikimotive LLC
Why the Right Kind Of Images on Your Website Matter
Every business, no matter what Industry you are in, is looking to expand your reach online. Whether it is through advertising to displaying your products on a website, you are looking to get your name and goods out there. Social Media Marketing is one way of doing it, but it must be done in a social manner, all except on one social network… Pinterest.
The first issue to address is the Adobe Flash that is still being used on websites. Sure, they move the images within a little box, but anyone interested in your product will likely want to take their time looking at the image(s) of what they are about to buy. Simply add images and display how many you have, this too, will increase clicks on your website. Making your site more user-friendly is important.
With that said, the greater issue is that Adobe Flash does not allow anyone to pin images from your website to their Pinterest boards. Basically you are preventing free advertising, as a pin can multiply easily and spread your merchandise quickly. This is a huge mistake web masters are making in every Industry, but particularly in the Auto Industry.
VS.
Many dealerships either do not know how to use Social Media properly or they just do not have the time to allot to using Social Media the right way, or both. Especially, when you need to socialize instead of sell, however, simplifying your website to be Social Media friendly too can help people to help you by spreading your Inventory.
Pinterest is the one social site you can share a car image with its name and be done with it. People there will not be offended (unlike other social sites), but if the picture looks good, they will repin it too. Repinning is a merchant’s best friend online, as it is a reshare that keeps going, known as the ripple effect.
This does not mean that every image you pin will be repinned, nor does it mean that you can just set a Pinterest page up and not be interactive as well. It is still a community and for people to want to be active with you through images, then not only does your page, boards and images need to be set up and look good. What you put into those boards is just as imperative too.
As businesses want their name, logo and entire brand to be seen everywhere, some add it to their images and in small font in a corner that can work, but adding a border with your name and other words ruins the image, even on the website.
On Pinterest once an image is pinned from a website it automatically attaches a direct link back to where the image originated from no matter how many repins it gets, this remains the same. Therefore adding your logo onto images on a website where people already clicked is tacky. They know who you are! Not only are you wasting an image, you are wasting people’s time and a good pin to Pinterest too.
So the next time you decide to add an image to your website, make sure it looks appealing, is of high-quality with no logos and be sure to make it an actual image (No Adobe Flash). These days, it can go farther than you realize.
No Comments
Wikimotive LLC
Why the Right Kind Of Images on Your Website Matter
Every business, no matter what Industry you are in, is looking to expand your reach online. Whether it is through advertising to displaying your products on a website, you are looking to get your name and goods out there. Social Media Marketing is one way of doing it, but it must be done in a social manner, all except on one social network… Pinterest.
The first issue to address is the Adobe Flash that is still being used on websites. Sure, they move the images within a little box, but anyone interested in your product will likely want to take their time looking at the image(s) of what they are about to buy. Simply add images and display how many you have, this too, will increase clicks on your website. Making your site more user-friendly is important.
With that said, the greater issue is that Adobe Flash does not allow anyone to pin images from your website to their Pinterest boards. Basically you are preventing free advertising, as a pin can multiply easily and spread your merchandise quickly. This is a huge mistake web masters are making in every Industry, but particularly in the Auto Industry.
VS.
Many dealerships either do not know how to use Social Media properly or they just do not have the time to allot to using Social Media the right way, or both. Especially, when you need to socialize instead of sell, however, simplifying your website to be Social Media friendly too can help people to help you by spreading your Inventory.
Pinterest is the one social site you can share a car image with its name and be done with it. People there will not be offended (unlike other social sites), but if the picture looks good, they will repin it too. Repinning is a merchant’s best friend online, as it is a reshare that keeps going, known as the ripple effect.
This does not mean that every image you pin will be repinned, nor does it mean that you can just set a Pinterest page up and not be interactive as well. It is still a community and for people to want to be active with you through images, then not only does your page, boards and images need to be set up and look good. What you put into those boards is just as imperative too.
As businesses want their name, logo and entire brand to be seen everywhere, some add it to their images and in small font in a corner that can work, but adding a border with your name and other words ruins the image, even on the website.
On Pinterest once an image is pinned from a website it automatically attaches a direct link back to where the image originated from no matter how many repins it gets, this remains the same. Therefore adding your logo onto images on a website where people already clicked is tacky. They know who you are! Not only are you wasting an image, you are wasting people’s time and a good pin to Pinterest too.
So the next time you decide to add an image to your website, make sure it looks appealing, is of high-quality with no logos and be sure to make it an actual image (No Adobe Flash). These days, it can go farther than you realize.
No Comments
Kpa / Hasai
Four Types of Facebook Posts that Dealers can Rotate if They Must
There are too many opportunities out there in the world of social media that makes it a bad idea to ignore the medium. Businesses can make an impact if they put in the effort. Unfortunately, not everyone is ready.
It’s still possible to put in minimal effort and have a decent presence. When it’s time to put in full effort, you’ll be better prepared if you have a nice string of daily content that fills your pages. Automation is a bad idea and can do damage in the long run, but there are ways to put in a little bit of effort and still do okay, at least holding down the fort until you’re ready to blast off.
Diversity is a key, so having a rotation of content types that get posted once a day can keep things rolling until the time comes to take it seriously. Scheduling a single post a day and rotating the various types of posts will give you an acceptable presence. Keep in mind that this will not help you find success. It will only allow you to keep success from passing you by when the time comes to put in the real effort.
Here is a breakdown of four content types that you can put on a rotation. Done right, it should only take you half an hour a week to have an acceptable Facebook presence, a placeholder so to speak, while you get the resources together to really make a push in the future.
In store “sexy” inventory
This isn’t a license to start spamming pictures of the boring stuff. If you’re going to post it to Facebook, it better be compelling in some way.
Be sure to link to the inventory item after adding the photo. You don’t want to post links of any sort as pure links (not during this holding pattern phase, at least) but this will give you the ever so slight potential of getting clicks to your website.
Local views
It doesn’t matter where you are. There are going to be places and areas that local customers will recognize. Highlight them. This gives the opportunity to demonstrate support for the local area.
Customer reviews
This is very important – do not post from the review source itself. This can hurt you algorithmically. There’s nothing wrong with using the review sites themselves, but don’t post your reviews directly from there. It doesn’t help. Make it a text post. Add a little personality into it. Tell a story. The review by itself isn’t appreciated by the Facebook community.
History lessons
There’s something cool out there from the past in every industry. Take advantage of it. Rotate in nostalgia and your fans will love it.
No Comments
Kpa / Hasai
Four Types of Facebook Posts that Dealers can Rotate if They Must
There are too many opportunities out there in the world of social media that makes it a bad idea to ignore the medium. Businesses can make an impact if they put in the effort. Unfortunately, not everyone is ready.
It’s still possible to put in minimal effort and have a decent presence. When it’s time to put in full effort, you’ll be better prepared if you have a nice string of daily content that fills your pages. Automation is a bad idea and can do damage in the long run, but there are ways to put in a little bit of effort and still do okay, at least holding down the fort until you’re ready to blast off.
Diversity is a key, so having a rotation of content types that get posted once a day can keep things rolling until the time comes to take it seriously. Scheduling a single post a day and rotating the various types of posts will give you an acceptable presence. Keep in mind that this will not help you find success. It will only allow you to keep success from passing you by when the time comes to put in the real effort.
Here is a breakdown of four content types that you can put on a rotation. Done right, it should only take you half an hour a week to have an acceptable Facebook presence, a placeholder so to speak, while you get the resources together to really make a push in the future.
In store “sexy” inventory
This isn’t a license to start spamming pictures of the boring stuff. If you’re going to post it to Facebook, it better be compelling in some way.
Be sure to link to the inventory item after adding the photo. You don’t want to post links of any sort as pure links (not during this holding pattern phase, at least) but this will give you the ever so slight potential of getting clicks to your website.
Local views
It doesn’t matter where you are. There are going to be places and areas that local customers will recognize. Highlight them. This gives the opportunity to demonstrate support for the local area.
Customer reviews
This is very important – do not post from the review source itself. This can hurt you algorithmically. There’s nothing wrong with using the review sites themselves, but don’t post your reviews directly from there. It doesn’t help. Make it a text post. Add a little personality into it. Tell a story. The review by itself isn’t appreciated by the Facebook community.
History lessons
There’s something cool out there from the past in every industry. Take advantage of it. Rotate in nostalgia and your fans will love it.
No Comments
Kpa / Hasai
Use Social Media to Educate Consumers (and possibly blow their minds)
The days of businesses focusing their efforts on entertaining their fans on social media are behind us… at least they should be. Today, people expect more out of businesses. They expect to be shown things that they don’t normally see from their friends and family. If they follow a business, they aren’t looking for that business to post funny cat pictures or memes. They get enough of those already.
One of the most popular things we posted this week was on a car dealer’s Facebook page. It wasn’t a hot concept car or a restored muscle car. It wasn’t some local attraction or hometown hero. It was a picture of power outlets. Thankfully, these weren’t your standard power outlets that come in most vehicles. It was the uniqueness of the console that made the post so popular.
Most people aren’t used to seeing the sort of power that this particular vehicle had available:
When you have an opportunity to show your customers something they might not know about your product, you’re being useful. You’re delivering what they want a business to deliver to them in their feeds. In this case, it worked out and received strong sentiment from fans and friends of fans alike, receiving over 100 likes and getting exposed to thousands of local potential customers. Just because something is common knowledge to you doesn’t mean that it won’t have the “wow factor” to your customers. Show them the goods! You can blow their minds with some of the neat features your products have to offer.
No Comments
Kpa / Hasai
Use Social Media to Educate Consumers (and possibly blow their minds)
The days of businesses focusing their efforts on entertaining their fans on social media are behind us… at least they should be. Today, people expect more out of businesses. They expect to be shown things that they don’t normally see from their friends and family. If they follow a business, they aren’t looking for that business to post funny cat pictures or memes. They get enough of those already.
One of the most popular things we posted this week was on a car dealer’s Facebook page. It wasn’t a hot concept car or a restored muscle car. It wasn’t some local attraction or hometown hero. It was a picture of power outlets. Thankfully, these weren’t your standard power outlets that come in most vehicles. It was the uniqueness of the console that made the post so popular.
Most people aren’t used to seeing the sort of power that this particular vehicle had available:
When you have an opportunity to show your customers something they might not know about your product, you’re being useful. You’re delivering what they want a business to deliver to them in their feeds. In this case, it worked out and received strong sentiment from fans and friends of fans alike, receiving over 100 likes and getting exposed to thousands of local potential customers. Just because something is common knowledge to you doesn’t mean that it won’t have the “wow factor” to your customers. Show them the goods! You can blow their minds with some of the neat features your products have to offer.
No Comments
Kpa / Hasai
How to Start Over with a Facebook Page
Oh, the regrets. Things happen. We start heading down the wrong direction and suddenly we find ourselves in a bad place. What am I talking about? Facebook pages. Most businesses have them. Most businesses are doing them wrong. Some have done them so wrong in the past that it’s better to start from scratch. As much pain as that may cause, the alternative is worse.
The way that the EdgeRank algorithm works combined with the improved effectiveness of Facebook advertising make it necessary in some cases to dump a page and start over. Having too many low-quality Facebook fans can hurt your chances for the good fans to ever see your messages. Local businesses should shoot for a minimum of 80% local likes, preferably around 95%. These likes should be acquired using transparent techniques. “Coaxing” people into liking your page because they think they’ll win an iPad or get to play a cool game is a bad way to go about getting fans, even if they are local.
So, you’re sitting there with bad fans. Facebook gives you the ability to delete fans, but that means going through them one at a time, clicking remove, confirming that you want to remove them, and then waiting for it to work. The process is tedious and Facebook only allows you to go back and see the last 500 likes. This makes manual pruning of your following impossible if your page has a lot of fans unless you’re going to delete everyone without seeing if they’re local. That poses potential challenges as well because if a ton of damage was done to your EdgeRank, you’ll still be carrying over that damage even after you delete everyone.
The bottom line is this: some are in a position where it’s best to start over. If you have questions about whether or not that applies to you, feel free to contact me and I’ll take a look. In the meantime, here’s how to go about making it happen.
Step 1: Build a replacement page
You never want to go for an extended period of time without a Facebook page that is relevant and vibrant. You’ll want the new page up and running before removing the old one. To do this, create a brand new page with a variation of your name. For example, let’s say your current Facebook page is at /ABC.Toyota and you’re in Dallas, you would want to create a page called /ABC.Toyota.Dallas. Get content going on the page, then start promoting it transparently with Facebook ads.
Once it’s up to an acceptable level, it’s time to make the switch.
Step 2: Switch the old page to a new URL
The first instinct would be to delete the old page. You’ll want to move it, first. Deleting a page takes 14 days. By moving it to a new URL, you’ll have access to the old URL for your new page immediately. On the old Facebook page, click on “Edit Settings”.
Click on “Change username” under “Basic Information”.
Once there, it will give you the option (if you haven’t changed it already) to pick a different URL for your Facebook page. Make it something semi-useful, /ABC.Toyota.Service, for example. You can only change a Facebook URL one time, so make sure it’s a good one. The reason you’ll want to make it something useful is so that you’ll have options. You may not want to completely delete the old one even with the bad fans. It can be a passive Facebook presence addressing a niche need, for example. In this case, it might be used to post service specials and pictures of Toyotas in the shop, for example. You can always delete it completely, of course.
You’ll want to change the address or delete it altogether from the backend. This will prevent this page from popping up as a “place” where people can check in.
Step 3: Change the new page URL
Now you can do the same thing with the new page you built. Change it to the original business URL. Make sure your data is set with the business address. It takes a few days for it to be picked up as a local place in Facebook, but that’s okay. Check-ins (currently) have very little value for the page itself other than running check-in specials (which you can do immediately) and to get the exposure as other people share their location. In other words, the accumulation of checkins isn’t that big of a deal for most businesses. There’s a little backlash in that who visit your page won’t see their friends who have also visited the page, but unless you have thousands of checkins accumulated, it won’t hurt to start over.
If you do have thousands of people who have checked in at the location, you shouldn’t be replacing the page. In that scenario, it’s best to go through the manual process of pruning your fans. This can take hours, even days if you have a lot of followers and you’ll still have the negative impact on the algorithm to deal with, but it’s better than losing a ton of credibility, particularly if graph search becomes important in the future (today, it’s just not that big of a deal and few people are using it to find businesses).
By running a check-in offer, you’ll be able to make sure that the page is properly accepted as a place. That doesn’t mean it will show up on mobile devices immediately. Unfortunately, Facebook says it takes “a few days” before this happens, which really means a couple of weeks.
Step 4: Delete or repurpose the old page
If you delete the old page, it will take 14 days. This is recommended if you don’t have time to properly manage two pages. If you do not want to delete it, you can repurpose it just as we suggested in the example above. In that scenario, it becomes a light landing page that some people will use. Because the page was algorithmically hampered, it won’t show up in users’ news feeds very well but it can be used for niche purposes.
* * *
It’s really a case by case basis scenario. Deciding whether or not to start over is something that should be based upon analysis, pros, and cons.
No Comments
Kpa / Hasai
How to Start Over with a Facebook Page
Oh, the regrets. Things happen. We start heading down the wrong direction and suddenly we find ourselves in a bad place. What am I talking about? Facebook pages. Most businesses have them. Most businesses are doing them wrong. Some have done them so wrong in the past that it’s better to start from scratch. As much pain as that may cause, the alternative is worse.
The way that the EdgeRank algorithm works combined with the improved effectiveness of Facebook advertising make it necessary in some cases to dump a page and start over. Having too many low-quality Facebook fans can hurt your chances for the good fans to ever see your messages. Local businesses should shoot for a minimum of 80% local likes, preferably around 95%. These likes should be acquired using transparent techniques. “Coaxing” people into liking your page because they think they’ll win an iPad or get to play a cool game is a bad way to go about getting fans, even if they are local.
So, you’re sitting there with bad fans. Facebook gives you the ability to delete fans, but that means going through them one at a time, clicking remove, confirming that you want to remove them, and then waiting for it to work. The process is tedious and Facebook only allows you to go back and see the last 500 likes. This makes manual pruning of your following impossible if your page has a lot of fans unless you’re going to delete everyone without seeing if they’re local. That poses potential challenges as well because if a ton of damage was done to your EdgeRank, you’ll still be carrying over that damage even after you delete everyone.
The bottom line is this: some are in a position where it’s best to start over. If you have questions about whether or not that applies to you, feel free to contact me and I’ll take a look. In the meantime, here’s how to go about making it happen.
Step 1: Build a replacement page
You never want to go for an extended period of time without a Facebook page that is relevant and vibrant. You’ll want the new page up and running before removing the old one. To do this, create a brand new page with a variation of your name. For example, let’s say your current Facebook page is at /ABC.Toyota and you’re in Dallas, you would want to create a page called /ABC.Toyota.Dallas. Get content going on the page, then start promoting it transparently with Facebook ads.
Once it’s up to an acceptable level, it’s time to make the switch.
Step 2: Switch the old page to a new URL
The first instinct would be to delete the old page. You’ll want to move it, first. Deleting a page takes 14 days. By moving it to a new URL, you’ll have access to the old URL for your new page immediately. On the old Facebook page, click on “Edit Settings”.
Click on “Change username” under “Basic Information”.
Once there, it will give you the option (if you haven’t changed it already) to pick a different URL for your Facebook page. Make it something semi-useful, /ABC.Toyota.Service, for example. You can only change a Facebook URL one time, so make sure it’s a good one. The reason you’ll want to make it something useful is so that you’ll have options. You may not want to completely delete the old one even with the bad fans. It can be a passive Facebook presence addressing a niche need, for example. In this case, it might be used to post service specials and pictures of Toyotas in the shop, for example. You can always delete it completely, of course.
You’ll want to change the address or delete it altogether from the backend. This will prevent this page from popping up as a “place” where people can check in.
Step 3: Change the new page URL
Now you can do the same thing with the new page you built. Change it to the original business URL. Make sure your data is set with the business address. It takes a few days for it to be picked up as a local place in Facebook, but that’s okay. Check-ins (currently) have very little value for the page itself other than running check-in specials (which you can do immediately) and to get the exposure as other people share their location. In other words, the accumulation of checkins isn’t that big of a deal for most businesses. There’s a little backlash in that who visit your page won’t see their friends who have also visited the page, but unless you have thousands of checkins accumulated, it won’t hurt to start over.
If you do have thousands of people who have checked in at the location, you shouldn’t be replacing the page. In that scenario, it’s best to go through the manual process of pruning your fans. This can take hours, even days if you have a lot of followers and you’ll still have the negative impact on the algorithm to deal with, but it’s better than losing a ton of credibility, particularly if graph search becomes important in the future (today, it’s just not that big of a deal and few people are using it to find businesses).
By running a check-in offer, you’ll be able to make sure that the page is properly accepted as a place. That doesn’t mean it will show up on mobile devices immediately. Unfortunately, Facebook says it takes “a few days” before this happens, which really means a couple of weeks.
Step 4: Delete or repurpose the old page
If you delete the old page, it will take 14 days. This is recommended if you don’t have time to properly manage two pages. If you do not want to delete it, you can repurpose it just as we suggested in the example above. In that scenario, it becomes a light landing page that some people will use. Because the page was algorithmically hampered, it won’t show up in users’ news feeds very well but it can be used for niche purposes.
* * *
It’s really a case by case basis scenario. Deciding whether or not to start over is something that should be based upon analysis, pros, and cons.
No Comments
No Comments