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SOCIAL MEDIA Sharing Our Strategies, Challenges and Successes Around Building Social Interaction on Internet Brands Shopping Websites. @ INTERNET BRANDS Created By Mike Flacy & Steph Gerber [email protected] m

Social sharing on IB sites

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Page 1: Social sharing on IB sites

SOCIAL MEDIA

Sharing Our Strategies, Challenges and Successes Around Building Social Interaction on Internet Brands Shopping Websites.

@ INTERNET BRANDS

Created By Mike Flacy & Steph [email protected]

Page 2: Social sharing on IB sites

ENTERING THESOCIAL SPACECreating a Social Presence and Attracting Fans

According to a recent Nielsen study conducted over April 2010, the average internet user spends more than 4 times the amount of time on Facebook than Google, six hours a month per person. As our audiences are directing more of their attention to social networks over search engines, we need to have a presence on the social space as well. After 9 months worth of experimentation on Twitter and Facebook in the Shopping segment, we have identified a series of best practices when launching our websites into the social space.

Why does a reader want to become a fan? What unique content / presence is found in our social space?

VALUE PROPOSITIONHow do we convert website readers into new fans? How do we convince current fans to invite their friends?

CUSTOMER ACQUISITON

As a website, what are we getting in return for our efforts in the social space? Does this come in traffic, monetization, etc?

RETURN ON INVESTMENTHow do we intice fans / followers to interact with the content on our websites and our official brand pages?

FAN ENGAGEMENT

2 of 13Sources: http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/global/social-media-accounts-for-22-percent-of-time-online/

Page 3: Social sharing on IB sites

WHY SHOULD THEYBECOME A FAN? Giving Our Audience a Reason to Join

• Facebook can provide a space for different forms of content that Facebook users are used to sharing; photos, videos, polls, discussion, etc

• Unique content can also include fan submitted content that’s more appropriate for the social space than our main site.

Unique Content

• Offering a way to win prizes through becoming a fan or follower will gives readers a reason to sign up and follow our updates.

• Continuing to promote the promise of future giveaways (with small or large prizes) will also keep fans from unfollowing our brand pages.

Contests/Giveaways

• Facebook and Twitter allow for direct customer relations in the public space, giving our fans a voice and a direct line to us.

•These social platforms are also excellent for reaching out to fans with questions for market research.

Fan Interaction

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Page 4: Social sharing on IB sites

EXAMPLE OFFAN PAGE VALUESteve’s Digicams Facebook Brand

PageDue to technical limitations, Steve’s Photo’s of the Day library wasn’t able to be included in the site redesign. They have a home on Facebook until we can add that functionality.

Library of Content

Fans leave comments on photos and those comments are published in their feeds, causing their friend to look at the photo and become fans.

Constant Interaction

Fans continue to submit photos to us for prizes and notoriety, thus we have an endless stream of FB content.

Continuous Stream

4 of 13 www.facebook.com/stevesdigicams

Facebook Fans: 2,200

Twitter Followers: 2,150

FB Post Quality: 4 - 5 Stars

Updates: Photos, Reviews, News

Page 5: Social sharing on IB sites

HOW DO WE ACQUIREFANS THROUGH OUR

SITES? Gaining Followers by Providing

Opportunity

• Simply put, invite fans on a regular basis on the site. High-Def Digest promotes their fan page in an announcement once a month on the home page and sees a constant jump in their FB fan base.

• IMPORTANT: The post should promote the forms of content and interaction that are unique to our social space.

Invite Them

• Place a simple graphical link to our social pages on the home page. Better yet, use Facebook’s Fan Box to keep readers on our site.

• Consider using Facebook Like / Share buttons on content as well as the community reccomendations widget to highlight popular shared content.

Graphics / Widgets

• Encourage existing fans to invite their friends by providing an incentive. Giving away a prize when reaching a certain number of fans is one method.

•A more advanced version of this is using an application to keep track of referrals and awarding prizes to both the entrant and the refered person. (Used on DealsPl.us)

Contest Actions

5 of 13Sources: http://developers.facebook.com/pluginshttp://dealspl.us/

Page 6: Social sharing on IB sites

EXAMPLE OFAQUIRING FANSHigh-Def Digest Blog

At the top of the article, we have FB Like & Share and Retweet buttons. At the bottom of the article, there’s more sharing options as well.

Aggressive Sharing Tools

In the sidebar of the blog and the main site, we use the FB reccomendations widget to highlight popular stories. We also use the FB Fan Box on the Blog.

Widgets Galore

6 of 13 www.highdefdigest.com/blog

Facebook Fans: 4,400

Twitter Followers: 1,500

FB Post Quality: 3 Stars

Updates: Reviews, News, Blog

Page 7: Social sharing on IB sites

HOW DO WE ENGAGEFANS OVER SOCIAL

MEDIA? Invoking Response from our Fans /

Followers

• Use the Fan Page as an extension of the brand. Be sure there are logos on Twitter and Facebook pages.

• Don’t let new visitors land on our FB wall. Create a landing page for all non-fans with a call-to-action to becoming a fan. (Good Example: Retailmenot)

• Use our Facebook sidebar to promote other ways of contacting us or related pages.

Fan Page

• Decide on a posting schedule and stick to it. We can post multiple times a day on Twitter without losing fans. Facebook requires a more reserved approach.

• Highlight our best content and use humor to promote it, even corny humor. Also, we will illicit more responses by asking questions, which increases the amount of people exposed to the brand page.

Compelling Content

• When our fans ask questions or post accolades, try to respond within a day or two. Pages with an active admin noticably get more community involvement.

•When posting on Facebook or Twitter, take advantage of the mentions system to appear in search and other brand pages.

Posting Tips

7 of 13 Sources: http://www.facebook.com/RetailMeNot

Page 8: Social sharing on IB sites

EXAMPLE OFENGAGING FANSOutblush’s Facebook Brand Page

An Outblush editor is quick to respond to Facebook comments as well as fan posts.

Community Involvement

Outblush mentions other brand pages in their posts, hence those posts are created on the mentioned brand page as well, ultimately increasing fans more rapidly.

Brand Mentions

Outblush’s Fan page gets about 2 to 4 posts a day depending on the quality of the content.

Excellent Frequency

8 of 13 www.facebook.com/outblush

Facebook Fans: 1,500

Twitter Followers: 3,500

FB Post Quality: 3 Stars

Updates: Products, Blog

Page 9: Social sharing on IB sites

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OFENGAGING FANSSteve’s Digicams Facebook Brand

PageBeyond posting the logo in the profile picture, we also post the winner of the photo of the day contest and a call-to-action to join us on Twitter. Consider this spot a billboard for what makes us unique.

Our Brand is not our Logo

All new visitors that aren’t fans land on a custom landing page that identifies why and how you can become a fan.

Custom Landing Page

Along the left sidebar on the Wall tab, we promote company pages as well as related brand pages.

Promoting Ourselves and Others

9 of 13 www.facebook.com/stevesdigicams

Page 10: Social sharing on IB sites

WHAT DO WE GETIN RETURN FOR THIS

EFFORT? Benefits to Launching our Brands into Social

Media

• Across Shopping sites, Facebook referral traffic has grown (on average) by 50% to 80% between Q4 2009 to Q2 2010.

• Over Q4 2009 to Q2 2010 over 11 sites with a social presence, our fan base has grown by 8000 fans on Facebook.

• Average Time spent on the site coming from Facebook is on par to 40% higher than search traffic.

Referral Traffic

• Through a custom Facebook tab, we have the ability to collect email addresses for direct email marketing.

• Similar to Quantcast, Facebook Insights gives us a specific look at the age, gender, origin country, language, etc of our core fan base.

Emails / Analytics

• Sending followers / fans directly to merchants via affiliate codes in short url form is another form of monetization that works on Twitter and Facebook, but at the expense of referral traffic.

•Custom Facebook Applications appear to be the more direct route to monetization of Facebook brand pages. This requires a greater level of internal development than managing brand pages.

Monetization?(Still Early)

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Page 11: Social sharing on IB sites

EXAMPLE OF INCREASEIN REFERRAL

TRAFFICOutblush Facebook Traffic Growth

In Q3, Outblush didn’t have any official Facebook presence. In Q4, we rolled the brand page. In Q1, we rolled out Facebook Share on the website. In Q2, we are rolling out a fan box on the site as well as an activity widget.

Consistent Traffic Increase

On many of our sites, we are outperforming all other search engines other than Google.

Outperforming Yahoo! / Bing

Shopping site traffic typically spikes in December / January and falls until Q3. Facebook traffic has continue to grow against that trend.

Trending Differently

11 of 13 www.outblush.com(Analytics found in IB2 account)

Q3 2009 Q4 2009 Q1 2010 Q2 20100.00%

0.50%

1.00%

1.50%

2.00%

2.50%

3.00%

3.50%

4.00%

% o

f Site

Tra

ffic

No Page

Brand Page

FB Share

Fan Box

Page 12: Social sharing on IB sites

2nd EXAMPLE OF CHANGE IN REFERRAL

TRAFFICHigh-Def Digest Facebook Traffic

GrowthIn Q3, HDD started an official Facebook page. In Q4, we continued to grow the brand page. At the end of Q1, we rolled out Facebook Share on the website. In Q2, we rolled out fan boxes, activity widgets and blog sharing.

Traffic Change Over Time

We didn’t offer enough tools to our audience for sharing our content automatically in Q1. We remedied that in Q2 be trying an increased number of buttons to share content as well as more visibility of the most popular shared content.

Agressive is Good

12 of 13 www.highdefdigest.com(Analytics found in IB2 account)

Q3 2009 Q4 2009 Q1 2010 Q2 20100.00%

0.10%

0.20%

0.30%

0.40%

0.50%

0.60%

0.70%

0.80%

0.90%

1.00%

Brand Page

Grow BP

FB Share

FB Widgets

% o

f Site

Tra

ffic

Page 13: Social sharing on IB sites

RESOURCES

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Helpful Resources

• Mashable: 8 Essential Apps for Your Brand’s Facebook Page

• All Facebook: 10 Secrets To Creating Your Brand’s Facebook Presence

•All Facebook: How To Develop A Facebook Page That Attracts Millions of Fans

•Outspoken Media: Creating Facebook Pages Customers Will Want To Join

• Techcrunch: How to Build Engaging One-of-Kind Facebook Fan Pages

• Simply Zesty: 10 Great Facebook Fan Pages

• Mashable: 5 Twitter Tactics for Building a Stellar Brand

• All Facebook: How we got 40K in 4 days.

Examples of Great Pages

• Best FB Landing Page for Becoming a Fan: RetailMeNot

• Best FB Landing Page for Email Marketing: One.org

• Best FB Contest Design for Getting Fans: DealsPl.us

• Best FB Monetization Tab: Threadless

Excellent FB Applications• Static FBML (for creating custom tabs): Link

• Youtube Box: Link

• Twitter Tab: Link

• Poll: Link

• Extended Info (sidebar html): Link