STORY WORLDWIDE.Version 1.0March 2011Developed by Story Worldwide

Best practices for AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT THROUGH FACEBOOK.

Strategic Document

BECAUSE BRANDS ARE STORIES.

The only way to reach audiences is to create media

that is entertaining, informing and engaging.

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CONTENTS

Introduction to Facebook 2

Express Your Brand Identity 3

Build Your Facebook Page 4

Create Content that Carries 5

Develop a Posting Strategy 6

Engage Your Audience 7

Respond in Real Time 8

Inspire Likes and Fans 9

Promote Your Efforts 10

Measure and Adjust 11

Look to the Future 12

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INTRODUCTION TO FACEBOOK

600 Million Active Users.JUST: WOW.

But Facebook is no longer simply a growth phenomenon. It’s literally reorganizing the way humans communicate. Are you an “average user?” If so, you have 130 friends, are connected to 80 community pages, groups, and events, and create 90 pieces of “content” every month—links, photos, videos, and so on. Multiply that by 600 million active users, and the result is a truly massive web of shared thoughts, dreams, friendships and moments, building and reinforcing at the speed of light. A good portion of humanity is interconnected now, recording the history of the world in real time. Facebook is integrated into the fabric of human life now. It can be a tough nut to crack for brands—it’s hard to aggregate all that tasty data, hard to track conversation, hard to find advertising real estate. Which is no small part of why it’s so popular. But brands have to find a way to master Facebook...it is, truly, too big to ignore. Managed well, Facebook is also the gateway to hyperefficient micro-targeting, deep customer engagement, startlingly honest audience insights and other magical powers.

Here’s how it’s done!

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EXPRESS YOUR BRAND IDENTITY A quick look in the mirror before you go public

For Chrysler, we developed Dodge and Ram identities that artfully combined their colors, logos, and product shots.

Before crafting your Facebook presence, it’s important to settle on who you are and how you want to represent yourself. Will you be sober and helpful? Friendly and lighthearted? Corporate and aloof? Will you speak with one company voice or as several employees? What will your audiences see when they come to your page—and what will keep them coming back for more?

TONE AND VOICEFacebook is a conversational medium, so your brand will need a human voice. The details should properly be decided by all your brand stakeholders, not just your social media director, but whatever you decide should be expressed in a tone guide document so it’s consistent…even a team of brand page administrators must work in concert to ensure responses are internally consistent, so audiences can build expectations, and accords with your presence in other social media channels.

LOOK AND FEELFacebook’s pages are rigidly templated, and there are few places to express yourself visually, so it’s important to make the most of them. On the Wall, where most of the action and conversation happens, you control two spaces that typically don’t change: the large logo block at the upper left, and the small square icon that accompanies each of your posts. Facebook’s new page format also puts five of your uploaded photos at the top center. You can change them frequently for freshness, in line with weekly content updates or other spotlights, or you can fix them in order (as your five most recent uploads) for a vivid visual effect. Consider affixing useful captions to these images: If they’re photos of food, consider linking to recipes; if they’re photos of products, link to full product details.

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BUILD YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE The basic elements of an ever evolving site

The basic architecture of Facebook is constantly evolving in small ways, such as the new tab structure issued in March. But the basic elements don’t change too much.

WALLThe Wall is where virtually all conversation takes place.Your friends’ posts appear here, in chronological order, and whenever you post here it shows up on the Wall of anybody who’s "Liked" you. This design is standardized and there isn’t anything to modify, but occasionally Facebook will tweak the look and appearance (for example, adding embedded videos to video links).

WELCOMEA Welcome Tab is a fully customizable landing page for first-time visitors. (Returning visitors are typically brought straight to the wall.)

TABSTabs are the home for any content your fans may want to engage with—features, apps, photos, videos, recipes, articles, maps, schedules. There are also a few default tabs—the Wall is a tab, and an Info tab logs the basics of your site. But the others are fully customizable. Before the recent update to Facebook pages, “Tabs” appeared at the top of each page, and were limited in visibility and nameability. Now they appear as a navigation bar on the left, and permit longer names and longer tab titles. We recommend taking advantage of this by treating them more like a Table of Contents, giving key features their own “tab,” and writing longer, more descriptive tab titles.

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CREATE CONTENT THAT CARRIES And give your audience reasons to congregate

The best way to kick-start and sustain conversations around your brand is to create great original content. It’s unlikely your existing commercials or brand messaging will fill the bill—we’re talking about new content that is genuinely informative, entertaining, and on-brand. Content your audience actually wants, that will inspire them to “Like” your page and share it with their friends. Facebook is very flexible in this regard: You can produce interviews and features, Google maps, videos and photo contests, polls and quizzes, and almost anything else you can think of. Remember to create with an eye to brand truths and business goals, so the right stories will spread.

FACEBOOK APPSOriginal, Facebook-specific applications can be great for entertaining, engaging, and spreading your brand on Facebook. But they can require a large investment of resources, and require users to “allow” them to access their private information via a warning screen, a distinct turnoff. And they’re not as visible on Facebook as they were. So make sure any app you decide to build combines functionality and great viral potential to justify such an undertaking. Today, a simple contest calling for fans to share a photo or video of themselves might work better as an editorially driven campaign on your Wall than as an enclosed, privacy-protected app.

LEVERAGING OUTSIDE CONTENTFinally, make sure you leverage content you’ve already created in other channels. For example, brand-created videos uploaded to YouTube can be hosted under a Facebook tab and linked to, repeatedly, from Wall posts. When your audience shares them with their followers, they can click and watch the video without leaving Facebook. And your story spreads!

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DEVELOP A POSTING STRATEGY What kind of netizen will you be?

GENERAL The Wall is where you speak to your audience. Each of your wall posts is experienced two ways: as an individual message on your fans’ own Walls, and in the context of all your other posts and brand conversation, when people visit you on your brand’s wall.

TIMINGWhen’s the best time to post? Hard to say, especially if your brand is relevant in multiple time zones. But lunchtime is great for engagement; in America posting between noon and 1pm EST gathers East Coast lunchers and West Coast breakfast. Consider when your specific brand is most relevant and attractive to users: For a wine brand, for example, evening engagement will be easier, and you won’t want to post anything before 2pm. For a food brand, try posting dinner recipe recommendations when your audience is leaving work). Programs like HootSuite can help you easily preload posts to be deployed at preset times.

FREQUENCY Consider posting three times a day as a maximum. Unlike Twitter, posting too frequently on Facebook can have a negative impact on "Likes" and MAUs (Monthly Active Users)—tipping the ratio of brand-dictated posts to user comments and user postings makes for an unattractive Wall when first glanced at by a prospective fan, because it looks like a one-way broadcast rather than ongoing and diverse engagement. Separate multiple posts over the course of a day…consecutive posts on somebody’s Wall, no matter how nice, mark you as an invasive nuisance.

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When a brand gets involved in the conversation in real time, an empty

room becomes a party with a host.

ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE Create posts that inspire conversation

GETTING THE RATIO RIGHTYou can do business on Facebook, but if every post is an ad, a brand quickly turns its audience off. That’s why it’s important that the majority of posts engage users in a way that isn’t strictly promotional. In general, we recommend a mix of 1/3 Promotional and 2/3 Conversational posts; you can use a higher-octane promotional mix if the brand is beloved; less if it’s new or has image issues.

CONVERSATIONAL POSTSThese can be polls, questions, caption contests—anything that’s lively and inspires discussion. Ask simple and succinct questions, and consider framing them within a theme (e.g.: “Salad Talk”). Talk about current events when relevant; call out great content/pages not produced by you that you think your fans would like. This “good netizenship” makes you seem less corporate and more like a person worth knowing.

PROMOTIONAL POSTSPromotional plugs can move the needle on brand understanding, can lead to offline behavior like tune-ins and test-drives, and can guide to the great content living in your tabs. Remember, you’re still trying to drive conversation: Your promotional posts should still be entertaining and engaging, not ad-salesy. Ask a sincere question at the end to inspire further conversation in the comments section.

MULTIMEDIA ENHANCEMENTWhenever possible, attach relevant audio or video—these posts perform better in terms of both “Likes” and comments. Attach content that lives within Facebook, so people don’t have to leave the space; upload and attach photos (vs. guiding to a web-based gallery) and choose embedable YouTube videos (vs. unsupported video sites). Consider using an app like Selective Tweets to pipe in specific messaging from Twitter.

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RESPOND IN REAL TIME Staying involved in the conversation

GENERALOnce you’ve posted, it’s important to monitor the conversation that results, and chime in when appropriate to clarify, amplify, fix misperceptions, and so on. How fast you can respond will be limited by your social media staffing commitment, but 24 hours is too long, and the faster you can do it the better—managing conversation as it happens will foster an appreciative, genuinely attentive audience.

BE A PERSON, NOT THE FACE OF A CORPORATIONThe goal’s to answer any and all questions and concerns with well-informed, timely responses. Even if you can’t answer right away (e.g., you have to check with a company lawyer or sales rep), tell the commenter you’re working on it, so anyone reading the comments can see they’re being paid attention to. Show a genuine interest in a commenter’s specific issue and express thanks for bringing it to light.

AMPLIFY THE POSITIVE; TAKE THE NEGATIVE OFFLINECurating your brand’s conversation means doing what you can to make positive statements spread, and to stop negative threads before they can gain traction. Example: Ask users to create and share content related to your brand; once uploaded, these are valuable assets, and become naturally shareable with the larger audience. Similarly, while you can’t squelch haters, you can correct misperceptions, and try to take negative threads offline. Example: Invite an angry detractor to email you offline so you can personally deal with his issue (and where nobody else, conveniently, will see it).

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INSPIRE LIKES AND FANS Getting audiences to opt in to your brand conversation

LIKING IS SHARING For a user, choosing to “like” a given page can be about showing allegiance (“Jane Likes Coca-Cola”) or it can be a statement of identity (“Lizzie Likes Justin Bieber for President”). Whatever your motivation, when you click a “Like” button, Facebook automatically alerts your friends, in their feeds…and if what you like has a video or photo attached to it, they see that too. In this sense, the “Like” button has functionally absorbed and replaced the “share” feature.

LIKES COME FROM ALL OVER There are many kinds of “Like.” Users can “Like” content you share on your Wall, or a comment left by someone else on content you’ve already posted. “Like” buttons can be found elsewhere on the Web, outside Facebook, through embedded widgets. Most crucial, though, is encouraging “Likes” for your overall Facebook presence. By “Liking” you here, a user is effectively subscribing to all of your content. Your posts show up on his wall, and he is now a new member of your audience.

LIKE TO UNLOCK The most efficient way to generate “Likes” is to “Like-Gate” your page. Whenever a newcomer arrives, whether driven there via a targeted Facebook ad or lured through shared content, they are welcomed by a “Like this to access the content” message. Technically, they can bypass this and click straight through to your content, but, in practice, they accept this as an easy “toll.” And presto: a new customer is born.

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PROMOTE YOUR EFFORTS Three ways to attract new crowds to your content

EDITORIAL OUTREACHDon’t be afraid to reach beyond the confines of your own page. The new rules of Facebook let brand pages post, “Like,” and comment on other pages. Participating in relevant discussions elsewhere increases exposure for your own page, and posting trails back to your own Facebook content can be a powerful tool for recruiting new fans from related or even competitive pages. (Imagine Coke posting to Pepsi's Wall: “Okay, your last ad was pretty funny. What do you think of ours?” with an embedded video.)

INFLUENCER PARTNERSHIPSEvery brand category has its influencers—bloggers, forum admins, power Tweeters, and so on. Often they’ve already coalesced large and relevant audiences, and reaching out to them with an offer of partnership can be an efficient way to enhance your authority to publish and kick-start your own audience. There are many possible ways this can work, including linking to one another’s content, or even entering into content production partnerships. Importantly, this is an editorial outreach, not a pay-for-play scheme—that risks inspiring influencer backlash.

HYPER-TARGETED ADVERTISINGFacebook’s limited paid media space is part of its charm, but what it has can be powerful. Hyper-targeted ads (right-hand panel) let you tailor your spend to very specific keywords, and you pay only for clickthru. Paired with "Like-Gated" FB landing page, they can achieve as much as five likes for a dollar. Facebook Stories, an evolution of this concept, lets brands sponsor organic, consumer-generated activity, so the call to visit (and "Like?") your page feels like it comes from a friend…an approach infinitely more engaging than the typical banner ad.

For Constellation Wines, we draw in audiences with a combination of smart paid media and editorial outreach.

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MEASURE AND ADJUSTThe metrics of efficient, effective engagement

FACEBOOK’S "INSIGHTS" TAB“Likes” are only the beginning. The “Insights” button at the right of your brand’s page links to a set of helpful metrics tracking the demographics of your fanbase, their activity on your page, and engagement rates for particular posts. Some examples:

News Feed Stream Impressions: How many views does each Wall post generate, from fans and non-fans in news feed streams? (You can also just see page views.)

Wall Post CTR: Are your Wall posts driving positive response from your audience? Which engagement methods are most effective, and which should be modified or scrapped?

Fan Interaction Rate: How many total responses ("Likes" and comments) to your Wall posts?

Individual Tab Views: Which pages are your fans engaging with…Are they playing games? Watching videos? Viewing photos? Looking at product info?

Dislike Attrition Rate: Once someone has “Liked” you, do they “Unlike” you later on once they’ve finished with your content?

BEYOND THE NUMBERSFigures like Daily Active User and Monthly Active Users are frequently leveraged by brands, because they are usually large and impressive numbers. But they provide little insight into the most important thing: engagement. There’s simply no metric that can replace reading the conversations, interacting with your audience, and watching the sentiment and mood change. For the first time in history you can read your consumers’ minds…and isn’t that why you got involved in social media in the first place?

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LOOK TO THE FUTURE

Facebook is a dynamic relationship web that fulfills the ultimate social media promise: It enables people to stay connected to everyone and everything they care about through conversation and content sharing.

Its footprint for individuals is unique and deeply personal, which can make it hard for brands to get traction within Facebook. But only when they limit themselves to old-world broadcasting techniques. As everywhere else in social media, sustained success depends on content creation and conversation curation. Give people something to talk about, make sure they can share it, and get involved in the micro-community that results.

Facebook is necessarily in constant flux, trying to keep up with evolving technical possibilities, emerging business opportunities, and accelerating user demands. New features in the works or in the process of being rolled out and absorbed include Facebook Messages (combining email and instant messaging), Facebook Credits (a virtual currency), and Facebook Platform (redefining Facebook as a suite of services, rather than a product with functionality). Privacy and safety concerns will continue to ebb and flow as the service responds to consumers.

We’ll keep you on top of these and all the other changes in the works as they develop. But don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions, concerns, thoughts or ideas. In fact, post them to our Wall at facebook.com/storyworldwide.

Hope this was helpful!The Story Audience Management Team

“Sustained success depends on content creation and conversation curation."

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