Facebook

Danny Laws, principal owner of DaBrian Marketing Group advertising agency in Reading, PA. We do some work in the digital space. Obviously we get a number of questions from our clients as it pertains to conferences that they attend, things that they read, those types of components. More recently we got a call from one of our clients as it pertains to Facebook and Facebook search. It prompted me to put together a brief response to educate those individuals that may or may not be aware of the capabilities on Facebook more specifically. For those of you that don’t know there’s a great opportunity for you to take a look at those pieces, take a look at what’s out there in this space, and connect with a number of different people via Facebook.

One of the things that it’s available on Facebook, and I speak to that and I really trying to show some of that, is people say that Facebook is a search engine. I’ve heard that from a number of clients asking that question and positioning it in that way, because that’s how others that they’ve spoken to, things that they’ve read, conferences that they’ve gone to have positioned Facebook as a search engine. My personal opinion is that Facebook does not operate as a search engine in its entirety because it does not index all of the information, web pages, what have you in the World Wide Web that’s accessible for users. I would however consider Facebook an internal site search component that allows you to search internally inside Facebook to assess information, post videos, what have you, in light of the most recent changes.

Why does it matter to your businesses is the biggest question that I pose to a lot of our clients. One of the big things that I see as an opportunity is very much a potential increase in visibility and creating that exposure around post, around Facebook likes, around Facebook pages in itself, as well as the mobile accessibility. The opportunities here for businesses are very much around relevant content, timely post, whether be seasonal or event based or what’s trending and what’s hot right now in that very moment, and at the same time going back to the mobile components. Facebook pages are making sure that that information is live, relevant, and consistent with your target audience.

If you’re a business that you’re leveraging it within the ability to talk about offerings, to talk about subject matter expertise, to reinforce yourself as a thought leader in this space, let’s be clear, that needs to be done in moderation. Not simply posting about yourself 24/7. Not sharing anyone else’s content. That’s not a successful way to leverage social media in my opinion or the opinion of most of the staff here at DaBrian Marketing Group. But we break it down to the old school rule of thought of rule of thirds and probably expand upon that a little bit more.

The other thing as far as Facebook searches, how can it impact your business? I think post, check-ins for local businesses, and extending that reach and visibility for Facebook via your friends, the public, and for public information photos, what have you, as far as making sure that you can get that message out, clearly differentiate your products and services, and better position your brand within a local market and within your Facebook audience.

The other piece that I want to speak to here is how you align that back to the strategy. If you’re doing Facebook and you’re promoting on Facebook and you’re selling on Facebook it’s got to be a part of a comprehensive strategy which generally goes back to awareness, brand awareness, leads, sales. I’m over simplifying. One of the things that you have to make sure that you do as far as aligning back to those strategic points and those strategic goals and objectives that you talk about as a business is making sure that there’s a tie back as a very specific metric or a group of metrics associated with Facebook to gauge where you’re at with that performance.

Clearly as far as awareness you might look at post, page views, incremental store visits, website activity from Facebook as a generic example. Leads, are you getting contact us, are you getting calls, are you getting event signups, are you getting email subscriptions off of Facebook from the activity and the information that you’re disseminating to your target audience.

Then the last piece here is also that sales component, so Facebook being that it allows you to pat Facebook search and search and look at information. You also have an opportunity for e-commerce and e-commerce categories on Facebook. All of these components in my opinion will have a trickle-down effect across the board within Facebook search. When we talk about Facebook search it should contribute to high level awareness, it should contribute to lead generation to some degree, and it should contribute to sales via Facebook or attributing back to Facebook search or Facebook itself as part of your post, as part of your information that you talked about.

Now in light of that there are definitely some other components that you want to make sure that you take a hard look at and make sure you look at these things quite simply as far as sharing information. Now when you get to Facebook you get to this as a whole and you start to look at what’s available there from a Facebook perspective, as you can see what I’ve done here is very much a search on advertising agencies from where I sit.

Now what I will say to you is that I’ve done a search for advertising agency from my geographic location. Obviously DaBrian Marketing Group shows up there, but there are a number of other agencies within my geographic footprint that have Facebook pages that are not showing up. You need to keep that in mind as you look at Facebook search, that it is merely … It’s also tied to the individual to some degree. As you can see from this search that I’ve done that when I put an agency obviously DaBrian Marketing Group shows there, but there are other elements that are there as well that you definitely want to take into account.

The other thing that I would recommend is taking a look at the information that’s accessible, that’s clearly accessible on Facebook in itself. Facebook has a lot of information as far as what’s there. As you can see it gives you an opportunity for Facebook search to search. Is better than ever according to them. You also have some components as far as how you can search via mobile and see that information. Then finding post that you’ve seen previously on Facebook based upon keywords, phrases, what have you, however you want to define it, and those types of components that you may have remembered when you saw a previous post, and also being able to look and see what’s beyond your news feed is important.

I think that’s where the opportunity presents itself from a business perspective, that if you’ve optimized your Facebook pages, if you’re consistently in this space, if you’re disseminating relevant content that is impactful for your target audience I think that there’s a greater probability for you to see success in that space.

With that being said what I’d like to get across today first and foremost, Facebook search is going to be an opportunity for businesses but it’s going to be dependent upon having a clear strategy, having clear metrics to measure those components, aligning what you’re doing to achieve a goal, whether it be brand awareness, lead generation, what have you, and that with the understanding that Facebook’s search is more of an internal site search functionality and or capability than it is a search engine in itself.

With that being said I wish you the best of luck on social media. Keep an eye out for an updated post on our blog page where we’ll add a few informative links to support the Facebook search component and how others are seeing Facebook search within the industry. Thank you very much. Hope you have a good day and good luck.